Extreme Poverty

The monsoon is in full swing now...both our forays outside the hostel and our village visits have slowed down due to the rains and flooded streets, with water above the knee in some areas. Many Musahar families live in mud huts, and every monsoon season brings both hope and despair: hope for the opportunity of steady agricultural labor for the season, instead of the average 10 days per month of work for the rest of the year; despair due to the heavy, unceasing rains that literally wash away their homes, forcing them to rebuild their houses every year.

Nicole and I have begun compiling the data from our village visits in order to write up our report. The average wage for 10-11 hours of agricultural labor for a Dalit woman is about Rs. 30 per day, or $0.75, while her husband makes double that. Less than 1% of the women are literate, but hopefully with Nari Gunjan centers in the villages, their daughters will radically change those statistics. The girls attend the centers until they get married, at around 14 years of age (though the legal age in India is 18 for girls). We've also begun speaking with the women about child marriage laws, as well as domestic violence laws, in the third round. We know we won't be able to change everything overnight, but at least we can try...


Here are some photos from our village visits:

Lifestyle changes

Over these last two weeks, since Francesco left, our lifestyles have changed quite radically. Nicole and I are now living in a spare room that's been used for storage at Prerana Hostel, right next to some of the girls we teach. We're also navigating the countryside on the backs of our translators' motorbikes (who are the co-coordinators of the organization) as we visit far-flung Musahar villages as opposed to taking autorickshaws. And since our surge-protector burst into flames last week, our work on the survey report, fundraising and creating a Nari Gunjan brochure has slowed down quite a bit. Thank goodness Nicole's aunt is sending us a new heavy-duty surge-protector, along with more DEET, permethrin and a large bottle of pepto bismol!

Our living situation had to be altered once it started raining heavily at night (after all, it's monsoon season)...our rented house's caretaker, Suji, sleeps in the unfinished second floor and apparently gets wet when it rains at night. The first time it happened, he banged on our front door in the middle of the night and slept in the unused bedroom that had bed bugs (poor Nicole). Upon learning about the incident, Sr. Sudha firmly told us that this was an improper arrangement and we should no longer answer the door at night. So the next time it rained, at 3:30 a.m., Suji banged on our front door, and upon our seeming indifference, came round to our open bedroom window and shone his flashlight onto us as we "slept", yelling the whole while. How creepy and inappropriate! I understand that nobody can sleep in the rain, but as he sleeps on the unfinished floor upstairs, he could have just moved his mattress into the covered garage instead. The day after, Sr. Sudha had us move into Prerana hostel. It's great being able to spend more time with the girls and Sr. Sudha...I just realized I have a little less than a month left here. So much to still do: we plan to continue the survey and do 3 more rounds of another 6 centers/villages, plus all the computer work that needs to be finished.



Here's a photo of Prerana Hostel, my new home: