Christmas Day 2010

Christmas Day 2010

Twinkling lights from all the paper lanterns in the trees, some thumping bass from the rooftop next door, a slight breeze in the hot, humid night air and our dripping washing on the line. This has certainly been a different Christmas in Cochin.

The children’s anxiety that Father Christmas wouldn’t know where to find them was proved ill-founded, although WD & WM were concerned that the Norad/GoogleEarth Santa-tracking seemed to bypass southern India for Colombo, Karachi and Mazar al-Sharif.  The children were impressed that F.C. had brought selected items from home, but also procured so much of their stockings locally and not forgotten the tangerines.

On Christmas Eve we learnt that the English service at the Anglican St Francis’ Church was at 8am with the Malayalam service before at 6.30. Hearing music from inside, we rushed in at 5 minutes to 8 thinking we were late, only to discover that this was the tail-end of the Malayalam service. It’s a grand old airy church: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century grave stones, Portuguese and British; rope-pulled fans (pankahs) along the aisles; and lots of lights on the Christmas tree in the corner (not coniferous, naturally). The Lord’s Prayer and ‘Silent Night’ in Malayalam were entirely recognisable and we felt properly Christmassy, especially after all the friendly handshakes and good cheer afterwards.

Fort Cochin is well-developed for the many foreign tourists who come here, and ten years since the childless WPs came here there’s a lot more fine hotels and restaurants making it hard to find a cheap dosa or banana-leaf thali. The fishermen are still out on the huge hanging Chinese nets, selling a wonderful array of fish, prawns, lobsters, baby hammerheads and crabs from the quayside, while great tankers head out to sea. M was very concerned by the possibility of overfishing. We wonder how much the Chinese nets are for show, as they don’t seem to catch much – at least not when we were helping. Otherwise it’s a lot of the same tourist paraphernalia found across India - bright patterned cotton trousers, Rajasthani puppets, snake-charmers with cobras – and a few surprises, such as the vegetable peeler demonstrations.
L & M enjoyed their first green coconut, sucking the water happily and then scooping out the soft, white flesh from inside. L has been writing menus for her forthcoming coconut-themed beach café as a result. 

Everyone (except WD) is suffering a little from climate adjustment.  Wolfmum is not temperamentally or physically well suited to the tropics (excessive and futile sweating, brain addle and general malaise).  The children look flushed and W is complaining of groin rot already (he tried to show me whilst we were out having supper).  We’ve upped our fluid intake and shower, lie under fans and will no doubt adapt.  But it’s fun to look out and see coconuts, papayas and bananas growing over the balcony. 

I hope that the children did not feel short-changed by Christmas away – there were moments of regret (the crib service at Beckley carrying sheep, ‘proper’ Christmas trees and the full turkey work up…) but I hope they remember this special one away.  And the day has had its ups and downs (family Christmases!) – early starts, thrills (W’s battle hamster!) and disappointments (things broken…), overtired children at the end of the day – but with added disorientation and a small helping of home-sickness.  Thank you family for the Skype-ing (even if no visuals) and all the presents.