I’ve been here nearly a month, and today was the first rainy day. That’s pretty amazing considering its monsoon season. The rain makes for a nice change of scenery around here, and I’m happy to know that the people can finally begin to replenish the water supplies in their wells and check dams for farm irrigation. I observed a personal well at a woman’s house on Saturday and the water level looked scarily low. The rain that fills up these wells during this season is what they rely on all year for drinking water. Can you imagine if they ran out?
On Saturday, I traveled to Bhimrana, a nearby village, where I started to interview graduates of Tata’s Rural Entrepreneurship Development Programme (REDP). Our local contact (who knows how to find everyone), my translator Margi, and I traveled from business-to-business and house-to-house, meeting with men and women who had graduated from the programme and for the most part, used the knowledge to start new or upgrade existing businesses, including flour mills, cold drinks stores, public telephone services, beauty parlours, and dress-making operations. These interviews will feed into both my dissertation and Tata project research, giving me a sense of the socio-economic development possible through REDP, as well as any areas for improvement. So far, the people I’ve interviewed have been overwhelmingly positive about the programme. Even the few who haven’t started businesses or whose income has not increased since training report positive effects. Most women, for example, report that their newfound knowledge of business matters (as well as their access to loans) has resulted in them receiving more respect in their family. Their husbands now consult them in making economic decisions. Further, many reported that the training somehow inspired them to educate their children when previously, they didn’t think education was that important. Based on my experience in the course last week, I do not recall any specific discussion about the importance of educating children, but perhaps it’s a lesson imparted at some point (even briefly) that really sticks.
After the training, Margi invited me to come to her house to hang out. Margi’s a really bright 18-year-old, who will be leaving next week for a university in Jamnagar. She plans to study electrical engineering and communications. She’s young, but as I said, very bright. She’s also very friendly and likes to chat, and it’s been nice to interact with a local in my language. She’s taught me a lot about life in Mithapur and India generally.
For example, while we were in Bhimrana on Saturday, one entrepreneur we interviewed was a young widow named Mitaben. As Margi later explained, Mitaben has a very unfortunate life now that her husband has passed. In India (at least these parts), when a husband dies, the wife is meant to basically spend the rest of her life grieving and generally acting as thought she has died, too. She’s not allowed to wear bright colours, she’s not allowed to dress up or wear make-up, and she’s not allowed to travel far from her house (if out of her house, at all). For the rest of her life. Further to this, if someone in her community gets married or has a child, she is not allowed to attend the celebrations because she is considered bad luck. In my opinion, this life sentence is only slightly better than what used to happen: Widows would commit suicide by throwing themselves into the flames of their husband’s funeral pyre. Thank God that practice is now illegal.
There is a nice story behind all of this, though. The reason Margi explained the life of the widow to me was to help me understand how important this REDP training was for Mitaben. Mitaben had planned before her husband’s death to take sewing courses at a good school in Ahmedabad, but once her husband passed, she could no longer leave her home, and therefore she could not attend the training. Further, without the prospect of re-marriage, Mitaben was now going to be dependent on her father rather than her husband. Mitaben’s father took pity on her and decided that she should get some training anyway. He arranged for her to attend REDP training, which was held nearby the house, and he paid for a private sewing tutor to train Mitaben in her home. He then helped her to purchase a sewing machine. Today, Mitaben takes great pride in her sari and dress-making business and even more pride in the fact that she is totally self-sufficient. She literally said, “REDP changed my life.”
These moments – ones of great learning and happy endings – are really uplifting for me. I don’t love everything about my life here, and I dream of home all the time … but I’m pretty sure it’s the memories of these moments that I will think of in the coming years. Once again, my reality has been altered by venturing out into the unknown. No matter how hard it is, it’s probably always worth it. (As long as home is still waiting for me at the end!)