The wedding

The son of the Australian woman who arranged for me to come here married the young lady who has been her translator for the past seven years.  I don't think they actually met one another until the last couple of years.  Her son came as her escort on one or two trips here and that is how the couple met.  If their happiness during all the ceremony is any indication, they are truly in love.

I'm really sorry that I don't have many pictures.  The ceremony was held at a resort at the bottom of some mountain trail and the sun was quite bright during the afternoon, which made it impossible to see what the camera was focusing on.  Also I was sitting at an odd angle and didn't have a good view of the bride and groom, but I was happy for a seat at all, as 600 people attended the wedding, and I was even slightly in the shade.

First there was a longish western style ceremony.  A female pastor came from Australia, but several other local pastors spoke first.  The groom's sisters each read from Scripture, then the vows were said and rings exchanged.  The Australian pastor preached from the Song of Songs and then the couple took communion.  Everything was translated into Mizo which effectively doubled the length of the ceremony.

The bride and groom left to change into traditional dress for a Mizo wedding and there was an entertainment provided by a local dance team.  I asked my escort, Dr. Lawma, head of the Old Testament studies department, whether he had ever seen a Mizo wedding, and he said no.  In fact, no one else here that I have asked has seen one either.  The Mizos were evangelized 100 years ago and not much remains of the local culture outside of some dances and their language.


First the dancers did the bamboo dance which looks like this:  https://youtu.be/RhJTKPPq1G4  The dancers were too far to get a picture but here is the sole musician who accompanied the dancers at the wedding.

She is wearing three gongs around her waist by which the dancers kept the rhythm.  I have seen a similar dance done by dancers from the Philippines.

Then the dancers did a couple dance like this. https://youtu.be/1KxsLNATqeY  It is imitating a rooster and a hen.  I was close enough to get some pictures of this, but every time I hit the button, the dancers turned and all I got was their back sides.   The dancers I saw stayed a lot closer together, but you can see how they are in a total squat position the entire time.

Finally the bride and groom returned in full Mizo dress. My understanding was that the bride is from a group calling themselves Beit Israel.  I admit to expecting some vaguely Hebraic custom or ritual but, alas, nothing.  Here is the man who conducted the supposedly Mizo ceremony.

His speech was not translated into English so I had to rely on my escort.  Apparently, the minister made some speeches against the Christianization/westernization of the native peoples.  That hula hoop looking thing he is holding is made of some natural fiber; Dr. Lawma called it a rope, but it was rigid.  He had the bride and groom step into it and hold it about waist level while he spoke.  It is supposed to join them together and instead of  wedding rings.  Then they were to drink out of one cup with two straws, cheek to cheek.  Afterwards, he gave the bride a wrap to put around her new husband, but then they both wrapped up in it. Finally, they sang a special song, which turned out to be the Mizo national anthem.  Not exactly what I would have picked for a wedding.

The mothers of the bride and groom made speeches and then the food was to have been served, but it was stuck in a traffic jam.  We had already been there for about four hours and decided it was a good time to make a get-away.  As we were walking back up the hill to the car, the truck with the food was descending.  But, as I have said previously, Mizo food is not really worth waiting for.

My third lesson

It was finally arranged for me to give a weekly seminar to the Biblical studies faculty and Masters students.  We had the first meeting on Thursday afternoon.  There were about 10 students and 5 faculty.  I was surprised because one of the former Principals of the College (they don't call them Deans) had passed away that morning and there was much discussion about who was going to attend the home visitation at 12:30 or the funeral at 2:00.  So I wasn't really expecting any of the faculty to be at a 1:00 pm seminar, but they were all in attendance.  There were the requisite number of post-lunch coma heavy eyelids and the students refused to interact during the meeting, which I found a bit frustrating.

I think the seminar is billed as covering a Jewish view of Scripture, but of course I am teaching a Hebrew roots view of Scripture.  I am covering what is strictly in the Bible, Old and New, contrasted with what is practiced by traditional rabbinical Jews. I leave them to figure out for themselves what they are practicing.

I started with the firm belief that Torah, the five books of Moses, is the foundation and everything else must line up with those teachings, that Torah means 'teaching and instruction', that we do not worship as the nations, that if we have questions we are free to discuss, bring scriptures, and agree to disagree.  That the commandments are not the goal of the religion but a means for experiencing God, that circumcision of the heart is from the beginning, that relationship precedes commandments.  That the word of God is in harmony with all creation and that science will prove the word of God, that we seek patterns in scripture, that history is prophecy.

From there, I explained that the 'paths of righteousness' in Psalm 23 are really 'cycles of righteousness' and that this specifically refers to the feasts of Leviticus 23, starting with Shabbat.

I explained how Shabbat is typically celebrated in Jewish homes and the difference between the Biblical requirements and the rabbinical requirements, and the various places where Shabbat appears in the New Testament, about Yeshua and Paul having a custom of being in the synagogue on shabbat, about Yeshua healing on shabbat, about Paul preaching until Eutychus fell out of the window.  I also talked about Shabbat as a prophecy of the 7th millennium.

I talked for about an hour without stopping.  At one point I asked if I was talking too fast, but the faculty member who had finished his PhD in California a few years ago assured me that it was fine.  I guess I was breathing during all of it because I am still here.

Finally, I got to the end of my notes, and the professors asked a few questions.  They wanted to know how the Jews view keeping Torah in relation to getting into heaven.  It's just such a different mindset.  One said he was glad that I was able to show that Yeshua never broke Torah, that he only conflicted with the traditions of the religious leaders.

Then one of the students asked my opinion about the sabbath, since I had been converted to Christianity.  So we had a little talk about that. (I think I will take up the subject of conversion first thing in my next session even though I really want to cover Passover and Unleavened Bread.) But what he really wanted to know, and it was his own thought, was that it seemed like Christians should still be keeping Saturday sabbath and what did I personally do?  I said that I do keep sabbath on Saturday but he would have to talk to his professors about general practice.  And in fact, one of them immediately jumped in and steered the conversation in another direction.

Bingo!  You know it just doesn't take too much deep thought to figure these things out.  You are grafted in to the commonwealth of Israel.  What is a commonwealth?  A form of government.  A government has laws.  The Torah, the five books of Moses, is the body of that law.

Hebrew lessons

This is about half of my Hebrew class.  Sweet kids and earnest but without a chance of covering the material that was left to me.  First of all, the book is from 1927, full of words like 'thee' and 'hearken'.  Full of descriptions like this:

A word is said to be in pause when its accent is a major stop, i.e.  Silluq or 'Athnah (pp. 20-1): in either case the word being at the end of a clause.  The tendency, in speech, is to prolong the accented syllable of the last word in a sentence, i.e. when the word is in pause: thus, the word for 'water' is מים [with various vowels which I cannot reproduce here] in the middle of the sentence, but in pause it is: מים [with some different vowels] with 'Athnah or Silluq, i.e. the short vowel Pathah in the accented syllable is lengthened to Qames. 

This for students whose second language is English.  I don't even understand this stuff.

So the prof who started teaching the class covered the aleph-bet and rules similar to this one for the first 8 or 9 weeks, without them actually learning a single vocabulary word.  That was 27 pages of the dreadful textbook.  He left me 8 weeks to cover 70 pages including these topics: the definite article, inseparable prepositions, nouns and adjectives, gender and number, dual form, conjunction, interrogative pronouns, construct (I have to stop myself every time and =not= say smikhut), personal pronouns, possessive pronoun suffixes, the direct object marker (this is how far we've gotten as of today), past tense conjugation of regular verbs, active participle conjugations, imperfect conjugation, the imperative, infinitives, the heh interrogative, passive participles, cohortative and jussive and the reversing vav, in addition to all the vocabulary.  They don't cover the binyanim in this semester, which I guess is a blessing.

Last week, I found out that they are taking advanced Greek in the same semester, in addition to 6 other courses.  Of course, there is no option of changing anything because the curriculum is entirely dictated from the Presbyterian Senate (or Synod--many times I can't tell the difference between these two), as are the textbooks and final exam.

On the other hand, when I met with some of them yesterday for extra practice (classes were canceled because they were using all the classrooms for the entrance exam for next year's students--things like this happen often), they told me they really like the concept of the relationship between 'word' and 'thing' as expressed by the one Hebrew word דבר.  I told them I wish we could drop the whole rest of the class to talk about things like that.

At least a few have had their interest piqued.  I just pray that they will study enough and absorb enough to pass the final exam.

Diet

Mizo folks are just not very interesting cooks.  Everything is very plain, although extremely fresh.    Many people have gardens behind their apartments, terraced onto the side of the hill. I guess they eat a lot of pork, but I have told everyone that I don’t eat it, so they serve me chicken.  The chickens here are huge; the ones I saw in the market must be 10 pounds, the size of a small turkey.  However, they don’t tend to buy whole chickens, just some pounds.  They chop it all up into pieces about 1” in size, cook it, sometimes with spices, and serve it bones and all.  Very messy for eating.  They have cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, daikon radish, peas, kale and similar green leaves, potatoes.  Vegetables are mostly steamed and served cold.  Mizo salad is very finely sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions, no dressing.  Dal (very thin lentil soup) is requisite at every meal.  Some people make it with some spices, but some just boil it.  And rice and rice and rice.

Every meal is required to have at least 4 or 5 dishes, which is quite Asian and common in other countries.

Some friends took me to the nicest restaurant in town for my birthday.  The menu is strictly Indian food, which was fine, but really, I've had better Indian food in Athens.

The apartment was not really ready when I moved in, with no means for cooking at all.  The second day, a rice cooker and a microwave arrived.  I have been making do with this and eating at other people’s homes.  They offered me a countertop gas stove, but it would take the whole countertop in the kitchen, so I turned it down.  If the electricity continues to go out every day, though, I might have to see if I can still get one.

So, yeah, I’m on a diet. 

Life is cooperative

There is an open door policy here and you always know if anyone is home.  On the outside facing door of every room in the house, there is a hasp, with a latch on which to hang a lock.  

The door to my apartment

On the inside facing door, there is simply a bolt.  

outside the door to my bedroom

inside the door to my apartment

So if you're passing by anyone's house, you can see if it is locked up or not and you automatically know if anyone is home.

Everyone is always welcome at everyone else’s house all the time.  I've been invited to dinner by several people and they always say, "just stop by anytime".  The thought of showing up at someone's house at 5:30 pm and expecting to eat dinner with the family is a bit alien to me.  I might do it with my family, but I live so far away from my family that the event is unlikely.  However, this is a small, tight-knit community and the behavior stems partly, I expect, from their tribal background and partly because it is so isolated geographically. The open door policy has become the ethos of the people.

You really can’t go anywhere without a vehicle.  The nearest small town in actually less than a mile, and I feel like I could walk (mostly) down to it, but I doubt that I could walk all the way up.

There is a bus that runs several times a day, down and back up to the Presbyterian synod office in Aizawl.  I could get on it by myself, but I would never know where to get off or where to wait to get back on for the return trip.  Every part of Aizawl looks the same as every other part of Aizawl to me, winding streets, hairpin turns, crowded shops.  And shopping will be impossible unless I learn how to count to 100 or so.  However, folks are very honest, they say, and if you give money, you will get the correct change.  No one will cheat you.

If I need something, someone will bring it.  Sometimes they bring things I haven't asked for and don't need.  People have been so kind to offer to take me to the market, or buy food for me, or share whatever they have with me.  It's something we really lack in the US.

scary technology

These are the boxes outside my door, one live, one dead, one meter.

These are the wires coming out from the top of these boxes.

 Please notice that some run directly into the house through the window.  The window will never be closed, more's the pity.  The winds really kicked up last night and there was a cold breeze blowing through all night long.  Actually, none of the doors or windows shut tightly anyway.

These are the wires that run to the left from the above picture.

 This is a box attached to the neighbor's house.

This is attached to a post at the street level near the steps to my apartment.

This, as you can see, is attached to a tree.  I have no idea what it is, but there is a little light on the other side of it which is lit.

But, look, I have internet today in my apartment.  Hooray!
My being here has brought to the attention of those who have lived abroad just how far behind things are at the College.  Some people are quite disturbed and think that I am suffering horribly in the deprivation, but I have assured them that I am all right.  Still, they are trying to make some upgrades on behalf of the next person who arrives to stay and have arranged for me to get a land-line telephone.  I will let you know the number if you like, so you can call anytime......

How many Mizos does it take....

This is my water filter.  There's at one in every house and many in the admin building.  In the admin building, there are one or two cups by which to take a drink of water.  Sharing cups is standard here, but somehow they manage to pour the water down their throats without their mouths touching the cup.  I have not mastered this skill at all.  Mostly I just get water all over me.  I carry my own bottle wherever I go.

All the water that is consumed here on campus is filtered.  I have been in only one house in town and it also has such a filter.  The water is apparently pumped from the river into city-wide reservoirs and then into huge cisterns on the roof.  Although Mizoram is the wettest state in India, there are seasons when the main source of water, the Tlawng River, is reduced to a mere stream.  There does not seem to be any effort to collect rain water in season. Just imagine all the energy required to pump the water up the hills and mountains and onto the roofs.  The water supply in Aizawl has been a long-term problem and there have been several projects to upgrade the system.

So the quality of the water is unsure and everyone drinks filtered water.  It took me a bit to figure out how the filter worked, mainly because the little switch at the tee connection under the sink was switched off, so the water wasn't flowing to the filter at all.  After that was righted, everything worked just fine, including the little song which plays while the water is flowing.  For some reason, Asian appliances are designed to make music.  When we were in Korea, the refrigerator played "Oh Susanna" if it was left open too long.

Everyone keeps extra bottles of water on the counter in the kitchen, used for drinking and cooking.  Initially, someone gave me two such plastic bottles and later two pitchers showed up.  But after about a week, I noticed a brown sediment in one of the bottles, so I asked to have the filtering machine checked.

On the first day, they sent the all-round handyman to the apartment.  He doesn't speak much English, but he turned the filter off and said, "Shop".  I assumed this meant he would go to the shop and retrieve some filter replacements.  I began toting my water from the filters in the admin building. About two days later, the registrar told me that there are many different kinds of filters and that the handyman would come back and take a picture of mine, so they would be sure that they had the correct one.  This he did.  The next day I was gone and someone came but I wasn't there to unlock the door.  (This has been something of a problem because there is no spare key to the giant lock which hangs on the outside of the door when it is shut.  When I arrived, I received 3 keys, but only one of them fit the lock.  This is a different story for a different day.)  The next day I came back immediately after class and there were three men, one boss and two workers, waiting for me, to see about the filter.

In spite of the fact that they had the pictures of the machine, they murmured about this and that and what the brand name really was.  The boss spoke good English and told me they had to get the right filters and that they would come back the next day.  I told him I would not move from my apartment until I saw his face.  Within an hour, the two workers came back with the correct filters and changed them.

And not a minute too soon.  Of the two replacements, one was white in color and the other brown.  The two filters they took out were black and there were black molecules swimming in the excess water in the filter.  I ran the first 2 liters without drinking it, but I am back in drinking water again.