The Frustrations of India

Having been here for six full weeks now, I feel like the "honeymoon" phase of my India trip is wearing off, and I am now really living here. Now that I am over my starry-eyed wonder at glittery bangles stores, incense-filled Hindu temples, and giant elephants walking the streets, I have started to see things in a different, more realistic light. In fact, up until this week, I haven't really had any bad days, and when people asked me what is difficult for me here, I had no good answer. But now I do.


"Working" at KVK

The first week or two at work I spent getting to know as much as I could about the organization. I read, I toured the premises, I talked to everyone I could, I went on field visits to villages, I attended training courses. Then my supervisor (the only woman, and the boss, at KVK) gave me a few small projects to work on while I started to think about my larger, long-term project.

At first it was all overwhelming, and I wondered if I would ever be able to work here. I kept thinking back to my first day of work at the law office in San Francisco, when my boss gave me a 1000-page file and told me to write a few pages about torture of military deserters in Eritrea to include in his federal brief which was due at the end of the day. Somehow I survived that day, and the next year and a half, and so I think I will be able to survive this job.

Around week two at KVK I came up with a project. Then it changed completely around week three. Now it is week seven and I am still designing and altering the exact objectives and methodology. The idea is to conduct a research project on gender roles and decision-making power in the areas of crop production and animal husbandry, and with this research then attempt to sensitize some of KVK's programs to the specific and separate needs of men and women farmers. It will also be a sort of impact assessment of KVK's project on women's empowerment. I thought this would be a good project because the office is full of male scientists, and I am a female coming from a social science background, so I am in a good position to talk to women farmers especially and conduct more qualitative research that is rare in this office. KVK essentially pays zero attention to gender issues in agriculture, which to me seems extremely important since most of the farming and livestock management is done by the women, as the men migrate for daily labor jobs.

Things seemed to go well at first, and I had a few productive meetings with FSD staff and KVK staff. As I started designing the methodology, things seemed to constantly change and fall apart, or they just progressed slow as molasses in January. There were problems with the village my supervisor had selected for me to work in, so I changed villages. Now that I have collected demographic information on the new village, I have been informed it may have to change yet again. Also since this is a different kind of qualitative research project, my supervisor is having trouble following my thought processes and envisioning what exactly I am trying to do. She often makes comments like, "I think your finished report should have graphs and bar charts, things like that," or "I think this will only take you 6 or 7 days," when I am thinking it will take me a few months.

Then Siddhartha told me to collect a list of all the KVK projects in the village and the names of all the beneficiaries. It took me one week to get the "list" of projects, which was a few notebooks full of scribbled Hindi that staff members wrote when they conducted a training program. I have no idea how long it will take me to get it all translated, or how it will get done at all.

Staff members are incredibly busy this time of year because March is the end of the financial year, and everyone is crunching to get their bills finalized. Then again, sometimes I will ask someone to help me with something, and he says "yes, yes, I will get it for you," and then insists that I sit for a few hours and discuss my preferences of beer or whiskey, explain why I have freckles on my arm, and answer questions about Monica Lewinsky. Often there is nothing I can get done for days because I am dependent on people having free time to help me out, so I will sit at my desk and practice my Hindi script or watch the giant wasp make his nest on my ceiling. It's fun.


A Holi Mess

This Saturday, March 22, was a big Hindu holiday in India called "Holi." I went with some of my fellow interns to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, to celebrate. On Friday there was the Elephant Festival for which Jaipur is famous. We watched fabulously decorated elephants play tug-of-war with people, and supposedly there was elephant polo, but we left before it started because the ceremonies were generally slow and not as exciting as expected.

On Saturday, we got dressed in cheap, throw-away clothes and went to the Old City to "play Holi," which means throwing bright colors (in powder or liquid form) at everyone you see. It was fun at first, but it got old quickly. The streets were only full of men and little kids, and the men were mostly driving around on motorcycles looking for tourists to throw colors at. When we got tired of being attacked with pink powder, it was difficult to say no, and the men only got more aggressive. When we escaped into an autorickshaw to go look for an open restaurant, men still drove alongside our auto and threw colors at our faces. Very annoying.

Maddie, Ben, Mariel, and I also had some drama with our very rude hostel owner and had to switch hotel rooms. After we were covered in colors, we found a new hostel, and Maddie and I got in an auto to retrieve all of our bags from the old hostel and transfer them to the new one. When we got in a different auto with all the luggage to go back to our new hostel, we realized that we had no idea what the hotel name was, the address, or what part of the city it was in. And we couldn't call Ben and Mariel who were waiting there because we had their phones with us in our bags. It was incredibly frustrating and stupid of us. Our kind auto driver drove us around forever, and we asked so many people on the street to help us, though they had no idea how to help. By some miracle we found it about 30 or 45 minutes later. To add to the frustrations, since we were covered in colors, everyone chased our auto and thought we still wanted to play Holi. Since Ben was no longer with us, the men were even more aggressive, and no matter how many foul curse words we screamed at them, they refused to leave us alone. Even our auto driver couldn't keep the motorcycles away from us. Now we understand why there were no Indian women to be seen on the streets that day.


The Little Things

Living in India seems to be an emotional roller-coaster at times, with high highs and very low lows. To get around town I ride in tempos, which are like oversized autorickshaws that work like buses. But they are very small - fitting about 7 people comfortably. Of course it's India, so everyone piles in until the 16th person is hanging out the doorway for dear life. It's dirt cheap, which is good, but often uncomfortable and too much to handle when I am overwhelmed by so many people in India. Sometimes it's hard to keep a sense of humor about it when my toes are being squashed or the person pressed against me forgot to put on deoderant.

Sometimes I can deal just fine with the constant staring, but other times I want to scream and slap somebody. Don't they know it's rude to stare? Have they never seen a white person? Is there something on my face or do they have nothing better to look at for the entire 20 minute tempo ride?

Or some days I may be in a fine mood, very happy, and then a shop owner refuses my rupee bill because it has the teeniest tear at the corner. Or a man rudely steps in front of my in line when I am in a rush. Or a rickshaw driver tries to charge me double. Or I go to a coffee shop to drink something cold that will remind me of home, but the power is out for "just fifteen minutes" which turns into one hour and then I have no time to wait for my iced latte anymore. Such is life in India - constantly a challenge and a reminder of how privileged I am to come from the United States where everything seems to work.