Sunday was still damp, with just a little rain, but also very pleasantly cool. Very near to our accommodations, there was a small Methodist church with an 8:00 AM service in English and a 9:00 AM service in Tamil. Since it was cool, I was more than a bit dismayed to see people leaving their sandals at the door of the marble-floored building, but somehow it wasn’t that uncomfortable. The extremely familiar hymns had somewhat less familiar tunes, at least in parts, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never said The Lord’s Prayer so fast in my life, but the sermon was both understandable and worth some reflection.
We later rented bikes for a short ride, saw more spectacular views (notice my current hosts in front of a waterfall, as well as some monkeys looking for a handout at one of the tourist stops), and played some silly games before dinner that really must have yielded some crazy, blackmail-worthy pictures.
Too early Monday morning we were heading back down the mountain. This time we were squeezed into a regular seating compartment on the train, and it was interesting to watch the scenery. As that doesn’t really satisfy for a seven-hour trip, the four of us foreigners pulled out pen and paper and, by randomly selecting words out of book on India, played a make-shift game of “Pictionary.” A few others joined us as we whiled away about half the trip, and other bored passengers were seen trying to inconspicuously check out this absorbing game.
Everyone seemed to think the weekend was a pleasant break. I didn’t really need a break yet, but I was glad for the chance to get accustomed to the faces I would see at work, and I put some serious effort into learning and attaching names to a few of those faces. They are a pleasant and gracious people, but there’s a certain distance to relationships that comes from being from different cultures; overcoming that is going to take some time and effort.
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