What Happens In The Village...

Today was a busy day! We awoke with the cock-a-doodle-doos of the village roosters and had a lovely breakfast of crushed rice with local spices, onions and peanuts. The weather was very pleasant, and it was fun to see the village cows and chickens wandering around looking for their breakfast as well! 

Our first activity was a visit to a local secondary school, which included students in grades six through ten. We met with teachers and administrators and asked questions about teacher and student attendance, classroom supplies and funding. Then we toured the classrooms, which were very orderly but Spartan.  Students were doubled at long desks and wore matching uniforms, and the classrooms did not have many adornments besides their blackboards.  The children were very excited to say “good morning” to us in English and ask about our education in America.  Many said that they wanted to become doctors and engineers.

Next we set off to see a few projects that Swades had organized with local communities.  We visited a spring that supplied drinking water to local communities and followed one of the pipes to a local village. There we met with community members and asked questions about water, healthcare, primary education and sanitation.  We were able to see
projects that Swades organized with the help of villagers to improve cattle stalls, implement mango grafting, and increase local fertilizer production. During our visit the children who had just gotten out of school were eager to speak with us in English and point out things around their village.  (Indian schools are in session for half days on
Saturday!)  We had a chance to see the village’s rice mill as well.

After this we stopped at a local primary care center to meet with the doctor on call.  We toured the facilities and asked questions about medical supplies and billing, illness incidence and facility procedures.  There were no patients in the center during our visit because we were there after-hours, but the facility looked very clean. The doctor’s biggest complaint was that rural practitioners are not adequately compensated for working in remote areas where they often lack housing and other facilities as well as earn smaller salaries.

Worn out from a long morning in the heat, we made it back to our hosting village for a delicious lunch of spiced lentil soup, rice, pickled vegetables and some type of roti made with rice flour. Luckily we had a break at this point to siesta. Many of us were beat! Later in the afternoon we ventured out to another local village for tea and a group discussion about local governance and property rights. The villagers talked a lot about the disruptive effects of urban
migration.  Looking around, it was eerie how few people there were aged 20 to 40.  Because of small returns to farming, the young people have been forced to move to Mumbai to work, pulling families apart.

After this meeting we returned to our host village to rest before dinner.  Some of us hung out at the local tea stall, while others played cards outside the host families’ house.  Dinner included rice, lentil soup, chapati and a sweet treat that we could not identify.  As we ate, the host families’ television set was turned on to “Mean
Girls,” which was a little too close to home.  We had hoped to meet with a local police officer after dinner, but unfortunately he was not able to get off of patrol in time.  Many of us were happily asleep by 9:30 pm as a result.