Village Livin'

Last week was definitely the best and hardest week of my time with RangSutra, and maybe all of my time in India. On Friday after a brief stop at Sarnath in the morning to get my Buddha on, I went to Arjunpur Village in the Mirzapur district outside of Varanasi. The plan was for me to stay there until Thursday, and then I would join my boss at a workshop she was running. On Monday, two of my co-workers were to join me in the village and serve as translators while I conducted interviews. But this is India. In June, the start of the monsoon season.

That Friday night I went to sleep on the roof of the home I was staying in, with my host mother next to me and her daughter-in-law less than 3 feet away. Earlier that evening she had massaged cooling oil in to my hair, shoulders, arms, and face. Which was wonderful but made my hair greasy and it took about 8 washes to get out. But that's another story. The next day, my host mother, Parvati, decided that my sawar kameez outfit was not ok, and dressed me in one of her sari's. There was literally a hush over the entire village when I walked out wearing it. It was one of her nicest ones - it came from a locked closet in her bedroom - and I felt guilty about that. That afternoon, one of RangSutra's field officers came and off we rode on his motorcycle to conduct interviews. Yes. I rode a motorcycle in a sari. Sidesaddle. It wasn't as terrifying as I expected it to be.

So things went south once we got to the interviews. He didn't ask the first woman the interview questions - he just told me what he thought she would say. It took about 5 rounds of me saying, "OK, well, can you ask her the question?" before he did. The next two interviews went alright - one woman's husband was right there and contributed to the answers she gave. Overall though I ended my first day pretty optimistic about how the rest of the week would go.

That night, right as we were going to bed, big fatty rain droplets started raining down on us. We moved to sleep under an awning - still outside, in traditional cots. Parvatti and I shared one - we were definitely spooning at some points. (Also, let me just say that sleeping in a sari when it's been wrapped by an Indian woman is the most unpleasant experience ever. I kept secretly loosening it, and she would notice and re-tighten it). It rained all night and for the next two days, so I just laid around the village not doing anything. Roads had been washed out so we wouldn't be able to get in between villages on a motorbike. My stomach was crazy-upset at this point too, and I was fighting a constant battle over being given way too much food. It went something like this: wake up. snack. another snack, with chai. another snack. breakfast: vegetables and rice. shortly thereafter, lunch: dahl, roti, vegetables, and rice. afternoon snack. pre-dinner snack. dinner. Oof. That, plus my stomach, plus being the only white person in a rural Indian village, plus my subpar Hindi language skills, plus really greasy hair from the oil, plus what I think were tons of bedbug bites on my feet, made me pretty worn out by the time Monday rolled around.

My coworkers showed up that afternoon, and after much fussing over me dressed in another one of Parvati's saris, I was told that I would be leaving the village that day because of the rain, and would be with Dipti for the rest of the week at the workshop she was running. So I packed my things and said my goodbyes. I was very sad to leave - don't get me wrong, the village was a beautiful place and the people there were really wonderful.

After making some quality check stops along the way, we made it to the house the workshop was being held in. We had stopped briefly there on Friday but I didn't really know what was going on. Come to find out, it's Dipti's in-law's home. And by home I mean huge compound - complete with a mango tree, temple, well, and three cows. Though it was by far the nicest home in the village, it was still very Indian in that the toilet was an outhouse, the shower was outside, and the electricity was sporadic. Dipti left soon after I got there, but I had mentioned that I was homesick so she called her husband (who was there) when she was on her way back to Varanasi and told him to put on CNN for me.

The next morning, the workshop started. We were training the women to cut stencils from designs given to them. The stencils would then be put in to a kit along with paints and an idea book, and will be sold in FabIndia stores and potentially overseas in the future. The idea is based off the fact that in rural Indian homes, people often decorate the exteriors of their homes with designs like those. But the kits will be sold in FabIndia, so the designs will ultimately be painted in upper class Indian homes. There's some kind of irony in this...or some notion of "bringing the village home" that I think is interesting especially in terms of development. But that's me being anthropological and overly analytical about it. Anyway, this project is a collaboration between RangSutra, Women on Wings, a women’s business and development organization based in Holland (that sounds really really cool and somewhere I'd want to work for in the future), Akzo Nobel paints, and FabIndia. RangSutra will train the women and oversee the production of the kits, Women on Wings will help create the business plan, Akzo Nobel will supply the paints and created the idea book, and FabIndia will market the final product in its stores. In addition to Dipti and me, there was a designer who works with RangSutra from Delhi, a woman from Women on Wings, and a woman from Akzo Nobel there as well. One of the best things (for me) about the team was that English was our only shared language, so that's what we spoke in. It was also really cool to hear about everything involved in making the project successful - packaging, materials, paint, marketing, costs, etc. The woman from Women on Wings really (I think) took some extra time to tell me about what she would be discussing with FabIndia in the meeting she had on Monday, which I really appreciated.

The 20 participants traditionally got employment from weaving, agriculture, bamboo crafts, riling yarn for carpet weaving, housework, and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. However, none of these jobs gave the women enough income and an alternative, sustainable form of livelihood was needed. In addition to creating employment for these women, they are coming out of their homes and actively earning their own money apart from their husbands. Also, one of the women who had worked in NREGA told (and showed) us that her right hand had become really swollen after working with them. It sounded like she had a pinched nerve.

I could write a day-to-day breakdown of everything we did every day, but that would be boring and unnecessary.
Some of the women had been to 12th grade, some had never held a pencil. One woman had exams on her wedding day, and made her father-in-law let her finish high school. Some had gotten married before they were 18. Some didn't know their exact ages. There were Hindus and Muslims. Some were related to one another. There was one mother-daughter pair. One woman dropped out on the 3rd day because she wasn't doing well. We got a woman who had fallen ill right before the workshop started to replace her. She had completed 12th grade and by the end of the week was one of the best students in the workshop.
At the end of the week, Dipti's husband had me, Liza, Willeke (the woman from Akzo Nobel), and Karen (the woman from Women on Wings) plant mango trees on their property to commemorate the workshop. It will start producing mangos in 5-6 years...I hope somehow I can be there to eat. them. all. Oh, I should also mention that Dipti's husband is incredibly supportive and sweet and caring - he served us lunch every day and Liza, Willeke, and Karen didn't even know that he was her husband, or that we were at her in-law's property, until we told them one day. It was funny. At lunch that afternoon he goes, "Sometimes, I am a journalist who oversees an office of 93 people. But sometimes, I am a waiter."

Ironically, it didn't rain for the rest of the week and it was hot, hot, hot by the end. One room in the house had a cooler, and we all slept in there after a few days: me, Dipti, her husband, his mother, her mother, and Dipti's 15-year-old niece.

Next week, Dipti and I will go back to the village to check on the women. They were supposed to be coming every day from 10 AM - 2 PM to practice. We put the best student in charge of keeping track of attendance and the paper/knives allotted to each woman. The 2nd-best student has the key to the practice room. A woman whose husband works on the property is in charge of collecting everyone's supplies. Oh, and my field interview project isn't completely lost - I interviewed 11 of the women who participated in the workshop, and will interview the other 9 when we go back next week. I'm actually happier about this because I feel much more invested in the stencils project.

On Saturday evening we came back to Varanasi. On Sunday morning my friend Roz came to visit and was here until Tuesday morning. I had a really great time just being a tourist in Varanasi...and I can now say I've been in the Ganges. It's risen a lot because of the rain, and at one point we were walking along the ghats and part of it was under water, but there was a step right there so we all just walked through it like Indians. It started raining heavily again on Monday and again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tomorrow I'm going to a meeting with people from the UNDP. I'm leaving for home in 18 days.

I'll post pictures from the workshop next time, but for now:
Top 3 Questions I Was Asked in the Village:
1. Are you married?
2. Why isn't your nose pierced? (ahem...take note Mom & Dad)
3. Why don't you eat meat? (this was based on the assumption that all Americans eat meat. Indians are always shocked when I mention that I'm a vegetarian. Also: cooked soybeans look like small meatballs (but taste DELICIOUS). That one threw me for a loop my first night at Dipti's in-law's. She had told me before that they're veg though so I ate it without knowing what it actually was.)

Happy Monsoon Season!

Today we had the first rains of the monsoon season...about time. The past two days have been around 100, cloudy, and humid. Das, my morning autorickshaw driver who knows every shortcut imaginable in Varanasi, and Dipti have both told me that now that the monsoons have come, the mangos will be even better! Here's a shaky video I took on my camera of the rain from our office.

Indirectly Relevant

Too Young to Wed: The secret world of child brides

Badi Women of Nepal are Trapped in a Life of Degradation

Caste & Cooking

I forgot to include this in my last post:

Because we had spent the night at the office & wouldn't be able to bring food for lunch like usual, Dipti asked Sunil, the office boy, to bring lunch for all three of us on Saturday. He only brought enough food for two people, though. Dipti asked him why and he said that he didn't think I, a foreigner, would eat food prepared by a lower-class (caste) family. Appadurai would have a field day. It made me think that "Gastropolitics in Hindu South Asia" is still relevant. So now I'm hoping that Sunil hasn't been misinterpreting my insistence on doing things myself (ie. refilling my water bottle, plugging my computer cord in to the wall socket) as me not wanting him to touch my things. I'm just uncomfortable with someone doing things for me that I'm entirely capable of doing myself.

Week Two, Sleepovers.

On Friday night my boss and I had a sleepover at the office. Yep. She wanted to work late, her husband was out of town, and she doesn't like to be at the office alone. So she asked me to stay on Friday night with her. We spent about an hour or two talking about our families and showing each other pictures of them. Except the most I could really do was show her pictures of me & Patrick (happy 19th birthday!!) because I don't have any family photos on my computer. There was also a wedding across the street, so we watched the procession, which I really enjoyed...especially because she had just shown me pictures from two of her siblings' weddings. And this isn't procession in the American sense - first, there was a kid with a giant sparkler on a huge stick. Periodically, he would stop and set off fireworks. Then, there was a marching band walking down the street in two lines. On either side of the lines were big light fixtures being held up by members of the groom's family (I think). Then there was a big van that I think was providing the power for the light fixtures. But it was also playing contemporary Indian music out of the back side. So naturally, behind the van were a whole bunch of men who I assume were related to the groom, dancing with one another in the way only Indian men can. I could've sworn a few of the songs were sampling M.I.A., but then I realized it was probably the other way around. Then there was a less active procession of men, and a horse-drawn carriage that the groom (and maybe the bride too, I couldn't get a good look at who was inside) in it. When it pulled up to the venue, guests would climb inside the carriage to give the groom gifts. At this point it got boring so I stopped watching but it was the first wedding procession that I actually got to sit and observe and figure out so I really liked it. It was very bright and loud.

Anyway, we've been working on an Ashoka Changemakers grant application that's due on Wednesday. She told me yesterday that my name is going to be included on the proposal because of how much I've been helping her with it. Whoa. She's also definitely the Indian person I've bonded the most with. No offense to my host family or anything, they were wonderful, but they've been hosting students forever. Same to the program staff. All wonderful people. But she & I get along really well.

We didn't end up going to a village this week, which I was a little bummed about because it definitely would help me to prepare for living there. I'm a very visual person when it comes to these things. I have a really, really hard time visualizing situations like this and anticipating what to expect. However, Dipti and Natasha, the business manager, will now be coming with me on Friday to drop me off in the first village. And will be in the second village at the end of the week, too. So I'm glad I won't be going in alone. Also, they're going to go with me to BHU and Sarnath before we go to the village. I was talking to Dipti about wanting to go to those places and she goes, "Well, who will you go with?" "I guess just by myself." "No, we will go with you. It's much better going with people."

I didn't sleep well on Friday night though, because I was in a new place (for sleeping at least), and it was windy, which would've been great except the windows kept slamming shut, and it was hot. I spoil myself with air conditioning in my room at my guesthouse. The wedding, surprisingly, wasn't loud at all. By any standards, not just Indian. So by the time we left the office at 8:30 PM on Saturday, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go home, buy a chocolate bar (I found out that Cadbury gets all (I'm pretty sure it's all) of the chocolate for their Dairy Milk bars fair trade and that sparked an intense ethical chocolate craving. Or, it validated the chocolate cravings I was already having. Though I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this wasn't the case for the bars they sell in India), take a shower, watch Gossip Girl on my computer (please stop judging me) and go to bed. But there's traffic in India. Lots of it. My cycle rickshaw driver took a different route to avoid the traffic, which I was very grateful for initially. Until it was so bumpy and he wouldn't pass other cycle rickshaws going slower than we were, and we had to stop so he could load up on chewing tobacco. Oh, and I'm pretty sure he was younger than me. I realized about halfway through the ride that I wouldn't hold up very well under torture, so let's hope that never happens.

This is great.

The only all-American Cricket team is from Compton. What?!

Interning in India

So I figure I should say something about my internship aside from the fact that I work Saturdays...which I really don't mind. And I will say that I was given the option of not coming in & having a two-day weekend, but for the sake of cross-cultural immersion, count me in.

rangSutra (the website only talks about their Rajasthan division) was started in August/September through a grant given by the UNDP and Ikea. They work in two rural districts in Uttar Pradesh, outside of Varanasi on women's empowerment through business initiatives. The grant is for a 3-year pilot program that they are hoping to replicate in rural districts throughout eastern U.P., making it a sustainable business and development model. The UNDP/Ikea grant created women's empowerment and self-help groups that run savings and credit programs, village workshops, and campaigns about issues facing their lives. RangSutra focuses on using the traditional craft skills that the women have through capacity building initiatives including organizational building, management training, product development/marketing, and skills training to gain access to western consumer markets.

For the first two weeks of my internship, I'll mainly be working on building a big list of potential western companies for them to partner with in the future. I'll also be working on getting them organic cotton & fair trade certified.

Then, I'll be living in their artisan's villages for two weeks doing fieldwork for them. I'm going to be talking to them about how they think the business model can be improved on the village level, what challenges they face, and what they think about the future of the company. When my boss Dipti told me she wanted me to do this last week, I very quickly said I would, even though I was (and still am) nervous about it. Mainly because of the language barrier, but she said I'll have access to translators. Plus, non-verbal communication is equally important for rapport building. And Dipti keeps telling me that all the women are nice. It'll be a challenge, but will also be really u fieldwork experience.

When I finish in the villages, I'll be back in the office for a week preparing a final report for them. At this point I should also have some ideas about their U.P. branch's specific brand identity and how they can incorporate that in to rangSutra as a whole.

Tomorrow we're going to one of the villages I'll be working in, and I'll get to meet one of the women who will be hosting me, so I'm sure that will put me at ease. I'm really excited that Dipti and Natasha, the business & accounts manager, are letting me come with them.

I've definitely learned a lot already about the amount of fair trade retailers out there...before starting this research I thought that companies like Ten Thousand Villages were basically the only fair trade retailers. Wrong. Though they are the only national one I've found so far, I've found tons of great small retail outlets. And partnerships between small businesses, in my opinion, speak more to the values of fair trade. I've also learned a bit about organic/fair trade cotton production in India, since they're looking for organic cotton suppliers. Did you know that Gujarat produces a lot of organic cotton? I didn't, and I lived there for a month.

Did you know...

that the Indian workweek is 6 days a week? Yep.

Call Centers

Last night I had to call Bank of America to unfreeze my debit account, despite the fact that they have been told multiple times that I'm in India. About halfway through the call I realized I was probably on the phone with someone who was also in India, working at a call center. Until the woman I was speaking with pronounced Delhi "Del-hi".