INDIA TRIP PART 10: The church, school, and hospital built by family – July 31 – August 3, 2011

Over these 3 different days, it was very special to see the efforts of our relatives that are bringing social welfare to so many people in the area!


31st of July
We went to the Kompanal church just down the driveway and across the street. This is the church that Amma’s grandfather built (the pastor even mentioned that in the service). The 2 hour service was all in Malayalam and was lot of singing, and the sermon was more than 40 minutes long.
When reading (in kind of a singing way) everyone was sitting, and then when singing the hymns everybody was standing up (it is opposite in Denmark). The church was divided so women were sitting in one side of the church and men in the other side. Shoes were kept outside. The women were covering their head with their shawls.

In the evening we went for dinner at Becky Kochama, where all the boys played soccer and we watched the fireflies glowing in the dark.

2nd of August
We went to visit the Palikoodam School that Mary Roy (Amma’s father’s sister’s daughter) started. Unfortunately, we did not get to meet her, but we did get to meet Amma’s other cousin, Jayanthi Kochama who took the bus into Kottayam from Mepral to visit with us.  Mary Roy's daughter-in-law showed us around for the first part, and then Reba, Cherian's second cousin, who is a teacher for the 5th grade took us around for the rest.

Sitting quietly in kindergarten

It was very interesting to see the school! It is a private school. It has 460 students, grade K-12 with one division of each grade except from two. That makes an average of 31 kids in each class, with more kids per class in the older classes than in the younger grades. We saw especially grade K, 1, 2, 3 (preparing for a singing competition), 4 (had English story time) and 5 (had math), 6 (had swimming), 11 (had computer class learning java programming) in action.

Sitting at low tables in 2nd grade

The kids were very disciplined, and it looked like they all were very interested in what was going on and did not misbehave at all. The shoes and bags were lined up very orderly. How they did that we don’t know?? The kindergarten teacher explained that they divided them into groups in the breaks (one group playing in the sand, a second group playing with costumes, third group playing outside…) and then after the break they were all refreshed to learn more.

The 1st grade class even sang a song for us!  Check it out!

According to the kindergarten teacher, the teachers never really have a break, not even when the kids have playtime or a recess (while at schools in Denmark, teachers must have breaks that they take when the kids have recess).

The small kids K-4 were sitting on the floor with small tables. Frej and Kiran got to join the 6 graders swimming class in a covered swimming pool that is used for state tournaments. In the afternoon the kids have activities like karate or music. It looked like they made lots of little projects with art (i.e. cutting out raindrops and writing about what they can do in the rain).

Hostel room

They can bring their lunch or buy it there. 80 of the kids live in the hostel with lots of beds in one room. They could join the hostel from 8 years if they live too far away.

Lunch served in clay pots

For the relatively small amount of students at the school, it had lots of space and nice facilities. It was a wonderful learning experience for us to be there, so we thank Mary Roy for the opportunity to visit and for the wonderful lunch she gave us afterwards!

3rd of August 2011
On August 3rd, on a visiting trip south of Aymanam, we saw the hospital built by Amma’s mother’s brother. It is a private hospital with rooms for only 2 patients, and is now run by Amma’s cousin (the founder’s son).


We were there to visit his wife Susheela Kochama, as she just had knee surgery.  It was a very small, quiet place with simple facilities that are much different than western hospitals (example: we saw an old wheel chair, old beds without automatic elevation etc.).