Mangalore, India - meeting Lhakpa and KelsangApr 6, 2012
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Me with Kelsang (L) and Lhakpa (R)
St. Aloysius Church
Kari Manjunath Temple
| Today is Good Friday! And we have finally reached land after 4 days at sea!! We are off to the city to meet Lhakpa, my Tibetan Refugee I have been sending money to for her education and Kelsang, who is the older sister of Tsering who I am also educating. Tsering couldn't make the trip as she was still in school. Lhakpa is studying to be a nurse and Tsering is still in high school. Her sister Kelsang has told me that Tsering loves animals and might study something in the animal science genre. Mangalore is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka, and is a major port in the Arabian Sea. It's a historic town, and a well known port in India as early as 6th century AD. Mangalore exports many items including coffee & cashew nuts and is renowned for its red roof tile, cigarettes and seafood. Today I have the pleasure of meeting Lhakpa & Kelsang Dolma. Through much frustration on my part due to a malfunction with my iPhone, (I'm not able to send email, only receive), I finally use the ships computer in order to communicate with Lhakpa about our meeting place and time. It finally comes together and I recognize her immediately from a picture I have. The girls are so charming. We decide to hire Rocky, the taxi driver who has been following us around for 45 minutes, and Rocky takes us to see some of the sites of the city. The first site is a catholic church, which is beautiful,but we choose not to take the time to go inside, next we stop at Saint Aloysius, another catholic church where they are having Good Friday services. The girls are a little uncomfortable, being Buddhist; we look around at the beautiful Italian painted architecture done by the Italian Jesuit priest, Antonio Moscheni and move on to the next site. I was amazed at how many protestant churches were here, all due to the occupation of the Portuguese at one time, as most of the population here is Hindu. Next we go a temple called Kari Manjunuth which is an ancient historic spot dating back to 1068 A.D. We decide not to go in as you have to remove your shoes and the surface is all dirt, so our driver takes us to another temple which was very large and paved with white marble. This one is the Kudroli Gokarnath Temple, which is very large and has many places to pray. after removing our shoes and storing them with a footwear station we entered the grounds. I didn't quite understand what was going on so our guide walked us through it and told us what to do and explained some of it to us, but with the accent and my lack of knowledge in the Hindu world, I'm sure I missed a lot and will have to do some research when I return home! We returned to the City Centre Mall, where Rick got on the shuttle bus back to the ship, I stayed with the girls for another hour. We went inside the mall where they got something to eat and I watched and we talked and got to know each other better. The girls then presented me with gifts, we visited some more and then they walked me down to the shuttle bus, came on the bus to meet some of the other passengers from the ship who were curious about them as I had told many how I was going to spend my day. The girls wrapped me in a white scarf, gave me kisses on both cheeks and off I went on the shuttle bus with tears in my eyes. . . . It was a day I will always remember! |
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