Antony and his Autorickshaw

Antony is a catechism teacher at Home of Hope and lives nearby with his family. We met at breakfast our first day at the orphanage, started talking about getting around town, and he offered to shuttle us to the shops and attractions. In the end, and quite fortunately for us, Antony took care of us for two days, negotiating horrendous, but typical, roads and traffic and getting us to all the Cochin tourist sites that we could handle. One of the big topics of discussion among locals and in the paper was the awful condition of the roads. We could never, I repeat, never, have driven around India on our own. Far too chaotic, crowded and unregulated. And following a map, especially in town? Forget about it.
Antony proudly hosted Nicholas and me at his home after our second day together. We walked through some narrow streets and eventually alleys to get to his small, pleasant house. It was apparently a big deal for his family to meet westerners. His wife served Nicholas a glass of lemonade and I had a glass of tea. In a conversation later with one of the sisters, she noted that Antony lives next door to a Muslim family and emphasized that the local Muslim's are "good people". Antony's wife was taking care of the neighbor's baby the day we were there.
Like many Keralans, Antony worked for years in the wealthy Middle East--in his case Saudi Arabia or Dubai, United Arab Emirates, I can't remember which now. I also don't remember exactly what work he did, but he said he lived in a company town and the pay was not as good as he expected and he almost never saw his family, so he eventually returned to Kerala. He quizzed us about living and working in the U.S. and Australia, as did Lijo, our driver outside Cochin.
Note that Antony's autorickshaw has a decal of the Last Supper on the windshield. The words across the top are written in Malayalam and say something like Grace of God. (Most Christian pronouncements on the vehicles around town were in English). That's Peter's face in the rear view mirror.
At his home Antony showed us his collection of paper money from various countries. He keeps them in sheets of protective plastic pockets in a photo album. I gave him a crisp Iraqi 20 or 50 Dinar note with Saddam Hussein's picture on it. They were discontinued after Saddam's capture. I bought it for a few dollars at a flea market in Port Stephens, near Newcastle. I also gave him a purple Australian five dollar bill.