We left at 10 am for a long drive to Munar. However, before we left Changanacherry Xavier has to perform an opening ceremony at new business premises that belonged to one of his cousins.
We travelled in a 17 seater minibus that Xavier had hired for the three days. Driver Anil showed his skills on what was mile after mile of winding roads up many valleys. The roads themselves were often very broken so the journey took a long time. After tea stops and a food break we arrived at the Paradise Getaway hotel near Munar at about 9 pm. It was dark but judging by the lights we were high up in a valley. We had dinner and retired for a good nights sleep. The hotel was very high quality with every comfort and great food. Food is very cheap in India and even in this high class hotel a meal for seven people cost about £40.
On the journey we saw many tea plantations, as well as rubber, pineapple, tapioca, coconut and banana.
The partially ripe coconuts are sold at the side of the road and opened up for their milk. The young or tender coconut inside could be scraped out like a cream.
The bananas were a bit smaller that what we were used to but full of flavour and an ideal size for a snack.
Along with about twenty five of the wider family we enjoyed a trip on a river boat for a six hour trip in the Kerala Backwaters. This area is riddled with waterways that feed canals and irrigation for the paddy fields. Our boat, the Bluebird, had seating on two decks and food was provided about lunchtime. There were plenty of birds and wild flowers to see. A lot of the plants were very familiar to us as indoor plants.
We stopped near a Toddy shop which serves a sort of beer made from the milk that is tapped from the trunk of a coconut palm tree. This is a similar process to tapping rubber.
The young ones had a lot of fun with their smart phone cameras and Yvonne managed to get a few singing Corrymeela songs!
Breakfast was Indian style with a variety of meat and vegetable dishes. A lot more food than we are used to but very tasty and not too spicy. I think Xavier had toned it down a little as he likes his food very hot and spicy. All the food was prepared by their cook Sri Devi who kept us well supplied.
We spent a good part of the day driving around the area visiting Xavier’s childhood locations. We stopped by one of the many paddy fields where the rice was growing. As we were taking photos a cousin of Xavier appeared on his Royal Enfield motor bike.
The area is full of waterways and canals, many of which are choked with weed such as water hyacinth. Canals used to be the main mode of transportation but not anymore. Transport is dominated by buses, motorbikes, scooters and bicycles. There are thousands of the three wheel putt-putts! We saw many examples of whole family riding on the one scooter. Signs of human activity are everywhere with roadsides littered with small shops. All the towns and villages we passed through were teaming with people shopping or doing business in the miriad of both small and large shops. India is the nation of shopkeepers not Britain.
We spent a little time at St George’s Pilgrimage Centre in Alappuzha where we lit candles for various friends and relations.
Our final stop before returning home was the Aiswaryqa Silks shop in Changanacherry. Yvonne bought two shalawar kamees which she was to find more suitable for the heat.
Soon after arriving home guests started arriving for a family party for Sonia and Matthew. Eventually we moved off to a very smart restaurant called Memories where over a hundred of Xavier’s cousins along with some of his sisters and some of their children many of whom were around Sonia’s age. We met some people who had been at the wedding in May. It was a great occasion. Yvonne tried very hard to get the names and work out the family tree.
We arrived back home at about 10pm after a very long day filled with the diversity of India – religious, cultural and economic.
For the first leg of our trip we drove to Belfast International and caught a Ryan Air flight to Gatwick. Temperature in Ballycastle was 9C but freezing (0C) when we finally arrived at Matthew and Sonia’s place in Croydon. For tea we took advantage of some 2 for 1’s at Pizza Express.
Next day, the 19th, we walked to South Croydon and took the train to Victoria and then tube to Heathrow Terminal 4. We managed to hit London when there were no tube or rail strikes!
The first stage of our flight was by Etihad Airbus 380 to Abu Dhabi. This was a very comfortable aircraft and certainly very big. Service was excellent.
We arrived in Abu Dhabi about 1am local time. The airport was heaving as if everyone only travels at night.
The second stage of our flight was by Etihad Airbus 321 Kochi in Kerala. This flight was full and not as comfortable as the first. We arrived at about 9:30 local time.
Xavier, Aigel and his mum were there to meet us. We went for breakfast at a local hotel before a 3 hour drive to Changanacherry. This was the most entertaining and invigorating part of the trip so far. The roads were teaming with traffic but it somehow kept moving. Everybody drives by the rules but not the rules of the road! Anyway it seems to work as cars have remarkably few bumps showing on them. However it is most dangerous to be a pedestrian on these roads. It looks virtually impossible to cross a road.
Xavier’s home is a very comfortable modern house which he has built himself over the years. We are already into the Indian food and I think that the main problem will be eating too much. We have had a great welcome with relations appearing as soon as we arrived at the house.
For the rest of the day we tried to keep awake. Yvonne explored the plants and trees and did some work on her journal.
An enjoyable lunch with Sr Alice at her home. We joined by two other sisters from Incarnate Word Sr Rita and Sr Adriana and by Sr Finbar from the Presentation sisters. Alice, Rita and Finbar are lively 80+ year olds with Rita and Finbar coming from Ireland over fifty years ago. We had a great discussion about peace, justice, politics, religion and right relationships.
12/04/2016
Went to the Botanic Gardens to retake photographs that had disappeared after our last visit. Should be able to show these at the Ballycastle Gardening Club.
In the evening met up with Mary Lynn and AJ at the Casa Maria in St Mary’s University. Very much like the Tuesday teas we used to go to in the Presbyterian Centre (QUB) in the 70s.
13/04/2016
Went to dinner at the home of Teri Molden who will be accompanying St Mary’s students to Corrymeela in about four weeks time.
14/04/2016
Day packing both in the apartment and at St Philip’s College. Yvonne met up with Marie Thurston (85 years old) who wrote the story of St Philip’s and who wanted to sign the copy that we had been given. In the afternoon Yvonne went to a meeting of the international students at the College. This was a reminder of the Friendship Club in Belfast which the organisers of the group were very interested in hearing about.
15/06/2016 Friday – our last day
We went to our final staff meeting which was really a party. Lots of food. People kept on giving us presents. It was a very warm send off. Thank you St Philip’s College and, particularly, a big thanks to Andy Hill who set our visit and Scholarship in train way back in the autumn of 2014!
However we did not feel the anticlimax too much as we went off to the Community Garden close by the College which volunteers were getting ready for spring and summer planting. They installed four new raised beds and provided barbecue food with produced from the garden. This was followed by a late afternoon appointment with the SOS group in Robert E Lee High School. We helped them cover shoe boxes which the students (mainly 14-15 years) then filled with toiletries for the homeless. This was all part of a student run service project. Great job.
We finished off the day with dinner at the Cove Restaurant listening to music from a family band the Lavens. The father in the band is the Principal of AJ’s school. Great food and great music.
For the second time this week we were guests of the President in St Philip’s College’s Artemesia Restaurant. The dinner was an opportunity for the President and the College to thank some of the funders and to highlight the main achievements of the past year.
It was also an opportunity for the senior students to show off their culinary skills. The menu was impressive but the taste result was even more so! Seven courses with appropriate wines were served interspersed with a variety of palate cleansers. The result was a very enjoyable experience that did not leave us over faced. The students were able to say what there part in the production was at the end of the meal.
Yvonne and I were seated with Bishop Gary Lillibridge and his wife Catherine. Bishop Gary is bishop of the West Texas Diocese which covers some 69,000 square miles and includes some 90 congregations. Yvonne and the Bishop were able to swap stories about the 2008 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury which they had both attended.
At the end of the evening we were introduced by the President and given more presents! The College and community have been most hospitable and welcoming during our stay here.
We took on our last major excursion with Andy, Mary Lynn, AJ and Matt to Corpus Christi. This is a sea port on the Gulf of Mexico about two hours drive from San Antonio. Corpus Christi is heavily industrialised with oil refineries all round it. However it does have an attractive sea front with hotels, restaurants, a marina and a beach. The main tourist attractions are the US Navy aircraft carrier Lexington and Sea World.
On arrival we had lunch at a sea front fish restaurant Pier 99. The food was excellent particularly the fish.
We spent the afternoon exploring the Lexington and walking the beach. We got to paddle in the Gulf of Mexico – water lovely and warm.
Before leaving for home we had tea in the Omni hotel.
The Dialogue Institute is an active Turkish organisation working for interfaith relationships in San Antonio. It took place in the Sky Room at the University of the Incarnate Word. As the name of the room suggests there were spectacular views over San Antonio. The dinner was partly a fund raiser and also an opportunity to make some awards. The keynote address was by the Lord Mayor Ivy Taylor who talked about diversity and inclusion. She talked of the work of the city council and also mentioned St Philip’s College specifically as an example in this area. For us it was a great opportunity to meet up with quite a number of people that we had met over the past three months before leaving in a just over a week’s time. Thank you to Mehmet Oguz for including us in this event.
We were invited to join the President, Dr Loston, and her leadership team for lunch at the College’s dining room which is run as a training facility for the catering and hospitality students. The meal was excellent and we enjoyed talking about our experiences in St Philip’s College and San Antonio. There was a definite interest in maintaining the connections with Northern Ireland and Corrymeela by bringing people to San Antonio to teach and sending students to Corrymeela as part of the Study Abroad scheme.
As part of an interfaith event Jason Fabianke organised a “Sweep away intolerance” event where staff and students were encouraged to sweep the corridors as a contribution to the 12 hour sweep.
