Rev Eileen Thompson
Mission Partner
Kerala
January 2003
I am settling in to Kerala life and trying to learn some Malayalam though this is proving difficult as my would-be teachers want me to learn EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE! Still I manage the odd ‘conversation’ with many gestures and facial expressions.
The pattern of my life seems to be establishing itself. I usually spend the morning with the Moderator when he is here. There’s a fair bit of contact with people via the Internet and lots of article and leaflet writing. In the afternoons I work with other colleagues on preparations for training workshops. We are planning one on counselling for life for post-confirmation candidates. It is fairly comprehensive though we had a bit of a struggle to get one elderly cleric away from the ideas that the girls should be given tips on cookery!
The interest in a female priest is great. They do not know what to call me. Here the ubiquitous ‘pastor’ of Tamil Nadu is replaced by ‘Achen’, a word that means ‘father’. I get this occasionally though so far no one, thank goodness, has suggested that they call me ‘mother’. But it is not simply the name that creates problems. The questions of a woman taking a communion service or being in the chancel are ones to be dealt with – and there is even a query about what I wear. The cassock or alb of Madras is grudgingly allowed but I was taken off to the leading ecclesiastical tailor in South India to have a ‘proper’ cassock made. It is very grand with silver buttons and I feel very odd wearing it. As there are no other women presbyters here there is no debate on the issue.
The congregations I am linked with are very different and it is interesting to move between them. One is Christ Church, Palla, a small church in the nearby town. There has been a congregation there for some time but five years ago they moved out of the church building they shared with the Mar Thomites and into a small house. They have dreams for a purpose-built church with meeting rooms and space for study and for a medical centre. A splendid hexagonal design is being considered and we await developments. The church members are professional people and are hoping to raise the money themselves.
The other church, St George’s is a church of tea planters up in the High Ranges. They are mainly people form Tamil Nadu who are used to using English and find it more comfortable to worship in that language. This last week I spent a day with some congregation members on their tea estate.
The tea garden is known as a model for the area. The workers have far more rights and privileges than on many of the estates and the mutual respect of worker and planter is very obvious. What impressed me was the range of facilities in comparison with other gardens I have visited. At Parsupari, the workers get two tea breaks a day –natural on a tea estate one would think but in fact highly unusual. There is a crèche for the small children and the school started for the older ones has just been handed over to the Diocese. Indeed workers’ children are encouraged to learn and there is rejoicing when one goes on for higher studies. There are also medical facilities and in the recently opened cardamom plantation the women workers are expected to work shorter hours because of the truly backbreaking nature of the task. In a society like that of Kerala, which is not renowned for worker-employer relations, this is truly something special. It seems to be an attempt to put Christian principles into business practice and it works.