Autumn Journey - Part One

Soundara.

The journey really started the last two weeks of August, when we went to India to visit our relatives for two weeks. We stayed with our 88-year-old widowed sister-in-law, Soundara, in the section of Chennai called Virukambakkam, where we usually stay. It was a long overdue visit. My husband and I visited in 2012, and then he went again in 2013, a year after her husband's death.

I have always admired Soundara. She is truly a sister. She is tinier than I am, and while we were there insisted on cooking great meals. She cannot not be busy, and she is interested in so many things. You can see the sweetness of her personality in this picture.

Murari

Our grandnephew, Murari, picked us up at the airport, at 4:30 a.m., and we stepped outside into an amazing heat. In seconds I was glistening with moisture from the humidity. I didn't take as many pictures on this trip as I meant to, and this one, at the left, was taken when we visited Murari's  parents' home a few days later. It took us about an hour to get to the house. After we showered and unpacked, she had coffee waiting for us. There is nothing like good, strong, Indian coffee.

Vasu & his pretty wife, Srimithi.
Notice her beautiful smile.

Later, Vasu (My husband's sister's                     eldest son) and his wife, Srimathi, visited
the house (at right), and still later, Murari's father, Ravi, stopped by, as well.
Distances are very far in Chennai, and the traffic is unbelievably thick. Each time we've gone back, it seems the traffic has doubled from the time before, so it is always a breath-taking ride, and a long one, to get from one place to another.

We visited Rajan's doctor brother (Parthasarathy) and his wife, Vasantha, who live with their son and their son's family. Even though he is retired, he keeps up with current medicine, and we often turn to him for his medical opinion. On the trip this particular day, I was so enamored of the garden in his son's home, that I failed to take a lot of family pictures! Here are three family photos I remembered to take this time:

Hari, Parthasarathy's  &
Vasantha's son.

Sudha, Parthasarathy's &
Vasantha's daughter, visiting us
at her brother's home.

Anusha, Sudha's youngest daughter.
Her older daughter lives in the US.

But here are three from the 2012 visit, showing the whole family:

Parthasarathy, 2012.

Me, Soundara, & Vasantha, 2012

Hari & his wife, Vidhya, their sons
Aditya and Anirud, 2012.

Also, some pictures of the flower garden on this trip, that will show you how beautiful it is. there is a long passage way of flowers outside the ground floor, and then a roof garden with many potted flowers and plants.

This house is near the ocean and gets a nice breeze, so it is a nice oasis of coolness and beauty, so refreshing in the humid heat of Chennai.

On another day, we visited Rajan's brother, Narayanan, in two of his son's homes.

The first was in the home of Ravi and his wife, Nirmala. They are the parents of Murari, who picked us up at the airport. (Murari will be getting married this coming Monday, and we are so sorry that we are going to miss the wedding. We'll be disembarking from our plane home at about the time the wedding is beginning.)

Nirmala, our beautiful niece.

Ravi, her husband.

Murari and his grandfather,
Narayanan.

After that, we visited the home of one of Narayanan's other grandsons, Arjun and his wife Smrithi, along with Arjun's parents, Vasanth and Nalini. I really messed up, here! I got so engrossed in the conversations, that I forgot to take pictures. Luckily, Smrithi and Arjun and Nalini came to visit when we were at another grandnephew's home, so I did get a least a picture of them when we went for an overnight at the home of Madhu and Malathi. Madhu is the youngest son of Rajan's sister, and there are pictures of her, as well. This year she had her 80th birthday, but somehow she has kept youthful and full of energy.

Smrithi, Arjun's wife.

Arjun, Vasanth & Nalini's eldest son

Madhu in foreground; Arjun in
background. 

Malathi, Madhu's wife in the middle;
Nalini, Vasanth's wife in foreground.

Pattu, Rajan's sister in foreground;
her son, Madhu at far left, his wife,
Malathi and far right; their son,
Rohid, next to her.

Maithreyi, their beautiful daughter.
The day before we left, she gave birth
to a little girl. 

Eyeshwar, Maithreyi's husband, and
proud papa. 

Our last family visit was to Bangalore, where we visited to homes. We stayed two nights with our nephew, Ashok, his wife Gayathri, and their two sons, Rohan and Tarun, and Ashok's mother (Rajan's sister-in-law) Malathi. From there, we visited another grandniece, Priya, and her husband, Balajit. Once again, I was so involved in the visits that I didn't take as many pictures as I meant to take. Priya is the sister of the pretty woman in turquoise above, Sudha. It was a great pleasure to see her and her husband, and I was really vexed with myself for not remembering to use the camera I was carrying around everywhere. At Ashok's home, too, we mostly visited, and then on the last day I remembered pictures. I did get some pictures that included Malathi and Tarun. Tarun had just gone to temple for his thread ceremony, a ceremony for Brahmins similar to a bar mitzvah for Jewish boys, in that he was crossing over into adulthood with spiritual responsibilities.

Malathi, our sister-in-law on
left, Tarun on right. You can
see how happy he was. 

My husband, Rajan on left
with Tarun. This kid has so
much personality!

We took the night train to return from Bangalore to Chennai, and then there were just two days left before we departed for Spain. Earlier Rajan developed a really serious reaction to the anti-malarial medicine we took for the trip, so he had to discontinue it after 10 days. Then we had to wait (in Spain) 21 days from the last unprotected mosquito bite in India, which was a bit stressful--all the more so as his doctor brother says he is allergic to all malarial medicine -- including the one that's used to treat the illness. I was quite worried, as there were malarial cases in both Chennai and Bangalore, and he'd been bit by mosquitoes in both places. But all was well that ended well. He made it through the incubation period, and no illness.

I mentioned that Maithreyi gave birth to a little girl the day before we left. Her father, Madhu, kindly sent us pictures of the naming ceremony. Here are two:

Such a little doll!

Such happy parents. 

The last two days we rested and spent time with Soundara and packed.  Several relatives came to visit, and we also walked over to visit some in-laws through my Pittsburgh brother-in-law's wife, Kalyani. Raghavan and Kalyani are the parents of the nephew who got married last June. Her brother, Raju,  and his wife, Renukkah, live three short streets away from Soundara. Renukkah is an artist, and her work is really dazzling.

Raju & Renukkah

Renukkah's mother

Art. The flash doesn't do
the picture justice.

Another sample.

Each of these are different
styles, and she achieves
a great deal of mastery
in each one. 

And then the time drew to a close. But seeing everyone again is something I will treasure through the years, all the more so because, due to my husband's reaction to malarial protection, we don't want to risk his health in the future. At times like these, you appreciate the Internet and all the avenues of keeping in touch with family. We are thinking of them with love and prayers and are thankful that we got this visit in.

Next week I'll be moving on to the time spent in Galicia. Until then, I'll be visiting your blogs and catching up on your news.

On Our Way Tomorrow

By the time you read this, we will be on our way to Galicia, Spain, to the village and the people that have stolen our hearts. It's a long trip. But stay tuned. I'll be posting about our new ventures soon.

Trasulfe, the Village We Love

Trasulfe in the far upper right; lower, to the left is a neighbor's farm. (The neighbor who brought us the quemada described later in this post.)

When people learn how often we go to Galicia, Spain, they often just hear "Spain", and ask us if we've seen Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla . . .  No, we haven't been to any of those places (except for the Madrid airport).

Somehow Galicia has cast its spell over us, and, except for two short trips to Portugal (which we loved, and I'll write about in a later post), we haven't gotten out of Galicia. There is, of course, the famous city of Santiago, destination of pilgrims from all over the world, with a beautiful cathedral and an interesting old part of the city (as is the case with so many of these ancient cities in Galicia.) And I wrote about Lugo my previous post. But what captures our hearts so completely is the tiny village of Trasulfe. We bought a restored house there from friends, and the people of Trasulfe and their way of life have become an integral part of our lives.

One of the bends in the road on the way.

The road we take is on the other side of this building

And there it is: The village we love.

Trasulfe once had a population of 84 people (counting the children) and a couple of grand houses that have fallen to ruin. Many of the stone buildings are in ruins. It is a rural area, and for years young people have left for the big cities or even gone out of the country to find jobs. Our neighbor across the lane worked for many years in Switzerland before returning home to care for his mother, and now he tends sheep. The couple down the hill lived in Barcelona for many years, but are originally from Trasulfe. The man who built our garage lives in a nearby town/village of Turiz, (or Toiriz in Gallegan), but his wife is from Trasulfe, and he tends his cows in a pasture nearby. And our neighbors down the lane who have had such an impact on us, Eva and Manolo, are both from Trasulfe. All of them have siblings, cousins, or grown children, who are living in places like Madrid or Barcelona or abroad in Argentina or Venezuela. The old villages are emptying out, and it's a shame.

Originally, as I said, Trasulfe had a population of 84, and now it has a year-round population of 8! This is the story of a lot of the hill towns of Galicia, and also other parts of Spain. The village populations are aging, but they still carry on their way of life, keeping chickens, pigs, rabbits, sheep, cows (never a huge herd), and growing crops and vineyards. When we arrive, our neighbors bring us wine and eggs regularly, along with whatever is growing that time of year. (We go in spring and fall, so it can be anything from tomatoes, walnuts, chestnuts, peaches, figs -- whatever they have, they generously share.)

One of our neighbors' vines.

Our neighbor across the lane and his sheep.

Gary Larson cows, gossiping.

From our galería window.

From our galería window.

Despite the hardship of small rural villages (always, always they are working), there is a sense of peace and tranquility, of going with the seasons, of the cycle of life, that restores us while we are there. It's "hill and vale" country, and the land slopes down beyond our small fields into a valley, sloping up again on the far side, where we can see small villages akin to ours: white plaster walls, red tile roofs, varied shades of green due to fruit trees (apple, peach, figs), nut trees (walnut, chestnut), and low rock dry walls covered with brambles. Because of the elevation and the vales, nearly every morning begins with mist rising, sometimes an ocean of fog lapping against the far slopes; sometimes a veil over all, making the view haunting and mysterious. Galicia has two coasts, the Atlantic to the west, and the Bay of Biscayne to the north, and consequently it is the wet part of Spain. It's been called "green Spain", and you can see why.

Piñeiro, a village on the far slope.

Another day of mist and sunlight.

Another view from our galeria.

Spooky chestnut forest.

One of the turning points on the way to Trasulfe is a hunting preserve filled with chestnut trees. It always freaks me out, because it reminds me of the forest in Disney's original Snow White, when the trees seemed malevolent. But actually neighbors from all the nearby villages go there to pick chestnuts. The chestnuts were late this year, due to a very dry summer.

Galicia -- all of Spain, in fact -- abounds with festivals and fiestas, and we missed two crucial ones this year: The festival in Toiriz Santa Maria which ended the day before we arrived is one we usually go to. It is not related to the wine harvest at all -- it's a saint's day fiesta -- but it follows the wine harvest (or vendimia), so it's always associated in our minds with the vendimia. But the festival at Santa Eulalia is actually a festival of the chestnuts, a one day festival that had an orchestra this year, and it was on the very day we were leaving, sad to say. The fiestas are so much fun. Orchestras and dancing mostly, but people come from nearby villages and it's an opportunity to catch up on talk.

You can see why these good people have stolen our hearts.

Another moment of great sociability at day's end is gathering at the bench or some convenient group of rocks to just sit and talk. We look forward to this, despite our broken Spanish, and each year we can understand more and more. The picture to the right is from a couple of years ago, as we haven't yet downloaded all of this trip's pictures. It is always such a pleasure to see them again.

 This photo is from our very first fall trip, which coincided with the vendimia. Friends and relatives were helping to make wine -- a wine that is very low in alcoholic content, as they don't add sugar when making it. They've been making it in their families for centuries, and every household has its bodega with a store of wine.




What does have a high alcoholic content is the aguardiente, a clear brandy they distill, similar to grappa in Italy. All the neighbors make it in small quantities for home use, and sometimes they keep it clear, and sometimes they make herbal or coffee liquors from it. But it's always strong: A little goes a long, long way! We have a bottle going back years, because we drink it once or twice only, when the neighbor who gave it to us comes over for meriendas (snacks) a couple of nights before we leave.

This year we had a delightful surprise: I call it "The Night of the Quemada". We invited our neighbors down the road in for meriendas one evening, as they had given us a lovely lunch one day, and they brought the quemada and invited our neighbor across the road too. Quemada is made in a special clay bowl and prepared in a special way: You peel an orange, an apple, and a lemon, and put only the peels in the bowl, along with some sugar, then a generous handful of coffee beans.

Quemada bowl with peels, beans, and aguardiente.

Then you pour a generous quantity of aguardiente over it -- and set fire to it! The fire burns a soft blue with some yellow, and it has to burn for a few minutes so that the drink picks up all the essence of the fruit peels and beans. It's a marvelous aroma! (Our little dining room smelled so good afterwards!) Then it's served in very small cups -- and for good reason!

The fire burned . . .

The fire was set . . .

Everyone was merry . . .

And I was more than a little surprised!

I hope you've enjoyed this little taste of Trasulfe life (pun intended).

Now, a question for you: Where is your dream place you would like to go if you traveled away from your usual walk of life? What would make you return to it again and again?