×

Fifty years later friendship is just as strong

Submitted Photos Top: Pictured from left are Fredonia resident Joe Piede, Paripooranam and Gershon Gurin-Podlish. Above: Gershon Gurin-Podlish working with young children.

Fredonia man reunited with fellow Peace Corps volunteer

By GERSHON GURIN-PODISH

Special to the OBSERVER

A library, raised from the ruins of an old abandoned warehouse in this small, timeless, and remote village of Seeyapoondi, brought together, through a confluence of history, two former Peace Corps Volunteers who hadn’t seen each other in 50 years.

Fredonia resident Joe Piede and I had last met in New Delhi, India, as we were about to leave the country, having served two years working in villages of that magical country. After our days in the Peace Corps, our personal histories took different paths. Joe became a high school teacher; teaching math and business for 25 years in Western New York. I worked in the visual arts as a sculptor, building several studios in western Massachusetts where I lived for many years.

In addition to teaching, Joe built an import/export business that enabled him to continue his history with and love for India. It was on one of his business trips to India that Joe decided to take a ‘detour’ and visit me. I happened to be in India at the same time teaching in a village school.

Now, half-a-century later, we were to meet again in India, this time in the city of Chennai. From Chennai we were going to travel together to the village of Seeyapoondi.

For periods of time during the past three years, I had been teaching English in a rural primary school. It was at this school that I met a young and dynamic teacher whose name is Paripooranam. Pari is from the village of Seeyapoondi. She had a dream of building a library in her native village, a dream that Pari shared with me. In 2016, Pari and I set about to make her dream come true.

We started with an old grain warehouse in disrepair. Somehow, we collected enough money, $600, to repair the building, put in electricity, purchase steel shelving, lighten the building with fresh paint inside and out, and stock the shelves with a collection of new children’s books. A library had been built. After a ceremony was conducted, the door to the library was opened to the villagers of Seeyapoondi in April, 2017. Who could have foreseen that this village library would be the magnetic force that would bring Joe and me together after 50 years, but it was that force that did so.

I had been asked numerous times by the teachers I was working with whether I was nervous or anxious about meeting someone I had not seen in over 50 years. My response was always “no,” but I could not explain why. And so, the day and the hour came to meet each other in Chennai. When I saw Joe, who had been waiting to greet me in his hotel lobby, the years — the 50 years that we had not met — simply melted away in that instant of our meeting.

The shared Peace Corps experience had built a bond which still held us together over the years. Yes, the years had added weight to both of our frames. And yes, our hair had gone gray, but the Joe that I last saw 50 years ago was the same Joe I was now shaking hands with and embracing. We sat down to a lunch as two old friends who now took up a conversation that had been placed on a shelf so long ago. Joe and I traveled to the school where I was teaching and met Pari. Soon Pari, Joe, and I were on our way to Seeyapoondi to see the library that Pari had dreamed about and had willed into existence through hard work, dedication, and patience.

Upon arriving in Seeyapoondi, we went directly to the library. We found Das, a young villager who had become the library’s official librarian. There were children, sitting on straw mats, reading. While we were in the library, several adults came in, browsed through the small adult collection, and chose books to check out and take home. We were delighted that adults in the village had begun to use the library. This was an added bonus that Pari and I had not counted on happening. The library that had been a goal of Pari’s was now a shining diamond in this small isolated village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

As Joe and I walked through this small village, we shared few words. Rather it was a silence of the past we now shared. Time had passed by this village and in doing so had left a village seemingly untouched. Seeyapoondi represented the “village” that we both had lived in and where our lives had forever changed so many years ago.

Words could not suffice to describe what we were experiencing and so our eyes did the talking. We had been transported back in time. It was only after we had left Seeyapoondi and settled down to a quiet evening that we could talk about the experience of being in Seeyapoondi, of visiting the library, and reliving the feelings we experienced those hours spent in that village.

And so, two former Peace Corps Volunteers, from an era so long ago renewed their acquaintance and in the process became friends. We had shared a profound experience as Peace Corps Volunteers and now we had been brought together by a young village woman and by a little library that shines like a diamond in the village of Seeyapoondi.

Pari continues to use her education and her leadership to better the lives of the people in her village. She now wants to build a study center, complete with computers, so that the village children can have the same educational opportunities as children living in the cities. She has been offered a plot of land in Seeyapoondi so that she can build the study center, but she now has to raise funds to build this center. If you would like to make a contribution to the building of this study center, you can do so by donating to Asha, an Indian organization that has helped and continues to help Pari with her work in Seeyapoondi.

To donate, please

1. type into your computer Asha for Education 2. click on Our Projects 3. scroll down and click on ‘Tamil Nadu’ 4. click on #13—-Asha Trust—Project Thulasi 5. click on Donate to this project

Thank you for your donation.

Joe and I had made a journey together. A journey that started when we were two young men beginning an adventure as idealistic Peace Corps Volunteers. Now, we had made a journey that spanned more than miles and more than flight hours. This journey back to India and to the village of Seeyapoondi had renewed our emotions; our feelings for the country we had served and which, in response, had given us so much in return. A circle had been completed. One of many circles that one wants to complete in a lifetime.

Joe and I had completed an important circle and now it was time to step back and enjoy the rest of the journey.

Gershon Gurin-Podlish, Boston, Massachusetts

Starting at $2.99/week.

Subscribe Today