India Chronicles
By Vickie Hu Poirier

Living in my flat is an interesting experience. On my left side are middle class neighbors. On my right and across the street are migrant laborer families camped out in the open on newly constructed concrete slabs. The well-to-do neighbors pretty much ignore the others. The workers are building the other buildings in the housing development. Families come for a few weeks or days to work and then move on as quickly as they came. The family next to me has two little boys aged, I guess 4 and 6. The only clothes they had were shorts that were so ragged that their entire backside was exposed.

They were running around for weeks like this. There was nothing to protect them if they sat down. They also seemed to be the poorest of all the laborers I have seen. The girls in the family had torn clothes, some exposing their back too. There is a Baha'i season of sharing and gift giving that is happening now. So I got some sturdy shorts with pockets (little boys need pockets) and T-shirts and some simple skirts and tops for the girls (decorated with sparkly sequins, of course!) with a matching fancy scrunchy for their hair. I presented them as an offering of respect to my neighbors explaining that it was my religious custom to share with my neighbors during certain times of the year. The mother wanted to touch my feet as a sign of humility, but I wouldn't let her, explaining that we were both mothers and therefore sisters. 

It was fun to watch from my window as one by one, each child took a bath and put on his/her new clothes. 

The little girls primped and danced around.

I realize that I can't do this for everyone and that this doesn't solve the root problem of lack of clothes. However, they are my neighbors. What is happening to them is happening to me.  Also, my father-in-law, Phil Poirier, had given me a sum of money when I left for India, and asked me to use it to help someone who really needed it; and I used his money to help these lovely children.  If we cultivate a climate of sharing among everyone, then many problems can be improved. I was trying to give not a material gift, but a spiritual one of dignity and respect, and I think they understood that. 

Later, the two girls were walking in their new clothes in back of my house, looking for fuel for a fire, and saw me. They came up to me with such sweetness and dignity and smiled at me. I told the little girl that I would teach her how to repair the rips in the clothes, so she will increase her capacity for the future.

A few days later, I had another interesting contact with my neighbors. I finally found them all at home while it was still light. Usually they are busy, mother, father and girls, (the two little boys are too young) digging ditches or moving bricks and concrete. So I brought a needle, some thread, some colorful scraps of fabric over to the slab where they were camped out and started to show the mother and girls how to repair a torn seam. I also showed how to cut a patch out of the scraps and embroider it over a hole. We were laughing and having a good time, I was teasing the little boys to keep them from playing with the sharp clippers. The father came over and offered a dirty quilt for me to sit on so I wouldn't have to sit on the hard dirtier concrete. I accepted his kind offer of comfort. Soon, one of the rich neighbors came over and asked what I was doing. I told her that I was teaching the ladies how to repair clothes. What surprised me was her skepticism about the ability of the mother to learn. She asked me if they could understand how to do it with a tone of voice and words that indicated to me that she really thought they were incapable of learning something so "complicated". I told her that the mother was a quick study and was learning very easily. I also asked her to tell the mother about the Barli Institute for her older daughter, that the girl would get 6 months free training. She didn't want to at first because she said that all these "kind" of people are interested in are the girls as laborers. I asked her to explain that the girl would earn much more with training. She didn't' explain much. Her attitude reminded me of stereotypical attitudes towards poor African Americans or "Mexicans" in the US. I will ask my other next door neighbor who is on the board of Barli to talk to them. Geeta is a retired PhD in Chemistry. She is also recruiting her maid's daughter for Barli (who has a handicap and is therefore unmarriageable) and seems to have more compassion. 

Anyway, we continued until we finished a heart shaped patch. Then I presented the needle, thread and fabric scraps to the mother. I truly believe that if you treat people with dignity and respect, they will respond well. People don't like being poor, nor do they want to stay that way. If their human capacity is developed they can progress and increase their well-being. These "people" are ignorant and superstitious because other people have taught them to be that way and they have not had access to effective education. They use their children as laborers because they have not yet seen that investment now in their education will pay off later. It is hard for them to imagine when the fact on the ground is that if your children don't work today, they don't eat today. This is why I feel so strongly that there must be a spiritual solution to the economic problems. Amyrta Sen and Hooshmand Badii both have written that famine is not a lack of food, but a lack of entitlements to that food or a lack of willingness to share. 

Before I came to India, I read an interesting book called Untouchable which chronicled the life of a Dalit (Untouchable) man and his wife during the 40's and 50's. He was very determined that his children receive a good education and worked hard for it. His son became an investment banker for World Bank with a PhD. It's an interesting chronicle of their lives from both the man's, woman's, son's and granddaughter's perspective. 

My neighbors have it relatively easy. I often see small children, infants and toddlers sitting or playing along the curb or in the street near heavy traffic, tended by a small girl while their parents are working somewhere nearby digging ditches. It is incredibly hard and physically demanding labor work that the women do in addition to their other duties of carrying water, cooking, finding firewood, washing clothes, caring for children and husband, etc. A gynecological doctor friend, who is the husband of a Rotarian, says that the biggest medical problem that he sees among women is anemia from lack of proper food, and too much childbearing and work. One of the volunteers at Barli is a public health nurse from Australia who said that, upon arrival, most of the girls who come to Barli are suffering from anemia. They often don't have menstrual periods. Their diet is insufficient with greens and other vegetables. When they return to their villages, they would soon be married and have low birth weight children and continued health problems. That is why Barli educates them on the importance of good diet and growing dark green vegetables. Some of the girls who first come to Barli will only eat chapattis which are like flour tortillas. They are educated to acquire the taste for vegetables.

My doctor friend returned to school to study law and be admitted to the bar because so many of his patients were having legal difficulties from husbands and in-laws who would abuse them, kick them out and leave them with no means of support. He wanted to effectively advocate for them. So there are men in India who care and are trying to address some of the problems. Madhya Pradesh has the highest violence against women statistics in India and is among the lowest in literacy for girls. 

Later, I found out from my next door neighbor, Geeta, that the other neighbor, who asked me what I was doing with the laborer neighbors and was skeptical about their learning ability, talked to her about it. (everybody knows everything about everybody's business in India) Geeta said that the lady was very touched by my reaching out and sharing with my neighbors, and had commented, "Here is a foreigner who reaches out with kindness and love and why didn't we think to do something like that?" I am sharing this to point out that I had assumed that she was not as interested in believing in the capacity of these people or supporting them. I was wrong. Sometimes it is the little, seemingly inconsequential acts that we do that have the most influence on the hearts of others. We can change the world, one heart at a time. A seed has been planted in her heart, and when there are enough seeds planted and watered in many hearts, a great harvest will happen. "Abdu'l-Baha once said to not look at the beginning of an affair, but look to the end. When one sees the end results, inexhaustible happiness will result. In the development field, much talk is about projects and goals, Logic Models and Stakeholder's Analyses, means and incentives, buy-in and participation etc. These are all important; however, I feel we must not underestimate the power of loving acts in transforming and developing human capacity. In the long term, and even sometimes in the short term, it brings about truly sustainable change. 

Besides schoolwork and research at Barli, I am also busy trying to meet a publication deadline at the end of the month for a book on how to teach cutting and tailoring that the Barli Institute is publishing. It is the only one of its kind specifically aimed at illiterate tribal women. I am setting up and photographing step by step instructions, reviewing the text with the aid of a translator to check for clarity and accuracy of directions, and producing additional graphics. This is part of my work for the pro-poor market development aspect of my school project. I am approaching market development from the education and training angle. This book will enable tribal girls to gain a marketable skill that can be used in their villages. 

The previous drawings and illustrations they had been using were from the National Open Schools text, which were very poorly written and used men in illustrations of measurements, sewing etc. I am using the tribal girls themselves as models, showing them taking measurements of Indian men, women and children. One fun excursion was to go to a shop that specialized in doing buttonholes and buttons to photograph the machinery for the book. It was run by men. After I took their picture operating the machinery, I asked that a female Barli staff member sit at the machine so I could take her picture too. Of course, this is the picture that I will use. I explained to Nuri, the staff member, that it was important to depict the women at those more complicated machines, because it teaches that women can do it. The pictures have to portray, besides how to do a specific task, the culture and identity of the students it is teaching so they will see it as theirs. 

Last night, I expanded our neighborly contact. Astrid is a remarkable volunteer at Barli who is a nurse and just earned her Master's in Community Public Health by working with HIV/AIDS education among Aboriginal people in Australia. She is Australian of Chinese and Austrian parentage. She was staying at my house on her last night before she left India. She is utterly wonderful. I especially love to hear her chant beautiful prayers. Several of the volunteers have this gift


Anyway, while she was working at Barli, she was able to pick up more Hindi than me and is able to communicate with the girls in a rudimentary fashion. During her last day, I taught her how to make a sweet potato pie American style so she could eat it one more time. . It is one of her favorite new dishes and she wanted to learn how to make it. Later in the afternoon, she talked to her mother in Australia and heard distressing news about her grandmother who had a fall and is near death, and the difficulties her mother is experiencing having to move out of her apartment, giving up her beloved pet, etc. She was really worried for her mother and stressed. 

So as we ate supper together, I mentioned that I hadn't yet made contact with the other laborer family who lived across the street on the other concrete slab. I suggested that we relieve our stress and worry by taking the pie and a box of ice cream across the street and sharing it by eating it together with them. She loved the idea, so after dark we went across and introduced ourselves and sat down to carve up the pie. There were 3 women, 3 men and several children of various ages, including an infant who was learning to walk. Can you imagine having to raise an infant in those conditions? All the dangers from snakes and scorpions, sharp objects, and other nasty things await them as they are watched by a child not much older; (I had difficulty getting up on the slab, it is so high, imagine the crawling baby falling off the edge onto the rocks and thistles below) heat during the day with little shelter from the sun except a tarp stretched across some of the rebar sticking out of the concrete; having to carry water for all your needs, cooking and washing clothes; bathing in public,... living all your life in full public view. 



Earlier, Astrid and I chased away some goats that had gotten into the possessions of our neighbors on the right as they were away working the ditches. Dogs and goats are always trying to get their food. Once, a goat had pulled down a sari that was drying on the rebar and pulled it along in the dirt. But families must endure this if they are to eat. 

Anyway, the women sort of held back, with their saris covering their faces (tribal women are taught to keep their faces covered to "show respect" I will sometimes see women walking on the roadside carrying loads on their heads with their face completely covered by the palu of their sari. I often wonder if they trip from not seeing well. (A dubious reason to justify their restriction. If it shows respect to others then the men should also do it, so Shirin, my Indian landlady tartly says) We kept encouraging them to come sit with us. The men brought a tarp for us to sit on. Then Astrid got to practice her Hindi, because I haven't learned as much. We brought plates and spoons and cut the pie in small pieces so everyone could have a piece with the ice cream. Then we didn't have enough pie for us so we ate ice cream. I felt it was important that we eat together, not just give them food, but share what we had as equals. Astrid explained that it was American food. We had a lovely time under the stars learning about each other. The breeze was cool after the hot day. They said that group is a whole family from Mandu. Astrid responded that we are all one family, Indian, American and Australian. We laughed together at her language usage. The men enjoyed talking with her and Astrid was positively thrilled that she could speak with them and understand and be understood. We all laughed again as we watched the antics of the baby as she tried to pull herself up and climb the rebar sticking out the concrete. She had such tiny little bangle bracelets. The women began to wash up the dishes and Astrid said that she liked to wash dishes and to please save the water for drinking, not washing our dishes. We were concerned that every bit of water must be hauled by the women from a tap blocks away. Astrid said that she knew that they worked very hard and must be tired and they said yes. 

So Astrid and I come back to our house, relaxed and happy after our "ice cream social" under the stars with the neighbors and declared that it was the best sweet potato pie we never tasted. She left at 5:20 am and all the remaining Barli volunteers got up and came in the Barli car with the driver as a surprise to see her off to the airport. After the hugs and tears of laughter and sadness at parting, we had prayers together and their melodic, chanting voices in many languages raised anthems of love and unity for all humankind into the pre-dawn night.

Such is the character of these lovely, talented young women from Canada, Iran, Holland, Spain, India, France and Australia that I have had the privilege to know.