RainbowStraut: Day 11 in Chennai

street goat munchin

I would like you to envision your daily routine: rolling out of bed in the morning, having breakfast, typing in the office, running errands, chatting with a neighbor, picking up your kids from school, making dinner, settling down to a book or the paper. Now I would like you to envision going about this very day, but in heat that would test even the most enthusiastic Bikram attendees. This is life in southern India before the monsoons.

My mind and body have been in a haze--I'd say that an 'angst-ridden-sweaty-lethargy' sums up my first week and a half in Chennai. Have you not heard of it? It is when you lie under fans as if you were attending mandatory prayer morning, noon, and night. When you wake up to the feeling like your innards are cooking along with the burning trash and fresh chai brewing on the streets below. When the spice in your belly from a fresh masala dosa covered in coconut chutney with bits of red chili flakes like the way granite is speckled rummages through your intestines like embers of a dwindling fire and you chug liters of water only to watch it immediately evaporate out of you through pores you didn't even realize existed. You feel like fainting with any sudden movement and like sleeping with any lull of activity. Hunger flies out the window with most other bodily functions besides the incessant need to hydrate. Needless to say, the tepid heat is extreme down here, and the locals just smile at your soggy kurti and sullen mien.

I can finally say, at the close of day 11 that I am finally getting my energy back and feeling more accustomed to the climate. My first weekend was spent at Premavasem Orphanage on the outskirts of Chennai-- the 4th biggest city in India with a population of about 6 million. Did you hear that Montana? 6 times as many people as the 406 squeezed into probably one hundredth of the square kilometers. Of course these numbers are paltry compared to Delhi, of around 21 million and counting. There are so many people here! And you can feel it, vibrating through each jam-packed city street and alleyway. Even in the villages you drive past, chai-wallahs are all booming with business, customers donning the classic Tamil sarong-style wrap of all respectable gentlemen. Women are mostly in vibrantly colored saris, with a rope fresh-jasmine flowers tied in their slick-black braids. The people are much darker down here, many of them assume I am from the North because of my lighter tan skin, punjabi-style salwar kameez, and hindi tattoo. Obviously I crush any assumptions as soon as I open my mouth, usually with the words, "Sorry I don't speak Tamil."

Tamil is the official language of this state, Tamil Nadu; it is also the national language in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore. Locals claim it is the oldest spoken language in the world; historians date it back around 2000 years. This language and Tamil's rich culture originates from the Dravidian civilization, original inhabitants of north India who were pushed south by Aryan tribes from Afghanistan and Central Asia around 1500 BC. On paper it looks like professional swirlies neatly organized in a row punctuated with occasional dots and swoops. In other words, the most beautiful doodly gibberish--I reckon every Tamil person could get good work as a calligrapher in the states. Dr. Suess would have died to hear the way these people twist their vowels and flip their consonants. All I keep thinking is, "Joke's on you all those days in Spanish class you bitched about erroneous vocab, at least you had the same alphabet for pronunciation!"

Trupti and Akbar

Back to the orphanage, Premavasem. I was accompanied by Rachel, a volunteer from Nashville, in a maddeningly long rickshaw excursion. The driver nodded enthusiastically when we handed him the paper with the address (in Tamil, mind you), "yes!yes! getin! 150 madame! getin!" We should have known the price was too good to be true. We got lost in peak traffic and were charged double what it would have cost to hire a private car--hence, live and learn! Always double, no, triple confirm your rickshaw driver understands where you want to go and negotiate a price BEFORE you get in.

We were greeted with a wave of kids shrieking, "Welcome sister! Which country? Which country? Sister!" They wrapped a garland of jasmine around my neck and gifted me with janglin' bangle anklets, murmuring, "Welcome akka," the tamil word for big sister, "we are so blessed to have you here." I had merely laid my bag down when it was time for 'feeding.' Rachel guided me down a corridor past the main office, and into a room that wreaked of stale bodies and urine, the accommodation for disabled kids.

munchin on chappati and curried subji--

I was handed a plate of soggy rice and pointed in the direction of a child, twisting his already contorted limbs and shrieking as if this was the only sound he could force out, claiming his presence. I was told to sit with him between my legs while he lay on his back, eyes blankly staring back at me, the intermittent shrieks continued. I watched the others, mimicking how they balled up the rice (with their right hand only of course) and stuffed it into the other children's mouths. With shaky fingers, it seemed like I managed to get more food on the child's face, shirt, and my clothes than in his stomach. But the cries died down after a few bites and a child a few rows down from me was pushed to the side of his bed as he ferociously vomited up his dinner, blood and bile. I must have looked like a deer in headlights because the women shuffled me out of the room and told me to go 'take my meal' with the others. I peeked back to observe the scene, children squirming in their own food-scraps, urine, sweat, and feces, helpless in their own bodies as others tended to immediate needs in a chaotic, yet quotidian manner. This is how meals are handled at the orphanage-- first you feed the helpless, then you feed yourself.

Idly and dosa with sambar and coconut chutney. YUMMM

Over the next few days, I observed their routine--interacted with the kids, attended a dance recital the girls put on, helped out in 'special school' and physio. The feeding got easier once you became a bit desensitized to the pungent influx of human odors. The people of the orphanage embraced me like family, calling me 'Kendallakka' and giving me hugs every morning. Selvyn, the founder of the orphanage, inquired about my tattoo, smiled and immediately pulled up his sleeve to show off a tattoo of Barack Obama on his bicep, "He is my hero," he mused. Selvyn would take my sticky hands after we gorged on fresh mango, exalting how life brings people together; he is the most genuine person I've ever met. He never married, which in India is almost sacrilege, choosing instead to dedicate his life to the children.

Me, Trupti, and Mynoor

After the orphanage I moved on to MCCSS, a social work organization I will be working with for the next few months. This organization is multi-faceted and should provide many opportunities to learn about how a foreign NGO tackles the very issues I am most passionate about. They have multiple projects at the moment all aimed at women's empowerment-- a family counseling center, a protection home, short-stay home, elder's home, microfinance federations founded by local women, self-help groups, and vocational training. The project I am most interested in is Ujjawala, the anti-trafficking department, aimed at the rescue, prevention, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims of human trafficking. If you are unaware about human trafficking and how it works, take a gander on google. This method of organized crime is on the rise, soon to pass the illegal drug and arms trade markets in profit margins. Human trafficking is a unique business in that its resource, vulnerable humans, will never be depleted on a planet of over 6 billion people (or is it 7?). Young adults, particularly young women, ages 16-24, are often lured into the business by the promise of lucrative livelihood; sometimes they are betrayed by their boyfriends, husbands, or parents, who sell them to traffickers.

some women from the prison--all victims of trafficking

Prostitution is the common line of work for trafficked victims in India, but globally trafficked victims also work as modern-day slaves in the service industry, agriculture, and for multinational corporations. A scenario observed often in the United States occurs when migrant women from Central America hire a 'guide' to help them cross the border who ends up trafficking them into farm labor jobs where they perform back-breaking work 24/7, all the while being told they are 'paying back their debt' accrued whilst crossing. Traffickers collect the checks while victims are kept in line via threats to hand them over to the authorities or burn their documentation.

women of the protection home

Many trafficked victims at the protection home here, at MCCSS, are far from home, with ladies from Nepal, Bangladesh, Kalkutta, Mumbai, Karnataka, and Andra Pradesh. Most of them grew up in small, poor villages where their prospects for social mobility were nonexistent. Some of them were lured into the sex industry by friends to make money. Some of them fled from domestic violence; some were sold by their parents--with girls usually seen as a financial strain with no benefit since they will be eventually married into another family entirely. One woman was targeted by her brother's friend. He wooed her, then manipulatively drugged her and video-recorded her rape--later showing it to her family. They beat her and threw her out of the house, telling her to never return. She, not knowing her boyfriend was the culprit of the unrest, turned to him for help. He suggested that they run away together to Bangalore and sold her into the flesh trade, promising he would meet her at the destination.

Another woman, only 18 years old from Bangladesh, fell in love and married a Muslim man who already had a wife and child (Muslim men are permitted by the Quran to be married to 3 different women). Her parents hesitantly agreed to the matrimony seeing as their daughter was elated and the man seemed to be of good status. Soon after their wedding, her new husband suggested they go on a trip to India together, she cheerfully agreed. After preparations were made, he stuffed her in a car, broke her mobile SIM card and bagged her head while paying a lady trafficking broker to take her to Chennai for sex work. She cried to the trafficker in Bengali, her only language, and in reply was threatened with a pistol. A team of MCCSS staff, along with members from the Crime Investigations Bureau organized a rescue operation of this girl in Madurai, a city near Chennai. Two social workers from MCCSS posed as a trafficked girl from North India and a man trying to sell her for sex to a renowned broker. Upon payment, the police swept in and arrested the trafficker, taking the young Bengali girl into custody of the state. Charged with prostitution offenses, she was sent to Vigilance Home, a women's prison in Chennai. MCCSS petitioned to bring her into the protection home with the hope of rehabilitating and eventually reintegrating her with her family one day.

A woman in the prison

She has been in the protection home for a few months, but has trouble communicating with the staff as she speaks only Bengali and some Hindi after learning it from her work. She has no way of contacting her family in Bangladesh since she doesn't have their mobile numbers; she has no address since she lived in a slum. MCCSS has had contact from various 'family-members' who we've found out to be traffickers trying to get her back. The danger with reintegration is verifying that the family didn't sell the victim in the first place, or ensuring that home is even a safe place for them to go. Sometimes social workers in other parts of India are paid off to report that the woman has made it home, when in reality she was merely sold into the flesh trade again. We just recently got contact with a social worker in Kolkutta who claims to be familiar with the case and her family, but processes such as these are held up by red tape like molasses; it will surely be a long time until she can prospectively be accompanied back to her village. This particular young eighteen year old, who is no taller than my 10 year old brother, with bright amber eyes and a contagious grin, is lost among the thousands and thousands of rescued trafficked women who are unable to find security again in a world of harsh poverty and rampant corruption.

the women in vocational training

the staff of MCCSS

Chennai is a big transport hub for trafficking in India because it is strategically connected to major cities by air, train, bus, and sea. The drastic change in language from the North helps keeps victims under control in brothels since they can't communicate with locals or coordinate an escape. As described before, MCCSS intercepts the victims with calls from the police and the Criminal Investigation Bureau who accompanies undercover social workers into the brothels. Sometimes women are arrested in the streets and brought to MCCSS, sometimes they are referred by locals for counseling. The organization is very reputable for its work with women and the empowerment of urban slum dwellers in the city. Once with MCCSS, women can stay at the protection home for up to 3 years, where they receive therapy, vocational training, medical care, legal aid, education and social support within the agency. Most of them express a desire to return to their families, but are unable to locate or contact them without phone numbers or even an address--there aren't conveniently marked mailboxes in the slums or rural villages of India and Southeast Asia. They often find work in service industry jobs around Chennai, with MCCSS's help in contacting employers, filling out applications, boosting their self-confidence and customer service skills. Some women escape and return to the business; some get re-trafficked in their attempts to return home--it is a difficult cycle. Whenever possible, MCCSS will initiate contact with the young woman's family, if she desires this, and proceed to reintegrate her back into her home society. Most of the time the family never finds out that she was trafficked, as the girls will lie out of shame--claiming they ran away for better work or followed a friend to the city. In India, marriage is seen as the apex of one's achievement in life. Reputation is everything, especially for women. No one wants to marry a trafficked victim of the flesh trade.

Guru, my favorite little Nepali boy

One difference between this NGO and one like the YWCA-Missoula, who I worked with before coming here, is the lack of boundary between personal and professional. Everyone, clients, orphans, directors, and social workers are like a big family. Work and home life is very much intertwined, so much so that the director of the program also lives at the protection home so that she can better counsel the women and girls who live there. The short-stay home where orphans and runaways live is just downstairs next to the main offices. I share a room on the top floor with Georgie, a Kiwi student from Christchurch. The kids often barge into our quarters after they get home from school, "Hello sister! Dance party! Come!" They drag us downstairs and teach us bollywood moves or braid our hair, asking about our family and whether we have boyfriends.

I am still getting oriented to the programs, being taken to the protection home to interact with the survivors, hear their stories, and learn from their resilience. On my first day, I bounced into the office at 9:00am on the dot, ready to be put to work. Luckily I brought my book as 9:30.....10:00...10:15 rolled around when my supervisor casually strolled up on his bicycle. He finished his breakfast at the desk by 10:45 and we chatted till about 11:00. The Indian way of doing business is very relaxed--after reading 2 or 3 files of the women I was told to, "Go, take rest, and come back in the afternoon once you've taken lunch." Me, of course very schedule oriented asked, "Well, what time is lunch over?" They waved their hands at me, "Go, go. We will meet in the afternoon--2..2:30. Yes. Yes, take rest."

I am eager to spend the next few months with this organization, soaking up as much of their knowledge and methods as I can. I am recognizing that Indians build relationships before they do business. And all of this 'sitting around' as I sometimes feel has a purpose in that I am establishing rapport with the people here. Sometimes the greatest moments of learning happen in those empty moments between tasks and conversation, when you shyly giggle to fill the space or let it be, opening up opportunities for nuanced cultural exchange.