Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Setrawa Project News, December 2007




Report by Ms. Amanda, December 2007

Setrawa - The beginnings:
Imagine walking down a worn dirt path, skipping over trails of effluent and watching the many cows and goats grazing the dirt for seeds and rubbish. Then the silent shuffle of bare feet and whispering “angregi angregi”…that grows into a calamity of brave and bold voices and jumping around “hello hello” how are you” thank you. Good morning and good night” and just to add a classic: “hello Amanda what is your name?”. The kids seem to appear from everywhere and anywhere even if it seems dead quiet. From behind the scrubby trees, magically appearing in the little alleyways, from between houses, behind every corner, twist and turn. As time went on we began to know each and every cow, goat and dog by colour or stage in there pregnancy. And almost every child by their tone of voice or choice “English” phrase
In Setrawa (the village) we’ve been setting up a school for woman and girls. Similar to the Sambhali project run in Jodhpur. It has been such an amazing experience. It is kind of more a networking thing for them than a welfare project. Unlike Jodhpur the women we are teaching seem to be from middle income earning families. It is still a very valuable project as the situation for woman in Rajasthan can be very tough due to some confines of tradition. A lot of woman leave their families at quite a young age for arranged marriage and become a prisoner in their new home, in a strange new village far away from home. Creating social networking groups and encouraging friendships and support for each other is super important. The sewing skills and self sustainability are also vital, for confidence building and employment opportunities. The extra English classes are of particular importance for the school girls. The English standard for state exams is much higher than the level they are being taught at school. If the girls fail their state exams they are often withdrawn from school by their parents. Having foreigners teaching English makes it more of a novelty for them and it becomes essential in the immediate future at least to learn English (as us Marwari) to communicate with each other during this new change. Reaching the standard in these exams is such an achievable goal, given a few months of extra tuition after school through the Sambhali School. They are all very bright girls. Imagine the possibilities if they could complete their education…the confidence, the tertiary education and employment opportunities…not to mention their confidence. Simply by interacting with each other we are opening up two different worlds and sharing the joys and pains of both.


A different world…the sad stories

It is such a different world. I could write novels on what I’m thinking, feeling, experiencing. But i will try and keep it short for your sake.
I mean the stories are so different. Some are so sad. I have 1 student who is a refugee from Pakistan. Her uncle is in London on asylum/refugee based visa and can’t get the same visas for his family because of lack of evidence. In Hindu marriages, the woman covers her face so of course there are no photographs and his children don’t have any birth records (In India and Pakistan it is more common for children to be born at home and some don’t even know their own birthday). This is such a sad story and I’m sure it is only one of millions.
Also one of my students has dropped out of class because she is about to get married in February. She is only 17 and in just 2 months she will leave the village and her family and friends and go and live with a strange man and his whole family. They are only allowed to visit home for 2 weeks in the year. I can’t even imagine how this would be for her. She seems such a little girl in so many ways. And she has never left the village.

A warm welcome…and some challenges!
Every second night we have dinner at one of our girl’s places. At first they would serve Irene and I dinner and then would wait for us to eat our plates constantly being refilled, with shabzi curries, heaps of chapati’s and a sweet desert. Finally now we all eat together, which I find much more comfortable, more fun. They are so generous with their time and warmth and as u can imagine food. We’ve seen nearly everyone’s photo album. It is a tight knit community. You see all the girls we teach at different stages in their lives in everyone’s wedding pictures. Raju at 6 years old and Meera at 12 etc, etc.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that they all sleep in one room. 5, 6 people in the family all sleeping in the same room. And these are the homes of families that seem well off in the village. The families with businesses for example. They have 2 rooms in the house usually a kitchen, a bedroom/day room and a courtyard. The beds are placed on their sides during the day to make room to walk in and out. This has been the case so far with all the girls’ houses I’ve visited.

I have barely given you the impression of what I’m doing and where I’m living. But if you can imagine a landscape of lots of sand/dirt and stones piled up as walls, tiny trees scantily laid out over dusky plains and woman walking around in bright red and pink and orange saris, bare foot and heavily clad in jewels. Cows and goats and buffalo thicker in the street then humans, puppies and starving dogs everywhere. Always a crowd of people watching us. like we are animals in the zoo for them (we are the first westerners to ever live here, possibly that many have ever seen.) the attention and lack of personal space was all way too much at first, but its calmer now I have been here a while. The first three weeks we didn’t even have a toilet and had to wait till late at night and early mornings to go and find a tree (because people were always following us!) we had constant water shortages and had to fetch water and ration it and were desperately learning the local phrases for “please not now” and “thank you, you are so kind but we have already eaten” or “I am working now” We have internet access. Which is amazing!! I love it. You learn quite quickly to adjust to the limited choice in supplies (cooking with a choice of 5or 6 vegetables). it only encourages creativity really. And the no toilet paper etc. then you learn to love the simplicity, and you feel like you could almost survive anywhere.

There was one night where Irena and I went to Jodhpur and bought a couple of bottles of wine. Only to realize when we arrived home that we didn’t have a corkscrew. We went around the village asking the local shopkeepers if they had one, pretending it was to open a bottle of oil (women are not allowed to drink wine considering eating eggs, would u believe, is considered a heinous act) (I found out the day I cooked everyone banana pancakes and 100 pancakes went to the dogs because of the eggs I used) anyway back to the bottle of wine, after drawing numerous diagrams and gesturing and struggling with Hindi (did I mention everyone in the village speaks marwari and I have been learning Hindi. Also there are no translation books for marwari –english!!) I ended up giving up the idea of a corkscrew and after looking at the bottle painfully for three or four days I tried using a rock and pair of scissors. Then it wouldn’t fit in the fridge (yes we have a fridge although electricity is more often off then on). Finally the next day I was prepared to risk all or nothing with the scissors and it worked. It would have to be the most loved, warm, worst bottle of wine in history.



A typical day
Get up.
Boil water.
Shower: I pot of hot water, I small outdoor bathroom
Wash dishes, cook breakfast and prepare lunch.
Go to market; buy curd and fresh bananas (kela)
Have a chai at the chai man’s shop
Buy buttons/pencils/books etc for class
Finish breakfast: 1 more coffee + pack of parle g’s
Prepare lesson
Conduct lesson: set up supplies, sweep room, reorganize books, pass out supplies, draw diagram of activity. Help girls with their work, demonstrate activity
Break 1-2pm. Rush lunch, help students that hang around after class, retire for 15 break for coffee and heat up lunch) (from breakfast)
2-3pm English class starts. Teach time topics, past present future etc, balance all levels of skill. In between activities on the board for the more advanced, go through abc with slower girls and write individual activities for them to copy in their books. Maybe learn a song to join everyone together.
Break. once more help girls that stay back for ten minutes or so. Write extra homework for girls that want to learn more and catch up.
Go to market if possible to get last minute supplies we’ve forgotten.
Class 4 - 5: 30. Conduct class similar to above. Hang back afterwards to help again. take home books to correct.
Quickly go for a walk before sundown around the highway. Politely refuse numerous dinner invitations along the way, as you really can only go to one at a time. Try and explain to the many puzzled woman that u are walking for exercise~!!! Get home, start to correct notebooks, someone knocks on the door to collect you for dinner.
Have dinner at one of the women’ houses. (see description above)
Get home really late (10pm) try and write the reports for the day
Try to bathe again
Try and sort out washing, linen and then sleep
And these days (a pleasant addition) try and catch up with emails now we have internet!!!!!Yay!!
Then Bed.
Many of the houses are made of stone and mud mixed with cow dung! The milk is fresh from the buffalo. The mama goats wear bras so that the people can drink the milk and ration the remains to the baby goat. Crazy stuff!
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An overview:

I think I sketched out the scene where you can imagine a crowd of people following us everywhere, the echo of laughter and broken English in the streets behind us. The dinners, the animals, the lack of basic comforts such as water and toilet and personal space. (now I am beginning to understand in India this is considered a luxury-the personal space part). Then it developed into the warm and kind and interesting women we have come to know so well, the charming shopkeepers and endless chudi (bracelet) stores and the wonderful man that makes chai and helps us with bus information. The happy laughing married couples, the beautiful relationships with family life, the weddings. Joyous backdrop of music from dusk till dawn. The ringing of the temple bell, the tinkling of the mama goat and her bell strolling around the yard, the sound of children playing cricket (with a tree branch as bat) and darting in and out of the yard to find their ball. The fresh earthy smell of cow dung hanging in the air, and wafts of spicey curries and melting ghee overtop. The routine strut of the male peacock on our roof at 6:04pm every evening, followed by a clumsy attempt to leap into the nearby tree. The beautiful look of love on our stray dog “mammy’s” face every time we come home. The useless chapati’s Irene and I try to make…never the same as an Indian woman!!
But most importantly the jokes and laughter of our girls every day and the smiles that glow on their faces. The warmth they have for each other and that they welcome us with. You become intertwined with the dramas and happenings of their day to day life. You are invited into their wonderful worlds and their sadder worlds. You want them to be able to come and visit you in Australia too, you want them to be able to have an email address and be able to keep in contact. The reality is so different for them though. Even if they were allowed to have their own email addresses (in the more liberated families) when and where are they going to check them and who is going to pay for the internet time if either of these factors are possible. And is it a bad thing opening up a chance to change such a one of a kind preserved world.

At least I think the phrase “gently does it” is appropriate. With time things will make their own way and to be here as a warm and easy support organization is the best approach the Sambhali project can take. We are all learning. At this stage our projects encourage each woman’s/girls individual nature to be expressed. Even the English lessons are sculpted toward self expression.

Finally after this experience I have an understanding of the reason I have come to India to meet these wonderful people. This I do not need to mention any more, I think the pictures should explain it. A big Part of me wants to stay for a long time. The rest really wants to see more of India. It is really quite a big responsibility teaching and being here on my own. No one knows English etc. but the pros far outweigh the cons and I wish I could figure out which were which more clearly. The confusion is fine. I’ll come back next year and figure it out. See how my new friends have grown and how their lives have changed.


Khamaghani,

I am sorry the report is incomplete, but it is more then impossible for me to upload the report, it is 22 pages or so long and has a lot of pictures in it, i have put most of it here and because the report was made with the pictures so the files became very big, this is just an impression from Amandas visit and work at setrawa project. Rest of the report in available with the guidelines and what all has been taught and done with the participants, report is available on the computer at setrawa project building.