Capacity Building in India

Now that I have internet, I guess it is time for me to update this blog.

As a more general introduction, I am currently living and working in Virudhunagar in southern India. It’s a fairly decently sized town of 1 million people just outside of Madurai. I know 1 million sounds like a lot but in a country of 1 billion, it’s not so big. Plus, people here live together in smaller spaces, so in a house that I think could barely fit one person, there might be five or more. I live on the second floor of the school that I teach at with another teacher and two cooks. I would not say that the living conditions here are fantastic, but we have fans, we have beds, we have an actual toilet, so I guess I can’t complain. I really enjoy the people I live with. The teacher, Akila, speaks English very well, and is able to act as a translator and host. The two cooks/helpers, Muthu and Pakyum, are very nice…Muthu has picked up some English and has taught me enough Tamil that we can get by on the basics.

My mornings are spent teaching at the nursery and primary school. I mostly teach English of course, but I often help out with other subjects as they are taught (or at least the books are written) in English. Still, most of the teachers give instructions in Tamil, which makes it difficult for me to help out the students as I do not feel that they can always understand me. Nonetheless, eventually they come to understand or a teacher walks in and explains it in Tamil and class goes on. I have my afternoons off, though I sometimes go downstairs to help out at the school if I don’t feel like taking a break. Then my evenings from 5-8:15 are spent either visiting members houses of the women’s self help groups or teaching spoken English to high school and college students.

I really enjoy visiting the members houses and seeing the work that they do with the loans they get from my organization. Many of them are involved in the business of matches–they make matchboxes, matches, etc. I’ve tried both and let’s just say I am a LOT slower than the woman who do this for a living. Still, they do not make much money doing it, as one can imagine.

The spoken English courses are also fun, as the students are older and they know more English. Mostly, we just have conversations, so they can practice just speaking English, though they often slip into Tamil with each other. I particularly enjoy talking with them, as I get a glimpse as to what life is like for people my own age in this country.

As for this week thus far:

This past weekend I went with one of the volunteers at the nearby hospital to Madurai. She is doing her volunteer work under the guidance of an organization called Projects Abroad, and they organize weekends for their volunteers…I just tagged along. It was a fairly nice trip, besides the fact that I caught a cold. We got to see the Meenakshi Temple (the biggest temple in all of India). The only sad thing was that it is currently being painted, so where one would normally see colorful figurines of Hindu gods and goddesses, we saw banana leaves. Also, much of the temple is closed to Hindus only, so we were only allowed to see parts of the temple. Still, it was rather magnificent, the detailing was fantastic, and it was just so HUGE! We also went to the Thirumulai Nayakar Mahal–a 17th century palace also in the city. As the theme follows, it was also under renovation, and thus a bit disappointing. Still, again fantastic architecture with just incredible details. Lastly, we saw one of the many Gandhi Memorial Museums in India, which was nice, and I was able to buy Gandhi’s autobiography for under $1 USD.

Today, I had classes in the morning, and in the evening visited a few members houses to collect loans. I was wearing my churidah (which is the long shirt and pant outfit), and as a consequence got fewer curious looks than usual. I found out that some of the women take out loans in order to marry off their daughters and sisters because here a rather expensive dowry is needed before marriage still…a practice which I have learned makes it very difficult for women here, especially when the husband, who has complete control of the dowry, decides to kick the wife out with no money or anything and sent her back to her relatives. Marriage, however, remains very important, as married women, as I have gathered, have certain privileges and rights that unmarried women do not have. I met a couple of these women today including one who has an 11 day old daughter who I got to hold. The other woman I met was in the business of counting out matches for matchboxes and then making the matches. She has these special trays with grooves in them, where you can lay out tiny wooden sticks. She then lays them on top of one another and paints the sides, making matches. For each set of about 12 trays she makes 1.50 rupees, which is barely anything. With the businesses that they do, most of the women do not even make the equivalent of $1/day, and while money can be stretched further here, one can imagine that it can only be stretched so far.

I finished my day with a spoken English class that was quickly canceled as the electricity went out.

I’ll be writing a lot more frequently about the more day to day experiences. I apologize for my late start, but look forward to writing more.

I apologize for not being able to keep this blog updated. My school has yet to pay their internet bill for two weeks, so I’ve only had a limited amount of time on the internet in an internet cafe:

So far, my life here has been rather busy. The first Sunday I was here, my school hosted a Fun Fair, where they had games, speeches, and performances. I found out when I got here that I was to be one of the speakers. Given that I’m not keen on public speaking, this rather frightened, me. Little did I know, that before Sunday was to come, I would have spoken on a TV show (to advertise for the Fun Fair) and at a college in front of 400-500 people. Mind you, no one told me I was speaking at the college until 10 minutes beforehand. My day to day life here is rather less exciting. I teach at the school from 9 am until 12:30 pm, and then spoken English courses from 5 pm to 8 pm or I go and visit members of the self-help groups. I’ll be able to write more and post pictures when the internet is up and running at the school, but I just wanted to give a brief post of my life here thus far.

Note: I meant to post this I guess now three weeks ago.

After 25+ hours of flying (not including time between flights) and an hour’s drive, I have finally made it to my destination of Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. The flights were terribly exhausting, and let’s just say, that I am glad to be done with them.

When I finally arrived in Madurai (my final airport destination), I was picked up by my host family and driven to the organization that’s situated about an hour away. During that ride, I got my first glimpse of India. Palm trees are everywhere. People walk along the sides of the roads, some carrying things on their heads. Carts are pulled by cows. Many ride their bikes. Most frightening of all, however, was catching my first glimpse of driving in this country. It is so different than what I am used to. People constantly pass one another, and drive on the other side of the road to do it, giving a honk as a notice that they’re going to pass them by.

My organization is fantastic! I already had my first glimpse of teaching English to what is the equivalent of pre-K. They learn by repeating what the teacher says, whether it is words or rhymes. It’s quite amazing how quickly they can pick up the language at that age.

I will write more later and post pictures later, but for now, I am going to rest, because two days of traveling is quite exhausting.

“I will be working with an organization called Unity Charitable Trust in Tamil Nadu, India. The organization has various ways that they work to combat poverty in the area. I will be working with their women’s self help groups and teaching English at their nursury/primary school. The women’s self help groups run a microfinance program, encourage savings and entrepreneurialism, and work towards more gender equality. The nursery/primary school is run by the organization for low-income children, so they can have the skills they need to attain higher education and/or better jobs.”

- Kaitlin Franks ‘09