Wednesday, July 23, 2008

July 17 Email

Namaste Everyone!

Every day here is filled with new experiences, thoughts, tastes, and colors. We have a new roommate in our flat- a french girl studying in Scotland, who is a riot (doesn't like Indian food, and ordered mac and cheese for dinner last night). I have started seeing herds of goats everywhere, in addition to the multitudes of cows and water buffalo, and monekys about once a week. There are several stories I could share with you, but I wanted to describe my past Tuesday here- I think it perfectly sumarizes many of my feelings toward my experiences in this corner of the country.Tuesday was a typical day. I woke up, had a chai at the "open air cafe" (a guy on the corner with a wooden flatbed cart upon which he boils chai on his gas burner), said t'fliat ha'derech (traveler's prayer, something I find comforting before embarking onto the roads with the wildness of Indian drivers), and headed out to Delwara. While sitting in the Delwara office, the electricity went in and out, a pretty common occurance here. I spent part of the morning working there (in the office), and stepped out into the coutryard, looked up, and saw a family of monkeys in the courtyard's tree, turned around, and saw another two scampering across the balcony of the second floor. Certainly that was the visual highlight of the day- 12+ monkeys romping around this piece of property.Manoj, a local youth from Delwara, who doubles as my translator, and I headed off to the Meghwal community, one of the lowest castes in Delwara (actually, right above the lowest caste- harijan- who are the street cleaners), to continue with our interviews of women and accessing water. We met with two women that day, and both had similar stories to share: neither had a toilet and had to defecate in a field, located over a hill a few kilometers away, while having to navigate the high grasses and the snakes that slither through them, especially after the rains. while this isn't such a bad thing- i hear it is a nice walk in morning, and the exercise is a good way to start the day, problems can become acute if one is ill. The women are also the ones responsible for all water collection (almost no one in this community has piped water in their home), and have to spend an hour a day collecting drinking water, plus making several trips to a different water tank to collect water for cleaning. The "showers" in both homes were outdoors- one behind a stacked stone wall, and the other one on the porch in the family's courtyard.After the interviews, I was invited to one of the office worker's home for a farewell sendoff/birthday party, as it was his last day at Seva Mandir. It was on the family farm. There were about 40-60 people there, lounging on pastic tarps and stone walls amongst the cows and women pulling water out of a well. We sat down in a long oval shape on the ground, on plastic tarps, and men came around with buckets full of bati (a traditional rajasthani bread- a ball of dough soaked in oil and then baken, which resulted in a hard outer crust and crumbly inside), dal (lentils), curry, lali (a sweet dessert), and chach (curd, water, and jeerz- a spice here used in the basics of cooking). Clean up was a cinch- everyone tossed their paper plates and plastic cups in a small clearing behind where we ate.After that full day, I was looking forward to a quite night at home, maybe making some western dish like scrambled eggs or something. However, I ran into my roommates as I approached our street, and was marched around and then into a rickshaw, as we were called for dinner at the home of the family that started Seva Mandir decades ago. We arrived at a wonderfully historic building, and sat in the courtyard, drinking wine (didn't expect any of that for 7 weeks!) and whiskey soda, and many people flitted about, preparing dinner and refilling the bowls of snacks on the courtyard tables. While I was full from the Rajasthani feast, I wanted to try the colorful dishes that lined the dining room table. Everyone gathered plates full of food (mine was a bit more modest than usual), and lounged around the courtyard, under the balconies that surrounded teh courtyard, or sat on the small couches in the dining room. There were people constantly refilling the platters, and walking around offering more chappatti (bread, which doubles as a fork) to everyone. After a lovely dessert of fresh mangos and ice cream, a driver dropped the three of us back home.

Clearly it was a day of different lifestyles. But it is this notion of extremes that is coming to shape my understandings and expereinces in this small corner of India- the country that has some of the most exclusive residential towers adjacent to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the world, a place where it is common to defecate in the open while navigating wet roads from rain runoff and snakes in rural areas, to the better off having the ability to fly in planes over the poor infrastructure that characterizes the country's landscape. It is a country where appearance is very important, where button down shirts tucked into trousers are almost a uniform for all men, regardless of socio-economic class, even if it is the only outfit they might own, and a place where women wear gold and silver jewelery and shockingly bright and colored saris, while walking around the dirt floors and roofless rooms of their homes. My time here is revealing a country of contradition, of these bright optomistic colors people wear mixed with poverty and filth, of a wonderfully falvourful cup of chai made outside on a stove fueled by a fire of sticks and cow dung, while later that day eating a dinner, prepared by family workers and served on fine ceramic plates in the setting of a finely preserved traditional home.

I hope all is well with everyone.

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