Three things that made me smile today

I wasn't in the best mood today- the electricity has been going off at 3am each night so I wake up boiling hot and move outside to the day bed at 3 in the morning and start the day exhausted, it didn't come on today until the afternoon so the pump wasn't working and therefore no water and to top it off I'm not feeling well, with a sore throat and ironically a cold.

There were a few things that made me smile today though. One of my coping strategies is to think of a day as a success if I achieve one thing, have one good conversation or experience one interesting/enlightening/amusing situation. The great thing is that days are often filled with many of these moments.

So here's what happened today:

1) This morning one of our buffalos gave birth. I saw the baby when it was a couple of hours old, exhausted, curled up and being licked by its mother who still had the water bag hanging out of her. Raju, who looks after the animals, and his co-workers were worried. It was a hot day and they needed to keep the calf cool, as well as show it how to take milk. They even gave it a hemp grain bag to lie on in the shade. They also milked the mother, apparently the first milking after giving birth is very strong milk, presumably full of goodness for the baby. No one drinks it straight but instead make nourishing lassis from it (making curd from the milk, then mixing with cool water and sugar for a refreshing drink). I'm told buffalo milk is strong anyway, and I look forward to trying it. Mama said she will teach her daughter Ganoo and I how to milk the buffalo, something I'm keen on doing as I can't do it regulary in England!

2) We were running dangerously low on water because of the pump situation, even the two huge water storage tanks we kept for emergencies were almost empty and we weren't sure when the power would come back on. All us children took every bucket, mudkey (clay water pot) and bottle we could find down to the village hand pump just outside the boundary of our house, much to the amusement of the villagers. You see, we have an electric pump, but in times like this they were the winners and could still draw water without the need for electricity. After waiting our turn, I filled my mudkey, working my biceps and attempted to carry it home resting on my shoulder. Unfortunatley I haven't quite mastered the art of carrying it and at this comparitively long distance lost about a litre down my kurta, causing much giggling from the village women who were encouraging me to put it on my head like they did. Well I made it home carrying the pot in my arms and feeling like I'd had my hand pump initiation.

3) I would have to rate Battleships as one of my top 5 games and coincidentally have it with me in India, although being the only foreigner in a family who can't speak much english I haven't had a chance to play many of the games I brought with me. With no power we were all sat in Grandma's cool bedroom with its two foot thick walls, and I thought I'd teach my cousin and brother how to play. After much explanation we were almost playing to the actual rules although i suspected some peeking over or some very lucky guesses! Then the power came on and they rushed to the TV.

Photos: Raju pushing his daughter Sumi next to the calf for our photo shoot; Practising how to carry the mudkey on my head later on in the evening; Pratap and Kanoo concentrating on their next battleship moves.

Time to reflect

Last weekend I went to Delhi. I'd been looking forward to the trip every since Jen and Nikki had invited me to their backpackers fancy dress party a few weeks before. They are both VSO UK volunteers but arrived in November 2009 so had just celebrated their 6 month anniversary, a landmark I was keen to pass.

The long weekend gave me a chance to reflect on my new life in Laporiya village and how it differed to life in Delhi. One thing that constantly comes up in conversations with other VSO volunteers is that every placement has positive and negative factors, there is no perfect placement, and different lifestyles suit different people.

Delhi, frantic markets, 2 minute access to mangos, meaty take aways, american style cafes, air conditioned bedrooms, pepe jeans, wonderful anoki, turtle cafe, pedicures, dentists, hairdressers, olympic sized swimming pools, real coffees, beer, expats, bars, dancing, karaoke, cinemas, western style toilets, showers, dust free flats and english conversations with sympathisers.

Laporiya, my home, quiet, kind to wallets, dusty, filled with family, slow, time for reading and writing, simple fresh food.

I didn't come to India to live an expat lifestyle, i came to be Indian for a year, to live how I never would again. To have time to reflect, rest, recharge and learn to value my own company, to prove to myself I could be truly independant. But the thing I've come to realise is that you are never really alone, there are always people to support you. Yes I'm here in India by myself but in under three months I have a group of new VSO volunteer friends who I'm taking trips around the country to see, 30 new family members, rewarding work to get stuck into with accomodating colleagues and of course my original family and friends on the end of my reliance net connect broadband stick.

Now I can have the best of both worlds. I can live a simple life in the country learning how to appreciate running water, electricity, rain, baths, being able to choose who you marry and where you live, lush English countryside and the cool British air. Then when I've had enough I can pop to Delhi or Kolkata and overdose on filter coffee, air conditioning and conversation.

And I can feel myself changing already. I do feel more independant, somehow stronger, more sure of my gut instinct, trusting that my own decisions are the best for me. Certain that I want to build my own eco-home back in England, that I can't spend my career doing anything apart from trying to make positive changes to people's lives. There are huge problems and I know when I'm back home I won't be able to ignore them. Forced child labour, child marriages, droughts, poor sanitation ruining lives, mothers dying from traditional birthing practices, industries exploiting precious natural resources, a lack of respect for the environment. I knew this year wouldn't be easy. It's a challenge but if you don't keep challenging yourself you won't get anywhere. Yes, I count down the days and seek landmark dates for anniversaries of how long I've done or how long until I see Rob, but I know this year will be seminal for me, a defining period in my personal development. You can't ask for more than that.

Photos: A meaty brunch over the weekend with VSO volunteers in an airconditioned american style cafe in Delhi vs. proudly displaying the butter and buttermilk I churned last week in Laporiya with my kakisa (aunty).

A safe delivery for Mandora’s first child

Mandora was afraid about what would happen during the delivery. She did not know how old she was, probably around 18 but this was her first pregnancy and she had severe stomach pains. But as soon as she entered the hospital feelings of relief swept over her. Mandora had a sense that she was safe now and everything would be alright.

She had been preparing for this day for some time. Three months after Mandora fell pregnant she visited her village health worker, Shyam Lata. Shyam took her through various steps to ensure Mandora could give birth in a hospital and not in the village with the traditional midwife, known as a dai in Hindi.

For Shyam, one of the most crucial steps was persuading Mandora’s family, in particular her husband Ram Charan and father-in-law that giving birth in hospital was the safest option for mother and child. Luckily Shyam had recieved training from GVNML which gave her confidence in convincing them.

First, Shyam took Mandora to the government run Baby Childcare Centre to register her pregnancy, her course of tetanus immunisations was started and she was given iron tablets. It is essential to have an appropriate vehicle to get to hospital. A lack of planning means some pregnant women are taken on motorbikes or tractors, leading to dangerous deliveries during the journey. But Mandora’s family arranged to hire a jeep in the village and already knew the charges and the right mobile number to call when they needed it.

It was the final month of her pregnancy and when Mandora’s stomach pains came, Shyam and the village dia were called but after 2 hours the contractions had not increased. They decided to take her to hospital but were sure to carry the safe delivery kit with them, which includes salvon, a clean knife for cutting the umbilical cord and a safety thread in case the baby was born on route. Shyam had called ahead to the hospital so the midwife was ready and expecting Mandora. At Nagar, the nearest hospital, the doctors gave Mandora glucose and an injection to give an easy delivery. A healthy baby boy was born on 10th April 2010 and named Vikash. The baby was immunised and the mother given pain relief and antibiotics.

Giving birth in a hospital is quite a new idea to the families of Itakhoi village. Shyam has been a health worker here for 7 years and tries to show people the downfalls of traditional delivery practices and offers them advice backed by modern science. There are many misconceptions- women don’t breastfeed their new born children for the first 5 hours, giving them Indian sweets instead; the umbilical cord is cut with a knife also used for cutting crops and a mixture of turmeric and ghee is used as an antiseptic.

After giving birth, tradition states the mother and baby must sleep on a floor covered with jute bags and ash until the mother and baby’s first bath. The date for this wash is often set by a priest and could be up to 10 days later. It is thought that taking iron and folic acid supplements when pregnant creates large babies which will be hard to deliver, and eating too much could squash the baby. For these reasons the woman is often weak when she gives birth, leading to more health complications for her and her child and sadly, maternal death and child mortality.

Since 1994 around 500 dias and 225 health workers have been trained by GVNML in 250 villages. This has dramatically increased the number of safe deliveries from 10% to 75%.

The prayer inside us all

90 kilometres of warm desert air rushing through Bolero windows
Sand, not yet scorched reaching up ankles and in between toes
Two cousins, one GIS expert, one foreigner
Pushkar pilgrims
400 temples all around
The lake eargerly awaiting the monsoon
Ice cold lassis from clay cups
Deep pink rose petals
My offering
The prayer inside us all
My wish, captured and recycled by entreprenuial holy men
Agressively willing to cleanse your karma
At a very reasonable rate
Rinse your hands in sacred ghats
No thought of disease
Old breasts bathing bare
Wrinkling women wringing ghargras dry
Jootis, dripping with sequins, now in my possession
Sharing holy sweets while Brahma looks on
Bare feet running across hot marble, shrine worshipping
Just one more lassi for the the road
Buses overtaking on blind bends through snake mountain
Lovers huddled in corners overlooking Ana Sajar in ancient Ajmer
Invalids, Muslims, Hindus pushing towards Durgha
No shoes, black feet seeking dung free islands
Heads covered
All hoping for their requests heard
Herded round the Sufi's tomb
Blessed under the cover of a blanket
Throw flowers at the saint, money in the well
Throbbing families close in, new borns longing for a glimpse
A business card from our Khadim
Please come again
A third holy string gradually enveloping my right wrist
Home time, dehyrdration sets in, dusk falls
Kissanghar caturie, not to be missed
Sweet chutney dripping down the sides
Greeted by calls of 'what did you buy?' 'can we see the photos?'

Mama's Green Mango Curry

For me this is one of Mama's best vegetable dishes. It took a good hour of sitting with her to work out the recipe and translate the ingredients into English. It was only when she started cooking the dish this morning I realised we'd forgotten a couple of stages and ingredients. Hopefully we have it all now. You might need to experiment with the quantities a bit, but it's worth it for the finished result. Unfortunatley I don't think you'll be able to find all the ingredients in England, in particular the green mangos, so this one is for readers in India only.

Serves 4

250g unripe green mangos (see picture if you don't know what to look for). These should be washed and roughly sliced into strips around the stone. Keep the skin on and include the stone. Don't worry if it's still got mango flesh on it, you can eat around it. Mangos should be sliced from the stalk upwards so you get less of the stringy fibres.
2 medium onions, finely diced or grated if you have a grater.
2 small bulbs of garlic, peeled into cloves and crushed in pestel and mortar.
50g vegetable oil
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
4 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp sanaf (fennel seeds I think)
1 tsp cumin
1/2 cup water
1 tsp miti (a spice available from the general store, smells a bit like curry leaves, looks like little pellets). Be sure to pick out the dust and little pieces of stone.
100g gud or brown sugar. Gud is the raw material of sugar and is available at the general store. Looks a bit like toffee, see picture. The gud should be bashed in the pestel and mortar so that it crumbles easily when you add it to the pan.

1. Boil the mango for 8 minutes until it softens. Throw out the water afterwards and place the mango to one side.
2. Put the oil in the pan and place on the chula, or stove to heat up. Add the onion, garlic, miti and cumin to the hot oil.
3. Add the rest of the spices to water and mix well. Add the spice mixture to the hot oil and stir.
4. Add the bashed gud or sugar to the pan.
5. Add the mango and cook for 10 minutes on a high heat. You may need to add some more water if the curry isn't runny enough.

How to eat- do not eat the skin or the stone. When I first arrived in Laporiya I tried to eat the skin because I didn't know what the vegetable was and didn't want to appear rude. Pick up the pieces of mango and eat the juicy flesh inside them. Serve with roti.

Foranta - free to be a child

Her grandmother was just 2 years old when she married; her mother was 5 when she married her 7 year old father. It seemed only right that 10 year old Foranta should follow tradition and be wed young. It was just what happened here, especially as there were fewer girl children to go around.

In fact, Foranta’s father Ambalal had made an agreement 5 years before that she would marry the son of a friend’s friend. That son was now 12 years old. If he went back on the promise, his friend’s own daughter’s wedding would be called off too. In India this process of exchanging children to make good marriages is known as Ala Sata and it stems from the shortage of young girls.

Ambalal had made the commitment, and when Foranta was 9 years old he started making the wedding preparations. He bought all the ingredients to make sweets, vegetable dishes and snacks and built a special structure out of the mud for cooking on. All his relatives and everyone from his village, Shalsagar was invited to the party.

A member of the Village Development Committee (VDC) heard about the upcoming wedding, and three days before it was due to take place they visited Ambalal and urged him not to let the marriage happen. He seemed determined to go ahead with it. One of the CBOs (Community Based Organisations), the Youth Mandal or Youth Council, became aware of the situation and that Ambalal was ignoring the VDC’s request. They informed the Sub-Divisional Magistrate who sent a teacher to meet Ambalal and explain the legal implications he could face- imprisonment and a fine. The official also informed the police who came and took Foranta’s father to the police station. The next day Ambalal faced the Block Level court and signed a written agreement that his daughter would not get married until she was 18, and until that time she would attend school.

Foranta is a shy child, but when she does speak she tells of how much she enjoys school. She is making use of a Cluster Resource Centre GVNML set up, reading interesting books and painting. She feels free to be a child. If she was married, she said she would feel other responsibilities and would be told not to behave like a child.

Her mother said she had no idea about the drawbacks of chid marriage, she thought it was normal. Now that she knows the negative effects it can have on children she feels very strongly that girls should not be married before the age of 18.

Looking back, Ambalal is thankful to the VDC for stopping the marriage. He has saved a lot of money that would have been spent keeping a good relationship with his son-in-law’s family until Foranta went to live with her husband aged 15. When her husband’s family visited, Foranta would have had to cover her face and he sees now it is not good for a child’s life to be married young and miss out on an education.

In this case, the VDC weren’t just responsible for stopping one child wedding, they turned Foranta’s parents into advocates against child marriage. It is these changes in behaviour which will now pass down through generations of her family. Changing traditions which have been alive for hundreds of years is a slow process, and it is not just new laws that will change behaviour. It takes significant social efforts to make the smallest revolutions here.

In 2009-10, 12 potential child marriages were reported and stopped. It is estimated that in Rajasthan 72% of families arrange a child marriage before their daughters are 18. GVNML is working with VDCs in 8 villages to stop upcoming child marriages. GVNML’s work with Sub-Divisional Magistrates encourages them to recognise the requests of CBOs, particularly in this issue.

Two of my favourite little people

Mookesh and Sumni are two of favourite friends here. They are little, and dirty, and sometimes have cow poo on their feet and snot running down their noses, but I love them all the same.

Their father looks after our cows and buffalo, and their mother, Laila, does the washing up, sweeping and digging holes when required. They live next to our house near where the cattle live.

Mookesh is 8 and he tried going to school but didn't like it so won't go anymore. He spends his days running around the house with his sister, perhaps clearing leaves or helping some of my cousins in their building work. Sumni is 2 years old and enjoys playing with stones and chewing on her flip flops. She calls me Didi, meaning big sister. Mookesh often raises his hands to me in Nameste and shouts hello across the courtyard.

The family is from a different caste to my Rajput family, and it's not really acceptable to them that I play with the children, although my family often makes dresses for Sumni out of odd scraps of material. I'm trying to walk the middle ground and be friends with everyone, just seeing little Sumni's smiling face in the evening makes up for any hot, long day in the office.

Mangos, mending and black marks

Nearly half the world's mangos are grown in India- 13.5 tonnes a year. It's their national fruit and from April to around September it's mango season. This is an exciting time for me and I celebrate by ceremoniously eating one mango each day after my lunch. They are sumptious, so juicy and I can buy 5 for 40 pence, or 30 rupees, which makes up for the huge prices they make you pay in England. My thinking is if I gorge now, I'll be able to resist the urge to splash out back home.

There are lots of different varieties of mangos. There are big yellow juicy ones which are very fruity, and there are green mangos which aren't ripe yet and are used more like a vegetable in the most delicious curry. My new mum cooked it last night- strips of mango in a thick, syrupy tomato sauce (see pic below).

In India the motto is 'if it breaks, someone can fix it'. Fridges, TVs, dentures, jewellery, even flip flops are all given a new lease of life. There's a flip flop mender in Kishanger who has a selection of almost matching flip flop parts to fix your comfiest footwear. My boss' slippers (that's what they call them here) below are a shining example of the admirable make do and mend mentality.

Yesterday someone didn't put the lid on my water bottle on properly, so I put it in my bag where it proceeded to leak all over my treasured moleskin diary and my dear friend mr mobile phone. Now that the moleskin has dried out it looks tatty in an intellectual way which I can live with, but the phone is in a bad state, deciding to unhelpfully display a screen of dots. So, after showing my family everyone is getting involved dishing out advice. I'm to dry it in the sun for a few hours, then if it's not working there's a man in Dudu who might be able to fix it. If he can't then I think my sister wants the speaker from it to use in her phone and I'll buy a new one from a nearby village which apparently features a selection of mobile phone shops.

Yesterday was also the day that I collected my new Rajasthani dresses from the tailor, and caused a bit of a storm around the house. Everyone wanted a glimpse and found it highly amusing. They say I look like an Indian now and do a little dance in front of me to show their appreciation for the new look. My new grandfather, who, it has to be said is slightly mad, asked which village I was from, thinking I was a stranger from a neighbouring community.

The outfit is going to take some getting used to, mainly the amount of material I have to carry around and try not to trip over. My sister said I was looking very beautiful but would get ill if people kept looking at me, so she put a black dot of wood ash behind my left ear, and one on top of my bindi to protect me (see photo). She says her elder sister Ratan got sick after her engagement party because she was looking so pretty and everyone was staring at her. I'm finding India full of these endearing quirks which you just don't find out until you spend time with the locals.