Culture, Culture Here I come

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Namaste from India! I haven’t used this greeting yet but I read in my Hindi book that this is how you should greet most people. Here is some background on India. Under Britain’s rule for a long time India, gained its independence in the 1940’s and is still struggling to define the country’s political structure. The bureaucratic system of the British is mostly still in place and the government offices are a HUGE, interconnecting maze, a combination that makes it really hard to get anything done. In addition, (and you should look the actual figures up on your own) there are so many different types of religion here that the complexities of how to greet someone, how to not offend someone and all of the difficulties that come with religious beliefs are present. I think I need to offend someone soon so I can just get over the scare of doing so because although I’ve read a book about all the different do’s and don’ts, I really can’t remember them all and am petrified of messing up.

My journey to India was exciting, in the worst possible way. My first plane was delayed making me arrive when my next plane was supposed to be boarding; however, that plane didn’t leave until two hours late, making whoever was to pick me up arrive two hours early at the ungodly time of 4:35am. On arrival in India, I thought I lost my luggage because although I watched the carousel with the diligence of a monk, I somehow missed it go by and found it thrown on the ground somewhere after the carousel stopped. I’m pretty sure someone picked it up thinking it was theirs, although how they could mistake my ugly brown and yellow pack for their bag, I am quite unsure.

Nisar is a man that works at India Study Abroad Center (ISAC), the program I’m working with here in India. He met me at the airport and took me to the guesthouse I will be staying at for the first month I’m in India. I forget the models of most of the cabs or rickshaws here but they’re old school. Not that the cars themselves are necessarily old, however many are, but I feel like I should be in a 40’s movie or something. Not many cars were on the road because it was very early on a Sunday but the driving seems just about as crazy as Nairobi however with less of a “system”. I learned the “system” of the crazy Nairobi driving- pass someone if their too slow, take every opportunity to merge, get ahead, or get through the intersection, matatu drivers especially- but I need to learn what the crazy “system” is here.

Upon driving to the guesthouse the biggest thing that hit me is what I would have first said was poverty and would now say is infrastructural deterioration. There was a slum to my left where the houses truly looked so cramped and appeared to only be semi-permanent structures as they were mostly made of tin sheets. The large apartment buildings are covered in black and seem to be crumbling, brick houses are being lived in without roofs (a plastic tarp if you’re lucky). The largest change are the pavement dwellers, people who are homeless that construct lean-to houses against walls on the sidewalk or just sleep with a blanket over them on the sidewalk. These dwellings are found all over but many people sleep without a structure under the overpasses.

Our guest house is situated in a nice little alcove of two-story duplex style houses. We are in the back corner of the complex, making a nice little solace from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. When I arrived two girls were sleeping in the bedroom where there are four single beds set up. I immediately fell asleep and awoke to them chatting around 1 pm. Their names are Emily and Joe, from Seattle and England respectively. They were traveling to Penn, a small town in the same state as Mumbai called Maharashtra but Emily was going to come and stay in Mumbai for a couple of weeks after leaving Penn. I found out there was another girl at the house named Emma who was in a second room upstairs that only has two beds but she was really ill and would be stay only until she had recovered.

Mumbai is the most humid, muggy, sticky feeling place I’ve ever been in. I thought New Orleans and Chicago were bad but Mumbai takes the cake! It’s currently at the tail end of their Monsoon Season, or rainy season, so after the rains come they steam off the ground and leave the air thick and clinging to you. This fact, plus the overwhelming factor of India, helped me decide to just stay at the guesthouse the first night after the girls left to go to Penn. It was a relaxing night to adjust from Kenya and reflect on my experiences there and get ready for the next day when I’d be starting my internship.

8/31-9/4
On the 31st I met Sandyha, the director of the India Study Abroad Program who I am partnering with here in India. She took me to Hindusthan Microfinance (HMPL) the organization I was to be working with my first month in Mumbai. When we first walked out of the house and caught a rickshaw I was hit with the amount of people, the amount of cars, the diverse smells and sounds of India. Even though I had been in Kenya and used to cultural differences, it was really overwhelming. The smells here are different than in Kenya, even the garbage smells different. There are so many dogs here too and a lack of little children running around that I had become accustomed to in Kenya. The dogs are all the same kind, short-haired, medium sized but with different snouts. It’s like there were a king and queen dog and then all the rest inbred and populated the entire city with dogs that are enough to give one to each family. A good investment would be international animal care because the dogs get very little love and eat the garbage that surrounds the garbage bins (there are huge garbage bins with huge amounts of garbage all around them).

If you’re still confused on what I’m doing here in India, I’m working with microfinance institutions (MFIs) which provide small loans to people in poverty. HMPL’s main objective is to work with the urban poor in Mumbai, an area with barely any MFIs but every 1 out of 2 people living in a slum. 54% of Mumbai’s population lives in a slum and Mumbai has the largest slum in Asia called Dharavi with almost a million people living in less than 1 sq. mile of land. Trying to picture that? It’s quite difficult. Here’s a link to Kiva, a well known international MFI that has a great FAQ about microfinance.

http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance/

Back to the office.

When we arrived, I met LB Prakash and Anil Jadhav, the two founders and directors of HMPL who asked me what I would like to do and gave a list of things they needed help with. With my task list generated, Sandyha left and I had my first day of work which I was totally not expecting. Two problems that occurred right away set the tone for the rest of the internship. First, most people at the office don’t speak English. I was under the misconception that in addition to Hindi and a person’s mother tongue, most people knew English. However there are only a couple of people who know a medium amount of English. This puts up huge barriers between communication and even sociability. The second problem has been that there isn’t really a place for me to work. Initially this fact was rectified by the fact I brought my own laptop which allows me flexibility in where I work. Within the first couple of days I received a really bad virus on my computer which made it impossible to use the internet and thus I needed to use the computers in the office, creating even more problems as those computers already have designated uses. This all matters because my tasks are all electronically based.

My jobs are to redo the content on the website (www.hindusthanmfi.com) . From staff bios to the company’s history to critiquing the layout to rewriting everything I see fit, the work is really interesting and uses the writing and other skills I learned from being on yearbook staff. When I met with the website guy I felt really bad because I suggested that we change most everything and he was actually on the fourth “draft” of the layout. It was really good work but my job was to critique it so it would be internationally accessible and that called for some changes.

My other tasks are to create an e-newsletter for the followers and supporters of HMPL and a brochure they can give to NGO’s, heads of banks, and other interested parties in the Mumbai area that might get involved with HMPL. Within the first week I got most of the content stuff done on the website and worked on a holiday (Ganpati festival) and on Saturday. I was able to see a bit of the Ganpati festival (which you should look up for more details because it’s really interesting). Regions in India celebrate one god more than others and Mumbai’s favored god is Ganesh, the one depicted as an elephant figure. Ganpati festival is over a week long (as most festivals are here) but they actually receive a day off where they take their ganpatis, statues painted and carved like Ganesh, and have them blessed and submerge them into water. The ganpatis can range from being the size a child can carry to one that causes a fit man to struggle with the weight to ones so large (although these are rare) that they are lifted into the lake by a crane contraption.

The final day, Thursday the 3rd, was spent with people dancing in front of trucks, covered in a red/pink powder they throw on each other, dancing and singing and lighting off fireworks. It is a huge celebration and carries onto until quite late in the night. Mr. Prakash sent Aarti, the woman who runs the office I work at which also is the headquarters of HMPL, and some other men in his car to see the submersion of some of the statues. We went to the lake where the submersions take place and there were thousands of people, security people and it was really fun. I saw a huge statue being lifted into the water on a platform with four men being carried high in the air with it to make sure it stayed on the lifting contraption and that it was submerged. It was quite a sight and with so many people the security people where very particular about where one could stand, which was basically nowhere near where the submersions were happening, but because I was a foreigner they let us stand near.

Another surprise is at HMPL they have a 6 day work week which is really rigorous for someone not used to the 9 to 5. Also, my days aren’t 9 to 5 but 8:30 to 7:30 because I have an hour to commute to and from work which adds more time onto the day. I’m lucky in that I get to take a rickshaw (one of those crazy, open, weaving, old school contraptions) to work every day and I have the same rickshaw driver. It is a long drive though and really takes away the desire to go out and explore Mumbai after work is done.

Because of this fact, and the fact that nobody else was at the guest house besides Emma who was sick, I didn’t venture out very much the first week. That was disappointing in a way because I felt like I should really be experiencing Mumbai and India but I was too tired and too scared to do it on my own. I’ve never been a person who’s wanted to travel on their own so the first week was very isolated not only when returning home but at work as well. At nights it rained and cooled down which was a huge comfort in those first days as I thought about home and missed being there.

The converging of a tough work schedule, leaving Kenya, getting used to Mumbai, being alone at the guesthouse, having little interaction with the people at work and being gone for 7 weeks in total, caused the first week in India to be the hardest yet on my adventures.

9/5-9/9
On Saturday the 5th, I returned home after a day finishing the website content only to be locked out of the house. For some reason the lock is really sticky and it won’t open. I blame the humidity as it is already to blame for my constant sweating and frizzy hair. I had been trying to get into the house for 15 minutes and trying to figure out how much longer I had before I went to the bathroom in my pants when a car pulled up outside the house. Out stepped Mukesh, the organizer of the film program, and the two girls that would become my companions of the trip. Mukesh had another key and a strong arm and got the door open, thankfully. I can’t even imagine what Jenny and Ann, the two girls, must of thought of this crazed, cranky girl attempting angrily to get into the guesthouse almost dancing with the need to go to the bathroom. I was also angry because the rickshaw had been late and I was missing Friends which is on 7-8 every day and I watch when I eat dinner.

Jenny and Ann are both from Bend, Oregon and participating in the film program although their backgrounds are in liberal studies. When they arrived they were both overwhelmed and a little anxious in going outside on their own too so I didn’t feel as bad about the timid feelings I had the week before. Luckily for them they have Mukesh who has been instrumental in their ability to navigate Mumbai as he is with them a lot.

On Sunday Jenny and I walked to the market right nearby called Goregaon Market. The district we live in is Goregaon West and is on the very north end of Mumbai far away from downtown. It was my first big excursion and I definitely felt more confident with someone else at my side. The markets are set up in sections of the same trade. For example, all construction and painting type stores will be in an area where there is a block of jewelry stores (possibly 20 in one area). Clothing stores are a little more spread out but it’s a really interesting set up and I would say shows how important community is versus the US.

Monday I returned to work and finally succumbed to the feelings of frustration from not having work space and being unable to communicate with my co-workers. I also thought I’d be interacting with the customers more instead of strictly behind the scenes work. Field visits are when CSPs or customer service providers go out to the field and do marketing/recruiting activities, collection of loan amounts or delinquent accounts, or have group trainings for the women’s groups. There are two types of loans one can take, a group loan open to groups of 5-6 women or an individual loan which can be taken by men or women. Most of the loans go to business endeavors but they also can be for personal uses. This week I was able to go on two field visits which were actually exciting because it meant I could interact with clients although I can’t speak Hindi so I can’t really talk to them.

On Tuesday I only worked a half day because I felt sick and completely unnecessary as I had completed to the best of my ability the newsletter and the brochure. I had been lacking sleep because of the time difference between Kenya and India (two ½ hours really makes for a big difference in a sleep schedule) so the sleep was good but I still felt utterly useless. Worst than anger or antagonism sometimes is indifference to a problem. I was starting to become indifferent to the work I was doing because it only seemed like I was getting in the way. Thankfully, Emily and I planned a trip to the state of Uttar Pradesh to see the Taj Mahal and the ghats at Varanasi so we cut the week short and went on holiday on Thursday.

The blog entry on that holiday will come in a little bit! Sorry it's been awhile since writing but you have to understand, internet and such aren't always available but I'm keeping up as best as I can.

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