Baptism

Today, after our morning yoga practice and breakfast, we received the news that Katie (one of our team members) had been selected to be the godmother for one of the young orphans at Assisi Illam and the baptism would be today at 11:00am. Sister Rose, the Catholic sister who is the administrator of Assisi had been very concerned that Jasmine (the 3 year old girl who was to be Katie's goddaughter) had not been baptized and as Sister Rose has been in ill health, she wished to see this done. Apparently, it had hard to convince a priest to hold a baptism during Lent, but he was finally persuaded by the fact that Katie was scheduled to leave before Lent was over. We dressed up as much as we could; Katie shown in one of the saris that she had bought while in India. Sheeba then presented us with beautiful necklaces as going away gifts. Pictures were taken, then we headed over to Assisi Illam.

Jasmine (the 3 year old girl being baptized) was adorned in a beautiful white, long dress and white cap. She was even given silver bangles to wear on her wrists and silver bracelets for her wrists. Sister Rose had bought flowers for us, so we had jasmine and roses woven in our hair. After all these preparations, our white van took us to the church. It had to make two trips as it transported not only us, but the small orphans and nuns who were also attending.

The baptism went well. We gathered at the front of the church along with the nuns and other small orphans to watch the priest perform the ceremony. The church was beautiful: white walls and stained class. The priest was a younger Indian man. I didn't understand all the ceremony, but I enjoyed watching the pageantry.

After the baptism, we were once again herded into the van and taken back to Assisi. The sisters insisted that we stay for lunch. Unfortunately, it was the hottest day ever with the highest humidity. I almost passed out as the electricity went out and the fans weren't functioning. However, I was unable to go back to the guesthouse to cool off until lunch was served and eaten. The expression "killing with kindness" seemed appropriate.

I immediately felt better after I returned to the guesthouse and cooled off, though I still felt tired the rest of the day. In the afternoon, Sheeba (Stephen's wife) and Rani (our guesthouse cook) held an Indian food cooking class. I wrote down the recipes; however, I will have to practice as they were unable to give the quantities of each ingredient - they don't measure, they go by sight and taste. The foods we learned to cook were: chicken biriyani, eggplant curry, fried cauliflower, and a yogurt/cucumber sauce.

We were able to rest awhile more before going to SEAM. At SEAM, I was able to get the birthdates of all the children so that I could complete their height/weight charts. At the end of the visit, the children held a going-away celebration for Katie and Joelle who will be leaving tomorrow night. Soon we will all be back home and a new team of volunteers will take over.