A Celebration!

I woke up this Saturday morning with NO PLANS! I’ve forgotten what this feels like....along with how ice tastes, what rain feels like, and cookies...mm...cookies. *SIDE NOTE*- Ovens are very rare here. Most things are cooked on stove-tops....alas...no warm cookies. 

Anywho, I came downstairs to a newly decorated living-room to do some reading. My family changes the curtains and mat-coverings every week....and each new set of decorations is more colorful than the last. (See pixilated-photobooth photo below.)

My host-mother came in and sat down with me and told me that today they have a lot of “work” to do...which meant cleaning and preparing food. I asked if there was any specific reason for this, and she said that today is her “sister-in-law’s day.” I asked her to clarify and she explained that 20 years ago, Chandra-ji’s sister passed away during childbirth while carrying two children. This was not the answer I was expecting....which threw me off and made me feel incredibly sad. She saw that I was really affected and she said “No, no, no, no, we’re remembering her! It’s not a sad day.!”

She said that today, they plan on cooking her favorite foods, including paneer. So, we having paneer for dinner tonight along with some of her other favorite dishes. My host-mom also told me that I’m not allowed to go in the kitchen today because it’s been thoroughly cleaned and is only meant to be used by the family for cooking her meal. I’ve grown to accept the rituals and customs that happen here, whether or not I understand them.

My host-mom also said that every year on this day, they give clothing to two children, usually beggar children, as a way to remember her children. She then told me a story about her brother who lost his dog to a fatal snake bite and now every time he eats, he gives two chapati to a street dog. 

I asked her if it is normal for people here to celebrate deaths just as much as birthdays (and birthdays, they DO celebrate...extravagantly.) She said that they do. I told her how in America, many (not all) people are afraid to talk about death and avoid even bringing it up, let alone celebrating it. 

I find it really beautiful that my host-family does all of these things in remembrance of their loved ones, people or animals. Not only is it beautiful and poignant, but it seems like it’s a really healthy way to deal with loss, something that we all inevitably experience at some point.

New Things to See!

A few of my girl friends and I met up to go try on saris. A sari, to my surprise, is just a piece of cloth. It's made into a dress by lots of intricate folding and pinning. I have yet to buy one....they range from $30 (2,000 rupees) to upwards of $1000 (50,000 rupees) depending on the quality of cloth and detail of embroidery. 

Some pastoralists grazing their herds of sheep and goats in Laporiya village in Rajasthan. 

Solar panels cookers made by rural women in Tilonia village at the Barefoot college in Rajasthan. Illiterate and semi-literate women know how to make these machines from scratch without any scientific knowledge. These metal-boxes in front of the panels collect the heat and are used as stoves to cook on. It is cost effective because it requires no fossil fuels to purchase to use. It is more environmentally-sustainable because it requires no firewood to be collected and burnt (an already rare resource in Rajasthan.) It is hygienically-sustainable because it provides a clean environment for women (who mainly do the cooking) to work. Indoor air pollution from burning wood in confined kitchens with little air circulation is a big problem for these village women as it causes health problems (asthma and other respiratory issues.)  It is a time-efficient system because it allows the women to multitask and engage in other productive activities rather than 1.) having to stay in one place to tend the stove fires or 2.) having to spend a lot of their time collecting firewood for the stoves.

These cooks automatically track the sun throughout the day and move to get as much sunlight as possible. The coolest!

A woman demonstrating how much heat the cookers generate. She lit a piece of newspaper on fire in 5 seconds. According to the woman, the solar-cookers require less time to cook foods than pit fires do.

Women constructing some of the parts of the solar cookers. They're able to make these complex structures without any formal engineering knowledge. 

This part of our "tour" was probably the most interesting. This photo is of college's raining school for women from all over the globe (Sudan, Haiti, Iran, Guatemala) to learn how to make solar panel parts to generate electricity. Barefoot college identifies communities in other countries that don't have adequate electricity and reaches out to women from these places to come to the college to teach them technical skills for 6-months. With these new skills and tools (mainly focuses on solar-power electricity,) the women leave the training with the capacity to return to their communities and train others to help provide electricity for their communities. 

Cotton loom.

The famous Gandhian charkha wheel! During India's fight for independence from the British Raj in the 1940's, Gandhi stressed the importance of self-reliance among all Indians. He wanted all people to use the charkha as a means to unite the country with this one goal- self sufficiency. 

Upcycled* paper decorations. They also made toys, notebooks, and containers from waste products (matchbook boxes, toothpaste containers, newspapers.)

* Upcycling is different from recycling because the waste-products aren't changed into other forms, they're wholly-integrated into a new product. It's a really creative way to make use of your waste!

The process of making sanitary napkins. Sanitation and hygiene is a key focus of Barefoot college. 

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Each woman makes over 300 sanitary napkins a day. They provide them to the college community and also sell them to local distributers for profit.

Cotton bale for sanitary napkin-making.

More Visuals!

My digital camera has become covered in sand and somehow got waterlogged...so here's a few photos my fellow students have taken from the past 2-weeks.

Group photo from the Stateless citizen refugee camp in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. We met with a group of 30 Hindu refugees from Pakistan who came to India because of religious persecution from Muslim fundamentalists with the hope for better life over here. This settlement was set up by an organization that works with the refugees to try to get the Indian government to grant them citizenship. Without citizenship status, they cannot get real jobs and cannot travel anywhere outside of the settlement legally. It was a really overwhelming experience, to say the least. Some of the men had been living in the settlement for over 50 years, still without citizenship-status. The process is expensive and lengthy and the Indian government makes it difficult for anyone of Pakistani ancestry to gain access into country because of years of internal suspicion and tension between the two countries. The saddest part was that a lot of these men's families were still back in Pakistan...one man asked us, "Why can you as Americans come here so easily, when my family has been struggling for years to come into the country?" 

Scenery around Bikaner. It was SO dry. 

Our academic director, Tara-ji, introducing our group to the group of stateless citizens at the refugee camp.

Rooftop dinner at our hotel in Bikaner. 

Back-massage cirle in the pool at our hotel in Jodhpur. 

Henna done for us  by women and girls at the URMUL Trust's girl's college. 

A RIDICULOUSLY ornate room at the Junagarh Fort in Bikaner.

Junagarh Fort, Bikaner.

Woo group photo at the fort!

Sweets and Sweeping

Every day, I see new things I haven’t seen before. And every day, I adjust and try to make sense of them, get my footing and move on...only to be caught off-guard by something else. Yesterday, getting out of my rickshaw to go home, I noticed the streets were significantly more busy that usual. There seemed to be some kind of street fair or festival going on. The road was packed with people and lined with clusters of sellers selling various items on mats (there were at least 30 carts ALL with elderly woman sitting cross-legged on their carts amidst pyramids of motichoor sweets (see photo below.) There was one mat covered with KNIFES...and one little boy was standing barefoot walking across the pile! Anddd there were tattoo “parlors” (for a lack of a better word.) Rather, men covered in ink held small battery powered needles and sat on blankets...just dishing out tattoos! No biggie. Among other things being sold there were bulk selections of flip-flops, nail clippers, puppets, spoons, and henna powder, and big posters of Indian babies wearing posing wearing fluffy costumes? Needless to say, I didn’t really know what to do with all this sensory overload. 

sugarsugarsugar!

When I eventually made it back to my house, I was greeted by my host-family’s “vacuum-boy” (again, for a lack of a better word.) He comes once a week to vacuum the rooms and clean the family’s car. My host-dad said that he was waiting for me to get home so he could clean my room. The vacuum boy isn’t allowed in my room unless I’m there, so I had to awkwardly lead him upstairs and sit on my bed fumbling around on my laptop as he vacuumed my pretty-spotless floor. I felt so uncomfortable with the whole situation. 

Which brings me to this point: Paying people for household labor is not reserved for the “rich” in India. Middle-class families usually employ at least a few people to do various jobs around their house. I asked my host-mom why they have people do work for them (when they are fully-capable of doing it themselves.) She said that since there are so many poor people, it is important to give them opportunities to make money for themselves. This is entirely different from the my American outlook about paying people to do work for you.

I’d consider my family (biological family) to be part of the comfortable American middle-class. We have two cars, can take vacations, are able to buy the expensive orange juice, and are all college educated. Despite my comfortable upbringing, we never paid anyone to do manual labor for us (landscapers, cooks, cleaning people.) My sister and I grew up mowing our yard, taking out the trash, and doing our own laundry....sometimes.. (I’m sure my mom may have a different take on that.) Either way, we were taught to be self-sufficient and be responsible for our things. To me, I associate only upper-middle/upper class families who “can afford to do that” as the only ones who have pair-labor workers in their home.

I would also consider my homestay family here in India to be a “middle-class family” although indicators of “status” differ from American indicators. (While I don’t consider myself to be “rich” by American standards, I am definitely $rich$ here. The fact that I paid money to come here makes that pretty clear.) My homestay family has 1.) a Dhoti, a clothes washer who comes every day and hand-washes our clothes in our bathroom. The family pays him Rs. 400 per month for each person’s clothes. That’s $8 a month for one person’s clothes daily.  2.) A cook- my host parents said that because they’re so busy with their music school, they don’t have much time to cook for themselves anymore. Their cook comes every day at 11:00am to prepare lunch and comes back again at 5:00pm to make dinner. I’m not sure how much they pay her, but my host-mom said that she is a “poor woman.” 3.) A scrubber/sweeper- this young-looking girl comes every Sunday and gets on hands-knees and scrubs the entires house down. Last time she was here, I was sitting on my host-parents’ bed watching a Hindi soap opera with my computer on my lap drinking chai while this 20-something year old girl was crawling on the floor, mopping with a dishcloth. Again, this whole situation made me feel REALLY uncomfortable. Even though this is a normal-occurrence for my host-family, I still am having trouble coming to terms with the stringent differences between people’s social-statuses and how they are treated because of it. Even the cook takes her shoes off a few steps below where the family places theirs. 

I’m not one to draw any overarching conclusions here, and I’m certainly not one to judge the ways of a culture that’s been doing it’s thing for thousands of years...but there is definitely a residual system of caste-oppression that is responsible for the differing social statuses among Indians.

Even though caste-discrimination and “untouchability” has been illegal for over 50 years, this system is still deeply-rooted in the Indian subconscious. Some people I’ve met told me their caste within 10 seconds of meeting them- “My name is Blank and I am a Brahmin.” How am I supposed to respond to that? What does that even mean? Some people greet each other with their “caste-specific” greeting. Others don’t really talk about it, like my family. I had to ask them if they associate with their caste or not. They said that they do, but it doesn’t seem like they define themselves by it. They haven’t brought it up since. Caste is a touchy subject to talk about. It seems that Indian society is trying to move past and distance itself from it. However, even if “caste-talk” is swept under the rug, that woman with the Shudras (lower caste) last-name is most likely the one to end up sweeping that floor. 

Skool Wurk

Back in Jaipur for the next week and a half! This doesn't sounds like a long time, but our program travels a whole lot. In this 15-week semester, we have 2 one-week long excursions followed by 1-eight day workshop where our group is split up (so sad!) into 4 different locations (4-5 students in each group lead by 2 staff members.) The purpose of the workshop is to spend more one-on-one time in a particular setting to have the chance to build a rapport with the people and get to know the organizations that work there. I'm going to a village called Ogna outside the city of Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan (population 2,000!) Apparently this village is a prime example of sustainable agriculture. It also is a good example of a community that practices Gandhian economics of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. I chose to come here because the organization we'll be working with has a prominent focus on women's rights and empowerment (the subject of my Independent Study Project.) I want to get a head start on interviewing women in rural villages to gain a basic understanding about what their roles in their communities are, as well as their levels of confidence, autonomy, and empowerment in a community that will most likely be very traditional in terms of gender roles (as is the case in a lot of Rajasthan...which I've been realizing more and more is one of the most "conservative" states in India...especially in terms of gender-inequity.) Another group is heading to Mumbai to study urban development and waste planning. Another is going to Dharamshala, and another is going to the state of Sikkim in the northeast part of the country (I opted out of this choice because I plan on going to Sikkim for my independent study project for 2 weeks)...where I plan on spending time in a rural village conducting interviews with women to contrast THEIR roles in their communities with the women in Rajasthan. Sikkim is well-known as being egalitarian with a history of women holding power positions in their communities. I'm fascinated by the gender-dynamics here in India because they are SO different from in the states. However, after spending some time here and doing my research on women in India, I've found that the stereotype of the passive, subordinated, selfless Indian woman is not the norm. I want to debunk this stereotype by (hopefully) finding evidence in Sikkim that there ARE places where Indian women have a stake in the decisions made in her household, her community, and in her government. Should be fun!

SIDE NOTE: I read in an article about conducting interviews that women with short hair statistically are able to have better access to village resources and information because they are seen as being more "masculine." Hooray for patriarchal norms working in my favor??

Commonsense Choices?

Being in a different culture with problems that differ from the problems I face back home, I've been exposed to the solutions that people here have created to deal with these problems (water scarcity, food scarcity, air pollution, disease.) I've been forced to reexamine my own consumptive habits and have been questioning whether the choices I make back home are a result of my personal preference ? or the availability and abundance of resources I have available to me that make my choices possible.

These are some valuable lessons I've learned just from existing here, from eating at restaurants to using the bathroom (sorry, everyone does it.)

1.) Toilet paper and other paper products (paper towels, napkins) are extremely wasteful and if we made the effort, we could easily adjust and do without them. Firstly, many eastern toilets* do not have an automatic flushing handle or any toilet paper available. There’s usually a small plastic bucket next to the toilet that you fill with water from a valve near the toilet. You use the water from the bucket to clean yourself. It takes a little getting used to, but like everything else, with a little time, you get used to it. Since there’s no flushing device, you fill the bucket up with however much water is necessary to...flush. You use only what you need to get the job done, without quickly using and throwing away toilet paper.

I’ve also been using bandanas (that I previously only used as a hair accessory) for many other purposes. It serves as a hand-towel after washing hands (no need for paper towels.) I use it as a face mask when I’m riding in a rickshaw to avoid the gas fumes and dusty air. I pack snacks in it. And I’ve invented a way to wrap it into a hat with a lid to avoid the sun!

* "Google search” what an eastern toilet looks like to get a better idea about how this whole thing works!

2.) On our ride home from Jodhpur after our excursion, we stopped at Mcdonald’s for dinner. I tend to steer away from the Golden Arches back in the states, but here, I thought it'd be worth my 100 rupees to give some of the regionally-specific menu options a try. I ended up with a spicy-paneer wrap, a fried tofu-like patty, with quite the kick. It really wasn’t anything outrageous, but definitely spicier than anything any American Mcdonalds would dare to have on their menu.

What really caught my attention was a clear plastic box I spotted as we were walking out. It read, “Please return your unused condiment packets.” WHAT A NOVEL IDEA! But, in the grand scheme of inventive ideas, it’s not really at all, it’s just common sense. Doesn’t it make sense to return something you didn’t use so another person can make use of it in the future...instead of thinking...”Whoops, I took too many honey-mustards, guess I’ll just throw it out?” 

Not only does this produce less waste to have to dispose of in a landfill (or the more likely case, adding to the piles of garbage that are growing in the slum areas of cities.) It also means that Mcdonalds saves money....not that Mcdonald's has much incentive to be frugle in its spending, but they wouldn't need to buy as many condiment packages since they’re not being thrown away! Seems like a win-win to me?

The box in this McDonald’s was about half-full with unopened, unused condiment packets. I was about to dump my extra ketchup packets in the garbage, but shuffled through my paper bag of trash to stick them in the box. It took 10 seconds to do, but it saved someone a little bit of money, saved a little bit of waste from being produced, and probably made someone’s order of fries a bit more tasty. 

3.) I’ve noticed that all of the SIT staff drinks their water in an interesting way. They tip their water bottles without touching them to their mouths. I’ve tried to do this a few times, and spilled water all over myself...usually in very public places with a lot of people around.) I asked Rama-ji, the home-stay coordinator why it seems like a lot of people do this. She said that if you touch your mouth to your bottle, you get your germs on it. (Understandable.) She then said that if you don’t touch your mouth to your bottle, you can share your water with other people without spreading germs. (Also makes sense.) But, why does the staff share water if they all have their own bottle? She said that there is often water scarcity in Jaipur (and in many other places in India, particularly in rural areas.) So knowing that the staff’s water bottles are germ-free and thus fair-game to drink from, it ensures that all of the staff always have some source of water to drink from, especially handy if they don’t have any of their own. 

While in America, we’re fortunate to not have to worry about water scarcity in the grand scheme of availability, who knows when you might get parched and not have your own bottle available? If we drank the way my SIT staff does (and a lot of other Indians I’ve seen do,) (although, it’d take a little practice...you have to get the right angle down,) we would always have some water available to share without having to say “I’m sick, you probably shouldn’t drink this.” Sharing is caring at it’s finest!

Happy Birthday Gandhi-ji! ...Bikaner Excursion Day 2

I began reading Gandhi's Autobiography: My Experiments with Truth, today...not knowing that it was is birthday! We sang happy birthday on the bus and were handed candies by the staff in honor of him.

The past two days have been some of the most "new experience" packed days thus far in India. Right now, we're at Hotel Desert Winds (a very ritzy hotel in Bikaner, Rajasthan, a city 330 kilometers northwest of Jaipur.) I can definitely see what my tuition money is going towards. The staff treats us so well! I'm in a nice hotel room with one other girl with an air conditioner and TV and the SOFTEST sheets ever!

Today, our schedule was set to travel 2 hours north to visit a village where the non-profit organization, URMUL Rural Health, Research, and Development Trust  (Their website here!) works and provides services to. URMUL provides intervention services to people living in these harsh, isolated regions of the northern Rajasthan Thar Desert area. They provide pre-natal care and education for women, spread awareness and educate local people about how they can take advantage of their legal rights that they otherwise may not be aware of (like the Right to Education Act that states that every Indian child is entitled to free, formal education.) They've created initiatives to get children enrolled in school (like sporting clubs, singing/dancing competitions, and vocational training schools.) 

We left the hotel at 9:00am, and were joined by 10 teenage girls from the local Bikaner Girl's College (we're going to their campus tomorrow.) We split up and sat next to the girls. They spoke better English than I spoke Hindi, so we talked in English. The girl I was next to was really friendly, and we told each other about our families and interests. I told her that I like to sing, and she told me to sing something for her. I did, and she gave me an ear-bud of her MP3 player and showed me some of her music, in Hindi of course. It was really catchy. I'm really starting to enjoy Indian music, particularly Bollywood songs. We talked for a bit longer, and she asked me if I was married. (Young girls here are fascinated with the idea of marriage. It isn't uncommon for girls to be married (usually arranged by their parents) by the age of 16.) I asked if she was married, and she said that she had a boyfriend (hadn't heard of Indian girls dating yet.) She said that she is planning on getting married to him within the next year, but is having complications getting her father to agree to it, because it isn't really acceptable in the rural areas of India for girls to pick their own partners. 

We talked a bit more back and forth, joking and what not and was having some really good conversation until she suddenly stopped talking and stood up and vomited. 30 seconds later, another  Bikaner girl behind me stood up and ran up to the front of the bus to get outside to vomit too. This happened to 2 other girls. Apparently, they aren't used to traveling much at all and get motion sickness really easily. We had to pull the bus over 3 more times to let some of the girls get air. This was the first semester the staff brought the college girls along with us, and hadn't considered that being a problem. 

Two hours and few close calls later, we reached the village. I've never seen landscape like this before. It literally was...desert...sand and heat and all. We wrapped our scarves around our heads as a makeshift hood and headed into the village. My Bikaner friend who I had been sitting next to showed me how to tie my scarf around my head so that only my eyes were showing.

 We were greeted by men and women of all ages, the children huddled around the women and the boys smiling and whispering in packs behind us. The head school teacher drew a map of the village in the sand, using water bottles and sticks to marks where different buildings and water sources were. We asked them questions about where they get their water from (a water harvesting well provided by the government,) how they make a living (farming aloe vera and millet in the fields surrounding the village or herding goats) how many people are living in the village (1200 people, 150 households,) if the children go to school or not (some do, more boys than girls because the girls are expected to do household work,) who of the girls was married (most of the older girls were and a few young girls were, one was 12 years old) and if they had electricity (they did.) 

Later on, we had some time to explore the village on our own. Myself and 4 other SIT girls headed down a road to look at some goats and a camel, when one of the young village girls following us grabbed my hand (Indian girls are quite forceful) and brought me to her house. My Bikaner college friend from the bus came with me. We had been talking all day and were very friendly at this point. The girl's house was a clay building with probably 4 rooms from what I saw, all open and bare and without doors. She brought me upstairs to her bedroom which consisted of two thatched beds (one for her, one for her younger sister) and some posters of birds on the walls. She brought me back downstairs and sat me on a couch and took out a red fabric-looking thing. By this point, there were at least 15 children ranging from ages 3 to 18 in this tiny room with us, just watching.) The girl held up the fabric, which my Bikaner friend told me was part of a wedding sari (the girl's mother's.) She motioned for me to put it on, which felt a little intrusive, but I did it anyways. They tried to get me to put the top part of the sari on over my Kurta-top, but it wouldn't fit, so they just put the red veil over my head. I felt like a doll, but I didn't object because they were having fun and I was enjoying it too. 

 Then, my two other SIT friends walked in and were like "Whaaaat is going on?"The girls stuck bindis (stickers) on our foreheads and one girl came out of nowhere and put red lipstick on me. My Bikaner friend helped fix it, because I'm sure it was half on my mouth, half on my cheeks. One girl said in Hindi, "Now all you need is a husband!" Yeah....right. 

After this fiasco, we sat outside the room on a bed and one of the sisters who lived in the house offered to make us some chai. Of course! We were crunched for time, but my friend and I thought it was totally worth it to hang around. We watched her make it over a small clay pit built into the floor of the room. In the meantime, we ate a vegetable-slash-melon that someone had picked from outside of the house. We were a little skeptical to eat it because we had both been sick and were weary of getting sick again, so we just ate the inside of the melon, avoiding the rind. The Bikaner girl sat with us as we ate melon and drank chai and tried to make small talk with the children who were sitting around us. Every time I offered a piece of the melon to the group, they all scurried and backed away like I was holding out fire in my hand. It was pretty funny. 

We had to down our chai quickly in order to make it back to the bus in time, which we did, barely. We met back up with the rest of the group, but I had forgotten that I had bright red lipstick and a bindi on my forehead. It was an experience to say the least. 

She's the greatest!

 The girls very really intrigued my my camera. They wanted me to take photos of them. This is them posing. 

 View from the girl's bedroom who pulled me into her house. It's so dry here!

 Some food that I don't know the name of! Looked like squash, tasted like melon.

Village boy heading sheep.

Wedding sari skirt.

Zomg besties!