Intense week

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Okay, I think we all understand by now that I'm confused about life. But that doesn't mean I'm tired of talking about it.

This has been an intense and challenging week, for a number of reasons. First of all, there was a death...the death of a girl who used to be living in my house, then was transferred to another death. I only knew her for about 2 days before her transfer--and those were my first two days in India--so I wasn't close to her or anything. She had CP and quite a few other disorders, so she was taken to a place with better facilities for coping with disabled children. Anyway, she fell ill about a week ago and Sr. Sabina and I were called to take her from her new home to the hospital. That day, she was quite thin, as she was suffering from severe dysentary, and one of her eyes was red and continually watering due to infection. I remember feeling sorry for her, because she was so small and confused. She screamed and chirped in the vehicle, making all sorts of noises and rolling her eyes and then smiling and gazing upwards through her wet eyelashes. She was too weak to walk. The vehicle took her to the hospital, and she died three or four days later. Monday we took all the children to the funeral/burial, which was INTENSE for me. I'm not used to seeing dead bodies; in fact, if I've ever seen one before in my life, I don't remember it. We all gathered around her body and prayed the entire rosary, and some of the smaller children were crying because they were afraid. Her eyes were half-open and glazed-over, and the one eye was still red from her infection. Her mouth and nose had been stuffed with cotton. Afterwards, she was placed in a small wooden coffin and buried in a large field on the property of the Missionaries of Charity. The ground was wet and muddy, and the burial hole was filled with water as they lowered the coffin in. Anyway, that night I didn't sleep at all; the power kept going off, meaning there was no fan, meaning it was way too hot to sleep. Also, I was afraid of...I don't know what.

Then, I have been reading the M. Teresa book, which is intense enough. Every day I am questioning everything I've ever trusted about my culture, my country, my own beliefs, and my life. This is not fun.

THEN, at least 10,000 people were killed in the Burma cyclone (some people are estimating a million or more), and at least 8,000 people were killed in China, in one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded. Great, who's next...India? Why are all the countries around us being destroyed by natural disaster?

THEN, the niece of Fr. Lukose has come to stay in our house for about two weeks, because she's doing some research here or something. Anyway, that's nice because she's kind of a friend for me, and she is about my age. She speaks very good english and has a good education, so I'm able to have really long and interestnig conversations with her about the differences between American and Indian culture. Here's what I've learned so far:

*Arranged marriage is still practiced by almost everyone in India--even the well-educated and higher class people. Once a woman is married, (especially in Hindu tradition), it is considered a shame for her to go outside her house AT ALL, as her husband is considered a god, and she is considered his servant, and she should appear to be a willing and enthusiastic servant who desires to do nothing more than sit at home and wait for his return/ cook for him/ clean for him, etc.

*Children (I mean, like college students) have no privacy from their families and almost no say in their own lives. If the parents disapprove of something their child wants to do, the child will no longer do that thing. Period. For girls this includes talking to boys, socializing with boys, socializing with people who aren't extremely conservative, and basically anything else that the parents might decide to approve of. It's also an area of great competition; parents compete against other parents for the best (and most obedient/conservative)children, and so if a child misbehaves or goes against the wishes of their parents, it's a shame on the whole family. The pressure is on.

*Female infanticide and gender-selective abortion is still very much practiced in India, among people of all classes. Nobody wants a female daughter, due to the absurd dowry rates. Bride-burnings (that is, when the husband and his family try to kill the wife by burning her to death because she didn't provide the expected dowry) are also practiced with alarming frequency. Julie (the niece's name) said that, EVERY SINGLE DAY in the Delhi newspaper there is report of such a case; the woman is usually either admitted to the hospital with serious burns, or dies immediately. For the lower-class villagers, female infanticide is practiced in a really disgusting and disturbing way. This is what happens: First of all, the culrpit is almost always the mother-in-law of the woman who gives birth to the daughter. This woman will make a deadly paste from a certain poisonous milkweed leaf, or something like that. Then she will put this paste inside of a snail shell, and with the snail shell she will drill a hole into the baby girl's tongue. Then, leaving the shell in the tongue so that the poison can enter, she leaves the baby alone in a room for about 4-5 days, to ensure death. After that the baby is buried discreetly. Julie said that she actually has a friend who managed to survive such a murder attempt, and she's got the tongue hole as proof. This all makes me want to vomit quite heartily.

*(Uh, this one is kind of graphic and disturbing, so please don't read of you're squeamish.)
Rape is an extremely big problem in India. Julie related to me an instance of her personal experience. She was doing some research in a village, basically going door to door to interview families. One woman, in one of the little houses, refused to let Julie and her fellow researchers enter her house, even for a minute--and also refused to talk to them. Time after time Julie's team tried to persuade the woman to partiipate, whenever they would visit the village, but it was no use. Occasionally they heard a small cry coming from within the house, and the whole situation was very suspicious. The next-door neighbor of this lady, who was willing to be interveiwed, warned Julie that something bizarre was going on in the house next door. Anyway, one day Julie showed up at the woman's door and started knocking. Getting no reply, they decided to push the door open and venture inside. There they found a small tear-stained girl of four or five years old, sitting in the corner of the small room. Behind her on the wall were multiple stains and smears of what looked like blood, or feces. The girl would not be moved, would not talk, and was inconsolable. Soon, the mother returned to the house, angry and hysterical at Julie & Co. for having entered while she wasn't there. They told her that they were going to call the police and report this woman and the state of her daughter--at which point the woman broke down and confessed that her husband had been raping this girl every day for about 7 months now. The woman told them that she wanted to stop her husband from doing this, but could not do anything but watch and cry, and she did not have the authority to stand up to her husband. Also, the woman seemed to have multiple personality disorder (probably owing to the fact that she was so traumatized). The case was reported and the daughter taken away, but...I can't feel too hopeful for this poor little girl whose psychological health has been completely destroyed before she even reached the age of six. I shudder to think how many cases like this go unreported in India every day. After this story both Julia and Sister S told me several more similar stories.

*Call center jobs are apparently ruining peoples' lives in India--Julie has two or three friends who work in call centers. They leave for work at about 6pm and return at about 7am; they're extremely irritable and stressed and are incapable of having social lives, due to their bizarre schedules. She told me that many people who graduate from college as licensed doctors or engineers are unable to find a job in their field, so they end up stooping to take a call-center job because it pays well. And because the young people who do this job are used to having money, they lose all interest in education and opt for the fast flow of cash instead. After ten years or so of working these jobs, they're usually dismissed becasue so many younger, more qualified people are begging to work the same job. So by that time these people are about thirty years old, have little or no education (beyond basic), have no friends, and no prospects. Julie tells me that the Indian youth are obsessed with money, brands, labels, etc. I'm not surprised. She also tells me that being able to speak English is a sort of status symbol, and people will heap plenty of ridicule on you if you don't speak perfect English with a perfect accent (among higher social classes). They're especially obsessed with America, which explains why I'm constantly having to swat off adoring interviewers every time I go outside. I thought i was just extremely popular; but no, it's because I'm American. Sad.

Well, you probably understand by now why this week has been intense. And why I'm confused. I am especially disturbed by the lack of power for women in India. It's very offensive to me that women are treated as such slaves. In the family, sons are given all the opportunities and privileges that are available, while daughters (those who survive birth) are given the worst of everything. At mealtimes, boys are given the best food and girls are given the leftovers. Boys are encouraged to get education and travel, while girls are always given what is leftover. If extra help is needed at home, girls will not be sent to school but will spend all day working at home. And this, of course, results in cases where women feel so insecure, so inferior, and so powerless that they don't even have the conviction to say something when they witness their husbands sexually abusing their own children.

uh, on a lighter note...it's very hot here. And I'm still eating rice.

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