Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India
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| From India One |
As I write this note I am sitting under a ceiling fan in a simple room with concrete walls and screenless windows on a bed that is covered by a mosquito net. Mason is sleeping in his little tent/crib just beside the bed. The room is on the third floor of a three story building in the heart of the city of Vijayawada, where I am one of roughly a million people going about our lives. It is a pleasantly warm day, topped off by a lovely breeze, and outside I can hear the sounds of construction workers adding a floor to a building next door, though that consists mostly of the sound of masonry hammers and clanging rebar, and not so much of machinery.
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| From India One |
I can also hear the sound of excited children’s voices. The little balcony overlooks a courtyard where literally thousands of children have been streaming through for the last three days to view a free Science Exhibition being offered by the Gora Science Center, which is part of an umbrella organization which also includes Arthik Samata Mandal, the organization I am working with here in India.
I’ll be blogging a lot in the next two or three months, so I should set the stage and explain why I’m here and who I’m working with. As part of the Rotary World Peace Fellowship, which I am honored to have received, Fellows not only pursue a masters degree in International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at one of six partner universities worldwide, we are also funded to create and complete an Applied Field Experience with an organization in a location and field that we choose (subject to approval). I chose to work with a grass roots organization in rural India, where I am now and will be through most of February.
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| From India One |
Arthik Samata Mandal is a Gandhian non-profit organization which works with poor and disenfranchised people in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. I am here to work with them and study their operation for the next ten weeks. ASM was founded in 1977 in response to massive destruction (10,000 lives lost) in the Krishna district caused by a cyclone and subsequent tsunami. Because all communications from the region were cut off, most of the outside world was unaware of the devastation there in the days following the disaster, and the people who were first to arrive there later went on to create ASM. They responded to the needs of the people they encountered, setting up emergency shelter and food stations, disposing of bodies, etc. The need in that area was great, and responding to one need led to the emergence of another. It became clear to Gora and his partner, J.C. Kumarappa, that their beliefs and values demanded that they become more involved in work that would alleviate the ongoing problems that made the people of this region so vulnerable to these kinds of disasters, rather than simply cleaning up the destruction when one occurred. They developed an integrated approach to development which seeks to address the complex interrelated causes of poverty and vulnerability.
Gora was a legendary social reformer and political activist who had worked with Gandhi in the fight for Indian self-rule, marched with him and was imprisoned with him. ‘Gora’ is a chosen name, created from letters in his first and last birth names. Last names have traditionally been associated with caste in India, and therefore have enabled discrimination by allowing people to automatically typecast each other, so Gora chose to create a new name as a way to avoid participating in that system. His wife, nine children and their descendants have since taken Gora as their last name.
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| From India One |
Deanna, Mason and I arrived here a week ago after some travel adventures— we got sick in the opposite order that most people do when traveling to India: Deanna came down with a stomach flu on the day we were supposed to leave Australia and we had to delay our departure, and Mason and I soon followed suit; so we got sick and then came to India rather than coming to India and then getting sick. We’ve been living in the center in Vijayawada where the main office ASM is located, and will leave for a field office in two days. I’ll be visiting villages where the various projects are located in the coming weeks, documenting this work and helping out where I can, and we’ll be living in the small village of Srikakulam (not to be confused with a larger town by that name eight hours north of here).
ASM has such a broad mandate that it’s difficult to summarize their work. I’ll be outlining various aspects of it as I get to know it intimately in the next few weeks, but in short, they work with community development, education, women’s issues and economic development in disaster-prone areas of Andhra Pradesh. The economic, environmental and social issues here are extreme, and the work they are doing is clearly having a significant impact. I’ll be writing more about the details of this work in the future, so I won’t try to cover it all now.
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| From India One |
Our life here is simple, as one might expect working with Gandhians. We don’t have hot water, a bath or a shower, but we can heat water in a five liter bucket, which is enough for both adults to wash ourselves, or one adult and some laundry. We live in a white room with a concrete floor, a bed, a desk, two small wooden tables and two plastic chairs, and usually at least one large gecko. There are no screens on the windows, but the breeze is usually blowing and there is a highly valued ceiling fan. In southern India, even winter feels hot to me (though the kids come to school in earmuffs and ski masks!).
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| From India One |
We have fallen into a large family here. Most of the nine sons and daughters of Gora and Saraswathi Gora, and several of their descendants, work together and live together in a compound of various apartments, offices and houses. That means that Mason is swimming in adopted aunts, uncles and grandparents. Several of the family are prominent doctors, actually, in case anyone is worried about Mason’s health. The incoming president of the Indian Medical Association, Dr. Samaram, lives just downstairs. He’s the author of 195 books on health issues and is a bit of a rock star around here.
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| From India One |
Soon we will head out to the field office, where we will be living for a while, and where internet will be unavailable. That will be another scenario again, but we trust it will hold good gifts as this one has, and it looks like we’ll be back and forth a bit anyway.
We’re well into a big adventure here, and so grateful to have the opportunity. So far, our experiences have been as rich as Indian spices, and we’re looking forward to many more helpings.
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| From India One |
awesome.