31-7-2024
Only two and a half weeks left.... It does make me a little melancholic. I am saying a little goodbye every time we drive across town. Just a few more classes. One or two more outings. We're sorting out stuff we won't be taking back to the Netherlands. The rhythm instruments that we used for the parish children, we donate to a primary school, to be used during music lessons. The guitar goes to St. Albert's students, to help a young person on his or her musical journey of discovery. Clothes that no longer fit (or that we no longer need or want) go to a clothing bank. And we are arranging parting gifts for all those wonderful people who have made this trip possible for us.
To start with Father Shaiju. He put us in touch with Dr Geo, as well as a woodworker in his parish, Jinson. For Jinson, together with St Albert's Institute of Management, we are trying to find a way to generate some more income. Besides the houseboats he already makes, and sells to souvenir shops, we had him making the boats on a smaller scale. According to us, these are easier for tourists to take home. To make this happen, we gave him a gift: a multi-tool for more refined work.
The little boats worked out well, and turned out beautifully. Jinson wanted to give them to us, as a gift, but we didn't go along with that. Since we had commissioned them, we bought them. We did want to pay a reasonable price for them, and paid him for the amount of work he, or rather his father, had put into them: two days.
We decided to take it a step further, and asked him to recreate his church, St Mary Magdalene Church, in miniature. We pressed him not to say anything to Father Shaiju, as it would be a gift to him. The idea did appeal to Jinson, and he promised to do his best to recreate the church as beautifully as possible. After about a week, I received pictures of his work via WhatsApp. There had been considerable work on the details, and the church seemed well to scale. We were pleased with the result, and Jinson was proud and happy with our approval. We went to pick up the church from his home, where the workshop is also located. While we enjoyed a cup of tea and tasty jackfruit chips, Jinson and his mother wrapped the church in a box and gift paper. We then made our way to father Shaiju, which was only a five-minute walk (luckily it was pretty much dry....).
Father Shaiju was surprised when we entered his officewith a big box. Of course, he first needed to know how Simon was doing, and what exactly had happened, but then his attention turned to the box. We told him that it was a gift, in gratitude for his help in making our stay in Kerala possible. And of course we wanted him to open it, because we wanted to see his face at the unveiling. We have a feeling it was a hit. At first he didn't know who had made it, and asked if we had. Then it dawned on him that it must have been Jinson. But that he hadn't said anything.... Father Shaiju thanked us profusely for this surprise. And he would certainly thank Jinson too. This was our last visit to Father Shaiju, as he would be leaving on a vacation to Europe in just a few days. So we said: "This is not goodbye, but 'until we meet again'."
Before driving back to St Albert's by taxi, we had a cup of tea and a samosa at the TeaMonk opposite the church. It's an outdoor cafe that we had been looking at that for five months every time we waited for the taxi. Now, at our final visit, it was time to stop by.
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