Powdered coffee - seriously?

If you said to me, a determined coffee lover, that a cup of instant powder coffee was even drinkable, I would have laughed at you. I would have thought you had uttered some form of insane idea that was a certain evidence of a questionable link with insanity.  So, here I am at 6 a.m. enjoying just such a thing. It is made with farm fresh, intensely boiled milk. And, having been hand delivered by the night watchman, is magnificent.

We have also discovered this little hotel that is run by a northern Indian family with some obvious other Asian influence. I am uncertain if anyone stays at the hotel but then the tourist traffic here is down very markedly from this time last year. The economic woes of Europe in particular has hit here with just far fewer people arriving, at least in this area.

None the less, this little hotel, Greens, serves up some remarkable paneer butter masala as well as a variety of other interesting dishes like Gobi chicken. The lemon water is freshly made and refreshes like nothing else on a hot, humid evening. The kitchen is a bit odd and would never pass a health inspection in the west. It is located in the back of the wood refinishing business. The food is, none the less, magnificent and a full dinner costs about 200 rupees (or less than $5) for 2 people.

Hidden in there is the kitchen

On the way over tonight, we passed a funeral pyre. The procession had worked its way down the road that we had to travel to get to Greens. As is the tradition, flowers are ripped off the funeral caravan leaving behind the life that has existed as the deceased is prepared for the next life. The flowers are littered across the road which meant that we drove over them. There was a certain invasive creepiness to this (clearly my Western sensibilities).

I am quite excited to be doing a men only group tomorrow with 30-40 men from the villages. A social worker will be translating for me. It will be a combination of teaching and group work on the topic of abuse in the family. We will be exploring things like what does it mean to be a father and a husband. The therapists who work here look at me with amazement and suddenly wide open eyes. They are shocked that this could happen. Several female therapists have expressed a wish that they could be a fly on the wall.

We have only 1 week left here. The time, as is often said, flew by. There are still friends we have not caught up on and things we had wanted to do but will not get done. I finish the trip in Chennai by giving a lecture. The invitation is so formal but I think it will be a wonderful opportunity.

Two of literally hundreds surrounding us on our walk

Some of the memories of a trip as so small. Yesterday, when we were out for a walk, we wandered down this trail where there were various trees overhanging. What we ended up doing is walking through a flurry of butterflies. We were surrounded as the flit past us, around us, above us and even just sitting in tree branches where they allowed us to come within a touch length. Such simple beauty.

India Day

Today, August 15, is the national holiday of India. It is also a time when many Indians wander to sacred sites in order to obtain blessing. Thus, there are crowds around here today.

In the morning, coinciding with Aurobindo’s celebration, was the morning bonfire at the Matrimandir. This is a time for reflection as the day opens. The bonfire is light before dawn breaks and carries through as the day begins to unfold. You can hear the morning birds announcing the beginning of the day – some are birds that you will not hear at other times. It is interesting to think how little we stop and hear what occurs in nature at various times of the day. We become so busy with our routine, that we fail to notice that mother nature too has a routine.

We are supposed to be part of the natural routine – sleep, wake, rest, eat. Our other activities so preoccupy us that we have lost sight of where we belong in the universe. Maybe that is why we are so neglectful of the planet – we have detached from the life giving element and simply abuse it for our own egoistic purposes.

Today, India has made a national goal of bringing plastics under control. This is a laudable goal given that the countryside is littered with plastics. It is a big part of the garbage by the roadside that cows eat and the lowest castes pick through

In my activities here, I have come to see that there are many parallels with how inter personal violence unfolds in families. In particular, I have seen the challenge of how difficult it is for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. There is the real risk of being an outcast in the community. But for many women, the problem of economic dependency is an insurmountable obstacle to leaving in a country where the social safety net looks nothing like what we are used to in Canada. In this area, there is a need for emergency housing for a woman leaving but there is also a need for long term support systems.

It is in this, that I see how much inter personal violence is a worldwide problem. I recall a year and half ago being in Turley and speaking with activists from various countries within that region. They too spoke about the challenges. Activists here raise the subject and so do the media.

I have yet to see a country that has found a way to overcome these patterns. They are profoundly woven into the fabric of so many societies, including ours in the west. What might be different, is our willingness to openly talk about it although the secrecy of it within families can be as much a silent barrier in the west as here.

This is a topic a long way from resolution and requires that we continue to openly speak and write about it.

This brief heavy rain did not satisfy the earth which soaked it up rapidly. This dry land is desperate for more rain

The heat, the salute and the meditation

The days have been hot here this year – about 5-6 degrees warmer than when we were in the Pondicherry area last year. There has also been almost no rain to quell the impact of the heat. Last night, after a hot, humid day, the rain did come for about 20 minutes. It was a hard rain but nothing like a monsoon. It did not bring relief. Instead, given the already high humidity with high heat, the air turned into the moist, melting air that we in places like Calgary associate only with a sauna.

The ground gets covered in water but melts away almost as fast as it comes. Plants seem to quickly soak up what is available. Our night watchman, a man who insists on saluting me whenever he sees me, knows that the plants need much more. He still did his rounds of watering.

Later in the evening, the real rain arrived and broke the back on the heat. It rained most of the night leaving the ground wet and the air fresh. This morning, there is a gentle breeze offering a freshness that has not been seen since we arrived. It is quite beautiful. The morning is also full of birds singing and the cock at the farm next door engaged in multiple rounds of announcing the morning. Magical stuff really.

The saluting thing is not breakable. His English is not so good so I have not been able to ascertain if he was in the army. But, when he sees me drive up, he arises from his seat, stands at attention and offers a full salute. My wife does not typically get such treatment, although she did once (why only once, one wonders?). Such is India.

He tried one night to tell us to go to Pondicherry, some 10 km away, to get a new roll of toilet paper. We now make sure the day staff does not leave us without a supply. However, over time, I have built up something of a relationship with him. He now allows me to go the bottled water supply for whatever amounts I seem to need.  I have managed plates, glasses and cutlery during such runs. But alas, there is no sign of the toilet paper.

With the heat, and dirt roads that we travel, one finishes the day so dusty and sweaty, that it is almost impossible to be in your own skin. The notion of washing up in a bucket might seem, in other circumstances, less than desirable. In this case, it has been akin to stepping into heaven. The water has a silken luxury to it. Combined with soap, it washes away what feels like 5 pounds of grime. I wonder if I can package that as a new weight loss technique?

Suffering from a touch of academia, I have found myself doing some advising to two graduate students. One lives in Pondicherry and is doing a PhD in social work. He is a rather brave fellow who seeks to be the only one of his 37 classmates to do qualitative research. He might be the star of the class although he is struggling to find a soul mate in the world of qualitative within his university.

I was a bit dismayed, however, when I learned that some of the social work principles that we hold so dear (such as Person in Environment) seemed rather foreign concepts – well I guess they are foreign as from the West.

The other is an American who is studying in what might be the most delicious city in the world – Paris. She is doing a masters degree that involves looking at a social community project. I would offer ongoing advising if it meant that I could get trips to Paris. Alas, that is not in the fortunes.

Each morning April and I have the joy of meditating in the Matrimandir. This has apparently become one of the top tourist spots in India. Fortunately, we are able to go into the meditation area each morning. It is a place of such mystical spirit that it makes the journey to here so amazing. It is for that alone that I feel the training and consultation I do here grants me such returns.

The Matrimandir

As I write this, I find it astounding to believe that we are half way through our trip. We will leave here a couple of days earlier and go to Chennai. I have been invited to give a lecture there. Apparently I am to be introduced by a High Court judge. I feel honoured but sort of humbled by the chance to do this. It will be fascinating to see how things go.

Tonight we have power. But, yesterday, there was none for the entire daylight hours. This means that things like bank machines did not work. For restaurants and the like, they are used to power outages so they have generators. You can tell if the power is on easily – just listen for the hum of the generators.

I did go to the bank machine today. I wasn’t sure of the daily limit so I was a bit slow. The watchman came to assist me and advise of the daily limit as well as the way around it. For this, he felt a tip was in order. Ah well, it seemed worth the knowledge.

Each trip to India is a journey of sights, smells, people and inner searching. This trip is no exception.

Roadside Observations

Sitting in a roadside café in a small village in India may offer some of the best entertainment possible. You have going before you a stream of stories that great fiction writers could build an entire novel around. For me, I find myself wondering what exists within their lives. There is only a glimpse into their world as they go by.

Some in the village I have come to know a little bit over the years. There is the couple that owns my favourite chai shop. They can be counted on to deliver a warm, silky and spicy chai each time. Although the price has grown astronomically in the last year from 8 to 15 rupees. They have one child who is left in the care of a grandparent while they work the shop. This year, they announce that they now take Wednesdays off so that they can have one day in a week for the family to be together.

Down the road is the lady who runs the fruit stand. She is an astute businessperson who misses nothing. She can tell us what our favourite fruit choices were – last year.  To keep our patronage, she will comb through the offerings to ensure that we have good fruit for the day.

Going the other way, is the shop where we can pick up local cheese. The young lady there who has worked  in the shop from the first time we came to this part of India announced this will be the last year that we see her. She is marrying in October and moving to Coimbatore. She eagerly showed us a picture of her fiancée. In true modern ways, the photo was on her phone.

There are other glimpses into the lives of people who live in this small village. A lady walked past us today walking her cow as we might see someone walk their dog back home. The cow, in this case, is very much her livelihood and represents probably her most valued asset. Across the way is the husband and wife who have run what is essentially the corner store. Here you can get water, candy, cigarettes and, in recycled plastic water bottles, gasoline. A litre will cost you 80 rupees.

In this small village there can be numerous tourists who wander through. One would like to think that the various clothes and trinket shops offer a variety of choices. In the grand scheme of economics, the free market competition is at work. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. The shops are all run by the same group of Kashmiri men who offer precisely the same stock – rotated at times between the stores.  They worry little if you walk away from one store because you are not satisfied with the deal you have tried to negotiate. There is a certain confidence that you will ultimately settle on the item at the next store – which of course they operate as well.

The village has a pace to it. You can almost determine the time by what transpires. For example, at 4 p.m. the school buses will role through. At 4:30, the staff from the guest houses will begin bicycling home. At around 7 p.m., the parade of motorcycles and scooters will begin coming for dinner in the few restaurants. They largely cater to the westerners who either visit or live in the area. Thus, one can have pizza, pasta, salad or even McCain French fries along with a burger.  I have never tried the latter for fear of what might be actually in the burger.

The westerners seem to have their favourite places to simply sit and watch the world. On any given day, you can count on certain people being in certain places at fairly regular times. We humans are creatures of habit.

As I observe the villagers, I wonder what they think of us. “Oh there is that bearded guy with pony tail back”. But then what? They may conjecture about us or they may find us of no interest beyond whether we are buying. The children often find us of interest though.  When we were buying our fruit, the school bus went buy. Some children stared, others started waving and a few yelled “Hello, how are you?” The greetings are to be returned as the bus wanders off.

The rolling scene that is the village carries on and we play our tiny bit part until our role ends when we depart in a few weeks. Then we take up the next role which is the one we are most familiar with – the one back home. Until then, there is good chai to be had here and today, not much else matters.

These three pictures show an area that was a lake when we visited last year. It shows how seriously short of rain this area is.

On to Chennai - I guess I have adapted to traffic

I realized today that I have become inured to traffic in India. En route to Chennai, 3 hours north, the taxi driver would weave between buses and trucks, pass on corners, cross yellow lines and play chicken with oncoming traffic. He would tailgate in such proximity to the car in front (or beside) that carrying on a conversation with the person in the next vehicle could have been quite possible. I now take this form of driving as quite normal and no longer panic at the sight of an oncoming bus aimed straight at us. I have confidence that, at some appropriate moment, the taxi and the bus will swerve and pass without incident. It will be a scene that will repeat hundreds of time on the journey up and down the East Coast Highway.

I was part of a group heading to Chennai to meet with two NGOs involved in child protection work in this part of India. The journey started at 7 a.m. which meant that about 2 hours in there would be a breakfast stop chosen by Surya. She always ensures good eats along the way.

As an aside, Surya is the lady who cleans my teeth on each visit but she is also an exceptionally talented instructor on abuse in the local schools. She meets with children 10 years of age an up.  She would also manage to take us to an Arabian restaurant in Chennai for lunch during which she tried to engorge me with sumptuous food. As the saying goes, it’s tough work but somebody’s gotta do it.

In Chennai I again got to visit with Vidya and Nancy at the Tulir  Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Sexual Abuse (www.tulircphsa.org ). The work of this centre constantly amazes me as they offer vibrant training and materials for those who work with children. They are also energetic advocates who build bridges with diverse interests.

Later, we met with a representative of the Indian Council for Child Welfare. This office focuses on the state of Tamil Nadu. The work that most interested me was the emergency help line that children can call to be rescued from such things as child labour situations. That program they only operate in part of Chennai (other NGOs do it elsewhere). However, they rescued almost 1000 children last year. The goal is to reunite them with their families.

What is evident from this and prior trips, India still relies heavily on NGOs to deliver child protection services. This creates a fragmented and uneven approach. Yet, the efforts of these agencies really makes a difference in the lives of children. They remind me of the power that dedicated workers can have.

Next week I begin a series of training sessions for teachers, health care workers and child protection staff. It looks like there will be about 8-10 sessions in total but the number seems to be growing from the original 7-8. It is a joy to be able to do this training as the audience is trying so hard to be effective in aiding children and their families.

India remains quite a wonderful place and we achieve great peace here as we wander about.

One the the places we walk past each morning

The inevitability of change

Any trip that you take back to a familiar place will be met with change. After all, change is the only constant in the world.  Many philosophers have emphasized that from the ancient wisdom of the Buddha through to the more contemporary writers such as Osho and Eckhart Tolle. India, being such an enduring nation, also has its history and traditions that seem so entrenched, also sees change. Some seems so obviously in need of a new perspective that one almost wonders why The Hindu newspaper would  have as a headline that women are now learning to drive rapid transit. Yet, such a headline is indeed a reflection of important changes in the roles of women.

I spoke with the taxi driver whom I have now known for 5 years. He lives in a rural community near here and has 2 children. His 15 year old son he describes as doing nothing but he proudly tells me of his 17 ½ year old daughter who will finish school this year. He will then marry her off. In the west, we might bristle at this but for this man, this represents major change – it is the daughter who is being given room for education and then marriage to follow. He has consciously waited for the education to occur. This is progress.

This is a region under a lot of pressure. At the end of 2011, Cyclone Thane went through here with winds up to 140 km/h. There has been much physical damage. As you can see in the photo, the piles of salvaged wood represents the fact that almost 60% of the trees in the area were lost or damaged. While there has been rapid growth of some of the underbrush, cash crop trees have also been damaged such as the cashew tree. Yesterday, a young man described how his family has lost their crop and that the family is without means at the moment. He works at an internet café and is able to bring in some money. He says that, even many months later, there is no word from the government on exactly what compensation will be received.

Stumps yet to be cleared along with stored logs awaiting disposition

Another person told me that it took over 3 weeks for any power to be restored after the cyclone. What was restored was subject to 12 hour blackouts for many months to come. Today, we have seen 2 blackouts at our guest house. One every morning around 6 a.m. but only last for about 90 minutes. Given that is during daylight, it is not such a concern. Another occurred last night but it was in the dark allowing my wife and I to begin our little dinner in romantic blackout.

There has also been little rain here. Overall, through India the monsoon is late and has been about 25% below normal. The implications for agriculture are massive. Certainly, this is not the only area of the world affected by weather. The United States is undergoing a drought that has not been seen for about 40 years. Greenland was recently reported to have had an unprecedented melt. There have been the mudslides and flooding in British Columbia. Mother Nature has a marvelous ability to remind us just who is in control. The ground here is dry. In the village down the road, the large water pond which is typically fairly full this time of year is within inches of being dry.  There is also a growing risk from salination of the water table. Some here tell me that there is a year left before the problem reaches the community in which we live. The implications for farming, trees, energy and being able to live are enormous.

Yet the poverty implications of drought are crucial in many ways. Recent research has told us that child abuse and maltreatment does have a link to increased pressures from poverty. For the poorest this can bring the pressures here in India that can lead to the trafficking of children. I will be visiting two centers in Chennai next week and will learn more about the current stressors. Last time I met with one center, they described that these pressures see traffickers come into villages promising work in the cities for the child. The father, seeing what he believes to be a win for the family (a fee is paid for the child) and a win for the child (who would be given employment and a place to live) agrees to the bargain. He naively believes that he has done something good to help his family survive. His daughter will be trafficked into the sex or household servitude trades perhaps in India, more often overseas.

There is also pressure on families because prices are going up. A simple example, the taxi ride from Chennai down to where I am staying was 25% higher this year. We had been warned by friends that this would be the case. We see increases in food prices from our local fruit stand and grocer.

So yes, change is inevitable but for some it will bring hardship. Even the local merchants who often see tourists through the region are barely managing as there are so few tourists. The guest house here are all full of vacancies. My newly developed and completely unscientific British Airways Index noted that there were only about 6 non-Indian persons on board. This would typically be about 30% of the passengers. This time, there was the usual group of Indian families returning from lives overseas to reconnect with family back home; there were the grandparents returning from pilgrimages to see their grown children and their families but there were very few of us obviously coming to be a tourist.

Being the curious kind of guy, when standing waiting for luggage arriving at snail pace, I chatted with some of the tourists. One was there for 3 months for a volunteer gig and a few were going to wander with backpacks. Not a lot of tourist dollars on this flight. Friends here tell me that the tourist traffic in the region overall is down very significantly. This impacts the economic base for many.

The community here is much quieter with visibly fewer tourists to be seen. This creates for us more chance to be quiet. I have my first meeting with the child protection group tomorrow and thus, a better sense of what I will be doing during this visit.

My good wife April

The wonders of “IT”

As a social worker, there seems no escape from it. Everywhere I go, it seems to follow me. There I am already on this trip to India, on a flight from Calgary to London, and I am engaged in it. “It” is the sometimes not so subtle activity of observing people, their behaviors and wondering how they fit into various social work theories.

So, I am sitting in the second row in the cheap seats on British Airways watching three mothers and their babies in the row in front of me. In so doing, the work of attachment theorists John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main came to mind. Here I was, essentially in an attachment laboratory watching the mother – child dyads at work.

In the seats in front of me was a remarkably anxious mother. She was nervous about the interactions between she and her baby which was reflected in the way in which the baby would not settle down. As the little boy grew restless or noisy, mom got anxious and then so did the baby. It would take quite some time for the baby to settle.

At the far end to my left was the emotionally cold mother. Oh she was good at the basics of feeding, changing diapers and so on. She was not emotionally available however. Thus the child managed her mother by using intense, pay attention to me behavior. If the mother did not respond, the child intensified.

In between the two mothers, was a woman who was significantly in tune with her child. She could read the cues well and responded accordingly. The child settled knowing the mother was at hand. It was interesting to watch this mother, at one point, assist the anxious mother. The baby calmed in the arms of this stranger although kept his mother in sight suggesting that there was indeed some level of security in the attachment relationship.

Later, on the flight from London to Chennai, I watched a mother engage in face to face emotional mirroring with her baby. As the child would smile, so did the mother; as the child’s gaze wandered to something, the mother followed and responded. When the child was upset (as so often happens when children are cooped up in a plane for 9 hours) the child sought out mother to be soothed. The mother was highly responsive and the child calmed very quickly. Further, the child sought out eye contact with the mother who offered this vibrant communication.

As the observer, I was also fascinated with the cross cultural nature of what I was observing with these and several other examples. It very much reminded me that attachment is not about culture but about the essential relationship between a parent (in these cases all mothers) and their infants. It is such an amazing building block for the future allowing the child to predict whether or not the world will be safe and responsive. What a joy it was to see tis in action.

While I was observing, I also saw cultural responses from people around these babies. At the time, I was reading Lisa Aronson Fontes wonderful book Child Abuse and Culture. She quoted the American writer Barbara Kingsolver in what seemed a most appropriate quote about an experience in Spain’s Canary Islands:

“ Widows in black, buttoned downed CEO’s, purple sneakered teenagers, the butcher, the baker, all would stop on the street to have little chats with my daughter… Whenever Camille grew cranky in a restaurant…the waiters flirted and brought little presents, and nearby diners looked on with that sweet, wistful gleam of an eye that I though diners reserved for the desert tray. What I discovered in Spain was a culture that held children to be its meringues and éclairs. My own culture, it seemed in retrospect, tended to regard children as a sort of toxic waste product: a necessary evil, maybe, but if its not our own we don’t want to se it or hear it or, God help us, smell it.”

The flight was almost entirely Indian in at least culture, although passports suggested a wide array of residence countries. There was the nurses (husband and wife) now living in England; the retired engineer from Chennai; the family from Toronto; the older couple who resided in Chicago – but all predominantly Indian in cultural origin. There were but a small smattering of other races. So, when as the last half hour of the flight occurred, the plane began a slow descent which is so hard on infants, the cacophony of cries that emerged almost in unison, was impossible to ignore. But unlike the same experience in North America, here was a chatting about the noise and the challenges for the babies and – most importantly – an understanding that just made the experience quite normal.

I believe it was Mark Twain who spoke about the value of travel. I should look that up but, as I write this in rural India shortly after arrival, there is no power, much less any internet. But this journey has awakened my sense of how powerful parenting can be. I am reminded why we teach about attachment and the wonderous journey it can create for a child.