Slum Area Pictures

Chilling

Flowers for me?? ;)

preschool naptime

Pumping water for the day

Fried Sweet Potatoes

Happy old lady

Sneaking a peak...

Something to do with Religion

Every morning and evening, the Hindu people in the slums carefully sweep their sidewalks. They perform this ritual meticulously, even if there is a landfill next door, they will still make sure the portion in front of their their quarters is free of dust and garbage. Afterwards, they draw in a hindu symbol directly in front of their entrance. I was watching this activity with Samadhi, one of the social workers, and she brought up the issue of religion.
“What is your religion? Christian” She asked.
“No” I replied. “No religion. I believe in universe”
So, she was extremely confused. “What do you pray to?”
She was unable to comprehend existence without faith. I wanted to say that I need not pray to a higher being as greatness and beauty is inherent in nature. But from here, the language barrier broke down my attempt to explain any further. Eventually, she seemed to understand of her own accord.
“God is in all of us.” She seemed to say in agreement with my unverbalized thought.

As the day passed, after visiting many families in the slum area, we eventually decided to go visit a Hindu temple “so I can pray to her god for whatever I want.”

Parthasarathy Temple was one of the most beautiful temple I’ve ever seen (but that may be because I have not yet had a chance to see the rest of Tamil Nadu). The temple built from an ancient Dravidian civilization, has a front and back entrance tower cover in detailed carving of hundreds of deities. After we’ve removed our shoes on the street, inside, all the walls are lined with similar detailed carvings. The area is built like a maze, a path you explore leading you to different chambers of God. In each camber, there is a larger than life size statue of a god in black stone draped in flowers. A loosely-clothed Brahmen priest is also there, blessing each person with holy water poured into the hand to drink, yellow powder on the forehead, or a thump to the head with a metal cylinder.** Most people will quietly theirs, as the blessings are passed around. Others will ask certain objects such as fruits or flowers be taken to the statue to be blessed. The blessed items are then returned for individual safekeeping. Finally, a candle is lit and individuals cup their hand over the candle and, then, to their face in order to spread the light of knowledge from God. The most affected believer I saw began to joyously sing, shout, and dance before and during the blessing.

Sumadhi and I went to 5 different chambers, drink, powder, thump, drink and thump. At the end of the journey, near the back door, there are two alls, in between them are hollowed areas with dark hand imprints. We placed our hand where thousands have done before and our head into the hollow. There was an echo and a muted feeling inside the hollow and, there, you close your eyes to pray. Here, more than anywhere else in the temple, I felt how compelling religion can be. In the tumultuous experience of living in a polluted, rapidly progressing city, full of contradictions, religion must sometimes be the only peace that people can find.

**Disclaimer: At the end of the day, I am still an ignorant foreigner in my interpretation of these rituals so please consult a Hindu textbook and don’t take my word for it.

Human Fear and Kindness

Human fear: I’ve decided to move out of the compound to live in an apartment 2km north. After 1 week of living alone and bathing from a cup, I realized the ascetic lifestyle was not for me. Anachi, the servant, takes care steps to kept he place clean. But, even then, the swarms of mosquitoes, and finally a giant prehistoric looking cockroach was the last straw. Last night, I turned the lights to the kitchen to make ramen and there was the cockroach again, leisurely crawling his way into hiding. Ever since I was a child, I had an irrational fear of cockroaches. More than any pest, the cockroach would stir a primordial reaction that no amount of reasoning can overcome. And this one was BIG. So after 5 minutes, gripping onto my ramen packet, repeating to myself that the cockroach is more afraid of me than I of it, I finally had the nerve to scramble towards the store, dump the ramen in water, and run away. So anyway, tomorrow I will moving to a new apartment.

Human kindness: Bus rides in Chennai are a completely fascinating experience of their own. For those who liked part 1: Chennai Traffic Jams, you will love Part 2: People Packing on Buses. For many people, who can’t afford to take auto-rickshaws, bus rides are the only way to get to work. The buses are usually so full that they only stop for 8 seconds. There it’s imperative for one to dash for it and as the bus doors are kept open, there will still be many running alongside and jumping on as it moves. They will be boarding until there’s legs and arms dangling out the door. I’ve seen one guy hanging onto the side of the bus with fingers gripping the window grids. But, in the end, they all manage to make it to work. Even more miraculously, the people of Chennai manage to maintain a level of courtesy and order amidst this chaos. The women and men file neatly to separate side as they board. Furthermore, women are all given priority for boarding and moving towards the center. And, children are taken care of by everyone. A woman holding a young child boarded and I thought naturally someone would give their seat, but rather the DPG social worker with me (complete stranger to the woman) held out her arms and took the child on her lap. In the back, an old lady with a rice sack was getting off. A line of men passed her rice sack to the door as she slowly waked out. All this was without so much a word. It was just understood.

Republic Day

Republic Day was today and I wanted to to see how different an Indian parade was from the Macy's 34th Street festivities. I got there early around 7am to scour a spot to plop down on. The parade was scheduled to start at 8, but around 7:50, the street was packed with people.
During the parade, they were showcasing the military strength by transporting entire missles, tanks, and even helicopters on parade boats. I wondered if those were real army utilities or just life-size GI Joe imitation. There were lots of army parading, and a moment of anti-climatic humor when the boy scouts, who was suppose to be marching also, scuttled after the soldiers in complete disarray. After a few minutes, I got bored and left. This convinced me that all military, no matter what country, is just the equivalent of peacock fluffing up their feathers.

DPG Self Help Group Meeting

I was traipsing around the office today dressed in what I thought was my most conservative-looking dress when Rosy tapped me on the shoulder. “Catleen,” she said kindly, “if you go to the fields next week, you need to get a slip for your dress.” So, that was when I found out that my dress was actually too “thin” for Indian taste. Rosy agreed to take me to buy new a slip and some traditional Chorudes (spelling?) so I can fit in properly. However, before we headed off to the shop, she said she had a detour to make- a meeting a 4pm. So, I set off with her on her scooterbike into the thick of Chennai traffic, considered one of the worst, even in India.

The Meeting: It turned out that the meeting between the Area Development Council (ADC) for Davidpuram, a set of slums located very close to a main shopping district. An ADC is a council that represents all the SHGs in its area. It’s a bit like the hierarchy for a democratic government with the Federations and Councils helping to keep record, and ensure accountability for all savings and loans for the groups under their jurisdiction. Davidpuram is the most successful of ADCs, with 99.9% savings and borrowing participation rate from its member. And all this because of one lady, who acts not only as the treasurer of her ADC, but also for the Federation at large. She was amongst the most educated in the area, having finished tenth grade and whatever she lacked in education, she made up for with zealousness and precision. She is an excellent accountant, and an intimidating lady, who ensured that everyone repaid their loans in time and saved regularly. If she had been born under different circumstances, she might have been working in the boardroom. But now, she works many hours and without pay to upkeep the Committee for the neighborhood. She herself is a single mother with two kids. Her youngest child was extremely rambunctious during the meeting, and would’ve climbed up atop the tree in the courtyard if his grandmother had not a thrown a warning pebble at him. Which brings us to the children. Unlike any other board meeting in the world, these board members, without the benefit of babysitters, have to care for their children during the meeting. The children’s reaction varied greatly, some slept lazily in their mom’s laps, others ran outside, playing with stones, motorbikes, whatever was small enough for them to grip. Quite a few of the ADC members had to shuffle out during the meeting to make sure their child had not run away too far into trouble.
The meeting itself was to preside over the handling of a small grocery store, formed by the collaboration of two different SHG taking out loans. The store was jointly owned by all members (shareholders). Although the store was making profit for the community, the communal nature has made it very difficult for it to operate. The meeting lasted for two hours and, after a lot of passionate and rapid debating, all the shareholders agreed to put it up for sale to one of the SHG members. All the proceeds would go back into the bank to be made available for individual loans and then at a later date, the principal and interest rate will be split evenly amongst all the members of the SHG.

So, even though, this is in a courtyard of the slums, the decision-making process was not so different from what I’ve witnessed at a corporation. If anything, they take it even more seriously than the grey-hair old men in suit and tie. With very few for-hire jobs for Indian women, their income and family’s survival depends heavily on these loans for individual enterprises.

This was a very poignant example of why grassroots microfinance NGOs are vital for poor developing communities. Also, because I understood very little of what was said in the meeting, I had a chance to play with the children while the adults were in session. After this was all over, I got suited in my new Indian attire. Tomorrow will be Republic Day. I will see if I can pass for a local in this dress.

Presiding over the meeting

Treasurer of APC and the Federation

Aspiring Accountant

Bored child in mother's lap

Grandma watching over the kids

Detailed savings and loans account book

Store built from the SHG loans

Confusion and argument during meeting

Little kids shennanigan

More shennanigans

Old ladies waiting outside for the meeting to end

Early Morning

Around 5:00 every morning, there's always some disturbance in the neighborhood, sometimes caused by the guard dog waking up finally to defend his territory. His barking create a disturbance and the whole neighborhood of strays would soon join him. The barking become more relentless and angrier, the guard dog would even start snarl as if he was being attacked from all sides. And then around 5:30, a clear and enchanting man's voice would break the chaos. Miraculously, all the dogs quiet down to listen to the singing. And I, waking up momentary, would also lay spellbounded as well. The voice sings for half an hour each morning, slowly growing dimmer as the day breaks as if he was fading away into thin air.

Introduction to Chennai

It's a bare 10 x 10 white-washed room, immaculately kept. Outside, the sound of cawing, barking, chattering, occasonally interrupted by the burst of cheesy cell-phone tunes. There's a ceiling fan, a desk and chair, a sing-person bed, one small vanity mirror, and a string to hang laundry. This is where I will sleep and work.

My assignment here will be to help compile and record the work done by DPG (Development Promotion Group) the past year into an annual report. There 6 different types of projects and 63,974 beneficial families. So where do I begin?

The organization is headed by a man name Bhakter Solomon. He prefers to go by only "Solomon" and as the name would imply, he is a devout Christian. Yesterday, he introduced me to the "secretary", Vanidha. After 30 minutes of conversation, I found out she was his daughter. She is a professional copy editor, and helps to manage the projects in the urban slums. The rest of the office in Chennai made up primarily of people dealing with microloans to SHG (self-help groups) in the city. There's a team of around 7 that record every family's saving and income. They are led by Rosy, who has a cheerful matronly demanor. Next week, Rosy will take me to the slum to witness the field work. There's also a recpetionist, an accountant, a servant and a guard dog. The latter spends most his time plooped down napping on the cool marble floors. At night he assumes the same position atop the compound walls.

Right now, my immediate mission will be to purchase washing soap. I accidentally purchased laundry soap yesterday so I had an uncomfortable bathing experience. I will write again when more exciting happenings unfold.

Essential Packing List

Below is a list of items you need for a trip to India:

Passport and Visa
Plane Ticket
Travel Insurance
Drawing Book
Coloring Pencils
Cash
Discreet Fanny Pack
Lock
Sneakers
Medicine- First Aid Kit, Pepto Bismol, Malaria Pills
Bug Spray
Camera
Vaccines- Typhoid, HepA, HepB
Underwear (Lots of)