Shillong December 20-21

I began my week-long stay in Shillong by walking around the neighborhood in the morning of Sunday December 20, before returning to the Presbyterian Church of India building, where I met the family of Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau, the administrative secretary, who lives in an apartment in the building. I went with them to the 10:00 church service at the nearby church of the Mizo community, where I met Zovi. After the hour-long service, I chatted with people and then I walked around the city center with Zovi and a friend of hers. We stopped at the Ward’s Lake public park and paid a social call on a family, before ending up at another Presbyterian Church of India building where Zovi lives. We talked about my plans for the next week, and then I returned to my hotel.

Zohmangahi Rokhum aka Zovi or Zohmai

The Presbyterian Church of India building where she lives

My friend Zovi and most of the people I met during my time in Shillong are Mizos, the principal ethnic tribal group in the nearby Northeast state of Mizoram, who are in Shillong for work. I had met Zovi in April of 2006, when I traveled to Mizoram to meet Terini, one of my students at the Henry Martyn Institute during the 2005-2006 academic year, and we stayed in contact. I had wanted to make another visit to the very interesting Northeast states of India, and things fell into place for me to come to Shillong to visit her now. Zovi started working for a women’s outreach program at the Presbyterian Church of India office a few months ago.

A photo from April 2006 in Aizawl, Mizoram. Zovi is in the yellow dress on the far right and Terini is in the red blouse on the left.

The next day, Monday December 21, I decided to check out of my hotel and move into the guest room of the PCI building. My small hotel room was unpleasantly cold; there being no heating and since it faced north, no chance for sunshine to warm the room up in the daytime; overnight lows dropped down close to freezing. Also there was no food available at the hotel, so there was no reason to want to stay there rather than in the guest room at the PCI building, which was warmer, more spacious with a private bathroom and cheaper as well – US$6.50 versus $11 per night. I ate meals a number of times at a nice enough Chinese restaurant up the street and also bought supplies of snacks to eat.

After checking into the PCI guest room, two of the sons of Rev. Pachuau went with me to the Troop Bazaar shopping district in the city center. I walked around and stopped at a Planet M music and video chain store, where I bought a number of movies in video CD format, which at about US$3-4 per movie, is much cheaper than DVDs. I returned to the PCI building at 3:00 to meet Zovi. We went to a nearby friend’s house to join a group paying a Christmas visit to a children’s hospital in the city. However, it turned out that there were no Mizo children patients in the hospital, so we soon returned to the friend’s house for a meal and conversation.

Afterwards I walked around until finally, after having searched for the past couple of days, I found an internet outlet. But I was only able to use the internet for short while before it closed at 6:00. So I walked around until I eventually found another internet outlet, only to have it close at 7:30, shortly after I arrived.

One thing that surprised me about Shillong is the overwhelming prevalence of English. Virtually all shop signs are in English only; only a very few government office have signs in Hindi as well. One sign that amused me was an advertisement for “Indian Made Foreign Liquor”. As was explained to me, that means foreign-type, distilled alcohol produced elsewhere in India, rather than the local varieties of moonshine.

The Indian Made Foreign Liquor sign