I did more exploring of Shillong recently, and I'll be posting a few photos in subsequent blogs to try and capture what I think are great views of the city. I'm staying with some friends in Lower Nongrim Hills and I often cross through Nongrim Hills to get to Laitumkrah where I meet friends for lunch/dinner or language research. The quickest (and least crowded) way to get there by walking is to climb the hill where people live in houses stacked on top of each other, pretty similar to what I saw in Norway. Here's a view looking back down the hill toward Lower Nongrim after climbing past a bunch of houses.
I took that photo before I went to work on the Pnar language spoken in Mowkyndeng village, a few hours away, where another friend was going home for holiday. I went with him for a week to learn what I could about this dialect and begin to document the language. I stayed with a wonderful family of vegetarians who kindly gave me fish and chicken, though secretly I loved their rice and vegetable dishes. Here's a picture of me and the family, along with all the children boarding at their house while they attend the mission school.
Mowkyndeng is probably best known as a mission station for the Catholic church in that area. When Catholic missionaries came to these hills they came directly to Raliang and were given land at Mowkyndeng to build their mission and start schools. Here's a picture of the church at Mowkyndeng, which has a lot of ties to the work of Don Bosco and the Salesians, a Catholic society that he founded. Early in June the relic of Don Bosco's body will be coming to the northeast of India and staying at the church in Mowkyndeng for a bit. I don't know if I'll make it to the viewing, but people from all over the area will be there.
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