Finding ways to stay cool in this heat...

My Last Season in India

While we were in Karnataka at our Indicorps workshop I had forgotten the Rajasthani heat, which had been creeping upwards from 110 degrees Fahrenheit. When we came back, it was nearly 120 degrees during the day, and not far below 100 at night. These days the sun scorches anything it touches, carving cracks into the earth, my skin. I remember the winter here, wearing layers upon layers against the cold. As that cold began to fade, and the weather became pleasant, we were warned about the summer. But the subject of those warnings seemed so far away; May and June would never come—we had loads of time. Now the heat is here, we are in the middle of it. How did it come so fast? We are all begging for the rains to come, waiting for the relief they will bring. It must be only me who is at the same time hesitant, who is not sure she wants everything the rains will bring with them.

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Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking with one of the older village women to the field to cut fodder for our buffalo, I received my first warning from the sky. I felt something small, delicate, and wet land on my forehead. “The rains are coming. Your year is almost over.” I looked up at clouds that looked too white to bear rain. It was only May 29^th—early yet for the monsoon. It was too hot for my brain to process the possibility of an early shower, so I continued cutting grass for Bhensie, and came back to the campus believing the single drop had been in my mind.

Shortly after, Harpreet and I headed to the kitchen to begin cooking dinner. I was mashing potatoes for parantha, when I heard a faint hush sound coming from the quiet evening outside. Harpreet and I looked at each other, too hopeful to say much of anything. Before we could process the notion of a weather miracle, the kitchen door blew open, and a heavy wind carried in a storm of dust—the dry gritty kind that covers everything after nearly eight months without a drop of rain. But the wind felt cooler, as if to say, “All right, here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Then the water fell. The rain came in huge drops that pelted the dry earth, hitting her almost abusively before she drank in the first rain of the year. The storm wanted to be violent, dramatic, but everyone was too blissful in the unexpected rain to treat it with such reverence. The air was cool and tranquil that night, and everyone slept well. I was kept awake though, for a while, for the rain was a bittersweet rain. It was cooling and exciting, but it represented something else also: the nearing completion of my one year in India. When I arrived in India last August, the monsoon was just ending. I have been through all of the seasons here now; I have seen the cycle of every crop. All that is left is the monsoon to bring it full circle.

The following morning everything was as dry as before, with hardly any sign of the early storm. We are back to the oppressive heat; we will continue napping during the hottest part of the day when our brains cannot function. But it is only a matter of time before the real monsoons start. The first rain was a reminder that these last months must be my strongest. The rain will be my ending note here—the end of a year of discovery, of myriad failures sprinkled here and there with successes and acquired wisdom, of growth. My final season in India. So as the water begins to descend upon us, I will be pushing through to the finish line. I will be assessing the impact my work has had here, I will be treasuring the days I have left with my friends, and I will be memorizing the outline of every beautiful tree and rock of my Indian home. I want every piece of effort I leave behind to be meaningful in some capacity. I know I have learned more this year than I could ever hope to teach, but the thought of rain reminds me that I must be giving back. I must give so much that when I walk through the downpour onto my return flight in Ahmedabad, I will be completely empty—all of my energy left back in a small village in Rajasthan, soaking into the wet earth with the rain.

Create a Space to Smile

I am talking to Kalubhai, sitting on a bench outside of my small mud kitchen, and trying to get him to taste the daal I made. His eyes take the sunlight and split it into a thousand pieces, sparkling as he laughs a true, free, unrestrained laugh. I do not put enough chili, into anything I cook. According to Kalu, according to everyone in the village. My foreigner’s aversion to mouthfire spice is his reason for laughter now.

Two hands appear from behind Kalu and cover his eyes. They are jingly-jangly hands, adorned with bangles whose sparkle sounds replace Kalu’s sparkling eyes. Attached to the jingly-jangly hands is a smiling woman, clearly amused by her own subtle creation of mischief in our small corner of the world. Kalu’s hands shoot up, reading the bangles like the books he has taught himself to decipher. Glass or lacquer? How many? What size? Who is she? I know he will figure it out. The men here have become expert at recognizing women by the saris they wear, the bangles, the toe rings. How else will they know? The women’s faces are constantly veiled by their saris—a punishment hidden in the open, a daily toll paid, for being born a girl in a man’s society.

Here, today, on the campus of Hum Kisan Sangathan (Our Farmers’ Collective)—the organization that has become a part of me after eight months of working in Rajasthan—jingly-jangly Basantibai wears no veil. She smiles silently but wholly, for her voice will give away the mystery. A true, free, unrestrained smile. Kalu guesses her name, and pulls her hands off as she steps closer to me, revealing her identity. The silent smile becomes a giggle. They are not husband and wife, not family. They are friends, and here only can they express it. Away from the village’s low, sometimes suffocating ceiling of social norms, written by traditions with origins that no longer hold any significance, yet sneak into every crevice of life like an invisible, inescapable fog. It is as if the gate leading into the Sangathan’s campus (always alive and singing with the sounds of handlooms and school children), serves as a magical barrier to that fog. Here, the ceiling is lifted and everyone, once they walk though that gate, truly acts differently. Here, the soulsparkle can peek through eyes and bangles, unashamed.

From the rocky Rajasthani soil, from mere bricks and branches, a space has been created in this campus that not only protects freedom of expression, but encourages it. For me, this is the most amazing accomplishment achieved by Devendra, the founder of and unfaltering believer in Hum Kisan Sangathan. This campus has become a space with the power to completely free people. I work with the members of the handloom cooperative founded by the Sangathan, and everyday I see how their interactions with each other change in this space—especially those between men and women. There is more laughter, more silliness. Smiles sparkle all day long. This is true with the children who attend the Sangathan’s school as well. During the months leading up to their exams, nearly all of standards eight and ten spent day and night on this campus. Most of the time their noses were in books, breathing in every detail in preparation for their exams. When they had a free hour or two though, they would slip off their shoes and do cartwheels in the library, or sit in teenage circles and whisper things my twenty three-year-old ears were not allowed to hear. These things do not happen in the village, but they happen here.

How long did it take for these magical powers to settle themselves into the walls of the campus, into its trees and water? I imagine it was gradual, like vines creeping, or leaky faucets dripping. Thousands of years of traditions mold the Way of Life in the village, and the mold is hard to break. It must be softened first, and then remolded by a thousand willing hands before a new shape will take place, a slightly different, more tolerant and understanding Way of Life. Over the past thirty years, Devendra and the Sangathan have been the reshapers, and have sewn new Ways into the campus atmosphere. If these freeing powers are only growing stronger, might they break beyond the campus gate? Beyond our village itself? Small changes already have. Acceptance brings change brings possibility. Create a space for people to let their laughter bubble up from the bottom, for them to speak openly to whomever they want, for them to build their confidence, and amazing things will happen. Jingly-jangly, sparkly things that will change lives.

...but there are still pictures

Due to massive lack of internet, I have settled on journaling instead of blogging. However, if you are interested in Indian adventures, feel free to peruse my photos at https://picasaweb.google.com/racheltrip.

Friends and family, I miss you all more than words can say, and look forward to seeing you this September, when I head back.

Jungle Discovery and Latest Photos

My bedroom door slams open. “Didi, Didi, aajao! Didi, jaldiiiii!” (Sister come on! Hurry!) It slams shut again. Two pairs of feet race down the stairs from my room, skipping quite a few steps it sounds like.

I am in the middle of outlining the discussion topics for next week’s co-op meeting when this intriguing interruption occurs, and I don’t really want to stop what I am doing. But I am curious. Usually interruptions happen and the kids want to come into my room. They want to look through pictures or listen to music or play guitar. But this interruption was brief, and ended with the kids running back outside. I look out my window, and see everyone running to the fields. The kids, the co-op members, and even Sudhi and Devendra. I call out asking what happened. One of the kids turns back only long enough to yell “sher.” Lion. I grab my camera, and run to catch up.

Once I meet up with the crowd I get a few details. A lion was spotted in the jungle (which simply means “forest area” in Hindi) by some members of our village. It was recently dead when they found it. We walk through the low lying hill area until we get to the spot where the lion’s corpse was found. It is no longer there, I am told—they moved the body to Haripura, a nearby village. We make the short trek to Haripura and see a crowd of perhaps fifteen people that is rapidly growing. I cannot see the body yet, but I see women covering their faces with their saris, presumably because of the smell in this heat.

I do not know what to think. I have read from several sources that lions disappeared from this area in the 1930s, and so I am doubtful. But this is India, and anything is possible. I make my way close enough to see patches of sandy colored fur with black spots. Could it be an Indian cheetah? Those were once native to this area too. I get closer. I break into the circle. It is not a lion. It is not a cheetah. It is not even a member of the feline family. It is a huge hyena. When I think of hyenas I think of The Lion King and the hyena with Whoopi Goldberg’s voice who, although somewhat menacing, was pretty puny. This hyena was scary, even in its dead-as-a-doornail state.

So the rumor of a lion was a little inflated. I would bet that whoever found the body actually thought it was a lion, since most of the villagers do not know what a lion really looks like. Anyways, it made for a fun afternoon adventure despite the heat, which is back as if our brief two months of semi-winter had never happened.

Latest photos:

First step of the cloth making process-- making the tana, or warp.

Some girls from our group in the sarsu, or mustard, fields.

One of our students with the co-op's cloth, after helping me

photograph some cloth for marketing

School Chale Hum, "Let's go to school"

Beautiful video. Makes me think of all of our kids from Jhiri walking a mile through the farms to school every morning.

Stuck in New Delhi

A week later, I am still in New Delhi. I have become agile, and quite adept at jumping through bureaucratic hoops. I can even keep my cool while doing it. The good news: by tomorrow evening, I should have in my hand permission to stay in India another six months. I may even be granted the OCI status for which I have applied (Overseas Citizen of India), with which I will never need another visa for this country again. The bad news: by the time I get back to Jhiri, I will have missed a week at my project site. That is one week without seeing the kids, one week without chatting with my friends in the handloom co-op. Few of them understand what "visa issues" means, none of them will understand why I was gone a week when I said I would only be gone two days. It has been hard for me to be gone, and I can't wait to get back to my adopted Indian home.

That being said, my time in Delhi has provided me with the chance to reconnect with family (my grandmother's sister's son's family-- that would be my dad's cousin). I have had a wonderful time getting to know them, and pretty much have a new home in Delhi now.

I have completed a large grant proposal for the handloom co-op that I have been working on for some time, and will submit it tonight. If we get it, it will be huge news for us, and something the co-op has needed for a long time. Yesterday, I went to Delhi Haat, a popular market here, and saw several street plays performed by theater groups from local colleges about different social issues. I even got some of their contact info to give to Sumita, my co-fellow working with community theater in Jhiri. I attended a wonderful workshop on education and curriculum development at Manzil, an amazing non-profit for children here in Delhi. The workshop focused on structuring classes so that children get the most out of every minute, while learning in a fun and healthy way. I will be passing everything I gleaned on to Harpreet, my other co-fellow working on overhauling Manthan's (the school run by HKS) curriculum. Thanks to my mom and Kevin for reminding me to make the most out of a seemingly bad situation.

Also, for those of you interested in handlooms and textiles, it IS possible to start weaving your own cloth! Check out this nifty website for building a foot powered loom, and for other tips on sustainable living.

The Real Gypsies

Today I am in Delhi, figuring out how not to be deported from India when my visa expires in less than a month. On the bright side, I am reunited with my family whom I have not seen since I was nine. It has been a very happy reunion.

Two days ago, I was sitting in the fields a couple of kilometers behind HKS, watching about a dozen women from a nomadic Rajasthani group of Marwars steal water from someone's well. As the well was nearly dry, the water was seemingly inaccessible without a motor like those used by the farmers here to extract it, as it lay in a mere puddle 30 feet below. The women however, had devised a system of drawing out the deep water with a bucket. Three ropes were attached to one bucket, and three women stood at equidistant points around the well with their respective ropes. This positioning allowed them to manipulate the angle of the bucket, enabling them to scoop the water up from the puddle in the well and draw it upwards. It seemed to me like they had a lot of practice. They filled perhaps 40 gallons worth of metal pots this way, and then carried them on their heads back to their temporary camps past our farms.

Not knowing whose well was being raided, and not really caring, Sumita and I were simply trying to start up a conversation with these women. Not only was there a small language barrier (we speak Hindi, these nomadic peoples speak a dialect, Marwari), but the women were worried we were going to cause trouble for them with this particular well. They asked several times if this was our well, and if not, whose it was. We were finally able to convince them that we did not care about their stealing this water. Even after this, we conversed very little. Trying to lighten the tension a little, I picked up one of their empty metal pots and tried to carry it on my head. This coerced some laughter from the Marwari girls around my age, and sent the younger girls into hysterics. We were able to ask a few questions about their nomadic life--to us so strange and foreign-- and received surprisingly detailed answers: traveling around all the time is hard work, so no, they do not always like it despite the freedom everyone always assigns to it; they know a lot about the outside world from traveling so much, including that they can get a lot of money from tourists wanting to take their photos; they travel from Jaipur to Bhopal and back every year-- over one thousand kilometers in all; one was married at fifteen, and she hates her husband; some of them go to school, a few even leave the clan and go to college.

I had seen other groups of Marwars traveling before; there must be several large groups that take different routes at different times of the year. They travel in caravans as large as 400 people, and bring with them herds of sheep, goats, cattle, camels, and elephants. It is quite a sight, a caravan perhaps two kilometers long sharing the state highway with Hondas and Tata trucks as it weaves around Rajasthan. They look far stronger than the village people with whom I live. I suppose they eat better. The women are loaded down with jewelry since most of their accumulated wealth is carried with them.

When I studied in Spain a few years back, we learned about the Spanish gypsies who had come from India so long ago, and many of whom still live in southern Spain. I was amazed to see the same physical features-- I mean exactly the same-- in these nomads we were meeting in India as the gypsies I had seen in Spain. If anybody comes across some cool anthropological literature on the history of gypsy migration out of India, send it my way.

Anyways, really amazing experience. The Marwars stayed for two days in the Jhiri area, and then the third day were gone without a trace.

Girl Effect

Many of you may be familiar with this organization already, but I just wanted to post this video because I believe in the message it promotes. While I don't think that simply investing in girls will solve all the world's problems, I do believe it is a giant step towards tapping into all of the untapped human power, especially in rural areas. This is just coming from my experience. As I work with amazing women everyday, I just thought I would share with you all a little bit of what is on my mind 24/7 here... enjoy!

How India Makes Me Think

Anyone who has spent at least a few days in any Indian city will have stories about their chaotic experiences riding in cars/taxis/autos there. Just ask them. On several occasions, my arm has brushed a passing vehicle as it dangles out of my own overcrowded auto-rickshaw, which somehow narrowly avoids collisions left and right. There are few traffic lights (and those that exist are more like suggestions to motorists) and lanes are meaningless. Even driving on the proper side of the road is a bendable rule. Yet somehow I have yet to see an accident since I have been here. How can complicated intersections and streets crowded with cars function without traffic direction? The answer is simple: without lights and signs and lanes as guides, one must actually pay attention to the actions of other drivers around them, and react to those actions.

There are two important things I have learned during my three months in India. The first is that, as chaotic and disorderly as everything may seem compared to the United States, there is a system here—I just don't understand it yet. If I tried to drive a car, or even a bike, through the streets of Ahmedabad or Udaipur, I would certainly cause an accident because I don't understand the sideways glances or the honking patterns. I cannot blend into the system. Another example to demonstrate this point:

The organization for which I am working here in Rajasthan wanted to purchase a water buffalo so that we could have our own source of milk for the schoolchildren and few families that stay on this campus. Alone, I would have no idea where to purchase a water buffalo. I am not able to log onto eBay to see what is available; there are no stores, no formal market even, for the purchase of water buffalo. You have to understand the system. The system for purchasing a buffalo is rooted in knowing which families have how many, where calves have been born recently, and who may be a little short on cash at the moment. If you can navigate this web of information, you will arrive at the answer of where you should ask to buy a buffalo. In the end, we knew someone who knew someone who was selling their buffalo. The system here is not about internet connectivity, or credit cards, or traffic lights, it is about understanding people.

The second thing I have learned while in India is that it is near impossible to operate on autopilot here. In India, I have to think. How many people in the US roll up to a four way stop intersection and hardly glance side to side before continuing onward, knowing that the other cars will also have to stop at this intersection, allowing them to only halfheartedly check for other traffic? I know I have done it. Green lights tell us to go, and so we happily cruise through them without giving a passing thought to cars on the intersecting road. While this system works for us Americans, it enables us to drive without thinking very much. This is a parallel I can draw to entire hours or even days of my life in the states. Perhaps I am so used to the systems with which I grew up, that I hardly have to think about them anymore. Here, a thousand thoughts pass through my head every minute. I have to be constantly aware. When I offer chai to someone and they say no thank you, it does not mean they would not like any. I cannot simply take their answer at face value. I have to dig deeper and insist several times that they take chai before they, quite happily, agree to drink some. This is what people do when it comes to offering and receiving food, and I have come to understand this.

The systems are complicated here, and they are based in human relationships. I like this. In this small Rajasthani village I have practically no internet, no television, no radio. The sounds I hear, information I gather, and decisions I make all come from the people around me. There will be no autopilot this year, no traffic signs to guide me. This year I will become enmeshed in the community around me—and dependent on these people I see every day—like I never have before. And in this way, I will build relationships with people whose language I can hardly speak—yet. I think I could learn to love this system.