Wofford College - Presidential Scholar

Of semana santa, guinea pigs, and goats

During Semana Santa, the week leading up to Easter Sunday, I stayed with a Peruvian family in Cusco.  And that week, marked by, among other things, a twelve course meal featuring traditional local dishes and marathons of Charlton Heston movies, was an excellent time to have a familia Peruana.  Though not particularly attached to the Catholic traditions, my mama Peruana cooked up a storm, particularly relishing the three deserts—apples and peaches soaked in a sweet cinnamon sauce, arroz con leche, and a sort of dark custard—which we consumed in massive amounts almost all day long while watching Moses, The Ten Commandments, and Ben-Hur.

The Easter Bunny and, much to my chagrin, Cadbury eggs, failed to make their appearance, but Cusco is known for other Semana Santa traditions, particularly the procession of the “Our Lord of the Earthquakes” through the streets to all of the main churches of the city on Holy Monday.  This particular image, unlike the Christo Blanco statue that looms with lovingly outstretched arms over the city, has been blackened by years of ceremonial smoke and shows a crucified Christ battered and broken, with a startling violence that is much more common in the religious iconography in Peru than is seen in most European imagery.  The image garnered its name when it was brought out of its home in the cathedral in 1650 to bring an end to the violent earthquake that was bringing the city to its knees.  Since then, The Lord of the Earthquakes is carried from church to church in a slow, nearly day-long processional by forty-five men lifting his silver litter.  Thousands line the route, while prominent city officials and clergy follow behind.  The onlookers shower the image with blood-red cantuta flowers, particularly valued by the Incas (this is just one of many instances of the blending of Inca and Catholic traditions.  For example, during Semana Santa the markets are flooded with traditional medicinal items, from herbs to donkey hooves.  Many of the images in the Cathedral where The Lord of the Earthquakes resides combine Incan imagery with Catholic icons—images of the Virgin Mary are often depicted in a conical dress up to their necks, giving them the appearance of a mountain, revered as a god by the Incas).

The procession of The Lord of the Earthquakes culminates in his return to the Cathedral on the Plaza de Armas, at which time the gathered masses receive the benediction.  From the upstairs window of my afternoon Spanish class, instead of the normal bustle of cars, taxis, and fume-belching buses, I saw crowds swarming down the street, closed to traffic for the day.  I impatiently waited for the end of class, when my host sister collected me as we made a dash for the square, only to discover it already overflowing with people.  Crowding into an alley leading onto the square, we saw the end of the procession as The Lord of the Earthquakes made his way to the Cathedral.  Despite the sea of heads in front of me, lines of people continued to stream past, filling the square to impossible capacity that made breathing impossible.  We linked arms with our neighbors and braced our legs against the surges.  In my broken Spanish I rather pointlessly apologized for the repeated jostling to the small older woman in front of me who found it convenient to use me as a shield.  She just grinned and responded, “It’s all right, it’s like this every year, I’ll just be knocking you back the other way in a few minutes.”

But finally, at the doors of the Cathedral were opened to receive The Lord of the Earthquakes, the crowd fell into almost an eerie silence, with only a few children whose views were obscured crying out in protest.  The plaza was suddenly filled with wail of sirens signifying the benediction as the doors closed behind The Lord of the Earthquakes.  People paused, heads bowed, made the sign of the cross and then, the ceremony over, all hell broke loose as the mass pushed against us trying to make its escape.  We turned, and taking small penguin-like steps, were practically lifted out into the next plaza, nearly crushed along the way as people dispersed out into the nearby streets.

The last time I felt that nearly-crushed by a crowd was also in the context of religious fervor, though then it was of a Hindu variety.  Spending a few days in Kolkata to meet with a micro-finance organization, I decided one Sunday afternoon to make a trek down to the renowned Kalighat Kali temple.  With the subway system closed for the day, I took the four kilometers on foot, pushing through markets teeming with fruit and meat, food distribution lines and neighborhoods of disintegrating British architecture.  After asking directions from a few friendly shop keepers along the way, I found the street, already crammed with taxis inching through fruit stalls, cows, and stalls dealing in flowers, incense and images of Kali.

The Kalighat, once an important landing on the Hooghly River, which has since carved a new course away from the temple, and said to have inspired the Anglicized name of the city, Calcutta, is devoted to the Hindu goddess Kali, goddess of death and destruction.  As I came upon the masses crowding the entrance, I began to wonder whether I had chosen a bad day to come, though I later learned that thousands flock to this temple every day from all over India.  But before I could scheme my method of assault or make the decision to bolt, I was greeted and ushered through a side entrance by a man who introduced himself as a priest, a series of whom, I was previously warned, are posted to escort foreigners through.

Weaving through a further series of stalls, we entered a sheltered courtyard and scurried through to a small alcove in the corner where I was instructed to remove my shoes, as required upon entering the holy places, to be left in the care of a small woman beaming a toothless and not exactly trust-inspiring grin.  Again, beginning to question my judgment as I watched my one pair of sandals being thrust into a wooden cabinet, perhaps to be seen for the last time, I nevertheless padded after my guide toward a crammed staircase leading to the main shrine, sensually overloaded with immense amounts of decorative red and the stale smell of feet and vaguely fearful of the goddess of death, whose house I had intruded upon, barely listening to my guide´s rapid narration of the temple’s history and description of the shrine we were about to enter.

Not having inherited their colonizers’ extreme love and respect of queuing, the Indians crowded onto the stairs seemed barely phased as my guide pushed through, though we had to wait to cut into the viewing area for the image of Kali, at whom the devout throw bunches of blood-red flowers and then bend their foreheads toward men clinging to ropes above the crowd to bestow upon them the small orange dot that marks their visit.  Feeling my body crushed as I stood behind the first row, I emitted an audible gasp as they suddenly parted and I got my own first glimpse.  The image, a black circle, featuring three slanted eyes of blood red, surround by an outer circle of the same red, is truly and hauntingly terrifying; Kali certainly deserves her reputation for annihilation.

But I had little more time to react as the crowd surged forward and my guide ushered me to the next portion of the temple, the meditative space, a welcome and relatively quiet spot to gasp for breath, which I had little time to enjoy.  Leading me to a window on one end of the cramped rectangular room that opened onto a patio below. “And this,” he announced grandly, “is the Hargath Tala,” meanwhile thrusting me forward.  “The place of sacrifice!”  And I saw a glint of metal raised into the air.

Now during Semana Santa (which may be a dark week for the guinea pig population who are allowed to run around free until a special occasion calls for their presence at, or rather on, the dinner table), the llama population, like the cows of India, feel calmly content, merely used for photo opportunities with women in native dress and for the occasional scarf.

Indian goats:  not so lucky.

And I stood on the lookout platform, seeming to see the blade fall in slow motion, my gut wrenching in revulsion and disgust, only to see half a melon fall the ground, much to my relief.  Apparently just a practice swing.

I quickly backed away and suggested we continue our tour, which led us to the bathing courtyard, built around a pool of water channeled in from the Hooghly, which I can only imagine is as sanitary as the rest of India’s streets and rivers, which is to say not at all, though the devout continued to descend into its murky depths.  But this was also the scene of the ambush I had long been anticipating.  Introducing me to the “temple cook,” my guide held out a battered notebook with a list of names, notably all foreign, accompanied by the numbers 2000 or 4000.

“You can donate money to buy rice for the poor,” my guide announced generously while the cook stood beside him beaming.

I discreetly peered into my wallet, and finding exactly 440 rupees, or about twelve dollars, more than enough to keep me going in India for a couple of days, I offered him 200, a relatively generous sum by Indian standards (my hostel cost 140 a night).

They both became indignant.

“NO ONE offers that little here.  We only take donations of 2000 or 4000 rupees here.”

How much rice did they expect me to buy!?!  I began to wonder if I would soon find my head dunked in the Hooghly water while they sifted through my wallet, slowly backing away, stammering excuses.   The cook seemed about ready to press me for more, but my guide interceded and I thought rather kindly led me away, much to my relief.

Our tour nearly over, he led me past a few more, smaller images of Kali, each more violent than the last.  Our path back to my shoes necessitated us passing around the outside barrier of the Hargath Tala.  Apparently, that melon had indeed been the practice, for as we passed by, my gaze averted, I had to carefully avoid with my bare feet the blood and crushed flowers streaming down the grimy tiles toward the drain a few feet away.

I was indescribably relieved to again see the toothless shoe sentinel and my sandals emerging from their cabinet, but my guide interposed, announcing “And that will be 300 rupees for the tour.”  He had rescued me from the chef only to plunder for himself.

I looked longingly at my sandals and the exit and dug 200 rupees more out of my wallet as a peace offering, which was accepted begrudgingly as he led me to the door, leaving me with a blessing, which I felt sure was followed by a curse as soon as he was out of earshot.

He had deposited me right beside the Mother Theresa Kalighat Home for the Pure of Heart, outside of which stood two bleating, unsuspecting white goats, draped with red flowers.  I wished them a speedy, painless death and made my way quickly back down the hectic street.

New Delhi, India

My flight to Delhi landed just as the biggest night of Diwali festivities was taking off.  Dazed and exhausted and hardly aware of the holiday frenzy I would soon enter, I found little to comfort me when I paused to take in my surroundings at the baggage claim at Indira Gandhi International airport, apparently eternally under construction, which, from what I could observe, seemed to mean a few light fixtures hanging precariously by some wires and haphazardly placed caution tape--on the front of the customs desk, around the phone booth, no where near the dangling lights.

Some of that caution tape might have been used more effectively to warn against approaching airline employees.  Diwali in India, like Christmas at home, brings everything to a grinding halt, lights are strung along railings, candles are lit, and fireworks ignited, families gather and exchange gifts and eat excessively, newspapers feature articles on ways to take off that extra Diwali weight.  And flying on Diwali, like flying on Christmas, brings upon you the wrath of disgruntled airline employees, who take no pains to hide that you are keeping them from far better things--flight attendants sneer with every pack of peanuts, baggage handlers stand at the start of the baggage belt and heave your bag on a seething mountain of luggage and smirk as you scramble after it while the granny who had been eyeing your precious luggage cart hitches up her sari and makes her move.

But met at the gate and ushered out into the hazy, I was able to collect myself a bit on the short ride to the hostel, taking in the chaos of fireworks and sweets vendors, cows dressed up for the occasion standing sentinel, looking rather bored with it all, and auto rickshaw drivers maneuvering through traffic in a way that suggested they were quite at ease with the idea of a violent death; the air, already hazy with smoke from the bangers whose explosions blasted through the cacophony of car horns, wreaked of sulfur and urine and incense.

A few hours later found me standing on the roof of my hostel, Sarai, a place that primarily caters to long-term residents, young Indian women who have come from all over the country to work in the capital.  Most are home for the holidays, but the few residents that stayed behind scurry around me lighting candles on the edge of the roof.  Ramneek, the assistant manager, explains that the Diwali festival celebrates the return of Rama and Sita from a fourteen year exile in the forest, as told in the holy Hindu text the Ramayana.  The candles light their way home.  Fireworks exploded in every direction over the rooftops.  Pramendra, the owner, brings a box of fireworks along with his enthusiastic seven-year-old daughter.

"My older girl is calm and contemplative, like Brahma," he says, pulling out a sparkler for the girl bouncing beside him, her big eyes already exploding with excitement.  "This one, on the other hand, is full of energy, bouncing off the walls, crazy, like Shiva, the destroyer god."  He smiles affectionately as the little Shiva first shies away from the lights bouncing from the end of the stick, and then grabs impulsively and begins running laps around the roof waving her arms with reckless abandon.

I hide behind the water tank with Ramneek when Pramendra begins setting off the small crackers that serve no purpose but to threaten your eardrums.  In between explosions, I ask her what she is doing in Delhi.  She's beginning classes next week to become a flight attendant, hopefully not of the sneering variety.

*  *  *  *

Sarai is located in South Delhi, about an hour's bus ride to Connaught Place in the city center.  But South Delhi is exploding with development as India's rapidly growing middle class seek out its trendy neighborhoods in Delhi's astronomical real estate market--property prices in the city are higher than those in most major American and European cities.  In some parts still comprised of empty dust patches, shanty towns, and garbage heaps, outlying areas of South Delhi still provides one of the more stark examples of the ever-increasing gap between India's rich and poor.

I wait for bus 604 across the main road, having emerged from the quieter alleyways in which Sarai lies.  As it is the beginning of the line, I don't have to fight for a seat on the left hand side, designated for ladies.  My window seat affords me a good view as the bus snakes through the city heading for Connaught Place.  Ten minutes into the ride, we pass one of those dust patches, now being transformed into the Vasant Kunj Mall, more than a kilometer long, advertised by the developers as "Luxury Shopping:  Redefined."  The ridge behind the complex and the empty lot beside it are blanketed with the tents and small huts of the workers and their families, living in squalor as they construct the indoor shopping paradise.

And they represent the greater majority of India's population.  Though the middle class that feeds the rapid construction and market development numbers greater than the population of the United States, by some estimates, 700 million of India's 1.1 billion people live below the poverty line, 350 million of them on less than $2.00 a day.  And more often than not, they live in the shadows of the wealth that pampers the few.

At the next intersection past the Vasant Kunj Mall, marked on two sides by shanty towns, huts made with tarp and corrugated tin, a hierarchy established by the number of bicycle tires on the roof, I hop off the bus, McDonald's arches hovering above the tops of building down the road to the left guiding me in through an unattended metal detector that beeps in vain at everyone that passes through.  In the courtyard within I find the a cinema, along with bookshops, the first McDonald's to open in Delhi, United Colors of Benetton, clubs and restaurants, including TGIFriday's, quite the high end place here, and a coffee shop selling pure liquid chocolate that is to die for. 

Seeking my first Bollywood movie experience, I buy a ticket for 90 rupees (about $2.00) to one of the big Diwali releases--Saawariya--a fluffy piece adapting a Dostoevsky short story in a way that probably has him grimacing in his grave.  The film casts a set worthy of Disney World that claims to be India in blue and green hues, an innocent young musician pines for the doe-eyed woman he met mysteriously waiting on a bridge late one night, he attempts to win her heart, they sing, they dance, they nearly kiss a dozen times--Indian censors are rigidly strict; the theatre gasps when the lead actor appears in nothing but a bath towel.  There is passion, there is hope, there is heartbreak.  I don't understand a word and I love it.  I buy popcorn for approximately 75 cents during the fifteen minute intermission. 

Indian film-going is escapism taken to a new level.  With their highly idealized visions of the country--not a spec of dirt to be seen--and their often fantastical elements, the films offer an alternative vision of reality; realism rarely succeeds in the box-office.  You can sit in air-conditioned comfort and forgot about everything that lies outside the doors, the shanty towns, the beggars, the filth, the rag pickers who stand knee deep in garbage rifling through with cows and goats.  Your senses are bombarded with song and dance instead of noise and filth.

But it's waiting for you again at the door. 

*  *  *  *

Resuming my bus ride into the city, I pass the time playing my favorite Indian car games:  count the number of men you see urinating on the side of the road; bonus points if one them is the driver of the vehicle in which you are riding.  Also, count the number of cows you see beside major roads, anticipate which of them will play chicken with your bus.  Rule number one:  the cow always wins, and don't those cows know it.  My cow sightings multiply exponentially when I leave the city after a week for a rural district in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.  Working with an NGO called MARI, Modern Architects for Rural India, I conduct a case study on water development projects in rural village communities.  On our daily rides in an old jeep on moon crater roads, entire herds meander their way across our path, staring indifferently, some tauntingly, seeming to say "I dare you, just imagine the bad karma of even tapping a cow."  A goat has less of the holy advantage of the cow in its vehicular confrontations, so they typically keep a respectful distance.  The Indian driver's test (if there were such a thing) should include a segment on Holy Animals and the Road:  Navigating around Livestock and Keeping the Faith.

But of course it is not just the cows I have come to see.  Andhra Pradesh is a region incredibly prone to drought in the large Deccan Plateau.  The Warangal District is one of the poorest in the state and its farmers face the crisis of a water table depleted by the over-extraction that began with mechanized systems in the 1970s.  MARI's initiatives encourage a return to traditional methods of water usage and distribution, a sustainable approach that allows time for the water table to replenish, incorporating methods of organic farming, rainwater harvesting, and community based management.  MARI takes a multidisciplinary approach to the environmental management programs it encourages, and with the increased prosperity of sustainable water agriculture and fishing economy, communities experience an improvement in living conditions and an increase in the education opportunities.  Many of the villages participating in MARI initiatives have an adult literacy rate of 60% for men and 30% for women.

In their attempts to foster community-based leadership, MARI focuses much of its attention on developing action groups for women, who are most directly affected by water shortages as they are expected to walk, however far, to the nearest water supply, sometimes several kilometers away.  On one of my site visits, I travel with the director of a micro-finance organization, Sanghatitha, to visit some of these woman’s groups, who are using small loans from Sanghatitha to start businesses, sometimes independently with a local shop, sometimes as a community with initiatives such as a dairy collective.  The smaller community groups are overseen by regional boards, called MACs, with representatives from each community traveling to meet together several times a month. 

We arrive for one of these meetings just in time for lunch.  While the younger women finish preparing the meal, the MAC members bustle me into the small two-roomed house and point to a bundle of fabric, a rich purple cotton, folded neatly on a cot in the corner.  They then gesture emphatically at my clothes.  Without waiting for me to acknowledge their distaste for my khaki pants, they quickly set to work.  In frenzy of twirling and wrapping and folding and tucking that I can hardly remember, with the use of only one safety pin (the mark of a first-time wearer), I am remarkably clothed in a sari, a piece of art in itself, a traditional dress that has survived the influx of western style clothes.  The women admire their work, smoothing down my remarkably uncooperative wavy blonde hair and placing a flower in the hair band.  Called to lunch, I try to step delicately to my chair and nearly fall flat on my face.  Apparently this takes some practice.

After lunch—chicken so spicy it makes me cry served on a plate of leaves sewn together—they begin their meeting and after allow questions.  We discuss how things have changed for them since the start of their economic initiatives and their meetings:

“Our husbands used to resist us and yell and scream when we tried to come to the meetings,” one member board member recalls.

“But now,” interjects another with a grin, “they’re dropping us off and picking us up. They respect us now because we are making money for our families.”

The board chairwoman explains their driving purpose in helping other women to develop their own projects: “Every woman must live, live not dependently, but live independently.  And when she stands for herself, she must realize that she has the strength of thousands of women standing behind her.”

Obviously they learned a while ago how to not trip over their saris.

Pak Mun village, Thailand

When we were dropped off at the end of the driveway we were soaked through from our ride on a longtail boat up the Mun River from the Mekong, where the rain had come suddenly and hard, whipping sideways under the roof so that even huddled in the middle of the narrow benches, water poured down our faces and puddled at our feet. But our family—a couple and their thirteen-year-old son—was happy to see us, dripping as we were, and bustled us under the cover of their house, set up on stilts above a kitchen area shared with a muddy outboard motor and a cow with her two young calves. Phau pointed proudly into the darkness beside the house, explaining that they had seventeen cows total; these were just the latest additions

The family has turned to raising cows as an alternative source of income. This village has long been a fishing village, but with the completion of the Pak Mun Dam in 1994, the fish populations upstream were severely depleted. As a source for hydroelectric power, the 136 MW Pak Mun dam operates on a gate system. The gates are lowered for extended periods of time, forcing the river into a storage reservoir upstream, to be pumped through turbines. A study conducted in 2001 by Ubon Ratchathani University recommended that the gates of the dam be opened permanently to counteract the devastating environmental and economic effects. The Thai government disregarded this recommendation and since 2002, the gates have only been open for four months out of the year. The government also promised prior to building the dam that the fish ladder they planned to install, designed by World Bank fisheries experts, would counter any negative impact on the local fishing economy. The fish ladder, flawed in its design and ultimately only allowing small fish to travel through, sits beside the dam, largely unused, much like Phau's fishing gear.

While Mee prepared a meal of mixed vegetables and eggs, bought at the local market, with a side of frog soup, Phau showed us his nets, hand-woven and now useless, bunched in sacks beneath the platform on which we sat. We asked if his son learned how to fish and he replied that they went out together when they had free time, more like the lazy fishing days we envision, and more about the time on the water than the catch. Like many of his generation, their older son, now in his early twenties, moved to Bangkok when he turned eighteen, seeking work, though his father was unsure as to what sort.

After we ate, we moved upstairs, where, by the light of a single halogen bulb, Phau showed us a chart of the fish native to the Mun River, pointing out the ones he most often used to catch. He explained that the number of fish in the river had decreased by somewhere between 60-80%.

"This one used to cost 20 baht (65 cents) per kilogram; now it costs over 100 ($3.20)."

He continued to point out fish that he used to catch that have now disappeared until Mee arrived to hurry us to bed—mats on the floor beneath mosquito nets—even though it was barely 8:00. She would be up by 5:30, caring for chores before herding their seventeen cows out to feed.

We fell asleep to the soft patter of the rain on the tin roof above our heads and repetitive clink of the cow bell beneath.

* * * *

The next night, after a meal of eggs and mixed vegetables, we attempted to span linguistic chasms with a game of cards, finding a somewhat willing participant in one of our neighbors, Pi. Finding a game that would translate, however, proved harder than we had imagined.

We failed to convey the concept of our first attempt, B.S. It took finding the Thai word for "lie" in the dictionary to get the general idea across, at which point we began to worry what sort of cultural messages we might be sending.

Pi next tried to teach us a game that was just enough like blackjack to leave us all confused. One of us would celebrate our good fortune in reaching 21 only to discover that for this hand, the objective happened to be 16.

Running low on ideas for card games that might be simple enough to communicate, someone suggested that easiest of card games, Go Fish!, or Bplaa! in Thai (we determined after yet another trip to the Thai-English dictionary). Our first exclamations with over- emphasized gestures drew a blank stare, but fortunately no offense. Despite the rather uncomfortable implications of every exclamation of "Bplaa," as we leaned against those sacks of unused fishing nets, it was a relief to finally find a game that could translate.

Until Pi proudly put down a straight in diamonds and a pair, which made us wonder if perhaps poker or rummy might have been a better place to start.

The cards were quickly put away, not quite the cultural bridge that we had hoped.

http://www.searin.org/index.htm

Project description

The focus of my travels is examining cultural perspectives on environmental change in development with an emphasis on water politics, specifically displacement issues and anti-dam movements associated with hydro-electric projects.  In China, India, and Thailand, I am particularly interested in the effects of globalized economics, which push for privatized water control and how those efforts collide with the rights of individuals, particularly rural indigenous groups.  In Jordan, I will look at water scarcity issues, in Botswana and Peru, conservation efforts and water rights issues in connection with local populations, and then in Mexico again return to hydro projects and river usage conflicts.  Tying together these different areas is my focus on the human cost of development in a ecological framework, ultimately exploring the socio-economic implications of water resource management for local populations, as representative of the confluence of development projects that must confront both human and ecological imperatives.  Of course, this is all an intended project of study, so we'll see how it goes.

First Post

Just a note to say that I made it safely into Beijing and might have finally gotten over the worst of the jet lag.  I've spent a good bit of the last few days just getting oriented and sitting in with a few CIEE classes on contemporary China.  The CIEE center is located on the campus of China University for Nationalities, "nationalities" referring to any minority ethnic group.  Based on a description from one of the professors, it is essentially China Affirmative Action University, a directness that it seems doesn't characterize many other discussions in China.

That being said, there is a push for awareness on Beijing's fragile store of resources. with signs in quite a few public places urging people to be mindful of Beijing's limits and not to waste either water or electricity.  My favorite English sign so far is on the door to the bathroom in my hostel.  After a reminder to conserve water, it reads: "No toilet paper offer here, buy in snack bar if needed.  By the way we don't recommend you drink the water out of the toilet." : )

The language barrier is definitely presenting a challenge, as very few people speak English and my capacity for learning characters is sadly underwhelming.  Despite the difficulty of being bombarded by unrecognizable text and feeling rather isolated by a lack of communication, it is oddly comforting (albeit a little bit exasperating) that every two blocks, either Colonel Sanders or Lady Starbucks is there, smiling in cheerful complacency, reminding you that you haven't quite yet traveled far enough.