Saturday, November 7, 2009

Company!!

To say that life at the guest house has changed completely would be a huge understatement. The group from Furman University (South Carolina) arrived last Sunday morning, and the guest house is now full—of people, activity, and a kind of constant hum. There are two Furman faculty members here with a group of sixteen students, exactly the same sized group Lynn and I will bring in January. I can’t help but think ahead to the experience we will have, and it’s good to see that this size group fits very nicely into the guest house with room to spare. Somehow they’ve managed to get all sixteen into the upstairs apartments, but since we’ll have more men (six, they have only one!), I think we’ll want to put some of our group in the double-room suite on the ground floor. Either way, this will be a big improvement over the group of 23 students we brought in 2007. With 16, there’s room for everybody to stay in the guest house, and there’s room for everybody to eat in the dining room. It’s also much easier for everybody to get to know each other!

What a transformation! I have occasionally grumbled about feelings of loneliness here at the guest house, especially at meal times, but I have plenty of company at meal times and ample opportunity for conversations on the porch or in the dining room at odd hours of day or evening. These are really nice people, and it’s been especially good to get to know the group leaders, Claude and Veena. But wait, it gets better! Nowadays, whenever there’s a group here, they bring in a chef and a couple of assistants from one of the local hotels (Taj Connemara, I believe). The food from the canteen has been quite good, on the whole, far better than many college cafeteria meals I’ve had back in the states. But the cooks for the Furman group are really wonderful. The flavors, the preparation, and the variety of dishes at every meal are great. I am going to get fat if I don’t watch out! And since the same team will be here in January, our students are in for a treat! Nice to have such a pleasant surprise.

The other night I was sitting on the porch reading my newspaper when a pair of Americans walked in to chat with the Furman faculty and some students. Part way into the conversation I began to hear frequent references to St. Olaf. Finally my curiosity got the better of me and I said, Did I hear you say St. Olaf? I’m an Ole! Well, first Mike and then Anne came over to introduce themselves and chat a bit. They are both professors in the Biology department at St. Olaf, and they are here as Fulbright scholars to teach at MCC for the second semester and to travel, make contacts with Indian scientists, and so on—similar to what I’ve been doing. They went back to the Furman group, so after a short while I pulled up a chair to join the conversation, and we had a lovely time. Talk about a “small world.” As I thought back on it, I realize that somebody some time back had mentioned a visit by St. Olaf faculty, but there was no context, and at that point it was a ways off. Now that they’re here, it will be really nice to have such tangible contact with an important part of my life back home. They also know Dr. Gabriel, since he was a visiting Kierkegaard Scholar at St. Olaf just three years ago, so we’ve got a regular St. Olaf club being established here at MCC. What fun! We’re heading into Chennai Sunday evening for a concert (Handel’s Israel in Egypt … with an orchestra!), and it looks like we’ll even have a Thanksgiving dinner together, something I didn’t think I’d be able to celebrate here! Juby commented the other day that it was good to see me looking so happy. I guess it’s good to have people around; I’m more of a social being than I give myself credit for. I think I’m going to like the next few weeks very much … very much indeed!