This past week was hard for me in a lot of ways. I again am fighting off stomach troubles and spent Monday evening at home in bed or in the bathroom. I am continuing to lose weight by the bucketful. By Wednesday I felt better but I had a long train journey to the Sari Bari village unit, about three hours from where I live to the east of Kolkata. On the way home from the village the train began to fill up very full and I was crushed in a compartment with many other women. My slight claustrophobia (coupled with my low tolerance for prolonged social exposure) began to creep up on me, so by the time I got onto the train from the main station back to my home I was already emotionally frazzled. The train home was far worse than usual, with many many people shoving and yelling at me. When I fought my way off the train I felt I'd finally been released but as I walked back to my home along the railroad tracks and made it to the railroad crossing that is right by my house the crossing gate began to come down. This slow bouncing up and down of the gate is the signal for everyone nearby to dart under the closing gate as fast as they can an make for the other side, so while I was looking up trying to keep the gate from hitting me, so was a man on a bike who did indeed run into me. The shock and pain of the whole situation just sent me over the edge. After assuring that the man on the bike was ok, I ran for my nearby house and began to feel the walls of India close in on me. I felt like I couldn't escape the chaos and the dirt and the people even when sitting on the floor of my flat trying to stop hyperventilating. As I said, It was a hard week. However, I wanted to tell you about my challenges only so that I can now tell you why enduring all this is worth it (even if I didn't think so at the time).
This week, besides the emotional and physical challenges, I met with a lot of blessing in the form of the Sari Bari Leadership Class. This Saturday I got to worship with the ladies of Sari Bari to the music of Chris Hale, leader of Hindi Christian music group
Aradhna. His music is so uplifting, it's really great to hear worship being done in a tongue that reaches out to such a huge population that has so long resisted Christian ideas. Chris Hale and his work were a big part of what got me interested in coming to India in the first place, about four years ago. It was great to get to spend some time with him again.
After worshiping I had the opportunity to do some more theater exercises with the Sari Bari women. Last time we had just played some mirroring and "emotion statue" games. This time I went in-depth into an exercise meant to help the ladies think about improvements they have the power to make in their everyday lives- in this case in their family situations. I divided the women into five groups and asked a leader in each to create a still "picture" using the members of their group, depicting a typical Bengali family. I was trying to keep the idea simple: no movement or text, but wow! Did those ladies take my input and run with it. In about fifteen minutes I had five complete skits with props and text demonstrating life in a household typical to what the women lived in. These were very eye opening for me, not having had the opportunity to see into the women's private lives before. There were many similarities in the skits that showed a homogeneity of circumstances, either in India as a whole, or perhaps in the red light areas in specific. In every skit the mother was working, cooking, cleaning, ordering children or a maid around. Almost every skit depicted the father as asleep, drunk, or both. The father often smacked the rest of the family around a bit, and when the mother demanded he go to work he simply replied, I'm not going to work, and laid down to go to sleep! In the one skit where the father did go to work he disappeared early on and did not return as the rest of the family descended into squabbling. In every skit the children sat and studied, often breaking off studies to fight amongst themselves until the mother intervened. In one, the boy child laid down to sleep while the daughters continued to study with the tutor (training for later life as the sleeping father?). Every skit involved extended family,. the grandparents or in-laws of the husband and wife. In one the grandparents simply spent all their time praying for the wellbeing of the family, while the in-laws sat smoking bidis, fighting about what would be best for the family, and ordered the mother around. In another the bent-backed grandmother cleaned the house and when a child exclaimed "give granny something to eat!" the grandmother grumbled, "I'm just the house maid, no one gives me anything to eat!".
After seeing the scenes, I asked the ladies to select the most realistic of the five. After some reluctance they selected the scene in which the father worked, the boy slept while the girls studied, and the in-laws fought about what was right for the family's future. I then asked if anything could be improved in the picture. What would make this family more ideal? At first the ladies were stumped, but with some coaxing they began to imagine what an ideal family might look like. They decided that the father should go to work, but he should then come home and be involved in the raising of the children. They had the father actor come back and wake the sleeping boy and help the kids with their studies. When considering the mother, they decided that the two grandparents should finish their prayers and go to help with the housework, and the father in-law should go to work while the mother in-law helped the mother as well. With all this help, they decided the maid could be let go to save them money (the situation was not so ideal for the maid).
Through this exercise I learned a lot about how Bengalis think of family and how difficult it is for these women to break out of the "that's just the way it is" mentality, and begin to problem solve. But they HAVE done it! I also saw how very creative and full of enthusiasm for improving their family's lives the women were. I got a glimpse into the very adverse conditions they come from, but have also overcome. In not one skit did a woman go to work to support her family. Yet that is exactly what these women do on a day to day basis! They live in a society that does not prepare women for work outside the home, for anything that could support her family, but the Sari Bari ladies have decided to say "to hell with what society expects me to do!", and they go out in the world to make their reality a better one every day! Life has thrown every disadvantage at them: drunken, sluggardly husbands, the expectation of huge amounts of household work every day, the lack of training for useful vocations, and little respite or respect to come with age! Yet they still persevere! They are simply in a word, inspiring. I have said it before and I will say it again: I expected to come here to help others, to bring others faith and hope and freedom. Instead, I have received far more than I could ever give through the example of these women's trust in God, and hope despite all odds. No matter what I have gone through in the way of physical discomfort, receiving these gifts make it worthwhile... So next time I get sick, I need to re-read this blog! Haha...
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