Today we set forth on our trek to the Kumbalangi village. Located in the backwaters of the Arabian Sea, the village was accessible by a boat weaving through the vast number of Chinese fishing nets. These things were huge! Some Fellows made jokes of doing a mechanical integrity review of these contraptions but they seemed pretty sound to me. Only one man was needed to operate the fully manual machine and I can’t imagine how hard that must be when the nets are filled of fish.

 

Once we arrived at the village we were greeted with the traditional coconut opened for each one of us to drink.  We started our tour then with a demonstration of how to handle the crabs they had. The villagers caught crab out in the backwaters and then brought them into a small rectangular pond where they could grow to between 1 and 3 kilograms, suitable for sale. The man that worked the area carefully extracted a large crab from one of the cages, showed how the crab would be tied up for exportation, and then allowed for some photo opportunities. The crab we saw was only about 1 kilogram, which is apparently on the small side even though it seemed plenty big to us. The same man also went into another pool of water to fish us out some prawns. Looking at the prawns, or large shrimp, up close was pretty cool to me because you could see their entire internal composition due to them being clear. They were certainly jumpy fellows trying to get back to the water.

 

Now onto coconuts. The rest of this tour seemed very much like our history lessons on the Native Americans with their use of the bison. Not one piece for waste. It all starts with a man free climbing to the to of a 20 foot tall palm tree to cut some down. From here, the coconuts are individually broken up into their various components. The outside shell is used for multiple uses such as bowls or cups and even as flower pots when tied onto a tree for orchids to grow in. The husk is used for rope purposes and in jewelry as well. After it is soaked in the water for six months, it is dried and then beaten with a club to remove particulates, which were once waste but now used as mushroom fertilizer. The fibers of the husk then make strong rope. The ladies make it on two spinning looms and it’s quite the quick process but leaves you thinking, “Whoa! Did that really just happen?”. The women were also capable of doing the process by hand. The fun part was when two of them demonstrated tug-of-war with the rope to demonstrate its sturdiness and then allowed Jill and myself to try it out too. It was pretty even but I think I got the first real tug so they gave me the bit of rope as a prize. Talk about a nifty souvenir! The inside of the coconut was grated for food, along with milked. The inner shell could be used for all sorts of crafts and is the part we see as souvenirs in coastal cities. Lastly, the leaves of the branches were woven into mats, fans, etc. After lunch we also got to experience riding in an auto rickshaw taxi. Definitely see the traffic differently when you’re one of the smaller vehicles on the road and are at eye level with all the other transportation methods. A worthwhile experience for sure but I probably wouldn’t be volunteering again too soon.

 

The village was probably my favorite experience I’ve seen thus far. It involved wonderful interactions with some locals and allowed us to see a side of life not part of our day-to-day lives in the U.S.

 

Our evening was spent at a traditional Kathakali dance performance. Kathakali originated in the 17th century and is often considered the richest of the 7 traditional dance performances. There are three parts to the performance: make-up, demonstration/briefing, and the actual performance. The make up is an elaborate process taking about an hour but completely covers the man’s face. The demonstration/briefing explains the different facial expressions, eye movements, and hand motions to be made and then introduces what will happen in the performance. This performance was about a sister of a demon seducing a male who later discovers that she is evil and harms her by cutting off parts of her body. This angers the demon that comes to kill the male character but is killed first. This whole performance is choreographed to the rhythms of the beating drums and clanking cymbals. Men play both dancers and were in elaborate make up and costumes who were so expressive with their faces and eyes that I couldn’t turn away. It went straight through from beginning to end with no break for the dancers, followed afterwards by photos with them. Their precision and expressiveness were extremely impressive even if you got a tad lost in the story.

 

I know this was lengthy but I just wanted to give a special shout out to all the family and friends supporting us on our Capstone. See you in a week!

 

Nicole Rissky