Yesterday, as I was writing in my blog, a sniffling Sudhansu (I think that some nasal bug is going around the office) came to our office and told us that we were, in fact, going to the field in a few hours to our final village, a failed GV attempt.
Unfortunately, I had jump roped in the morning, and it was extremely hot (104F or something?), so I was suffering from dehydration and heat. I had to sink a hydration tab into my water jug and hope that I wasn't going to get sick while in the middle of our carride, or worse...during our focus group meeting.
We were told it'd be an hourlong ride. With the beating sun and the sweat rolling down, I fell asleep in the car and woke up about 2 hours later to find that we hadn't yet reached this far off village. We had, however, picked up some staff woman from another GV village on the way, and an older village man from another village (the oldest GV village, we later found out).
This seems to happen every time we are traveling to villages. It's like once we are driving, our Jeep becomes a bus and more people pop out of the woodwork to get picked up and join us. A lot of random staff members have come with us to places, or have been shuttled from other villages on the way (but now I'm not so sure how "on the way" they all are). There have been a few times where Hallie, Molly and me were in the middle of the Jeep, while crammed in the trunk and front seats were quite a few Indian men; it must have looked like us 3 girls had a whole lot of bodyguards for our travels, as if we are celebrities.
When we got to this village (quite big, about 264 households, 1200 people), which looked a bit different than all of the other villages we had seen. For one, it was bigger. It was also more narrow and tight (with the huts, houses, and people). And it had some similarity to post-Soviet villages that had been victim to battle. Things were a bit messy, some trash was strewn out on the street, and people were roaming around the streets (clothing optional).
We got out of the car while a parade of children were walking in the street, and they all took a swift halt to gawk at us (again, see "White Stare") while we got onto the street.
We were given chairs on which to sit on someone's porch. It was a very odd setup, and it made us look like we were on a stage, being presented to the town in some kind of panel discussion or whatever, with the white girls in the middle and the guys bookmarking us. The men slowly began to circle around us, in what would be the "audience" section of the "theatre" setup we had going on. No women. Maybe 1 or 2 village women were seen walking through the streets the entire time we were there. Apparently empowerment of women is still weak in this village....
Anyways, as the village men and children stared at us, some of the village leaders took chairs across from us and began answering our questions. They answered a lot of questions for us about their village, why the GV project failed for them, and all of the information we were looking for. I was designated the question asker for Sudhansu, while he would talk to me and everyone else took down the notes. It worked our really well, and our interview went so much better than the previous one!
While we were in the middle of our conversation, some villagers pulled out fans and directed them at us while we were talking. Though extremely helpful, considering the heat, it made talking and listening a lot harder for us.
And then they came out with coconuts for each of us to drink. Straws included. It was an amazing little treat from a village that doesn't even work with GV. They were so delicious, and exactly what we needed with such hot weather.
After our meeting, we scaled the village (and saw broken hand pumps, brick piles in the middle of the road, the area for the lower castes....still no women) and head back in the car to go home.
The drive back wasn't nearly as painful. The sun had gone down some, and we were all in better spirits (because of the coconuts, methinks). We dropped off the people we had picked up back in their designated villages, and head for Berhampur.
Sudhansu gave us a little surprise, though! He invited us into his home (he lives with his family in an area close to Berhampur) to have tea before going back to campus! It was so sweet, and the tea was great, as well as the snacks (called "tiffin" in Oriya & Hindi)!
His house was incredibly nice! I don't just mean compared to the villages we were viewing in the tribal villages, either. The floors were all marble (or was it granite?). The outside ground had paintings drawn by the doors. The house had a courtyard, and clean spacious rooms. There was a refrigerator with filtered water! They had houses in the back that they were renting out to people. They had their own well in their backyard. And they had a little prayer/shrine room off of the kitchen. I was really impressed with his living conditions (I could totally live there...). Clearly his family has been doing alright
We joked around a lot, talking to him while his family looked and giggled at us. Hallie & Molly danced for everyone, and we watched TV! The old 70's show was called "Coolie", and though I didn't understand a word of it, it was very interesting.
Got home, ate dinner, read some, went to bed.
Today is another day at the office (Saturday, I know...). We go to Berhampur for another wild city evening in about 5 hours, and I can't wait!
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