Check-in

Hey All!

So everything is going well, despite the fact that I haven't written in a million years. Actually, I lied. One thing is not going well. My computer crashed about two weeks ago and I lost all my data, etc. Luckily I'm able to get the hard drive replaced under warranty, but it still sucks. So that's why I haven't written in awhile.

Kalimpong was lots of fun! It was really beautiful. I wish I could upload photos from my trip, but alas, they are buried with my old hard drive.

Everything with the NGO is finally jiving and going really well, but I fear it's too little too late. I'm not sure I'll be able to get the program off the ground before I leave. And if I don't, I'm not sure the others will have the will to ensure that it actually starts. So that's stressful. But I really am enjoying doing the work.

School and my social life are equally hectic, and basically I'm just struggling to balance all three. But I'm having a really good time!

I'm gearing up for my trip around South India at the end of my program. Really excited!

~m

Debates, Gay Rights, and Stopping Domestic Violence

This past week was packed full of interesting experiences.

On Monday, American Independence Day, we didn't have class. I went with Tiljala SHED to a program about stopping domestic violence. The program was put on by the Jadavpur University Women's Studies Department, in the school that T-SHED runs in a slum in Topsia. Many of the women from the slum came to hear the presentation. At the beginning, I could understand everything that was being said, because the presentation was done in such a way as to be very accessible for the women. This means no big, academic words, etc, which means I could understand it. However, as they asked for lots of audience participation, the conversation soon switched to Hindi/Urdu, which I cannot understand. Most of the slum dwellers are Urdu speakers from Bihar or other states.

The presentation started out by asking what are instances of domestic violence and why they happen. Presumably, it went on to explain ways women can confront it and ways to stay safe, but I didn't understand alot of what they were saying. At the end, they were talking about how women can go to the police if their husbands hit them, and how their husbands can be fined or put in jail.

I think this is good, but as I was listening to it, I was thinking that no woman would want to have her husband fined or put in jail, because she and her children depend on his income. This got me to thinking about domestic violence in the US, to which I've previously not given much thought. I wonder if such income constraints prevent women in the US from acting out. Surely it does, but it's not something I've ever really thought about before. Nonetheless, it's good that women here at least have the legal support in some way, even if it's not yet practical for them to use.

That particular slum is one of the main drug trafficking hubs of Kolkata. One of the T-SHED workers asked me if I wanted to see the drug dens and I said sure, thinking that we'd just walk slyly by. Nope. Instead we went with one of the women who works alot in that community and knows all the people there. She took us inside the dens, and we got live demonstrations of how to smoke brown sugar, a form of heroine. Definitely an experience I never thought I would have. We spoke to some of the drug users about why they use it, and it was clear that they were completely addicted. One man talked about how his four children and his wife didn't respect him anymore, but how he needed to smoke it to be able to do his work. At first I thought that it was because his work was painful or something, but then I realized that it's not because of the nature of his work, but because of the nature of the withdrawals if he stops using it. Really sad. One hit costs 50 rupees, and it takes two hits to get high. 100 rupees a day is a huge amount for someone who probably makes less than 1000 rupees a week. I'm not really sure how much most of the slum dwellers make, but it can't be much. For your information, 1oo rupees is about $2.20 or so.

I'm going to skip to the weekend in the interest of space and time. On Saturday I went to a debate sponsored by the American Center of Kolkata about whether capitalism is a prerequisite for democracy. I thought that it was going to be community leaders in the debate, but it was actually teams of students from some of Kolkata's top colleges. It was interesting, and some of the speeches were pretty good, while some weren't. Even though the event wasn't what I had had in mind, I was glad I went.

Yesterday I went with two other AIIS students to a gay rights rally. They had booths for different advocacy groups in the city, who work on issues from legalization, to safe sex, to transgendered issues. The main reason we went was to see a documentary that they were showing about the Hijra community in Pakistan. They movie screenings were running about 3 hours behind schedule, so we waited for a long time to be able to see it. Then, when they showed it, it turned out to be only 10 minutes long and not very informative. Woops. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to see the rally as a whole, because India is still very conservative. Most of the attendees were upper-middle class gay men, which I am told is often the core group (and main funders) for the movement in India. Some women told me that lesbians, transsexuals, lower class people, minorities, etc are often pushed to the sidelines, and that the parades, rallies, etc are very political within the community. Kinda sounds like what I know of the gay rights movement in the US. Anyways, it was exciting to see this side of human rights work in India, after spending so much time working on economic empowerment.

Though I had other fun and interesting experiences throughout the week, those are definitely the list-toppers.

Tonight I'm going with Ben, Jeff and Rebecca to Kalimpong, in the Himalayan foothills for our midterm break!

~m

Off the Beaten Path in Kolkata, and Shantiniketan

Week three is over, but nothing has slowed down. I'm very busy this summer, between classes, working with the NGO, and trying to see all my friends.

Classes are going well, but I don't feel like I'm improving noticeably. I guess that's what happens when you get up into higher levels, the progress is more gradual. But I am really enjoying the classes, as ever.

Working with Tiljala SHED continues to provide me with new experiences and new views of Kolkata. I went earlier in the week to Topsia, a rather run-down part of the city. First I went to visit one of the schools, which is in a slum along a canal. The houses in the slum were some of the worst conditions I've seen in Kolkata, at least up close. It makes the slums I worked in Khardah seem clean and cozy by comparison. There were flies everywhere. the houses themselves were made mostly of plastic and scraps of different materials, rather than the that and concrete that abounds in Park Circus, for instance. Anyways, the school itself was very sweet. There was a class going on when I got there. The children were drawing pictures. They had all come after their regular public government school.

One second grade boy had stopped attending the public school the month before. His mom apparently doesn't see the point in sending her children to school. He told me his brother went until 4th grade, so I told him he should go until at least then also. He was really embarrassed to talk to me about it, but he said he would go the next day. I wonder if he did.

After visiting the school, we stopped by the go-down that TSHED owns. Go downs are these enormous shacks (usually built on a slope down to a canal, which I assume is how they got their names, though I'm not sure) that hold trash. People sit among bags and bags of trash, which they have actually bought from private and public places like malls and office buildings (yes, they buy the trash.) The people sit there and sort the trash first into plastic, paper and one other category (I forget, woops). And then they sort again. And again. And again. I don't know how many categories they sort into, but once they've done that, they sell the sorted trash to other people/companies, who specialize in recycling that specific kind of trash. When one first comes to India, it seems bad that there aren't recycling facilities and that bottles and things instead just get thrown away (if they aren't kept for storing water in private homes, which is very common). But unlike in the US, in the trash does not mean in the landfill. The whole process is actually really impressive and admirable.

...Until you see how it works on the ground. The people sorting the trash do not have any kind of protective gear whatsoever, not even gloves. TSHED tried to introduce gloves before, the workers didn't want to wear them because they're too hot. I have to admit that big rubber gloves are one of the last things I'd want to wear in this heat. But then bags and bags of trash are the last thing I'd want to touch. But such is the life of many of the people living in this area.

If the sorting is bad, some of the recycling techniques are worse. We drove by a go down where some kind of trash was being bured for recycling. I don't know what they were burning, but the air was so toxic I wanted to gag. Once again, not much in the way of protection for the people working and breathing in the fumes. It is truly grueling work.

All of this is tucked out of sight, just behind Science City, an amusement park and big attraction for middle class children. I never would have known any of it was there if I weren't working with the NGO.

In completely unrelated news, we went on a class trip to Shantiniketan over the weekend. It's the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Bengali poet. Later in his life he started a university there that saw such students as Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen. The whole town is really wonderful, and very peaceful, as is fitting for it's name, which translates to Abode of Peace. We spent the first day touring the town, the university, and the nearby sights on bicycles. One of the students cant' ride bikes, so we hired a bicycle rickshaw for her. I tried pulling her in it for awhile on a dirt road outside of town. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but then again she is very small and I wasn't going very fast. It is a good workout for sure. I actually had a lot of fun pulling her, and the ricksha-wallah got a good laugh out of it too. But the best part was the looks of confusion, shock, and amazement from the villagers we passed on the road. Seeing a young white girl pedaling a rickshaw is truly an unusual sight.

The next day we toured around some of the more distant sights by car. It was a very enjoyable trip.

I am attaching some photos from Shantiniketan, but I don't have any from Topsia.

Below see Ben with a calf outside of a small temple, a statue of the highly revered Rabindranath Tagore, a village barber, and a goat that somehow found it's way into a window of a village house.

~m