Shillong December 24-25

On Thursday December 24, my day started off with relief when Rev. Pachuau was kind enough to go to a nearby taxi station to retrieve my cell phone that had dropped out of my jacket pocket in the van we were in yesterday. After that problem was resolved, I did some sightseeing in the morning. I went with his two sons to the Don Bosco Ethnographic Museum only to find it closed on Christmas Eve. We then went to a butterfly museum, which was open, and then went to the public library, which also was closed.

The Butterfly Museum

After that excursion I walked around the city and went to the main Roman Catholic cathedral. It was recently painted blue and had a nice Stations of the Cross processional way.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral

One of the Stations of the Cross

I also went to an internet place, got some prints made from the photographs of the past two days, and bought some more video CDs at Planet M in Troop Bazaar. That evening I went with Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau’s family to the Mizo church for a service at 7:00, followed by carol singing and a communal meal until 10:45. That evening for me was the highlight of the Christmas holiday.

The next day, Christmas, I joined Rev. Pachuau’s family for breakfast. We then went to a church service at 10:00. After the service ended at 11:15 I picked up the photo prints that I had ordered yesterday and returned to the church in time for the second service at 1:30, which ended at 3:00. After tea I went to Rev. Pachuau’s apartment for dinner, before leaving for a service at another Mizo church in another part of the city at 6:00. The temperatures there were hovering just above freezing. After the service we had tea and then made a social visit. I got another nice shot of Rev. Pachuau and his wife Marovi on that occasion.

Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau and his wife Marovi. Note the charcoal heater at their feet

That evening back at the PCI guest room, I copied onto my laptop computer a number of video CDs of the popular Mizo Gospel singer Lalruotmawi that I had borrowed from Rev. Pachuau. Getting some CDs of her music was one of my objectives in the trip, since my father finds her music particularly attractive. She sings her Gospel songs to American Country-Western-style music; some samples can be found on Youtube. In the Presbyterian Mizo church services I have been to, however, they sing hymns to more traditional Mizo melodies, using the tonic solfa method of notation. The Mizo language is written using the Latin alphabet. One of the few words of Mizo that I have learned is “Lal”, meaning Lord or King, and is used in many personal names.