A village is better than a town. A town is better than a city. A city is better than a state. A state is better than a country. You learn a lot more about yourself and about a culture when you're in a smaller environment and as a whole, it's much cooler (literally, colder and figuratively, sweeter).
Well, I am writing about my last week, which was awesome. I
know my words can’t do it justice, especially since I’m not particularly
enjoying writing about it. I could talk about it for hours, but writing will be
so difficult because I have no idea where to start. I’ve decided to break down
the week into twelve sections, each with some sort of story or memory behind
it. Some are sad, some are exciting, some are just funny. Get ready…
So before we jump in to our baker’s dozen, let me tell you a
bit about our village. Named Banavaram, it held a cool breeze in warm
comfortable temperatures all day long. There were animals all over the place
and little huts and a lot of dirt. People are hard at work, meaning most people
are bent over a farm all day long – truly hard work. All men wear the
traditional dhoti all day long, while women sport saris most of the time. No
jeans for our village. We’d walk the 1.5 km to our kids at 4:30 each night. The
tuition center was at a house in Rangavaram, another village, that was even
more village-y than Banavaram. We slept on the ground, ate local food, and
helped villagers out with whatever their needs. The past week truly was an
awesomely immersive experience! Here’s my week in a (rather large) nutshell!
Below is a picture of me playing (trying to play) cricket in a field with some local boys. I was not all that good I don't think, though I did make contact with the ball most attempts.
1.
Hospitality.
Like nothing we’ve seen before. People were
so nice you wouldn’t believe that they cared about anything about us. In the
Indian culture, a guest is like God and it seemed to show in Banavaram. Samu, a
lady from AID Chennai, who helped start Eureka Superkidz, let us stay in her
house for three nights until she had to leave. She fed us and would never let
us go without tea or coffee. We were invited over to Vara Akka’s house (she is
the Project Manager for the district we were working in) for breakfast and
lunch one day and we only found out later that they were inviting us in for a
large ceremony! It was great. Vara Akka (and her husband Prem Una) also put us
up for a few nights in their house. In true Indian style, they never failed to
feed us on time and each day was filled with fun and excitement, as a host is
supposed to provide.
Above is a picture of Jagan's house - his mom and grandma. Jagan is in the white shirt. Narasimman is his best friend and both are project managers for AID. Both are very nice and very funny. You'll hear more about them later, but Jagan's house wasn't huge or anything and he invited us back for tea one afternoon. Just another example of how great people were to us!
When compared to the US, it was amazing how
different it was. In the village, we were introduced to everyone, people would
travel 20 km just to see us, and we never felt unneeded. Even in Chennai, we
often feel useless and with no one to take care of us. The US is similar to
Chennai in a sense. It may be difficult to understand unless you’ve seen my
past week, but I was shocked by how welcomed in we were!
2.
Caste System.
Two stories – one about Eureka
Superkidz schools and one about marriage
On our third night, Samu had us
read an email from AID headquarters about a village we were visiting the next
day. They ended up cancelling the village visit, so we never actually got to
see it. The email was very enlightening though. It addressed the problems AID
was encountering while trying to set up a Eureka Superkidz (ESK) school in
Pannaja, a nearby village. Primary amongst them was the fact that some of the
village citizens refused to be taught by the Eureka Teacher (ET) simply because
she was a lower caste than their family. Furthermore, the school was supposed
to be placed in a region of the village where all the lowest caste people live
and the other villagers of different castes refused to visit this region. So
the lowest caste is MBC and second lowest is BC. Essentially, BC’s don’t want
to be taught by MBC’s and don’t want to enter their region of town. We don’t
know how the problem was solved, but the problem is clearly so deeply ingrained
in society that people aren’t willing to overlook it to give their kids a
better future.
Oh and to make matters worse, BC
stands for Backwards Class and MBC stands for Most Backwards Class…
The second story is about marriage
in India. One day at lunch the topic came up. I’m sure most of you have heard
of arranged marriages vs. love marriages. What we do in the US is a love
marriage and both families, arrange, as you might guess, an arranged marriage.
Apparently, 40 guys had seen Vara Akka before her family accepted Prem Una as
her husband. Now Prem Una is a really nice, ambitious guy (really nice, really
ambitious), but I couldn’t understand what about him was that special, so I
asked her. Narashimman (another PM) and Jagan (a new PM) were also eating with
us and said that caste plays a large role in who you marry. You might not even
approach someone for marriage if you are in a lower caste. Also you choose
someone based on family (your family of almost 75+ people meets his side and
vice versa prior to the marriage being approved), based on property, based on
dowry, and other rather unsubstantial things that have nothing to do with the
bride and groom at all. If someone is a landlord, his marriage stock rises. If
the wife’s family is large enough to buy the husband’s a car, that’s good news.
If you’re the Prime Minister’s son, that’s going to help, but if you have
diabetes and you’re the PM’s son, that’s bad news bears. Although I probably
already knew most of this, hearing it spoken made it seem so grotesque, so
unbelievably ludicrous.
3.
Gender Divide.
You know how there is the
Feminist’s movement and LGBT rights in America? Well, those are great, but if
they’re needed anywhere, it’s in India. Females and males literally don’t
interact unless they are man and wife. No guys have girl friends and no girls
have guy friends, at least, in the more conservative villages. As a male
teacher, I had a difficult time getting to know any of the girl students. When
we mentioned the word gay, not only did they not understand the word, but when
they did understand, they were appalled by the concept.
One night, Satya, Lavanya, and
Kalai (three teachers at the ESK tuition center) were explaining the words
“vada” and “vadi” to me. Apparently, “vada” in Tamil means a good girl friend
and “vadi” means a good guy friend. They explained it by saying that Rad was a
“vada” to them and I tried to show my understanding of the word by saying they
were all “vada” to me – they were good girl friends to me. They started
laughing and explained that only girls can have “vada” and only guys can have
“vadi,” but I protested. I talked about all my good girl friends in America and
then, Vara Akka hushed me, saying that I have to be quiet. People in the
streets of the village would fight me on this issue. I was definitely shocked.
Above: Rad with Jhoti Akka and Poo. Jo Akka, as we called her, was a few years older, but Poo was exactly our age. Rad got extremely close with them, but it was another example of the gender divide (though on a much smaller scale - and more so with Poo than with Jo Akka)... there was no way for me to be as close to them as Rad was. Vice versa is also true. There is no way for Rad to be as close to Jagan and Narasimman as I am. Really unfortunate part of Indian society.
Also, we went to a different ESK
school one day and talked to the parents about how their kids were doing and
such. It was a great talk, but something we noticed immediately was that the
fathers and mothers sat separately, with the fathers front and center and the
mothers scattered around the periphery. Second, it was clear that only the
fathers were going to be talking. We encouraged the mothers to talk too, but
few did. Even the ESK employees started talking directly to the dads. The
gender divide was so apparent and shocking.
4.
Talking with parents
We had an awesome talk with parents
of ESK children. It was all translated to us from Tamil, but it’s apparent that
the parents have big hopes for their kids (dreams that likely, unfortunately,
don’t seem like they will be fulfilled). It’s very nice to hear them dream big
though. Every parent agreed that they want their kids to not be farmers; to
have a better life than they have led.
Another interesting point was the
money they had to pay for the school. It’s 50 rupees up front and 125 R
(approx.) over three months. All farmers earn approx. 500 rupees per day, which
makes this extremely difficult. Translated in dollars, the school costs $1 up
front and $2.50 over three months. Farmers earn $10 per day. Most parents said
it is too expensive for them given everything else they have to pay, but also
agreed that they are happy the price is high because then it ensures that the
school doesn’t become overpopulated.
The school where we talked to the parents. You'll also notice the gender divide here, with fathers on the left side bench and mothers only on the close bench.
5.
Tuition with kids
The kids were great. Very different
from our first visit in a real school, this tuition was run out of someone’s
rooftop terrace from 5 to 730 every night except Sunday. By 630, it would get
dark, and everyone would be using one bulb that got dimmer as the night wore
on.
Intellectually, these kids were
slightly more “average” than our Kalpakkam kids (last village). Some of the
kids seemed great while others continuously struggled. It was also difficult to
know whether the kids were good generally or simply better than others because
they were older and in a higher grade level.
One kid, Balaji, gets made fun
(even by the teachers) of because he’s not as intelligent as other kids. He’s
in 4th Standard but gets paired with kids in 1st and 2nd
standard. I’m fairly sure Balaji is dyslexic but the villagers have no clue
what that means. He wrote 10 as 01 and has trouble saying most words other than
his name (and even that he struggles with).
6.
7 month Pregnant Ceremony
Another example of the hospitality
– on Wednesday or Thursday, we were invited over to Vara Akka’s house for
breakfast and lunch. Breakfast was great and normal, but then all these family
members started to show up and we had no clue what was going on. Someone told
us it’s the famous 5-rice ceremony… as if we know what this is, but at least it
gave us a clue as to what lunch was going to be. Apparently, because Vara Akka
is 7 months pregnant, they have a ceremony to celebrate her and the baby. (As a
side note, in India, the doctor doesn’t tell the parents the baby’s gender
because oftentimes, female babies are aborted or killed shortly after birth).
The ceremony was amazing!
Side: 5 rice ceremony!
We also noticed that no one smiles
in pictures so we asked why not. Apparently, they have so much stress in marriage
pics that they don’t smile. But the 7 month prego ceremony didn’t seem all that
stressful, so I’m still not sure why they don’t smile. Needless to say, we
started encouraging everyone to smile as much as possible.
Rad sprinkling water on Vara Akka and Prem Una.
7.
Two temples
We went to two temples with Jagan,
Narasimman (two PMs who are only 4 years older than us), HareKrishna
(Narasimman’s brother), and Sandeep. The two temples were a bit of climb – 1500
steps for one and 500 for the other. It was a great trip with many funny
stories and great tales.
Sandeep was a little slower than
the rest of us, so Narasimman called him “Sandeep Slowmotion,” which was
hilarious because they (two Indian
guys) were making fun of him and he probably deserved it in this case.
Also when we were climbing, there was
a stage of the climb which you had to be escorted up because of all the monkeys
there. Apparently if you weren’t escorted up, they’d try to steal something
from you – it was hilarious. One actually tried to steal Rad’s jasmine in her
hair, which terrified her, but Jagan, Narasimman and I encouraged it. The
priest had also given me a large garland of tulsi leaves, which tasted great.
But a monkey actually did successfully steal that.
8.
My motorcycle rides
First ride – with Arun, a 20 year
old kid with long hair, who works with AID. Nice kid. He was afraid to say hi
to Rad cause she was a girl and he probably thought she was pretty and such. It
was my first long ride, so that in itself made it thrilling.
Second ride – later the same day
with Jagan. He taught me how to ride his bike! Literally amazing! He showed me
the clutch (cause everything is stick) and the brakes. I was doing great,
up-clutching perfectly, shifting smoothly, and driving fantastically until… a
goat decides to cross the street. I first looked for the horn, but couldn’t
find it and slammed on the brakes. But, I had totally forgotten (or rather
didn’t know) to down-clutch so I quickly lost control of the bike. We almost
ended up in a ditch and probably would have if Jagan hadn’t saved us.
Third ride – two days later with
Prem Una, Vara Akka’s husband. Nice guy. The most interesting part with Prem
Una was the conversation on the bike and the events when we got to the village
town of Kaveripakkam. Prem Una was sent to get flowers for the 7 month prego
ceremony…. The flower shop took literally 45 minutes on bike to reach. Prem Una
has a dream of coming to America to start an NGO about mental illnesses in
children and helping them recoup from it. He asked multiple times for my help
and I said I would do what I can. While we were at Kaveripakkam, we had to wait
literally 2 hours for the flowers to be made. While waiting, we went to a
temple, saw the school where Prem Una teaches, had a coke and went to someone’s
house. We left at 9 and returned at 1 pm… for some flowers.
9.
Farms and fields and fruits.
The last day we were in Banavaram we
visited a farm/field. It was great. We tried Mango straight from a tree. A
friend we met climbed a tree and got this cool fruit down too. The fruit is
called pananga and you cut a coconut-like object in half and then stick your
thumb into three pools of translucent white stuff that tastes awesome. Odd but
great.
Pananga!
10. Walking.
Another thing, not just about
Banavaram, but about India as a whole is that there is a lot more walking.
People walk anywhere and everywhere. Though things in the US are more spaced
out, we’ve walked at least a few kilometers per day since we’ve been here –
quite a bit! One night in Banavaram, we walked across a highway overpass with
our luggage – kind of scary!
11. Community.
Everyone in the village knew
everyone else. It was an amazing sense of community that you rarely see
anywhere, but that I sense is common in villages in India. You see some of it
in bigger cities like Chennai, but the villages were amazing. Samu’s neighbors
give her jasmine and other flowers every morning and they will talk outside
their house for an hour sometimes, just to catch up. Vara Akka’s family all
came over (on a weekday) just because she was 7 months pregnant. And they all
helped cook and it felt like home. Nice community aspect. Some of it you see in
the states, some of it you don’t, but it’s something that would be nice
everywhere.
Notice no smiles, but all such a community together. This was taken at Vara Akka's house.
One of the funnier moments of the
trip was when we came to Vara Akka’s and Prem Una’s house from Samu’s house, we
had to cross the aforementioned highway overpass. When we reached the other
side, a man started calling at us in Tamil. While Sandeep (our third member
from Phoenix) should’ve understood him, there are so many beggars and such that
we immediately ignored him. But he kept following us and now we were kind of
freaking out. Ironically enough, it was Prem Una’s father who Prem Una told to
wait for us at the other side of the overpass. Once we found out, it was really
funny.
12. Sandeep.
So I think I’ve mentioned him a few
times now, but Sandeep is a 16-year old kid from Phoenix, AZ, who loves nothing
more than Tamil Nadu. I’m all about pride in one’s origins, but he takes that
to a new level. He has good intentions for sure, and seems to care about
helping the kids, but it’s sometimes difficult to be around him because he’ll
just go on and on about Tamil Nadu. Also some of the stuff he says is just so
blatantly wrong that it becomes difficult to believe anything he says.
This is an older picture of Sandeep, Athidi, and Rad from Mahaballipuram a few weeks ago. He really is a nice guy.
The most annoying thing though is
that he can understand and speak Tamil (though obviously it's not his fault and it helps sometimes). He came three days after Rad and I
arrived, so we had gotten used to both groups working hard to understand each
other. It was a great bonding experience between us, but once Sandeep arrived
they’d all just speak to him and he’d translate whenever he felt like it (and
also sometimes his own way). We often felt like we were losing our connection
with the community because of him.
13. MR
kids and health lady.
One day, we met a doctor (not sure
if she’s a doctor or just a lady who knows about health) who determines whether
kids are simply hearing impaired or mentally retarded (MR kids). What was
interesting is how she does it. We saw her sit with the kids for maybe 5
minutes each and test them by interacting with them. Some were blatantly
hearing impaired, while others were obviously MR kids, but the toss-ups seemed
randomly distributed unfortunately.
Also, hearing impaired kids go into
normal school with some help and prodding from parents and the doctor. What’s
very sad with MR kids is that society doesn’t even attempt to teach them or
educate them, but just pushes them straight into vocational training so that
they can be somehow useful to society. It’s quite hard to hear (and quite
different from America where we still try to teach them English and such), but
the doctor lady said it’s probably better than any alternatives for the MR
kids.
Sorry that was soooooo long. Hope you enjoyed. I just went
to Bangalore on a relatively uneventful trip. We had all fallen sick so we
ended up just staying in most of the time. Heading to a new village within a
few hours. Talk to you soon!
Just a cool picture I took one night. This is where the kids studied every night.
