Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

This will be my last post from this side of the pond. I leave today at 3:30 for the airport. Unable to check-in. Jet Airways doesn't even have Kochi or Cochin as a city they fly to. However, I am certain that they do as I flew in there on Jet Airways, and other people have as well.

Yesterday we went to Babu's college. Wow! I am impressed. In 2003 when the Indian government apparently said there could be private colleges, this one was just a gleam in a lot of peoples' eyes. It is very much larger than I expected. Beautiful main building. Open air hallways, computer classrooms, regular classrooms, machine shops of various kinds (engineering college), either two or three hostels and building another. Each hostel houses about 100. Three to a room, but the rooms are about one and a half size the ones in Read Center in Bloomington. They have to do their own laundry. No washers or dryers. Beating them on rocks to get them clean. I don't know if the guys have to do the same or not. Building an auditorium which will seat 1500. Doctorates and non-doctorates teaching. The Placement Director speaks excellent English. There aren't so many engineering jobs in Kerala, and other states speak different languages. He said that the students are resistant to going to other states for that reason. My response was that if they could speak Malayalum, they could learn any language.
But I also saw that in the jail. Even the Latinos who could speak some English wouldn't because they were afraid of being ridiculed by the Americans.
I was definitely impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The biggest problem facing the college is that the machines the students are learning on are about 20 years behind the West. And they do need to learn the basics and can do so with these machines. But newer ones are too pricey to put in for the number of students they have.

The mosquito and fly bites I have gotten this year last--and itch--for DAYS. It's awful. Didn't happen last year. Baji gave me some oil for the itching, and I keep reapplying it. It helps.

We passed some houses on the way to the college, some of which were twice the size of the rich house. Don't know if they were just the wealthy or they had been to the Gulf to earn their money. Have to wonder what will happen when all those Gulf men return to Kerala to live in their rich houses right across the road from poverty. The haves and the have-nots.

Although I love this part of India, it is the exception. As I mentioned before 90% or better of the population of Kerala is literate. But there is a dark side to India. Although there is poverty here, especially by our standards, it is nothing like what is in the big cities. Literacy is 45% at best. There are places where, if you read the newspaper, it seems like the wild, wild west. There are also areas where the Maoists are very present, bombing trains and buses, killing innocent people. Not a day goes by that a chief of police or several police aren't reported killed. Sixty-two years after achieving independence, 300 MILLION people do not get two square meals a day. They are tired of waiting for the good life to filter down to them. Hence, the violence. So, as progressive as some places are or seem to be, it certainly doesn't apply to everyone yet.

It's nearly time to go for treatment so I want to sign off thanking my children, my daughters-in-law, my sisters, and my grandchildren for all their love and support! Couldn't do it without you!

Love,
Mom/Peggy/Granny/NiNi