Island Travelogue, Part I

I've mentioned bits about the trek to the island villages, but I thought I'd say a little bit about each of the villages we visited.

The previous times I've traveled to the islands, we headed south from Tenali along the western banks of the Krishna river delta and visited all the islands via boat. However, this time a land bridge was available to allow us to cross to the eastern side of the river. This saved a lot of time because there is a small ferry that could bring our car to the first island, where 4 villages are located.

We passed lush banana groves and coconut trees along the western banks of the Krishna river.

If you click here, you will get a satellite map of the delta. In the center are two large triangular islands; the larger island on the right was home to four villages we visited, and the smaller island had one village.

But our first village wasn't on the islands, it was just on the way. Nangegadda is a new congregation meeting in a temporary building with a thatch roof. They are considering either purchasing the land they currently use, or purchasing a larger parcel in a less ideal location.

When we visit more than one village in a day, there is usually discussion between them as to who gets to serve us a meal -- a discussion which I, as a non-Telugu speaker, am happily ignorant of. Nangegadda apparently was not supposed to feed us a meal, but they decided to feed us a "snack" anyway. Assume liberal use of quotations there, as the snack consisted of rice with shrimp, chicken, crab, and fish curries. It was, needlessto say, wonderful, but I wondered if we were going to get such a snack in all the villages, in which case I was in danger of exploding like the overweight guy in Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

This is a very strong Hindu village, with many Hindu temples visible over the tree line. Apparently someone had sabotaged a field belonging to a Christian congregation member, flooding their hay crop with water. They were able to save much of their crop by quickly stacking it on the church land to dry, but it's good example of the difficulty that Christians face here.

Hay crop saved from sabotaged fields.

Next, we were off to the first island! When we arrived at the ferry embarkment point, the ferry was on the other side of the river, allowing us to explore a nearby Catholic tower. On the first level was a statue of Mary, still decorated for Christmas. Several incense ash piles were in front of the statue. On the top level was a statue of Christ on the cross. The terrace was about 40 feet high and provided a terrific view of the river.

Pastor Mike waiting for the ferry.

Pastor Mike and Pastor Shalem.

The ferry could carry about 2 cars, plus several motorcycles and many standing passengers. Our SUV was the only 4-wheeled vehicle on board this trip.

After we crossed over to the island, we visited the congregation at Brahmaichgarimila. This church building is a strong permanent structure to provide safety during the cyclone season. The congregation had been larger before there was some sort of split, the details of which I did not fully understand. But the result was that while some villages have a tiny hut for crowds of people, this church had a very nice sized building for only 25 congregants.

The view from a window facing southwest, in the direction of the Bay of Bengal.

We stayed for a short worship service, including a brief message from each of us (Director Dasari, myself, Pastor Mike, and Pastor Shalem), then took a few pictures and examined some damage to the parsonage caused by the last cyclone. As the shadows grew long, we piled back into the SUV.

Next up was Jinkapalem, a village I had visited in '93 and '01. There, too, we stayed for a short worship service, after which the church elders wanted us to look at a sliver of land next to the church that could host a parsonage. Mike and I wandered down the footpath to explore a bit. But darkness was falling by that point and we still had 2 more congregations to visit, plus a boat trip to the next island. After Paul and Shalem finished discussing the land purchase, we piled into the car and moved on.

(To be continued later.)