Widows Care and Share

Alright, so I know I haven't been very vigilent with updates the last week or so, but the reason is that I lost a handwritten blog about a field visit learning about justice for widows in India. But I just found it and I would really like to share my thoughts and reactions.

Bala Vikasa, the organization who runs our training program, has an extensive women's programme with over 200,000 members spread over the province. About 13,000 of those are widows.

In India widows have a long history of struggle and suffering. Up until a few hundred years ago, the Hindu religion dictated that the wife we burned alongside her husband's dead body. Burned alive. And this ingrained view that women have no right to live without their husband was changed by one man.

Here, all women wear bangles on both wrists, ankle bracelets, the bhindi, flowers in their hair, shiny earrings and nose studs and colourful sarees as a sign of beauty. Now, after the death of the husband, the woman must remove all these things within a week, including having her bangles cut in front of her family and friends. Many people also believe that seeing the face of a widow first thing in the morning is a bad omen. They are also excluded from happy celebrations in the community and are ridiculed if they wear nice sarees.

According to surveys Bala Vikasa has done with all the widows, 30% of widows have committed suicide, and most have attempted before being stopped by their families. While the practice of killing widows has ceased, the spirits of these women are killed regardless through isolation, humiliation and deprivation both socially and economically.

Two saturdays ago, the international participants had the opportunity to witness and be a part of one of a hundred multi-community gatherings for widows committed to change. We were told before arriving that almost one thousand women - about half widows and half community leaders - would be present, but I wasn't prepared for the warm welcome we received right off the bus. We walked to the beating drum along a dirt road through brush, piles of rubber and broken chairs, finally arriving at an open field shaded by a giant open air tent.

Sitting among them cross legged on the ground, I practiced my Telugu greetings. Ellaunaru? Naperu Heather. We were quickly ushered to the front stage to sit overlooking the crowd of seated women. Widows were seated on the left and many wore bangles and the bhindi, comfortable in such an atmosphere. The women leaders in communities were seated on our right, there to support the widows and advocate on their behalf back in their home communities.

The first order of business for this monthly meeting is a survey. Since most of the widows are illiterate, the questions are given orally and answered with eyes shut and arms raised. The widows are asked their age, number of children, education level, how their husbands died and different aspects of their lives now.

Almost all the women live off daily wages, have no savings, and have children to care for. It was pretty shocking to see such young widows as well, even as young as sixteen, as it is still common for very young girls to get married early on in rural areas. The picture below shows how many women have tried committing suicide.

So many women suffering, living for their children. Hearing accounts of those who attempted suicide but were stopped by their relatives or children, was heartbreaking. The women shared stories with each other and us, and we were all crying. Many women leaders spoke up and said they would commit to fighting for justice for these women.

After three hours, when we were asked to speak to the group, I got up the courage to say a few things to them. I told them that their strength is inspiring and that while they see beauty in these objects on their bodies, I think they are all beautiful.

I wish I could have talked with them more individually during our free time, but alas language gets in the way again.

Seriously, wouldn't being able to speak any language be the best super power?

I'm not really sure what to do with what I've learn and seen though, so I'll have to think about it some more.

That's all I have for now, I'll update again in the next day or two.

Sending my love.

Culture, culture, culture

Alright well I'd better get everyone up to speed, since I'm pretty excited to post about my experience this morning at the widows programme visit. But first things first. The above picture comes from Sushilla calling Chuck "mukka" which means monkey since he is a big goofball, but then we are all goofy, so I'm a "mukkani" or girl monkey. So we're just making sure we look the part. :)

My week started great actually, a bit of an upswing from a tiring day in Hyderabad on Sunday. We had a two day session on strategic planning with a Mr. Vikas Gora. But Wednesday to Friday we did development communications, and let's just say that we decided the only enjoyable way to attend the class was high on cold medications. This professor was a complete hypocrite, preaching feedback and evaluation, and then ripping people apart in private for presenting the slightest criticism or request to him.

Aside from the mixed week of class, we had another culture night on Tuesday with about 200 Bala Vikasa women coordinators who came from around the province for training. And after my friend Sushilla's wonderful Nepali dance, it was suggested that five Canadian girls learn the dance and perform for these ladies, as they were celebrating Christmas and New Years together. Well I was the first one to volunteer!

So basically we learned the dance in 30 minutes, found some hilariously huge Asian looking pants and popped on some black shirts, and we were ready to go. It was really fun, and the night of performances (dances, singing and skits) stretched on to midnight. Most international participants left part way through but I didn't want to miss all the pretty dances or feel like I was being disrespectful.

Regardless, we (obviously mostly Sushilla) got a great reaction from the crowd, and even Santa, the special guest, came to dance with us also. The whole evening was wonderful, watching all the performances, eating ice cream, exchanging gifts with friends and dancing all crazy on the stage.

To culminate the evening, all of the male staff dressed in sarees (like women) and the female staff like men, and danced around the stage, with some getting out of control or provocative!

And to end the night, the women received some gifts from Bala Vikasa - and the few international girls left received some hilarious nightgowns (think Little House on the Prairie). So I put one on, dressed up some boys in the them, and danced around as well.

So that was Tuesday night. Friday night we went to see Veer with Salman Khan - very famous Hindi actor here. This was my first real bollywood movie and though it was 90 percent Hindi, it was awesome! It had action, romance, singing and dancing, and fighting. Okay the ending where Khan's character is reincarnated is a bit absurd but I was so entertained the entire time, plus it costs a dollar and there's delicious popcorn. A bunch of us ended up going so a great time.

My friend Raju - who is from Nepal - somehow reads this blog and wanted me to post a picture of him and I so here it is:

Hyderabad, Jai Ho!

Another week, and more love, frustration and new adventures.

I realize I haven't given an update in a couple of days, so I first need to share my thoughts from this past weekend. Sunday we planned a trip into Hyderabad, which was 19 of us on a comfy bus for the three hour ride each way.

I can wholeheartedly say that this one experience has turned me off organized group travel completely. We rented a bus but the Cenre told us there would be a volunteer accompanying us to show us some sights and shopping areas. Well going somewhere with a giant group - many of which don't have the same concept of time - is difficult at best. We first went to a beautiful white granite hilltop temple but some stragglers kept getting lost and making us all wait around. Most of us just wanted to shop but instead every little thing we did took FOREVER.

I bought one scarf and some bangles. And so I guess I'll be going back in a few weekends to try shopping round 2. It was pretty crazy being in a city of 8 million people, I couldn't even look around fast enough to catch anything.

And we sang ALL the way there and back. Lots and lots of Jai Ho :)

View of a part of old Hyderabad:

Half of a Thousand

It's fun to play dress up sometimes :)

I've definitely been keeping myself busy for sure these last two days, and really enjoying the classes. I have now officially memorized everyone's name and we all get along really well dispite age and experience gaps. Well this one participant Deo - a professor back in Nepal - is an oddball, going off on long tangents about nothing and making us listen. The last two days we have been studying asset-based community development, taught by the executive director of the Centre (Bala Vikasa), and it was pretty inspiring. And we've been doing pretty practical activities utilizing the ideas and experiences of the other participants.

And last night we had our first cultural night, where each country had to present at least one or two songs, dances or acts. Of course we felt lame and since none of us had much performing talents, we sang Oh Canada, gave out pins and flags, and sang a First Nations chant. And we performed first so that people mostly forgot our act after the others. The Sri Lankans somehow transported a traditional drum with them and my Nepalese friend Sushila had a beautiful dress and gold jewlerey to go with her wonderful dance.



And so we danced the night away last night to Tollywood (Telagu bollywood) hits and even taught everyone how to do the limbo, which they loved courtesy of the macarena to accompany it.

Today we visited a model village called Gangadevipally, which has successfully motived its community to use their own funds to have borewells drilled, a health centre built, toilets (actually utilized) in all houses, a temple and have cleaned up all the garbage as well. And now visitors come from all over the country and world to check this place out and learn from their success.

From there we visited a Hindu temple, the Warangal fort and the Temple of a Thousand Pillars (of which 500 are under renovation). I'm pretty exhausted and we're leaving here at 6am tomorrow morning to heard to Hyderabad to do some shopping, which is 3 hours away.

Sending love to everyone, especially the people of Haiti.


Also here is some jargon that Chuck typed while I wrote this:

I'm lost in india because i talk to chuck to much and he makes little sense. bananas are tasty (matt) WHERES DAN! ( anchor) jelly beans are too sweet!! Makka!! get down from there!! (sushila) Don't forget about the toilets! (Sagar Sanitary advisor) " can i just have 1 or 5 minutes." hand in your face (Professor DEO)

A little more excitement

We've basically been couped up in the training centre grounds, up to the main road and the few shops and bakery that line the opposite side of the road. I mean it's only been four days now, but regardless, it felt good to hop into the auto (three wheeled taxi) and go. We ended up going with five Canadians, Ankur - the hilarious Indian character who's laugh I liken to Rafiki from the Lion King, Sagar - with the most pronounced unibrow I have ever seen, and Ahmid. After we finished our class on culture and development, we walked up to the main road and watched as the Indians bargained our trip down to 10 rupees each (about 25 cents I think).

Warangal has a population of about 2 million, but it's pretty chaotic, at least compared to anything I have ever experienced. I'm quite looking forward to visiting Hyderabad on Sunday, which is around 8 million I'm told. I think not getting run over was a pretty big accomplishment.

We mostly wandered around the shops, in awe of the fabrics. Ankur bought some Jalebis - a pretzel-shaped sugar sweet (above picture). This was pretty weird eating fried sugar, and why didn't we think of that already?

We mostly just walked around, taking it all in, so nothing too exciting to report.

And today we moved on sustainable development, and our last day with Professor Rajnikath so that's awesome. It's a LOT of effort to understand his accent. We had some new Nepalese and a Bangladeshi join us today too, and just as I had almost memorized all the names.

We just got back from trying to play cricket, but they got tired of us after a few minutes and got into an intense game, so we just threw a ball around for a bit. One of the guys from Sunday's cricket attempt came later and we secured another lesson and game tomorrow before dinner.

Here's a photo I took from the third floor of a shop in downtown Warangal, trying to capture the functioning chaos:

Day 1 of classes: success!

We had our first day of classes yesterday, which was pretty good. Still getting to know people's names (as will be the trend for the next week I think), as there are about 30 participants. And most of them have names like Trilantha, Archana and Ankur - and those are just some I actually can remember!

Yesterday we did a little inauguration, which was nice but totally demonstrated why India is such a bureaucracy. EVERYONE had to say words of welcome and thanks. And there was a candle lit by a participant from each nation. And expectations were discussed and the code of conduct, and blah blah. On the plus side we get a morning tea break AND an afternoon tea break! On the down side, the tea tastes like liquid sugar.

Yesterday's afternoon session was a cross-cultural orientation, which turned into a pretty heated discussion on culture. It's definitely teaching me a lot about working to understand different points of view and working in a language that many people struggle with. The other women are mostly from India, with one from Nepal, and they just crack me up because they are constantly laughing. The guy leading the session is odd though and will be teaching again today, but he's one of those people that has a PhD and wants you to know it. Apparently he reads signatures, so I might see about doing that on tea break today.

Tonight, Nasim, Theo (another Canadian from Dominican University College) and I are going with Ankur into Warangal proper for dinner and for a tour from his friend. Hilarious side note on Ankur: he was voted Mr. North India last year and loves bodybuilding. Haha now we tease him all the time.

I'm going to go eat breakfast but I'll post again soon. And here is what our residence area looks like:

I love Dhal

I'm here!

I arrived safely around 4am this morning after a three hour bus ride from the Hyderabad airport. I was and am still so excited to begin exploring but unlike other work and study abroad experiences I've had, this one is more structured. We were told not to walk past the main road on our own today. I know one reason is because there are increasing tensions in Andrah province between the North (Telangana) and South (Andrah) who want to separate. I can't help but feel antsy and confined, but I have to remember that I came here to learn first, adventure second.

After a few hours of sleep, and some chapati, banana and potato chutney for breakfast, we went for a walk outside the grounds of the Bala Vikasa training centre, where we are living and having our classes. It feels really nice to walk around with my sandals again and the heat is dry so it's quite nice.

In a nearby park there was about 30 or so young boys playing many games of cricket and seemed only too eager for us to join in, if not to laugh at our inability to hit the ball. I'm trying to pick up a little Telugu, the provincial language, but it's a bit confusing. Nipee ruenti? Heather. Something like that. I also realized that I don't do well remembering names here. But lots to work on! And I'm working on my nod/sway - which everyone here is fond of doing to meaning something like "sure, whatever" or "unsure." Clearly I haven't got the hang of it yet.

Classes start tomorrow morning from 9-5pm and the rest of the participants are gradually arriving today and tomorrow morning from different parts of India and Nepal, as well as South Africa. I've taken a few pictures, but I'm pretty sleepy still so I might go nap and tour more later.

And I was happy to see the tuk-tuks (here called autos) and hope to learn to drive one in my spare time, the same three wheeled open cars from Tanzania. Also for the foodies out there: it's a little funny getting used to the curries and chillies here, especially eating spicy food in the morning, but the lentils (dhal) are awesome. And I've also had some delicious plain yogurt, chapati flatbread and fruits.

So I'm staying hydrated and enjoying the sun, but missing skating on the canal just a little bit.

Until next time, lots of love and hugs.