July 14 Email

Namaste Everyone!

I hope all is well with everyone! I have made it 10 days in India, and I am loving it here. Life is quite different than almost anything I have previously experienced, and basic daily practices, such as showering, using the toilet, or driving, are like a shock every time. But I am getting used to having a wash (while there are shower heads installed, most people fill up a bucket with water from the spout, and use a mug to pour the water over oneself), squatting while using the bathroom (I am not quite hard core enough to give up toilet paper, and I am on the search for it this weekend, as the roll I have been rationing is dwindling), and the erratic drivers on the road (while driving merits a separate paragraph in its own right, pretty much everyone is out to advance his place on the road, lanes are merely a suggestion, and vehicles compete for the small amount of paved road that exists).


I am finally getting into the work I am going to be carrying out over the next several weeks. As many of you know, I am working with a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Seva Mandir, which means Temple of Service. I am working on understanding the relationship between women and water, in the peri-urban (think small town) area of Delwara, a town about 30 \km north of Udaipur. I began my first round of interviews on Friday, meeting with a variety of women from the Megwel community, one of the lower castes in the town. While there are some kinks to work out in the translations, I am beginning to hear from the women about their relationship to water. While this is not a problem in the Western world, for the most part, many people in India do not have viable/reliable connections to potable water, thus resulting in the need to collect drinking water and water for cleaning from various resources, either near or far from their homes. This also means not every home has a toilet, and household members are forced to find alternatives for restroom use. I am studying the issue of water in relation to women, as they are almost exclusively (as is the case in many parts of the world) responsible for tending to the home, cleaning, cooking, thus the responsiblilty of collecting water rests on them.

One of the women I met spends 2-3 hours a day collecting water. She has to walk a kilometer each way, to collect water for cleaning. Then she has to walk another km the other direction for drinking water. The place alloted for women in her community to bathe is 1km away, at the place where she collects water for cleaning, and consists of a 1 meter high wall, enclosed on 3.5 sides, with a drain in one corner to let the used water out into the open sewers. To use the bathroom, she and her family have to walk 3km from their home, over a hill, to an open field. Certainly there is the issues of having to walk over a mile to use the bathroom- couple this with the issues of snakes, the Jain community sometimes preventing the people from a lower caste to accessing the area for restroom use, and poor road conditions when it rains, and releiving yourself becomes a challenge. While there are certain things that culturally are different in terms of daily practice, people do not want to live this way and are looking for ways to improve their living conditions. That is one thing Seva Mandir is working towards- getting proper drainage in the communities, putting toilets in peoples homes, and engaging people in community affairs to create change themselves. I am really enjoying the work I am doing here in India, and I am excited about the next month I have here.


On to other interesting things...On friday, 3 friends and I hopped onto a sleeper bus and made it out to Jaisalmer- a desert town in the western part of Rajasthan, about 100km from Pakistan. Well, I know I just spoke about the discomforts of village life here, but riding on a bus, with no suspention for 13 hours on poorly paved roads that follow the curvature of the hilly landscape leaves sometime to be desired (also note that we were going to a place only 545 km away and it took 13 hours). As Jaisalmer is near a desert, naturally we trekked on camels for most of our time there. We went through sanddunes and scrub, and camped out under the stars. The next day we went through some rural villages, and were accosted by children asking for school pens and rupees (pens here aren't great, and many children ask foreigners for them). We also watched women collect well water (this time only 1/2 km away from their homes). The women wouldn't let us take pictures of them unless we paid them, so we sat and watched them throw old plastic containers with their tops cut off and long ropes tied to them into the well and pull it up to fill their matkas (water container that holds about 15~20 liters of water). Then they would balance the matkas on their heads, sometimes one large one and one small one, and water back to the village.

I decided to come back to Udaipur last night, and took another 13 hr, 40 minute bus ride back (and that was a direct one!) I am really into the work I am doing here, and want to be as productive as possible in the short time I have with Seva Mandir.

I hope all is well with everyone, and that your summers are great!