Women and children...and some musings on Indian hospitality

Today we went to two more Sahara projects, the Women's and Children's Center and the Rehab Center (for men...Sahara's mother project). The women's and children's center was cool because we got to talk to the clients themselves about how they came to Sahara.

Two of the girls were there because their fathers were drug users trying to rehabilitate. They had both lost their mothers three years ago, at the age of 12. They have no one to live with, so they are here waiting for their dads to complete rehab at another Sahara site. Other women had been battered or abandoned by their husbands. Some were drug users themselves, others were simply victimized by their partner's drug abuse. Some had children who Sahara helped put into boarding schools, to give them a shot at a normal life while their parents sort out their issues. We asked Sneha, a counselor, whether the husbands ever come back to claim their wives. She told us they do, and that the women are easily convinced to go back to their former lives...many times only to return to the center. Sometimes they even pull their kids out of boarding school, which ruins a golden opportunity. We really sensed some of the complexity that goes along with this kind of public health work...so many times, it seems like the same people drift in and out between shelter life and street life.

The lack of funding is a chronic issue plaguing these organizations. At the women's and children's center, they want to teach the women some marketable skills. They want to teach them how to sew, make jewelry and other little goods, etc. But the sewing machines (which are what we used in the US many decades ago) are mostly broken, and there's no money for cloth on which to practice. With all these restraints, how can they get the confidence to make products that can compete in the markets???

At the rehab center, we got to sit in on a group therapy session, where the men sat in a circle with a counselor and talked about their challenges. It was cool to see people airing their feelings and giving each other advice. We even talked about our own challenges, the four of us, and how we think about overcoming them. I think it was good. Then we played table tennis, which for me was the highlight of the day. Amid all the sweat and stickiness (even the locals agree it's far too hot to do ANYTHING these days), we played several games and turned out to be not so bad at handling all that spin they put on the ball. It was fun!

I am really getting a firsthand look at what poverty does to people. Poverty makes people prone to drug use...when a drug dealer hands you your first dose of smack, you're more likely to fall into it and drag your spouse into it, too (and ruin your kid's life in the meantime). Poverty makes people go to quack doctors who use unsanitary needles and obtain donated blood from the black market that may be contaminated with HIV (yes, this is a BIG PROBLEM in India). Poverty makes people use midwives to deliver their babies at home--midwives who charge 1,000 rupees for delivering a girl, and 2,000 if the baby turns out to be a boy. It makes people devalue their girl children, putting all their hopes in boys. It feeds corruption, manipulation, and black markets of all kinds, at all levels. It causes mothers and fathers to raise their children to be persistent beggars instead of honest businesspeople. It contributes to mobile labor and unsafe sex. Illiteracy. Ignorance. Lack of hope. So many more public health challenges I haven't listed, that we've learned about throughout our conversations and observations these past weeks.

On to the Indian hospitality...what kindness, generosity, and graciousness we've experienced! I've never before connected with so many people on a basic human level. After all, we are made of the same stuff, as I wrote before. We all have likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, etc...all of this makes us human and more endearing toward one another. Only in India have I met people eager to share themselves with me. Eager to give us chai twice a day, tell us about their lives, and hear about ours. Professionals eager to hear from US, public health students ("you non-medical people"), what we think about a project, and how we would enhance it. They wanted our feedback. They thanked us for coming. All this, without our having come with much to offer except the desire to learn. There is a lesson in this...we could learn, in our own country, to be more human with each other. It's one of the things I love best about India...at the risk of sounding trite, it's brimming with humanity.