a conversation

Saturday morning we woke up and met downstairs in the hotel lobby by 9 am. The interns chatted as we waited for the RAs and organizers to trickle into the lobby. Eventually, we boarded two buses that had been provided by the Dhan Foundation, the NGO we were going to visit. We drove for about twenty five minutes until we got to a large compound. We got off the bus and walked through a large house-like building - it was one of those homes where there were indoor and outdoor spaces within the walls of the house. We we were led into a small room that had a few overhead fans and several folding chairs that lined the perimter. There was a large projection machine on a folding table in the front of the room. A man came in and greeted us and then launched into a long presentation about the Dhan Foundation and its many initiatives. We learned about the many departments and projects that were going on throughout the organization. After the first hour, the heat had finally gotten exhausting. We all sat in the room, sweating and waiting for the presentation to be over. The gentleman who gave the presentation was really informative, but he was just too detailed for our group.

Lunch finally came, and we all walked to another part of the compound where a large buffet style lunch had been prepared in large silver andas (big silver containers for food). We ate some vegetable korma, mixed rice, yogurt and potato chips. The highlight (for me) was the strawberry ice cream at the end of the meal. If you haven't had Indian ice cream, it has a wonderfully soft texture and is lightly flavored and is surprisingly not over-sweetened.(Korma, is not worth the trouble, in my opinion. however, i am convinced korma is some kind of madurai specialty because it kept popping up all weekend.)

After lunch we had two more hours of presentations around Dhan's microfinance program and the mechanics behind their SHG-linkage model. I had been convinced the day before that the Grameen style model was much better, but after talking with the field officer who presented, it seemed like the women had a lot more autonomy. Though, I can't say that I was listening too closely towards the end of the two hours, I was simply itching to get to the site visit and talk to the women.

Before we departed, we had a snack of fresh apples, hot masala tea, sweet lime juice and dried lentils. the sun was so hot above, so we all stood on the steps of the house extension and enjoyed the fresh fruit and juice.

finally, it was time to depart, and two groups boarded two minibuses and were driven off to different locations. our car drove for maybe twenty minutes and as we got closer to the village, the road got narrow and the homes and shops grew sparse. we were driving along the road when all of a sudden we heard loud, blaring religious music coming from somewhere. it was so loud that it felt like the sound was swimming through the bus. however, upon closer examination, we saw that there were large (old fashioned) loudspeakers hooked up to lamp-posts that were blaring the music. we finally parked the car and got out of the vehicle, only to land in another area of the neighborhood where the music was incomprehensibly loud. (this for many corroborated the theory that people here in India are less sensitive to loud sounds, the jury's still out for me.)

We followed Mr. Kartikeyan towards a small temple in the center of the village where we were instructed to take our shoes off. In the mean time, Mr. Karthikeyan (our representative from Dhan) tried to gather the women for their monthly meeting. As we waited, several children had come over to the temple. They were surprised when I spoke Tamil with them. Some of the kids were walking up to the other interns and asking them questions. There were three little girls Chitra, Kartikeya and Vijayalakshmi. (No, akka and krish, I did not take those names from one of dad's "kuti mohan" stories...)

They kept asking "what is that akka's name, what is that akka's name?" (they were referring to sybille, jessica, alison and nicole. They kept repeating the names out loud. The boys were asking Sybille for pictures. They were following all of the interns everywhere; they were really excited and happy. (For those of you who don't know, I love kids, and half or more of me would have been perfectly happy just sitting with the kids and asking them questions all afternoon.)

The women eventually gathered in what we later found out was the school house. we sat on one side while the meeting got under way, and the women sat in a large circle conducting their business on the other side. They had their accountant present, and he talked with the women as they each paid their loans and collected savings. While this transpired, the leader of the group, an older woman with curly white hair, big mouse-like eyes and weathered skin that was the color of pokkodam, came over to me and started chatting. She talked about how she had a yogurt business. She gestured by showing me how she would carry the yogurt all about the town, still on the top of her head. Then she gestured again, drawing her finger across her neck while she mumbled something I could not quite understand. I finally figured out that she was trying to tell me that her husband had died, and as a result, she had to work. Also, all of her sons had gotten married and left the village she lived in. She told me she was seventy years old and was tired of working everyday. (It was really nice to be able to have a one on one conversation with someone and just hear about their life. I suppose it was really a one to many conversation since I was trying my best to translate everything this lady told me to the entire group.) At one point during the conversation, she yelled at someone to go and do something. A few minutes later, she happily doled out "morru" (homemade buttermilk) from a large silver pot. She made all of us drink glass after glass and was not interested in taking no for an answer.

This lady reminded me just a little bit of my own grandmother. I'm not sure if it was her weathered hands, or her warmth, but I found myself really missing Lalithamma (my grandmother) during the course of this day. Meanwhile, the women in the group were going about their business, collecting money, doling out the savings and making sure the accountant recorded everything correctly. They were not at all phased by our presence in the corner of the school house.

When the meeting was over, we expanded our circle so that we could have a conversation with the women. Again, I found myself interpreting questions and remarks from the interns to the women. I also found that I still needed quite a bit of help from Mr. Karthikeyan, because there were lots of phrases and expressions I was not able to comprehend.

I explained who we were (graduate students) and why we were there ( to learn about their lives so we could help more people) and then began by asking questions. The initial questions were similar to those that I mentioned in previous posts, but our group had gotten quite creative since the day before. This time, we asked some colorful questions like "Do you think your husbands could do this?" The response was a resounding "NOoooooooooo!" Some women laughed, others rolled their eyes, the older woman made a fist with her four fingers and pointed her thumb towards her mouth, gesturing "drunken" behavior. I asked if alcohol was a big concern and some women murmured "yes mmm hmm." They also talked about how men just don't have the patience. Another woman told us "Oh, my husband doesn't have the patience to sit here, but he wants to know what happened at the meeting, who I fought with, who got to take home savings." Other women agreed that their husbands were interested in the details as well. Also what was really interesting was the fact that the majority of these women were in fact housewives, and did not use the loans from the SHG for small enterprises, as is commonly perceived.

This visit made me feel a lot closer to the women I was talking with. I think that all of the cmf interns that were there also were able to better relate to the women, since it was more of a large group discussion versus a Q/A session. There was a lot more laughter and participation from all of the women.

I found myself thinking a lot about Lalithamma. I kept thinking - "thank you!, thank you for insisting that i learn Tamil, because otherwise today would not have been possible." I don't think that my grandmother insisted on us learning Tamil thinking that one day I would come back to a village in India to talk with women not much different than herself, but she did insist it was important. On this day, it made a world of difference. This day showed me that there was a whole other world that I could explore because of the gift that my grandmother and my parents gave me.

I have always known Tamil because it was spoken in my house. However, since my grandmother passed eight years ago, there has been no reason to speak continually in Tamil. Instead, my parents and I weave in and out of a mix of tamil and english. Not until I arrived in Madurai and tried speaking with these women did I realize how much English is really mixed in with my Tamil. I had to fight to recall the words that I had otherwise never used it was so challenging, and I found myself leaning often on the NGO staff for helping me translate things. Lastly, on the linguistic front, it was really interesting to me, that the women could understand most of what I was saying, but I on the other hand, could not understand a significant amount of what they were saying because their dialect was so varied.

At the end of the discussion, I ended up meeting several women. They said so many wonderful things to me. One woman, whose name was coincidentally Subhalakshmi (my mom's name) said "romba sandosham" (rough translation: overwhelming happiness) about our visit to their village. i later met three other subhalakshmi's which was quite amazing, because I thought it was such a unique name! (I guess not in the motherland....)

Talking it over with the other cmf interns, it sounded like everyone that had come to the village had a really pleasant and worthwhile experience. It was nice to talk, to listen, to ask questions and to answer questions. It was nice to tell the women about where we were from (france, germany, switzerland, united states, mexico) and see their faces full of excitement.

At the end, my little grandma-like friend insisted I give her my phone number. I didn't have an India number to give at the time, so I gave them my name and e-mail instead. After writing it down another woman slowly voiced "veena vasudevan CO lum bee ya yoou nee versity." I asked her if she spoke English, she said she learned in school, they all had. It made so much more sense as to why they could understand things I had said when I could not come up with a Tamil translation.

Finally, after shaking hands and taking pictures and saying goodbye, we were getting back on the bus. As I walked out of the schoolhouse, the old lady wanted to show me something. Everyone else was nearing the minibus, but she insisted I follow her. Sybille and I watched as she took a key on her hip and unlocked the front door to a small house, right in the village center. There was a small television, in the front room and a fan blowing a big pot of cooling milk; she was making thyrru (curd or yogurt). She had not wanted us to leave without showing us what she did every day. I was very touched that she wanted to share this with us.

We eventually said good bye, and waived to all the kids and women as our bus traveled back down the dirt road and into the blaring Tamil music.





Here is a picture of our group (including our guide and driver) on the steps of Hotel Supreme after returning from our visit.