The 68.8%

Custard apples

I’ve made my peace with going to the field.  The journey this time was close to 17 hours – 14 hours on the train and what should have been a two hour drive, but extended to three with stops at a dairy distribution centre (to pick up some lassi and sweets) and at what was supposed to be a beautiful waterfall but turned out to be a small trickle.  As my colleague put it: not exactly Niagara Falls.  Nonetheless, a nice mini-excursion.

Actually, in a number of ways this was a more ‘fun’ field trip – perhaps it was the colleagues I was with, or just the opportunities that arose.  On our first day we visited some watershed areas my organization works in, and I got to learn a bit about some crops, was served fresh coconut milk (knocked from the tree minutes before), and departed with custard apples, papayas, and groundnuts with jaggery (a type of unrefined sugar) – which taste delicious in combination (think peanut brittle).

Fresh coconut milk!

On the morning of our second day we drove for an hour across into the neighbouring state of Karnataka. To avoid potholes, we drove for stretches on the right side of the road.  In India, you drive on the left side.  (While in rural areas roads can be empty, this is also a stereotype of Hyderabadi-driving, where 2-wheelers or cars drive against traffic for brief stretches, often as a short-cut).  Our destination was a site claiming to have 1 crore (10 million) statues of a Hindu god.  The place was remote and curious – yet I felt that I wasn’t able to appreciate the true significance of it, despite my colleague’s best efforts to give a summary of the religious context.

Working up to 10 million of these Hindu god statues.

The focus of this field trip was to interact with villagers and farmers in rural areas.  With 68.8% of India’s population rural, this is where the majority lives.  When I would (in my broken Telugu) try to tell them I was from Canada I would get slightly puzzled looks.  Some thought I meant Karnataka – a state in south-western India.  This would have to be corrected: no, Canada, the country next to America.  That made some more sense to them.  So there we go for Canada’s ego – for many around the world, Canada is so removed and irrelevant, it does not make it on to their mental map of important countries.

The villagers we met (mostly farmers) were very kind, and on an informal note, seemed to be less inclined to stare at me.  I think they were still curious – but perhaps somehow more well-mannered.  One woman from the village had prepared a sweet for us but forgot to serve it while we were in the village, and so later in the day travelled the approximately 8km from Ogu village to V.Kota, where our NGO area office is, to give us the sweets.  Turns out that previously some foreigner had stayed in Ogu and greatly enjoyed papaya and the sweets, which is why she also shared it with me.

Meal from a banana leaf

Throughout the week we ate in a number of tiny tiffin centres – where a family serves food from just a couple of tables.  The food is delicious as it is homemade; just don’t expect any kind of atmosphere.  Numerous times we ate from banana leaves, which is traditional in India and said to be good for you (in terms of something in the banana leaves encouraging appetite and digestion).  It is also certainly environmental – nature’s natural plate!  Nonetheless, with no edges (as on a plate) it is also a bit scary for me, as I watch the liquid curry move slowly toward the edge of the leaf (and I try to scoop it up with rice before it spills into my lap).  While I am sure an Indian would argue otherwise, in my Western perspective the food (and way it is eaten here) feels so messy.  For example, on the train we had some idly and masala dosa with chutneys and rasam – these are runny liquids that you dip each bite into with your hands, while balancing it on a paper plate on your knees. No bowls or spoons.  A Subway sandwich really seems so much more logical as a transport food.  But what is messy is in part socially constructed, just as what is polite or appropriate.

Following breakfast at a tiffin centre one morning, my colleagues walked with interest and excitement into what appeared to be a storage room.  Turns out it was a temporary retail shop (from someone’s one-bedroom home) selling shirts and trousers for a flat fee of Rs.200 (less than $4).  We spent over an hour in there, my colleagues wading knee-deep (literally) in clothes to pick out items that interested them, or for their spouse, or for their children, etc.  (Upon learning that there would be new stock arriving in the afternoon, some colleagues returned for a second round of hunting.)  What immediately jumped out to me was the familiar brands buried in the piles – Banana Republic, Gap, Miss Sixty, H&M, French Connection, Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.  (Even more curiously, some clothes had the labels very purposefully cut-out).  All the clothes had the label of “Made in India”.

“Made in India”

Clearly they were meant largely for export market, but perhaps due to some minor manufacturing default were left to be sold off in the local market.  If you had the patience, at Rs.200 it was a great bargain; even if a formal shop in the village sold the same clothes, the price would be double.  If sold in Western markets, items could easily go for Rs.2,000-3,000).  So here was a good example of the world’s global clothes supply chain – recently drawing some attention in the Western media due to the tragedies in Bangladesh’s garment industry.  This made me think: why isn’t there some ‘fair garment label’ like there are familiar logos on food items indicating Fair Trade or Organic?  My colleague said that Indian consumer apathy is too high; I have to admit that in Canada most individuals also opt for bargain prices over paying a premium for Organic or Fair Trade.  (Given my social circle, I may have a disproportionate number of friends and acquaintances that are socially conscious.)  Further, clothing companies often outsource (and those in turn sub-outsource) – making supply chains long and clouded.  And as has been the case with Fair Trade and Organic, setting uniform global standards is challenging.  So for now we have to settle for doing our own research on individual companies.

Bargain hunting in the village

We spent our last day at a Training Centre, around 2.5 hours drive from V.Kota, where we were joined by colleagues from watershed areas across three districts for a retreat and training session (the other colleagues stayed on for four days).  It was such a nice feeling to recognize some faces – individuals I have met during my various field visits.  My organization has over 100 staff, of which only around 25 are based in the Hyderabad head office; the majority work in the field.  (In a rather more humorous and surprising scenario, one day while working in a slum in Hyderabad, a local resident said he recognized me – from Adilabad, which is 300km away.  It would seem that I am doing a good job making my way around the slums of Andhra Pradesh!)

The Training Centre we were at was near a Hill Station* called Horsley Hills.  No real glamour involved; it was reminiscent of summer camp.  But believe it or not, I was cold.  It was a high of around 20^oC (and cooler at night) and light drizzle, and I was digging out my cardigan – along with my Indian colleagues sporting their sweaters.  I keep laughing (but am actually really concerned): what will I do when I get to Canada in December?  (*Hill stations are high-altitude towns used as a place of refuge from the blistering summer heat.  Most of the hill stations in India were developed by the British.)

Girls studying under a solar-power lamp installed in their village by my organization.

In the evening at the Training Centre the power went out – actually a quite regular event (considering the power was off for six hours during the day; luckily we asked the evening before what time the power usually cuts, so we could turn on the hot water heater early in the morning and avoid very chilly bathing).  Yet being in the countryside, it is really dark when the power cuts.  In cities, someone always has a backup generator, so when power cuts some shops remain fully lit, some dark, and others somewhere in between.  But at the Training Centre, I luckily had my laptop and flashlight, and held on as they got the back-up generator going (which involved a lot of on-and-off almost strobe-light type of action until it stabilised).  It reminded me of the big blackout in 2012 across northern and eastern India which was said to affect around 620 million individuals (around 9% of the world’s total population).  While this happened I was in my then-organization’s office in Delhi – equipped with full power back-up – and thus did not even realise anything out of the ordinary had happened until I left work and the usual long line of auto-rickshaws was gone (as the metro was shut, the autos got good business).  But by that time the metro’s back-up power was on, so I took the metro to my guesthouse, where there was also back-up power.  For the privileged, there are ways around power shortages in India.  On the other hand, around 300 million in India (around 25% of the population) have no electricity in the first place.  For them, it made no difference.  It was just another day in India.

On the overnight bus ride back to Hyderabad we stopped around 2am at the roadside, and my female colleague was inclined to get off and use the restrooms.  The problem was, there were no restrooms.  There was only a tea shack.  Perhaps fine for the men… but for the women, as all too often is the case, there were only bushes.  And so embracing a true Indian experience, under a bright moon and behind the shack overlooking fields, I joined the other women.  (For a well-written and somewhat humorous summary of this ongoing predicament regarding bus travel, I highly recommend you read this blog post).  This was truly an Indian experience not just associated with bus travel, but the reality for many in the country.  There are more mobile phones than toilets.  An estimatd half of the population is without latrines. (Only 46.9% of households have lavatories while 49.8% defecate in the open. The remaining 3.2% use public toilets. Meanwhile, 63.2% of homes have a telephone, according to Census 2011.  This “reveals a country where millions have access to cutting-edge technology and consumer goods but a larger number of poor who lack access to even basic facilities” – BBC.)  As a result, many women wait until nightfall to use the bushes, causing great health and safety concerns.  For girls, not having proper toilets at school results in high drop-out rates.  A lack of toilets and poor hygiene practices costs India almost $54 billion every year, according to World Bank estimates.  I am proud to say that my organization works with communities to build toilets (and the associated necessary soak pits).  In the meanwhile, if only the male bus drivers would stop at locations with toilet facilities…