One month in India
Time is a tricky word…I left India one month ago and I feel I am here for a long time because life here makes me live every single moment with an inexplicable intensity. In fact, my five senses are very active and my brain has a lot of things to process.Since I am here I still didn’t have time to visit anything, not even a temple! However, I had the opportunity to participate in the Holi festival and, of course, I got very colourful! There was even a very funny episode. Jenny (German DI) and I were going by bike to the DRH and some kids tried to stop us to throw coloured powder. It was my second time riding a bicycle here (the first time had been in the previous day and before that,10 years ago…), so I was not very fast. One of the kids jumped to the back of the bike and emptied 2 litres of coloured water down my trousers! I don’t know how we didn’t fall! Well, I arrived to the DRH very wet as you can imagine…
Concerning my daily routine, it is basically house-office and office-house, with a short stop in the market to buy food. The people in the working place are very nice, but there is also the problem of the language, even if I am trying to improve my Hindi as much as possible. Besides that, I am giving English and computer lessons to my colleagues if I am not doing field work.
As I wrote in the first mail, the people in the villages fulfil my heart because of their strength, simplicity and care. Whenever I have the opportunity I go there or, if not, I create the opportunity. That is what happened in the beginning of this month when I gave the idea of organizing the International Woman’s Day in a village (Dhundaria was the chosen one). It was the first time that Community Development Project Alwar (CDPA) celebrated the day in a rural area and now they will continue doing it in the following years because people already requested that. In fact, the women had a lot of fun in the 8th of March with the games we had prepared for them and, besides that, we also transmitted information about the importance of empowering women, for example, through education and better knowledge of their rights. I was the responsible for the inauguration speech that consisted of explaining the reason why we celebrate this day.
I also did two surveys in Nangalia village, with Santosh, an Indian DI. The first one was about the government preschools (to see if they are working properly) and the second one, which I did yesterday, was about malnutrition of children. We identified 9 children with bad weight, but we want to go back to check every house and not only the ones registered in the centre. I think that the main reason why these children have a weight problem is because of the quantity of food they eat and not the quality. In fact, they only eat two times per day (in the morning and in the evening). I know that that is common here in India, but it is not healthy, especially for children, to spend so many hours without putting some food in the stomach.
This week I started to gather information to write the annual report about a project that we have in Thanagazi block (2 hours from Behror), called Poverty Alleviation. So, I spent five days there and everyone was very nice to me (the DI´s, the office staff and so on) and they made me feel very well there. I even slept in Sima´s house (the coordinator of the project), so it was my first time spending the night with an Indian family. She is married and has 3 children (one of them is handicapped). Her husband and her daily wake up around 5 a.m. and do the house chores together. I also decided to participate (not at 5 a.m., but 8 a.m.) and who knows me well should not be surprised: I can’t be relaxed while seeing other people working.
It can sound weird, but there I got along better with men than with women and I even learned how to cook Indian food with them! Well, at least my impression about Indian men is changing, little by little, because after what happened with my Chinese friend I felt very revolted.
Has you can imagine life is not pink here. Sometimes it can be really tiring to be observed by everybody, to have to answer to the same questions and to struggle with the language. Plus there is work to do outside and inside the guesthouse and, even on the Sundays, we can’t sleep until late because the children who live with us start making a lot of noise, in our floor, around 7 a.m. However, I am still here: alive and kicking in this country of superlatives!
The lack of spare time is one of the reasons why I am not communication much with any of you, even with my parents, and also because it is always a movie to go to the Internet. But you know that I keep you in my heart and your love gives me strength!
Now I started making chapatti! They are not perfect, but eatable . Before going to sleep I am reading a book written by Osho (Indian master) which is giving me some peace of mind.
posted by Naty Bett @ 9:05 AM
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