UC College and Chacko Homes

Since I've been here for kind of a while already, I may as well try to describe a bit about where I am.
I'm going to spend the better part of this year working at Union Christian College. Founded in 1921, UC College is the first Christian college founded as an Indian initiative (all the others-- and there are a lot of them-- were the work of European missionaries). And while it is a Christian college, its spirit of ecumenism is manifest in its acceptance of students and staff of any religion. a college of Mahatma Gandhi University, UCC was visited by Gandhiji (-ji is a suffix added to a name to denote profound respect) in 1925. During this visit, he planted a mango tree in front of the administrative building and signed the guest register "Delighted with the ideal situation. MK Gandhi." The principal (what we would call the President-- except the principal is elected from amongst the faculty for a 5 year term) of the college showed me the actual page in the register. Gandhi had terrible handwriting!
At UCC, I'll be supervised my Mr. Cherian George, the head librarian, as I help to publish the annual college newsletter, research and write up an "official" history of the college, and teach fairly regular communicative English classes as well as getting involved in life on campus however else i can. Cherian is a relatively young member of the staff, and a super-nice guy. He's very patient and accomodating with all of my ridiculous questions and needs, and really goes out of his way to help this poor lost American out.

I'm currently staying at Chacko Homes (KC Chacko was the founder of the college and many nearby institutions, so lots of things are named after him), a retirement home that's a five minute walk from the campus. contrary to what my previous post seems to indicate, Chacko Homes is actually a lovely place, and I'm very happy there so far. I have a small but comfortable room with a private, "Western" bathroom (meaning that there's a toilet that i can sit down on rather than a hole in the ground-- but still no toilet paper!-- and a shower head [of course there's no separate shower stall or bathtub, so the floor of my bathroom is constantly wet. but it's still better than bathing with a bucket of water. and, since Indian people really have no use for hot water- why would anyone want to deliberately make themselves warm??-, showers are very cold in the morning. by the afternoon, the water tanks on top of the roof have warmed up sufficiently for my second shower of the day-- i sweat a lot!!-- to be pretty comfortable.]). the Home is made up of two residential buildings connected by the dining hall. each residential building is square with a central courtyard open to the air, and the old folks spend a lot of time walking laps around the courtyard. the people at Chacko Homes are extremely nice, and are quite used to having a young American around by now, so they are very warm and welcoming, and really go out of their way to make me feel at home.
So while I do get lonely at times, I am really quite happy with where I'll be for the year. and i've started running in the evenings and walking after dinner, so my free time is getting a bit more structure, which i think can only be a good thing!