Muddy trousers

Today I spent more time with the students.  After spending many hours on my laptop working on my project plan, I feel the need for break and go join the students in their personal time (after 4.30, they have flexible time for a set of activities and mentoring).  With the first student, I simply sat down in one of the rooms and started a conversation about his village.  Then I asked what he would like to develop, to which he responded his ability to express himself confidently.  This turned out to be a common thread in the handful of students I was able to ‘mentor’ this evening.

I wanted to really get to know them and understand their position, so I tried to make any conversation as constructive as possible, whilst being insightful.  I gave the interview-type simulation by asking them to talk on random topics – such as GFS (Graduate Finishing School) and the word ‘poverty’. It uncovered a lot about their perceptions, both of GFS and poverty in India.  One particular girl used the words “poor” and “backward” to describe her student community – to which I felt personally uncomfortable. Having asked her what she felt, she agreed that it did not empower her but rather make her feel upset.  It was an opportunity to take ownership of my role in GFS and so I explained to her why those terms are redundant and have no value on anyone here – and that we are working on re-wording to ‘economically disadvantaged’.  This merely implies lacking funds to pursue higher education, rather than being lower, or unequal compared to the rest.  It felt good to connect with students – hearing the responses to questions such as “How will you make your parents proud?” One girl was lacking confidence to talk to new people and so we spoke through her fears to realise that there was nothing really to get so anxious about, resulting in her freezing up.

On my walk home, it was very muddy and my trousers were getting dirty.  My bags were heavy and I suddenly caught myself complaining.  I became an observer in that moment, and stepped out of complaint and into possibility.  I realised that this is the space where growth occurs.  The area is so muddy because roads are not built and houses are in construction.  Migrants build small huts out of bricks without cement, housing their whole families.  My temporary walk into a clean, well built and relatively insect free house is something I realised I was incredibly grateful for.

The Indicorps Orientation

It has been over a month since I arrived in India and thought it would be good to share my experiences so far.

Indicorps Orientation aptly started on 15 August 2009 (Indian Independence Day) and we began by going to a local village school to participate in the flag raising ceremony.  As the 27 fellows and a handful of staff walk through rural India, we become fully aware of this new home, with its muddy roads and wandering cows.

The purpose of the month long ‘boot camp’ orientation is to introduce us to India and the Fellowship.  To challenge us and push our boundaries, both physical and intellectual, the staff put us through various activities and vigorous experiences.  To give you a better understanding, I shall mention a few of the main ones.

To move away from the typical tourist / visitor mindset, we are introduced to the ‘Safai Schedule’.  All of the new residents of ESI (Environmental Sanitation Institute), our beautiful suburban home for the next month, are divided up into groups (which included staff) and then allocated different areas of the building to clean (ranging from toilets, dorms to open spaces).  We are also taught how to wash our own clothes (we are expected to do our own laundry), as well as wash our dishes after eating meals.  It's all part of the Indicorps philosophy on simple living.

On the very first day, we are tasked with the rather fun exercise of taking 2-3 local school children (who live in the nearby slum) on an adventure trip to the Zoo.  Regardless of language abilities, I think we all enjoyed walking around with the children, who towards the end were the ones walking us around I think!  To experience a connection and relatedness to children was true joy and gave an immensely practical introduction to the future of India.

Village Stay: this was probably the most I’ve had to operate out of my comfort zone.  We all went by sleeper train and local bus (for 5 hours) to a cluster of villages, where we were divided into smaller groups.  I went to a small village called Mogyabeh.  It was very interesting to be living with a host family in this village of farmers.  On the scale of Indian villages, this particular village is considered to be very much developing, due to the fact that certain facilities are not available (constant power or water connection) and the startling knowledge that there were no toilets in the whole village.  Working on the farm, carrying bundles of grass on my head, sleeping next to the goats, bulls and cows (considered family members), lots of flies, bathing in a well... we’re among the obvious experiences.  Five very memorable days.

Going beyond the physical challenges, it was more about understanding how rural India lives.  Spending time with the family, trying to communicate without using words.  The language they spoke was a very different dialect of Hindi, which pushed me to find ways to communicate beyond just words to build rappor and connection.

Understanding the emotional drivers behind each family member and how the unit operated was insightful.  I saw that women had respect, but we’re still treated very differently.  Men did work hard in the fields during season, but out of season, there was pretty much nothing to do.  I have to say, going through a bout of Diarrhea was the most memorable and involved me letting go of worry about what other people think – especially when having to walk through the whole village to get to the open field multiple times during the day (carrying the local trademark ‘white bottle’ for obvious reasons!).

Overall, I’ve spent a lot of time with new people and although you learn many things about them, the experience also enables you to reflect on yourself, your personal qualities and weaknesses.  Now that we’ve started our projects at our sites (Dharwad, Karnataka), there is more emphasis on personal growth and starting the phase of understanding ("look, listen and learn") – so that we can soon start implementing some of our objectives.

The NGO I’m working with here is called Vidya Poshak.  My project focus is developing the Graduate Finishing School, a 3 month full time course aimed at developing functional English, self confidence and soft skills in economically disadvantages students so that they may secure well-paid employment, alleviating poverty from their families for good.

I look forward to posting updates / sharing my thoughts soon...

Thank you for reading.