Our 15 minutes of FAME!!!

Everyone says you have it once in your life...15 minutes of fame!!! Well, we have just had ours.

We have been in the state of Manipur, in northeastern India since Thursday, February 27. We have had an amazing time here, which we will give details about in our next entry. But for now, we would like to tell you about just the last few days, since it is fresh in our minds!

To give you a picture of where we are: we took a 1 hour plane ride east from Calcutta on Thursday, flying over Bangladesh, to the northeastern state of India called Manipur. Because Manipur has had some tribal conflict in the last few years, you cannot come here unless you have a special permit, which we were fortunate to get because Khumi's father is the Minister of Power for the state of Imphal (in other words, he is HIGH up!) Khumi is the one who began Lydia Children's Home, the orphanage which is connected with Lydia Home in Chicago. She is our contact here, and has been wonderful!! More about Lydia Children's Home in the next entry...now for our last 2 days!

Khumi's father was the 'chief guest' at the 50th anniversary, Golden Jubilee Celebration at the Central Headquarters of the Y.P.A. (Young Paite Association) in Lamka, Manipur. The YPA is a philanthropic organization, a mix between the Salvation Army and the Lions or Rotary Club. They help people in need throughout the state of Manipur. So, we were invited to go along with Mr. Tonsing and his wife to enjoy the festivities. No big deal, eh? Well, we met at 8am at Khumi's family's house in Imphal (the capital of Manipur), and were whisked away in a 5 car motorcade: first, a military jeep (with 5 armed military personnel), Mr. Tonsing's special car (a 'Ambassador', with tinted windows, a siren, and flag), a second military vehicle, our jeep (with tinted windows, of course), and a last military vehicle. Once on the main road, we picked up another military vehicle, and the chief of police for the state in his official car. This was the way we traveled for 1 hour to the town of Lamka, where the celebration was to be held.

We arrived at Khumi's cousins' house, in time to change and make our appearance at the celebration by 10am. This is where it got a little stressful for Alison...Khumi had given her a traditional Paite wrap-around skirt to wear. But they don't use buttons or snaps, or ties. They just wrap the skirt around and tuck it in. So, Alison did that, and thought she had it nice and tight, but as soon as they arrived at the celebration (via the entourage again), she realized it was very loose. So, we stepped out of the vehicle to the staring eyes of at least 1000 people, 4 video cameras, and many other cameras. Everyone was already seated in the huge auditorium, and we had to walk with the 'chief guest' and wife, etc. down the middle aisle. The whole time, people were staring, clapping, singing, and Alison was clutching her skirt so it wouldn't fall off!

So we made it to our seats in the front and sat through the Opening Ceremony of the 2 day event. We didn't understand the majority of it, since it was not in English. Alison sat there VERY nervously for a long time, thinking they would be called upon to greet everyone, and that she would have to walk on stage with her skirt falling off. But, the saving grace was that we were called out of the tent for a television interview first! That gave Alison the opportunity to adjust her skirt, and it stayed on the rest of the day!!! We returned to the auditorium, and continued to listen attentively (to a language we did not understand a word of!!!) The only part we understood was when Mr. Tonsing gave his address and asked 'the guests from Chicago to please come up on stage.' Which we did! That was not the only time in the 2 days we were called upon...more later. We went up on stage, waved, and sat back down. While up there, we looked out at the crowd and saw a gazillion faces, all with brown hair and olive skin. Once again, we were the ONLY foreigners in a crowd of about 1500 people!!! This made us the honored guests for the whole celebration!!!

We returned for the evening session, which was quite interesting: a fashion competition and modern dance competition. The fashion show consisted of two parts: first a traditional dress component, followed by a modern dress component, where the designers had to use the traditional cloth colors and patterns to create modern clothing. The different tribes each have different color pattern for their wrap-around skirts, and so the modern clothes were very creative and some were really beautiful. The fashion show was split in half by the modern dance competition, which was true evidence of GLOBALIZATION at it's finest. The 10 dance groups were teenagers, mostly girls, doing dances in skantily clad outfits, to Britney Spears and the like. We could have been anywhere in the US, instead of one of the most remote states in India! This part of the evening was summed up in the words of the guy sitting next to Trevor who leaned over and said to him, 'See! We get satellite TV too!' Sad! Anyway, it was quite entertaining and we had lots of laughs! The next night they announced the winners, and asked the winning dance to do another dance...with the YPA board members (about 15 men dressed in suits) joining them on stage to dance as well! REally funny!

Day 2 of the celebration was full of more speeches by other 'chief guests'. When we arrived (a little late) the announcer made sure that he gave a warm welcome to 'our two guests from Chicago' and we had to stand an wave back to the crowd again! We watched the cultural dance competition that morning, which was a little more tame than the modern dance competition, and was really interesting to watch.

That afternoon, we had fun visiting some rural villages, where we also had some interesting experiences. Some of the children in one of the villages found an animal in a tree and decided to go after it to present to us. After about 20 minutes of climbing trees and hitting at it with a stick, they retrieved it and brought it us on a stick (alive still, although slightly in shock!) We're still not exactly sure what kind of animal it was...a cross between a monkey and a small bear/sloth. All the kids were gathered round and very excited to get their pictures taken, and doubly excited to view the pictures since we have a digital camera. We also enjoyed chewing on some sugar cane that a local farmer cut for us and peeled (for those who don't know: you suck the sugar cane juice out and spit the pulp. It is pure sugar in liquid form...yum, yum!)

We returned for the closing ceremonies that evening, and once again, because we were late, we had to parade down the middle aisle to our front seats, while everyone stared at us! We were then taken completely by surprise when they invited us back on to stage and gave us 2 blankets with the native pattern on them! (The evening sessions were even more packed, and so they had rows of seats outside with a huge jumbo-tron video screen of the stage. So we were seen by many, many people, including the local cable TV station which broadcast the whole ceremony!!! Hopefully, we will get a videotape of it to share with you all!) After the ceremony ended, we were once again the center of attention, as many wanted to meet the 'Americans' and get photos with us. At least 10 different groups of people asked us, and we stayed an extra 20 minutes for a photo shoot. Who knows how many photo albums we will make it into throughout the state of Manipur!!!

The ceremony ended yesterday, and today we spent the morning in the town, visiting a few places such as the hospital, church headquarters, and a Grace Bible college. While at the college, the principal asked Trevor to come be a guest-lecturer any time he would like (not Trevor's gift, but those of you who would like to, they are in need of ANYONE to come do a few weeks of teaching!)

We left Lamka the same way we came: by entourage. Trevor sat in the back, with 2 other guys, along with dead deer in a bag (possibly our dinner tonight?) Alison refused to sit back there with Bambi!

That's it for now...the adventures continue! WE will tell you more about our other days in Manipur next time!

Pray for us, that we would stay healthy (Alison is at the end of another bout of stomach sickness...), and that we would hear from God regarding our future.

Love,

Ali and Trevor