Feb 22 - 23 Shillong Churches & schools, Don Bosco Museum

Feb. 22 Morning finds us back at the Bonnie Guest House in the market district of Laban, the southeast village of Shillong. When we first arrived here on Feb 3, we thought it was marginal and peculiar: now it seems luxurious. We are able to go to the internet cafe, shop for Lifebouy soap and dark chocolate. There are even signs for the roads (which are largely in English). Here note the Hindi comes first on the National Highway 44 sign – also for Tourists, as most NEI Indians speak a Khasi dialect and have only three years of Hindi at grade 6-8, English from Grade 1 on, if they have schooling at all.
Gail visits with Lur Mangkara Bashi Rani, great grandson of H. K. Singh, and a lovely fellow who Jim has decided is very intelligent – he laughs at all Jim's jokes. We are invited to address him as Mang. (All Khasi vowels are short, BTW, and accents on second syllable - wreaks havoc with iambic pentameter).
Lindy and Rev. Derek Pariat at the Nonthymmai church in the 'New Shillong' section on the road toward Jowai. Gail photo: Jim is busy with posting blogs.
Mang and Lindy at the Laban church – Peter Morales will preach here Sunday.
The church is settled on a hillside in a residential area and has a school and an older church building which serves as a community hall. Gail visits two other schools. The Maragaret Barr Memorial School is thriving (shown), and the other is in deep depression, on the edge of failing: There are four groups of teachers with no single leader, each paid by a separate entity. Lindy and Gail will report back to the UUNEI ('The Union') Education Committee, who groan in recognition – the problems show the great weaknesses in the Indian system and the isolation of Meghalaya and the other North East states: the government paid teachers are federally paid, some under a scheme that pays only if the year end budget allows. Yikes!
The afternoon of the 23rd we have time to wander and stumble on the Shillong chapter of the Brahmo Samaj, the 19th century Hindu movement that brought H. K. Singh into contact with the Unitarians in Boston, and gave us Tagor. We were headed to the Police Bazar, the center of commercial activity in Shillong, and thence to the Don Bosco ethnic Museum. Of Don Bosco we know nothing, save that the extensive Catholic holdings in Shillong are all named after him. We learned much about Khasi, Jaintia and Karbi cultures (the Unitarian areas). Gail gets a book about Khasi tribal ethics which makes it very clear why the Khasi took to Unitarianism. Look forward to sermons on how much we can learn from them. Oh, note that the Police Bazar has given Gail a new hat, as she lost her trademark hat of 15 years.