Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked of Americans: “We go to Europe to be Americanized.” Perhaps this was true during his time, and perhaps it is yet so for some among us. Europe still possesses an undeniable romantic allure—that of antiquity and refinement, sensibility, liberality, and voluptuousness. But most Americans don’t require Americanizing these days—we have no need for consecration of our worldview and values and lifestyle in the crucible of another culture. We take for granted the notion that we are the greatest nation on earth—any feelings of inferiority that may have prevailed in Emerson’s day have long since been dispelled and replaced with an unassailable national chauvinism. Why go elsewhere when we’re already at home in the only country that matters? The vast majority of us don’t even have passports.
Yet there are some Americans who do buzz with curiosity for the wide world. We are anxious for at least a glimpse of the strange, the new, the different, the other. For some a single glimpse is enough to forever sate their curiosity, to settle any inchoate cosmopolitan stirrings. Others leave home and never return—finding something in the outside world that won’t let them come back, they become expatriates.
The mind of the expatriate, I confess, is a difficult one for me to plumb, at least that of the sort who emigrates from the First to Third World (to use an outdated formulation). How does one turn one’s back on home, on the soil from which one grew, without a compelling economic or political or social reason? It strikes me that this sort of émigré—the First to Third Worlder without the exigency of circumstance to propel him—must either be running from something or else nursing a profound grievance with his native culture. Perhaps this betrays a lack imagination on my part, or a deeply rooted, deeply disguised parochialism—perhaps the decision to renounce one’s homeland falls well within a continuum of orthodox behavior.
In any event, I never feared, upon departing for India last September, that I might be embarking upon a course of permanent expatriation—that I might, as some joked with me before I left, “never come back.” There was hardly any danger of that. Neither was I expecting, under the duress of estrangement, to surrender myself to a fond and nostalgic patriotism. During two previous stints in Africa—both comparatively brief, although significant enough to merit mention—I found myself missing specifics—people, places, foods—but nothing so abstract as the idea of America and of all of the ponderous values and conceits it is obliged to support. If I missed generalities I missed those things that make America appear so vulgar to everyone else—the excess, the convenience, the endless distraction—those things that most inspire my guilt when I contemplate the American lifestyle in relation to the rest of the world. And guilt, after all, is a decidedly poor foundation for love.
My time in India has been focused foremost on work, on furthering my “professional” experience; it has only secondarily been a voyage of discovery, although I don’t claim that landing here, of all of destinations on earth, was the result of any coincidence. I’ve felt India’s call since reading Midnight’s Children in May of 2002; it was quite natural that when I started casting about for passage to the developing world, I began and ended my search here. Still, my cardinal motive for coming has been utilitarian; I’ve never sought or expected transformation from my time here, as I’m afraid so many Westerners do. In general, I don’t believe that people are transformed by a single event or experience, severe emotional or physical trauma excepted. True transformation comes about through the accretion of innumerable incidents, accidents, and experiences, great and small, spanning many years, each intertwining and acting on every other with unpredictable results and consequences. Transformation is a gestalt whose strands are nearly impossible to disentangle. It is only our need to impose a rational order on all things—a need to account for all phenomena—that causes us, in retrospect, to assign to transformation a single source or cause. India alone, I knew, didn’t have the power to transform me, and, more to the point, I didn’t want it to.
Yet aside from my primary purpose of learning and doing things that I hoped would help to improve the lives of others (on whatever modest scale) both in the immediate term in India and in the longer term of a useful life, I’ve also hoped that my time here would serve to broaden my sympathies, my appreciation and understanding of the world. Perhaps this seems no less lofty a desire than personal transformation, but I think it is, at least, a change more easily and clearly effected. Change, though, isn’t the right word; it isn’t change I’ve hoped for, only growth, an increase, an expansion of thinking and feeling. I hoped that India would make me a bigger person.
But after eight months, it seems that I’ve only come here, after all, to be made smaller. Although I’ve gone a good deal farther than Europe, Emerson’s Atlantic hopping contemporaries would no doubt recognize what’s become of me—I’ve been Americanized. India has defeated my internationalist pretensions; it has made me willing, in my darkest moments, to surrender my passport. For the time being, I desire nothing more than to return home and to lead a blameless American existence. I want familiarity and comfort; I want to crawl into the cap of an acorn and to forget that a world exists beyond its curling edge. I’ve no particular ambition to propel me now. Doubtless the effect is temporary, but I can’t deny that India has laid me low. I couldn’t even say how, exactly, it has won—with a million swift and subtle jabs, I suppose. It must have vanquished me by attrition, for I never felt the stunning, conclusive crash of a landed haymaker.
Upon my arrival in India, I was met at the airport by Jason Fults, an American Fulbright scholar living in Delhi. We had been in contact through e-mail for several months, and he had kindly offered to let me crash in his bed for a few nights while he and a friend, who happened to be on the same flight over from Newark, put up in a hotel. After making our way into the city and discharging our bags at our respective quarters, we all walked to a South Indian restaurant close to Jason’s flat for dinner. While we enjoyed our meal and chatted, Jason offered intermittent advice on getting along in India. He had recently been sick for the first time, he said; it was almost inevitable that one got sick here. One couldn’t really escape it. He repeated something a friend had recently told him: “India always wins.”
At that moment, having only arrived in the country two hours before, the words stuck me as a portent. Somehow I knew that, sooner or later, they would return to me—like every aphorism, they carried the predictive force of the absolutely general—and I would tremble before their truth. And now I find them lapidary, fit to be chiseled into a headstone. I concede: India has won. For the time being, it has won. I will not yet admit final defeat; I’m not done with India. Some day, I shall return. But until then, the wastrel will put away his pen. There are yet many stories that could be told of my time here, but how could I possibly hope to recreate a creature so various and strange as India at any remove from its pulsing heart? I can only write with this country’s overwarm and pungent breath filling my nostrils, its harsh and importunate voice resounding in my ears. I only want to be honest as possible. I can't risk slander; even India, which has handled me so roughly, deserves the truth be told of it.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A Picture of Health, Part 2
I can’t remember when I last had a fever, but I haven’t forgotten what it does to one’s brain—it thoroughly muddles it. I was fortunate—mine only lasted for three hours—but for the time that it raged, my body was consumed in a fierce battle. I lay in bed for the fever's duration and shook and tried in vain to stop my mind from running away from me. In the beginning, I was occupied by a black and white, Rashomon-like forest scene in feudal Japan. A loose confederation of noblemen in belted kimonos were upholding an esoteric code of honor in the forest; soon they surrendered themselves to perfidy and duplicity, forging alliances with, and then murdering, their oldest friends. The scene underwent a shift in context: the Japanese noblemen became Indian tribals engaged in chicanery in the same vein—backstabbing, mob violence, and the like.
I had spent most of that day at work reading a book about conflict resolution in community-based Natural Resource Management, primarily among tribal communities in western India (don’t ask); soon I imagined that I was among a group of NGO workers in a village betrayed and held captive by those same treacherous tribals, our erstwhile partners in community development. They wanted to kill us: I had a terrible, overarching feeling that we were entirely powerless, that we had no control over our fates. We couldn’t run, we couldn’t reason with them, and they were deaf to appeals for mercy. They had turned on us without cause or provocation. Either they were going to kill us or they weren’t, but we couldn’t affect that decision in the least.
I wasn’t dreaming; I was more or less conscious that my thoughts didn’t represent reality in any manner, and yet they were hardly less upsetting for the fact; what’s worse, I was utterly incapable of stopping them. The entire experience was disturbing; if one must come down with a fever, he should at least have the good fortune of not being haunted by visions of human malevolence and turpitude while within its clutches. But, after all, the fever soon lifted, and relief, both physical and mental, was palpable. An hour later I ate four oranges, which seemed moderately appetizing as few things at that point did; within minutes I was hunkered down in the toilet with diarrhea and would spend a significant portion of the next two-and-a-half hours in precisely that spot. Blood was quickly in evidence; as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ignore it. I resolved to see the doctor the next day.
After 9:30 I tried to sleep and occasionally found success during the night in one or two hour intervals sandwiched between extended visits to the toilet. I found it necessary to make mental note of the time elapsed between these visits: I had to calculate when I would be safe to make for a doctor. Finally, at 1:30 the following afternoon, I purchased a Coke, hailed an auto-rickshaw, and headed to GBH-American Hospital.
GBH-American is an inviting, disarming space—at least as much as any hospital can be. Suffice it to say, I’ve never been to a hospital in the States less prone to inducing squeamishness and anxiety in me. It’s either fortunate or else explains much that I’ve been blessed with such exemplary health to this point in life—my general distaste for hospitals and other institutions for the physically unsound—nursing homes, hospices—is pronounced. Yet I didn’t once contemplate this innate aversion after arriving at the hospital Sunday. I knew the place well enough—my brother-in-law had spent two nights there after suffering food poisoning in December—and thus knew its charms: a new and attractive building, airy and full of natural light; cleanliness and tranquility; and a competent and professional staff.
Upon arrival, I was examined immediately in Emergency. Blood and stool samples were given; I took a single pill, received an injection and a prescription for three drugs, and was sent on my way with instructions to return the following afternoon for the results of the tests. The entire visit lasted less than two hours.
I’d like to diverge from the main narrative for just a moment in order to mention one aspect of the experience that made it especially unpleasant. It wasn’t until I arrived at the hospital and sat on a public toilet that I fully realized how much more uncomfortable things had been made by the fact that I don’t have a “Western” toilet in my guest house. Squatting on one’s haunches for minutes on end is exhausting, particularly when one is weak from dehydration, hunger, and fatigue. As my visits to the toilet mounted, I took to improvising new positions in order to relieve the discomfort (some worked better than others), or else supported myself by leaning on an overturned bucket or grasping hold of the doorframe with both hands. It helped very little; however, I never succumbed to cramps or teetered at an inopportune moment, and for that, at least, I can be thankful.
Sunday evening I began a course of antibiotics and felt well enough on Monday to eat a substantial breakfast and three grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. In the afternoon I returned to the hospital, where I learned that my stool test had revealed evidence of the E. histolytica amoeba—I had come down with amoebic dysentery. As a result, my antibiotic course was extended from five to seven days—in reality, it can take 2-3 weeks to kill every last amoeba in one’s intestines. By Tuesday morning I felt invincible again; I had effected a full recovery from amoebic dysentery in less than seventy-two hours. What can I say? I am, after all, a very healthy man.
I had spent most of that day at work reading a book about conflict resolution in community-based Natural Resource Management, primarily among tribal communities in western India (don’t ask); soon I imagined that I was among a group of NGO workers in a village betrayed and held captive by those same treacherous tribals, our erstwhile partners in community development. They wanted to kill us: I had a terrible, overarching feeling that we were entirely powerless, that we had no control over our fates. We couldn’t run, we couldn’t reason with them, and they were deaf to appeals for mercy. They had turned on us without cause or provocation. Either they were going to kill us or they weren’t, but we couldn’t affect that decision in the least.
I wasn’t dreaming; I was more or less conscious that my thoughts didn’t represent reality in any manner, and yet they were hardly less upsetting for the fact; what’s worse, I was utterly incapable of stopping them. The entire experience was disturbing; if one must come down with a fever, he should at least have the good fortune of not being haunted by visions of human malevolence and turpitude while within its clutches. But, after all, the fever soon lifted, and relief, both physical and mental, was palpable. An hour later I ate four oranges, which seemed moderately appetizing as few things at that point did; within minutes I was hunkered down in the toilet with diarrhea and would spend a significant portion of the next two-and-a-half hours in precisely that spot. Blood was quickly in evidence; as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ignore it. I resolved to see the doctor the next day.
After 9:30 I tried to sleep and occasionally found success during the night in one or two hour intervals sandwiched between extended visits to the toilet. I found it necessary to make mental note of the time elapsed between these visits: I had to calculate when I would be safe to make for a doctor. Finally, at 1:30 the following afternoon, I purchased a Coke, hailed an auto-rickshaw, and headed to GBH-American Hospital.
GBH-American is an inviting, disarming space—at least as much as any hospital can be. Suffice it to say, I’ve never been to a hospital in the States less prone to inducing squeamishness and anxiety in me. It’s either fortunate or else explains much that I’ve been blessed with such exemplary health to this point in life—my general distaste for hospitals and other institutions for the physically unsound—nursing homes, hospices—is pronounced. Yet I didn’t once contemplate this innate aversion after arriving at the hospital Sunday. I knew the place well enough—my brother-in-law had spent two nights there after suffering food poisoning in December—and thus knew its charms: a new and attractive building, airy and full of natural light; cleanliness and tranquility; and a competent and professional staff.
Upon arrival, I was examined immediately in Emergency. Blood and stool samples were given; I took a single pill, received an injection and a prescription for three drugs, and was sent on my way with instructions to return the following afternoon for the results of the tests. The entire visit lasted less than two hours.
I’d like to diverge from the main narrative for just a moment in order to mention one aspect of the experience that made it especially unpleasant. It wasn’t until I arrived at the hospital and sat on a public toilet that I fully realized how much more uncomfortable things had been made by the fact that I don’t have a “Western” toilet in my guest house. Squatting on one’s haunches for minutes on end is exhausting, particularly when one is weak from dehydration, hunger, and fatigue. As my visits to the toilet mounted, I took to improvising new positions in order to relieve the discomfort (some worked better than others), or else supported myself by leaning on an overturned bucket or grasping hold of the doorframe with both hands. It helped very little; however, I never succumbed to cramps or teetered at an inopportune moment, and for that, at least, I can be thankful.
Sunday evening I began a course of antibiotics and felt well enough on Monday to eat a substantial breakfast and three grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. In the afternoon I returned to the hospital, where I learned that my stool test had revealed evidence of the E. histolytica amoeba—I had come down with amoebic dysentery. As a result, my antibiotic course was extended from five to seven days—in reality, it can take 2-3 weeks to kill every last amoeba in one’s intestines. By Tuesday morning I felt invincible again; I had effected a full recovery from amoebic dysentery in less than seventy-two hours. What can I say? I am, after all, a very healthy man.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
A Picture of Health, Part 1
I am a healthy man. I don’t mean in regard to lifestyle in particular, although as far as that goes, I’m reasonably healthy, notwithstanding a general failure to meet minimum established standards of physical activity (although, given that the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office now considers “Washing and waxing a car for 45-60 minutes” and “Gardening for 30-45 minutes” to be "moderate amounts of physical activity" sufficient to meet minimum human requirements, I may very well consider myself in the bloom of physical fitness through regular adherence to a regimen of “Blogging for 120 minutes” and “Food preparation for 45 minutes”). When I say that I am a healthy man, I mean that my immune system is a formidable force of nature; it deals swiftly and savagely with all manner of hostile interlopers. I really don’t get sick. I’ve never, to the best of my memory, missed a day of work in life due to illness (some of my bosses may demur on this, but that is simply due to their enduring, and much appreciated, belief in my unstinting honesty). I don’t even really get colds; I receive their overtures—a tenderness in the throat, a thickening in the sinuses, maybe the intimation of a cough—and my immune system gives them the bum’s rush.
It’s also been a little more than ten years since I’ve come down with anything resembling the flu. In fact, if it weren’t for the occasional night of improvident drinking, and a single incident, while a freshman in college, of a large dinner followed a little too closely by baseball conditioning, I would have a vomit streak rivaling Jerry Seinfeld’s before he met his match in the black-and-white cookie—I haven’t vomited due to any pathological stimulus since, I think, December of 1991, when I was twelve (please family and friends, if you can cite evidence to the contrary, please do—I’m going entirely from personal memory here and not trying to exaggerate the facts). I managed three months in Côte d’Ivoire without so much as a clenching of the bowels and two months in Kenya with only a single mild case of diarrhea to show for it—more of an inconvenience than anything else.
India is a world leader in many things: IT, Hindus, moustaches, consumption of fireworks, public urination—and also, germs. It’s almost unfair to foreign tourists who come here—their bodies and immune systems, so cosseted in their sanitary, salubrious Western habitats, can’t be expected to bear up under the weight of the giant bacterial culture that is the Indian nation. Lonely Planet offers that 30-70% of tourists fall ill with “traveller’s diarrhoea” within the first two weeks of their visit (a range that I think somehow doesn’t satisfy the standards of peer-reviewed statistical analysis). I can tell you that five of the seven visitors I have hosted (that’s 71.4% for the stat geeks) contracted traveler’s diarrhea or worse during their visits (all of two weeks or less); among foreign volunteers at Seva Mandir, I would suggest that around half or slightly less have been similarly afflicted during the given timeframe. Maybe if it weren’t for the regular influx of visitors to India, the populations of bacteria and parasites and viruses here would plummet—we’re like the aged and infirm of the herd, easy prey—we get them through the lean times.
The country, then, should have a doubled over white person on its flag—and yet in more than seven months I’ve entirely avoided even the suggestion of illness. My immune system, I tell you, is a marvel; my stomach, too, I revere for its puissance—I eat whatever I want, wherever I want, and, like a proper Southern Baptist bride, it never breathes a word of opposition or complaint. I chalk it up to an inborn digestive stolidity and years of regular yogurt consumption—I’ve got enough good bacteria residing in my alimentary canal to…do a lot of whatever good bacteria does. Sometimes I imagine that the natural limitations of digestive performance simply don’t apply to me, that superhero-like, I’m capable of transcending the normal bounds of human physical functioning. I’m not suggesting that I imagine I’m one of those Guinness Book popinjays who, piece by piece, consume bicycles or other ridiculously inorganic matter; no, I mean to say that on occasion I fancy I can tuck into a bowl of potato salad that has been warming in the sun for three days, or chug a quart of badly expired milk, and yet feel nary an ill effect. I tell you I am a healthy man—I’ve never even had a cavity.
Have I gone on enough? You know what’s coming next, right? Last Saturday, after spending more than seven months in the gastroenteritis capital of the world, with only three weeks and change left in country no less, I took ill. It began innocently enough: a mild headache in the morning, hardly worth mentioning; then a noticeably loose—ahem—movement in the early afternoon; then a growing feeling of malaise that led me to leave work around 3:30. By the time I reached home I was already in the throes of a fever—the sun has never felt as near as it did on that walk (granted the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees); it quite literally felt as if its light were burning my skin upon contact, as if I were being broasted in my tracks.
It’s also been a little more than ten years since I’ve come down with anything resembling the flu. In fact, if it weren’t for the occasional night of improvident drinking, and a single incident, while a freshman in college, of a large dinner followed a little too closely by baseball conditioning, I would have a vomit streak rivaling Jerry Seinfeld’s before he met his match in the black-and-white cookie—I haven’t vomited due to any pathological stimulus since, I think, December of 1991, when I was twelve (please family and friends, if you can cite evidence to the contrary, please do—I’m going entirely from personal memory here and not trying to exaggerate the facts). I managed three months in Côte d’Ivoire without so much as a clenching of the bowels and two months in Kenya with only a single mild case of diarrhea to show for it—more of an inconvenience than anything else.
India is a world leader in many things: IT, Hindus, moustaches, consumption of fireworks, public urination—and also, germs. It’s almost unfair to foreign tourists who come here—their bodies and immune systems, so cosseted in their sanitary, salubrious Western habitats, can’t be expected to bear up under the weight of the giant bacterial culture that is the Indian nation. Lonely Planet offers that 30-70% of tourists fall ill with “traveller’s diarrhoea” within the first two weeks of their visit (a range that I think somehow doesn’t satisfy the standards of peer-reviewed statistical analysis). I can tell you that five of the seven visitors I have hosted (that’s 71.4% for the stat geeks) contracted traveler’s diarrhea or worse during their visits (all of two weeks or less); among foreign volunteers at Seva Mandir, I would suggest that around half or slightly less have been similarly afflicted during the given timeframe. Maybe if it weren’t for the regular influx of visitors to India, the populations of bacteria and parasites and viruses here would plummet—we’re like the aged and infirm of the herd, easy prey—we get them through the lean times.
The country, then, should have a doubled over white person on its flag—and yet in more than seven months I’ve entirely avoided even the suggestion of illness. My immune system, I tell you, is a marvel; my stomach, too, I revere for its puissance—I eat whatever I want, wherever I want, and, like a proper Southern Baptist bride, it never breathes a word of opposition or complaint. I chalk it up to an inborn digestive stolidity and years of regular yogurt consumption—I’ve got enough good bacteria residing in my alimentary canal to…do a lot of whatever good bacteria does. Sometimes I imagine that the natural limitations of digestive performance simply don’t apply to me, that superhero-like, I’m capable of transcending the normal bounds of human physical functioning. I’m not suggesting that I imagine I’m one of those Guinness Book popinjays who, piece by piece, consume bicycles or other ridiculously inorganic matter; no, I mean to say that on occasion I fancy I can tuck into a bowl of potato salad that has been warming in the sun for three days, or chug a quart of badly expired milk, and yet feel nary an ill effect. I tell you I am a healthy man—I’ve never even had a cavity.
Have I gone on enough? You know what’s coming next, right? Last Saturday, after spending more than seven months in the gastroenteritis capital of the world, with only three weeks and change left in country no less, I took ill. It began innocently enough: a mild headache in the morning, hardly worth mentioning; then a noticeably loose—ahem—movement in the early afternoon; then a growing feeling of malaise that led me to leave work around 3:30. By the time I reached home I was already in the throes of a fever—the sun has never felt as near as it did on that walk (granted the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees); it quite literally felt as if its light were burning my skin upon contact, as if I were being broasted in my tracks.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Just Another Saturday Night in Udaipur (Kenya?)
Last Saturday night, I attended a party some distance from Udaipur—twenty-two kilometers outside of town to be exact. The party was held at a private residence, a high-ceilinged one-story place with a curving, interior marble staircase leading up to the roof. The house was secluded, surrounded on three sides by fields and fronted by a long, gated gravel drive and well-manicured lawn. Music could be played as loud and for as long as partygoers desired; there were no neighbors to complain. The roof was spacious and open to the stars, which shone with cool brilliance at this remove from the city. Food, beer, and transportation were provided free of charge—I, along with the others in my group—four Americans and three Indians—was picked up in Udaipur by private car and taken directly to the house.
The provenance of the party wasn’t clear, I think, to anyone in the group. It was hosted by a forty-something Indian, Surendra, who was acquainted in some manner with several East African university students who occasionally attended parties thrown by one of the Americans, Andrew. I had been led to believe that the party was a housewarming, but this proved not to be the case, as more of the truth emerged on our ride there. Shakil, who drove three of the other Americans and me in his little white hatchback (about half of the cars on the Indian road seem to be little white hatchbacks), owned the building in which several of the Africans rented. “They are my tenants,” he told us, more than once, by way of explanation. The party, in fact, was a celebration of the end of exams and the close of the academic year for the Africans. Andrew, by virtue of his acquaintance with both the Africans and Surendra, their apparent benefactor, had finagled an invitation for us all, not that it had probably taken much—foreigners, especially white ones, are hot commodities for any Indian celebration.
Ownership of the house was apparently shared by Surendra and Shakil, who were old friends. It was a retreat of sorts for each when necessary; both lived in the city, Surendra with a wife and thirteen-year-old son. Shakil had been a national field hockey team trainer and coach; Surendra was a businessman—he pointed out one of his gas stations on the ride home. I think that the house was newly built, which would explain the housewarming rumor, and why Shakil had difficulty finding it in the dark, as well as why he seemed uncertain as to which rooms lay behind which doors. We were the first car in our group to arrive, and the house was dark—we had expected the party to already be under way. “We may die here tonight,” someone joked. However, within fifteen minutes two more cars pulled up, disgorging our friends, the Africans, food, and an ample supply of beer. Things were, as they say, about to jump off.
In all, perhaps twenty students from East Africa —primarily Kenyans and Tanzanians, in addition to a few Ugandans—would populate the party, along with the eight in our group and a handful of Indian students. The night wore on, and the groups mixed with increasing confidence—talking, dancing to Akon, Sean Paul, and Fifty Cent, and enjoying the warm evening and delicious isolation (something to be savored in India). I discussed the Kenyan political situation with some of the students, talked about my limited experience of their country, and led one woman to cackle when I ventured a “How are you?” in her native tongue, Kamba.
Around midnight the music suddenly stopped. I was standing to one side of the roof, my view of the dance floor obstructed by the shelter of the stairway, which projected from the roof’s surface. I continued talking for a few minutes more, unconcerned, until shouting from the dance floor brought me around to investigate. The floor had cleared—in fact, nearly the entire roof had cleared—except for three Africans clustered together, the shouting, in incoherent Swahili, coming from a short but muscular Kenyan in a red t-shirt. I didn’t know his name, but I had found him to be jovial and spirited earlier in the evening—he had cracked several jokes for my benefit. Now he was agitated beyond reason; he had to be restrained by the other two from rushing downstairs. “His father is a poor man!” he shouted in English. “He is nothing!”
An incident had occurred near the dance floor that I was forced to reconstruct from disparate fragments of story. It was generally agreed that the Kenyan had been bumped into or had bumped into someone else, likely a Tanzanian named Eric; that words were exchanged; that someone, probably the Kenyan, had been pummeled to the ground and then repeatedly kicked by Eric and two other Tanzanians who had just arrived, uninvited; that a couple of the Americans had intervened to rescue the Kenyan; that someone had broken off a beer bottle and brandished it threateningly.
Some minutes after I had gone to investigate, Eric, chubby and baby-faced, in a white turtleneck with navy blazer, returned to the roof to make peace. As I stood among a clutch of Africans surrounding the two antagonists, Eric approached the Kenyan with hand extended. They seemed ready to shake until Gavin, another Kenyan who, not incidentally, was falling over drunk, reached from behind his compatriot and delivered a slap to the side of Eric’s head.
Things degenerated. Most of the partygoers collected in the driveway and front lawn. Both the Kenyan and Eric made their way downstairs, the former continuing to vituperate the latter and require restraint. Meanwhile Surendra turned his maroon Chevy SUV around in the driveway and part of my group piled in, preparing to leave, while others, myself included, continued to tend to a peacemaking role. At one point the Kenyan broke away from his handlers and pushed Eric over a two-foot drop-off between the driveway and lawn, sending him sprawling on the grass. When he rose Eric shattered a bottle on the coping that fringed the lawn and made for the Kenyan, before being restrained. “We should either get Eric or other guy in the car and go,” I said.
Geoffrey, a Kenyan, had another idea. “We should just let them fight now and everything will be fine tomorrow,” he said.
“Just get into the car and go,” a Kenyan named Michael told me softly. “We will take care of it.”
I told him that I didn’t think it was right to leave. However, after watching the Kenyan’s belligerence intensify with every passing minute, and perhaps fearing a general riot, I headed for the SUV. The Kenyan was raving almost incoherently. “I am richer than you!” he screamed at Surendra. “I am richer than all of you!” As we spent precious minutes corralling the rest of the group into the SUV, the Kenyan climbed into an open door and began to rant at its occupants. The vehicle was a “basket of shit.” Eric was a “cockroach”—shades of the Rwandan genocide. Meanwhile Geoffrey had turned on Gavin and knocked him to the ground with an open hand, before planting his foot at the base of Gavin's neck with a thud.
Andrew was having the greatest difficulty extricating himself from the crowd, and when the SUV finally took off, he wasn’t yet inside; he was forced to run beside the vehicle, hopping in at a gallop. The Kenyan chased after the car, beating his palms against the back window and bellowing menacingly. The gate at the end of the drive still had to be opened, but the SUV and its cargo—five Americans and four Indians, including Surendra—were safe. Shakil and the property’s caretaker—a middle-aged Indian—were left to quell the unrest.
Once on the road, with the success of the evacuation assured, Surendra seemed to sigh. “No more Africans,” he said. I protested, as did others. “They only want to fight,” he told us. Silence reigned for much of the ride back. A few minutes outside of Udaipur, Andrew received a phone call from Michael. Things had calmed down.
The provenance of the party wasn’t clear, I think, to anyone in the group. It was hosted by a forty-something Indian, Surendra, who was acquainted in some manner with several East African university students who occasionally attended parties thrown by one of the Americans, Andrew. I had been led to believe that the party was a housewarming, but this proved not to be the case, as more of the truth emerged on our ride there. Shakil, who drove three of the other Americans and me in his little white hatchback (about half of the cars on the Indian road seem to be little white hatchbacks), owned the building in which several of the Africans rented. “They are my tenants,” he told us, more than once, by way of explanation. The party, in fact, was a celebration of the end of exams and the close of the academic year for the Africans. Andrew, by virtue of his acquaintance with both the Africans and Surendra, their apparent benefactor, had finagled an invitation for us all, not that it had probably taken much—foreigners, especially white ones, are hot commodities for any Indian celebration.
Ownership of the house was apparently shared by Surendra and Shakil, who were old friends. It was a retreat of sorts for each when necessary; both lived in the city, Surendra with a wife and thirteen-year-old son. Shakil had been a national field hockey team trainer and coach; Surendra was a businessman—he pointed out one of his gas stations on the ride home. I think that the house was newly built, which would explain the housewarming rumor, and why Shakil had difficulty finding it in the dark, as well as why he seemed uncertain as to which rooms lay behind which doors. We were the first car in our group to arrive, and the house was dark—we had expected the party to already be under way. “We may die here tonight,” someone joked. However, within fifteen minutes two more cars pulled up, disgorging our friends, the Africans, food, and an ample supply of beer. Things were, as they say, about to jump off.
In all, perhaps twenty students from East Africa —primarily Kenyans and Tanzanians, in addition to a few Ugandans—would populate the party, along with the eight in our group and a handful of Indian students. The night wore on, and the groups mixed with increasing confidence—talking, dancing to Akon, Sean Paul, and Fifty Cent, and enjoying the warm evening and delicious isolation (something to be savored in India). I discussed the Kenyan political situation with some of the students, talked about my limited experience of their country, and led one woman to cackle when I ventured a “How are you?” in her native tongue, Kamba.
Around midnight the music suddenly stopped. I was standing to one side of the roof, my view of the dance floor obstructed by the shelter of the stairway, which projected from the roof’s surface. I continued talking for a few minutes more, unconcerned, until shouting from the dance floor brought me around to investigate. The floor had cleared—in fact, nearly the entire roof had cleared—except for three Africans clustered together, the shouting, in incoherent Swahili, coming from a short but muscular Kenyan in a red t-shirt. I didn’t know his name, but I had found him to be jovial and spirited earlier in the evening—he had cracked several jokes for my benefit. Now he was agitated beyond reason; he had to be restrained by the other two from rushing downstairs. “His father is a poor man!” he shouted in English. “He is nothing!”
An incident had occurred near the dance floor that I was forced to reconstruct from disparate fragments of story. It was generally agreed that the Kenyan had been bumped into or had bumped into someone else, likely a Tanzanian named Eric; that words were exchanged; that someone, probably the Kenyan, had been pummeled to the ground and then repeatedly kicked by Eric and two other Tanzanians who had just arrived, uninvited; that a couple of the Americans had intervened to rescue the Kenyan; that someone had broken off a beer bottle and brandished it threateningly.
Some minutes after I had gone to investigate, Eric, chubby and baby-faced, in a white turtleneck with navy blazer, returned to the roof to make peace. As I stood among a clutch of Africans surrounding the two antagonists, Eric approached the Kenyan with hand extended. They seemed ready to shake until Gavin, another Kenyan who, not incidentally, was falling over drunk, reached from behind his compatriot and delivered a slap to the side of Eric’s head.
Things degenerated. Most of the partygoers collected in the driveway and front lawn. Both the Kenyan and Eric made their way downstairs, the former continuing to vituperate the latter and require restraint. Meanwhile Surendra turned his maroon Chevy SUV around in the driveway and part of my group piled in, preparing to leave, while others, myself included, continued to tend to a peacemaking role. At one point the Kenyan broke away from his handlers and pushed Eric over a two-foot drop-off between the driveway and lawn, sending him sprawling on the grass. When he rose Eric shattered a bottle on the coping that fringed the lawn and made for the Kenyan, before being restrained. “We should either get Eric or other guy in the car and go,” I said.
Geoffrey, a Kenyan, had another idea. “We should just let them fight now and everything will be fine tomorrow,” he said.
“Just get into the car and go,” a Kenyan named Michael told me softly. “We will take care of it.”
I told him that I didn’t think it was right to leave. However, after watching the Kenyan’s belligerence intensify with every passing minute, and perhaps fearing a general riot, I headed for the SUV. The Kenyan was raving almost incoherently. “I am richer than you!” he screamed at Surendra. “I am richer than all of you!” As we spent precious minutes corralling the rest of the group into the SUV, the Kenyan climbed into an open door and began to rant at its occupants. The vehicle was a “basket of shit.” Eric was a “cockroach”—shades of the Rwandan genocide. Meanwhile Geoffrey had turned on Gavin and knocked him to the ground with an open hand, before planting his foot at the base of Gavin's neck with a thud.
Andrew was having the greatest difficulty extricating himself from the crowd, and when the SUV finally took off, he wasn’t yet inside; he was forced to run beside the vehicle, hopping in at a gallop. The Kenyan chased after the car, beating his palms against the back window and bellowing menacingly. The gate at the end of the drive still had to be opened, but the SUV and its cargo—five Americans and four Indians, including Surendra—were safe. Shakil and the property’s caretaker—a middle-aged Indian—were left to quell the unrest.
Once on the road, with the success of the evacuation assured, Surendra seemed to sigh. “No more Africans,” he said. I protested, as did others. “They only want to fight,” he told us. Silence reigned for much of the ride back. A few minutes outside of Udaipur, Andrew received a phone call from Michael. Things had calmed down.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
More Disturbing Than That Bogeyman
Within the last week, I have seen Seva Mandir’s dysfunction manifest itself in ways both more baffling and more disturbing than that bogeyman inefficiency, which, even if occasionally staggering in its scope, can, in many cases, at least be comprehended. Last Tuesday, the day after the pilot received sanction, I learned that one of its components had received particular scrutiny from the Chief Executive—namely, the plan to regularly chlorinate several of the village's wells. This, as with the overall bent of the pilot strategy, I had disagreed with from the beginning—in my strategy paper, which was intended to inform Seva Mandir's approach to the pilot, as well as its approach to the drinking water issue in general, I had written, "Ultimately, chemical treatment of wells is a largely temporary solution to a persistent and tenacious problem." Thus, the objections regarding chlorination coming from the top seemed, at first, sweet vindication of my own misgivings.
However, over the course of the next week, as the background for those objections surfaced, my smugness was transformed to something rather more like disgust. I soon learned that, contrary to what I had been told, Seva Mandir had (as I had heard rumored on more than one occasion) worked on the drinking water issue in the past—and in the recent past, no less. And it had been a high profile effort! Four years earlier, as part of a collaboration with the M.I.T. Poverty Action Lab, the organization had undertaken four "action research" projects, including one to determine whether the chlorination of wells would be an effective means of improving the safety of drinking water in its target area. This particular research project had been led by Seva Mandir's Health Unit, and it was the only one of the four that wasn't ultimately scaled up to a full-fledged field project. So why hadn't I been informed of this work previously? And why, precisely, had the chlorination effort been abandoned?
Much of the answer to the first question is tangled up in the strained relations among Seva Mandir's various departmental units. The units—Natural Resource Development (NRD), Health, Education, Woman and Child Development, GVK (Community Governance and Development), and the People's Management School—often seem to function as six independent bodies bound only by the shared name of their parent. They don't communicate, frequently behave as if in direct competition, and at times seem to harbor a scarcely concealed animosity for one another. This has obvious repercussions for the functioning of the organization—beyond issues of camaraderie and cohesion, many projects don't fall neatly under the bailiwick of a single Unit, and sharing knowledge and experience across departments is essential.
Thus, as the NRD Unit has prepared to inaugurate its drinking water efforts, it has either been unaware of, or has chosen to ignore the recent and highly relevant experience of the Health Unit on the subject. What's more, even had the Health Unit known that the NRD Unit was taking on the drinking water issue—and it almost certainly didn't—it seems unlikely that it would have shared its experiences with the NRD, given the Health Unit's belief that drinking water should be its exclusive domain. The upshot of this foolishness is that, only four years ago, a major research effort undertaken by Seva Mandir determined that a key component of the NRD's current clean drinking water strategy was not viable, and no one said anything, or possibly even knew enough to say anything, until the pilot was preparing to launch.
At the behest of Seva Mandir's Chief Executive—the first to sound an alarm—I contacted a former long-term volunteer, a Canadian man named Bruce Daviau, who had worked most closely with the chlorination research effort in 2004. Beyond shedding light on the reasons behind Seva Mandir's decision to abandon well chlorination as a drinking water strategy, he wrote:
"it is unfortunate that you have only recently been made aware of previous work done in relation to clean drinking water. in fact, there has been enough research data around for some time now for an effective clean drinking water program. and this data is specifically relevant for the udiapur (sic) region."
And now, despite what I've come to know and share about Seva Mandir's previous misadventures in chlorination, the NRD appears determined to push forward with its strategy as originally conceived; that is, chlorination and all. It seems that in an organization where communication and solidarity are weak, turnover among staff is high (both Health Unit staff who worked directly on the chlorination research effort are long gone), and institutional memory is limited, learning from the past cannot be taken for granted. Mistakes, in such an environment, are doomed to be repeated—and probably repeated again. How's that for inefficiency?
However, over the course of the next week, as the background for those objections surfaced, my smugness was transformed to something rather more like disgust. I soon learned that, contrary to what I had been told, Seva Mandir had (as I had heard rumored on more than one occasion) worked on the drinking water issue in the past—and in the recent past, no less. And it had been a high profile effort! Four years earlier, as part of a collaboration with the M.I.T. Poverty Action Lab, the organization had undertaken four "action research" projects, including one to determine whether the chlorination of wells would be an effective means of improving the safety of drinking water in its target area. This particular research project had been led by Seva Mandir's Health Unit, and it was the only one of the four that wasn't ultimately scaled up to a full-fledged field project. So why hadn't I been informed of this work previously? And why, precisely, had the chlorination effort been abandoned?
Much of the answer to the first question is tangled up in the strained relations among Seva Mandir's various departmental units. The units—Natural Resource Development (NRD), Health, Education, Woman and Child Development, GVK (Community Governance and Development), and the People's Management School—often seem to function as six independent bodies bound only by the shared name of their parent. They don't communicate, frequently behave as if in direct competition, and at times seem to harbor a scarcely concealed animosity for one another. This has obvious repercussions for the functioning of the organization—beyond issues of camaraderie and cohesion, many projects don't fall neatly under the bailiwick of a single Unit, and sharing knowledge and experience across departments is essential.
Thus, as the NRD Unit has prepared to inaugurate its drinking water efforts, it has either been unaware of, or has chosen to ignore the recent and highly relevant experience of the Health Unit on the subject. What's more, even had the Health Unit known that the NRD Unit was taking on the drinking water issue—and it almost certainly didn't—it seems unlikely that it would have shared its experiences with the NRD, given the Health Unit's belief that drinking water should be its exclusive domain. The upshot of this foolishness is that, only four years ago, a major research effort undertaken by Seva Mandir determined that a key component of the NRD's current clean drinking water strategy was not viable, and no one said anything, or possibly even knew enough to say anything, until the pilot was preparing to launch.
At the behest of Seva Mandir's Chief Executive—the first to sound an alarm—I contacted a former long-term volunteer, a Canadian man named Bruce Daviau, who had worked most closely with the chlorination research effort in 2004. Beyond shedding light on the reasons behind Seva Mandir's decision to abandon well chlorination as a drinking water strategy, he wrote:
"it is unfortunate that you have only recently been made aware of previous work done in relation to clean drinking water. in fact, there has been enough research data around for some time now for an effective clean drinking water program. and this data is specifically relevant for the udiapur (sic) region."
And now, despite what I've come to know and share about Seva Mandir's previous misadventures in chlorination, the NRD appears determined to push forward with its strategy as originally conceived; that is, chlorination and all. It seems that in an organization where communication and solidarity are weak, turnover among staff is high (both Health Unit staff who worked directly on the chlorination research effort are long gone), and institutional memory is limited, learning from the past cannot be taken for granted. Mistakes, in such an environment, are doomed to be repeated—and probably repeated again. How's that for inefficiency?
A Favorite Parlor Game
Among those volunteers and interns who have been around for any length of time, it has become a favorite parlor game to dissect the many perceived failings—institutional, managerial, missional or otherwise—of Seva Mandir. Anyone who must daily navigate the organization’s strange and tangled byways soon finds that it is not a particularly well run or efficient entity, and neither has it been, by many measures, particularly successful at achieving its aims as a development organization. Theories, or pieces of theories, in the way of explaining these failures abound: the organization is too big, or it got too big too fast; upper management, such as it exists, is incompetent, out of touch, or both; the organization is plagued by a glaring absence of accountability at all levels; it is too bureaucracy-ridden; its employees are demoralized, cynical, and lazy.
Each of these accusations contains at least a glimmer of truth and in some instances perhaps a good deal more, but none is especially useful in pointing toward constructive and realistic reform of the organization. And Seva Mandir is very much in need of reform—its problems are not merely the imaginary outgrowths of the festering frustrations of volunteers. Evaluations of its projects are regularly scathing, turnover among the staff is dizzying, and within the last three years, a number of major donors, including the Ford Foundation, have cut off funding. Seva Mandir should be soul-searching, or at the very least reassessing its direction and purpose—yet it doesn’t appear to be doing either.
The standard prescription among the volunteer punditry is for a massive bloodletting (a fantasy I admit to having also voiced on at least one occasion), which would simultaneously reduce the size of the organization, improve accountability (theoretically), and jolt the staff out of its stupor (and savings could go toward supplementing the paltry salaries of those still standing), but such a step ignores an obvious truth about the not-for-profit world: unlike businesses, which may always trim fat in order to improve performance, even when already making money, non-profits don’t make cutbacks unless financial straits absolutely demand it.
But Seva Mandir isn’t a business and shouldn’t be run like one. Efficiency is a cardinal virtue for any organization, but a non-profit must be careful to always view it as a means to achieving their goals and never as an end itself. Business is as much science as art; it thrives on predictability, certainty, and the efficiency that naturally derives from the two. There’s a reason the private sector isn’t lining up to build clinics, provide clean drinking water, or organize women in the impoverished corners of the world: development isn’t an efficient, predictable process, and it isn’t profitable. Despite at least fifty years of close study, it is almost entirely art and very little science. No business would, for example, attempt to promote sustainable land use patterns among pastoral communities in the African Sahel in order to forestall desertification—not only is there no money in such an initiative, but the probability of success is too limited, and too dependent on forces beyond anyone’s control, to merit the effort, not to mention the resources. Businesses don’t want challenges, they want formulas with easy-to-plug figures, and they’re much better at exploiting existing demand for a product than creating demand for something new.
According to their natures, the private sector and the development world have both divergent aims and divergent approaches to achieving them. Are they then to be judged by the same standards for efficiency and success? One wouldn’t ask Seva Mandir to abandon its non-formal education program because it is expensive and because the majority of its students aren’t ultimately returning to the formal school system, as is the goal. It is understood that attempting to return drop-outs and never-wents to school is a worthwhile endeavor; it shouldn’t be given up simply because it hasn’t achieved a level of success commensurate with the amount of resources being invested in it, or because Seva Mandir is getting more bang for its buck in other programming. Development is like medical research: lack of progress can’t deter further trials, further investment. If a product line fails, it is discontinued; if Seva Mandir’s drinking water pilot fails, are its drinking water efforts to be discontinued as well?
Certainly development organizations should be held to high standards of both efficiency and effectiveness, and for the most part, they are. Donors favor the most effective, most cost efficient organizations—philanthropic foundations, international NGOs, and governments don’t enjoy squandering their money any more than businesses do. But quite simply, calculations of effectiveness and efficiency for the private sector and for the development world require different metrics, and we shouldn’t expect, nor should we even want development organizations to perform like corporations. That is not to say, however, that Seva Mandir has nothing to learn from the world of business, only that it won't better serve the rural poor of Udaipur District by eliminating programs that have produced disappointing returns on money invested.
Each of these accusations contains at least a glimmer of truth and in some instances perhaps a good deal more, but none is especially useful in pointing toward constructive and realistic reform of the organization. And Seva Mandir is very much in need of reform—its problems are not merely the imaginary outgrowths of the festering frustrations of volunteers. Evaluations of its projects are regularly scathing, turnover among the staff is dizzying, and within the last three years, a number of major donors, including the Ford Foundation, have cut off funding. Seva Mandir should be soul-searching, or at the very least reassessing its direction and purpose—yet it doesn’t appear to be doing either.
The standard prescription among the volunteer punditry is for a massive bloodletting (a fantasy I admit to having also voiced on at least one occasion), which would simultaneously reduce the size of the organization, improve accountability (theoretically), and jolt the staff out of its stupor (and savings could go toward supplementing the paltry salaries of those still standing), but such a step ignores an obvious truth about the not-for-profit world: unlike businesses, which may always trim fat in order to improve performance, even when already making money, non-profits don’t make cutbacks unless financial straits absolutely demand it.
But Seva Mandir isn’t a business and shouldn’t be run like one. Efficiency is a cardinal virtue for any organization, but a non-profit must be careful to always view it as a means to achieving their goals and never as an end itself. Business is as much science as art; it thrives on predictability, certainty, and the efficiency that naturally derives from the two. There’s a reason the private sector isn’t lining up to build clinics, provide clean drinking water, or organize women in the impoverished corners of the world: development isn’t an efficient, predictable process, and it isn’t profitable. Despite at least fifty years of close study, it is almost entirely art and very little science. No business would, for example, attempt to promote sustainable land use patterns among pastoral communities in the African Sahel in order to forestall desertification—not only is there no money in such an initiative, but the probability of success is too limited, and too dependent on forces beyond anyone’s control, to merit the effort, not to mention the resources. Businesses don’t want challenges, they want formulas with easy-to-plug figures, and they’re much better at exploiting existing demand for a product than creating demand for something new.
According to their natures, the private sector and the development world have both divergent aims and divergent approaches to achieving them. Are they then to be judged by the same standards for efficiency and success? One wouldn’t ask Seva Mandir to abandon its non-formal education program because it is expensive and because the majority of its students aren’t ultimately returning to the formal school system, as is the goal. It is understood that attempting to return drop-outs and never-wents to school is a worthwhile endeavor; it shouldn’t be given up simply because it hasn’t achieved a level of success commensurate with the amount of resources being invested in it, or because Seva Mandir is getting more bang for its buck in other programming. Development is like medical research: lack of progress can’t deter further trials, further investment. If a product line fails, it is discontinued; if Seva Mandir’s drinking water pilot fails, are its drinking water efforts to be discontinued as well?
Certainly development organizations should be held to high standards of both efficiency and effectiveness, and for the most part, they are. Donors favor the most effective, most cost efficient organizations—philanthropic foundations, international NGOs, and governments don’t enjoy squandering their money any more than businesses do. But quite simply, calculations of effectiveness and efficiency for the private sector and for the development world require different metrics, and we shouldn’t expect, nor should we even want development organizations to perform like corporations. That is not to say, however, that Seva Mandir has nothing to learn from the world of business, only that it won't better serve the rural poor of Udaipur District by eliminating programs that have produced disappointing returns on money invested.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
At Long Last, the Pilot Receives Approval
It was approximately four o’clock in the afternoon on March 31 when word finally came: the clean drinking water pilot project had received official approval from Seva Mandir’s Chief Executive. I arrived in Udaipur and began work on the morning of September 14; March 31, then, was my 200th day (if one counts vacation and weekends) with Seva Mandir. Work on the pilot hasn’t yet begun; it is at least another week off, and probably two. Had I been given some premonition of the start date of work on this, my project, upon arrival in Udaipur—a date attached to a fact, shimmering with the light of undeniable truth—I wonder how I would have received it. With surprise, certainly, but a surprise which may have quickly given way to fear. “Am I going to be hospitalized for an extended period?” I might have worried. Or perhaps I would have rationalized: certainly I was fated, in the months ahead, to be diverted for some time in work of more immediate interest to the organization?
But, alas, neither scenario approaches the truth. It has simply taken this long to assess needs, to craft a strategy, to explore the logistical dimensions of that strategy, to create a proposal reflecting those logistical realities, and to have that proposal approved. I’ve written previously on this blog about the incremental nature of development, about how its progress should be measured in generations, but if all development moved at the pace of my little drinking water project, I think we would do better to measure it in centuries.
Four months ago, on December 1, I received the results of bacterial tests conducted on six drinking water sources in Dhala, the pilot village. The previous day I had collected samples from four of the community’s most commonly used wells and two randomly selected households, packed them in ice, and whisked them off to the lab. The results of the tests were startling: None of the samples met the WHO’s minimum standard for levels of coliform (fecal) bacteria—a maximum of 10 organisms/100 milliliters of water. More distressingly, three of the samples—those from the two most commonly used wells in the village and one of the household samples—revealed bacteria counts in excess of 1,800 organisms/100mL.
In all likelihood, nearly everyone in the village was drinking unsafe water, and many were drinking water so contaminated it could give an elephant the runs. The two heavily contaminated wells provide drinking water for eighty-two households—30% of the village. How many others were ingesting hundreds of coliforms—literally—with each sip? And this was the beginning of December; the most dangerous period for drinking water is thought to be from May to August. During the months leading up to monsoon (May and June), many wells run dry and more dangerous sources must be drawn from; when monsoon arrives (July and August), wells are inundated by rainwater and effluent gushing down from the hills, a shit-dimmed tide mingling with the well water. What would tests reveal then?
It would certainly be enlightening to conduct a household health survey in Dhala now. How many cases of typhoid would be reported for the last four months? How many bouts of diarrhea? How many instances of hepatitis? Cholera? How many days of school will have been missed due to waterborne illness? How many days of work? How much income will have been lost? How much discomfort endured? How much misery? Meanwhile, Seva Mandir’s strategy is to deal first with protecting the community’s water supply. Purifying the water will come later, once sufficient momentum has been built within the community for the idea of clean water, the idea that it is something worth investing in. Besides, I am told, people aren’t yet ready to use and maintain a household-level filter, no matter how simple. It’s better to move slowly with these things. Communities must be prepared for changes in thinking and doing; things don’t happen merely because we want them to.
And they’re probably right. Certainly I’ve never implemented a project on the ground in the developing world—not in Africa, nor in India, nor in Rajasthan, nor in Udaipur District, nor in Jhadol Block, and certainly not in Dhala. I must take them at their word; I must trust in their experience, for I haven’t any of it. I make inferences based upon what limited observation I have done here; I calculate probability with a limited set of data. I am not so arrogant as to presume that I know better. Am I?
We will protect wells with walls; we will repair handpumps; we will educate the community. It can’t hurt. Some of it may help, even in the long-term. But I’m afraid that it won’t. Still, after nearly three months of bearing the private indignity of having my ideas undermined and ignored, I am now entirely resigned to the progress of the pilot as currently constituted. After all of this time, it is moving forward, and I am content in that. It is the three months that irks now, the 200 days, the four months elapsed since test results revealed horrific contamination. Certainly this isn’t a case in which torpor is a virtue. Contaminated water continues to be consumed. Volunteers and interns at Seva Mandir are told to scale back their expectations; perhaps Seva Mandir should be meeting us halfway. The notion that change takes time, that development is a painstaking process is a valuable, practical insight—it shouldn’t also be an excuse.
But, alas, neither scenario approaches the truth. It has simply taken this long to assess needs, to craft a strategy, to explore the logistical dimensions of that strategy, to create a proposal reflecting those logistical realities, and to have that proposal approved. I’ve written previously on this blog about the incremental nature of development, about how its progress should be measured in generations, but if all development moved at the pace of my little drinking water project, I think we would do better to measure it in centuries.
Four months ago, on December 1, I received the results of bacterial tests conducted on six drinking water sources in Dhala, the pilot village. The previous day I had collected samples from four of the community’s most commonly used wells and two randomly selected households, packed them in ice, and whisked them off to the lab. The results of the tests were startling: None of the samples met the WHO’s minimum standard for levels of coliform (fecal) bacteria—a maximum of 10 organisms/100 milliliters of water. More distressingly, three of the samples—those from the two most commonly used wells in the village and one of the household samples—revealed bacteria counts in excess of 1,800 organisms/100mL.
In all likelihood, nearly everyone in the village was drinking unsafe water, and many were drinking water so contaminated it could give an elephant the runs. The two heavily contaminated wells provide drinking water for eighty-two households—30% of the village. How many others were ingesting hundreds of coliforms—literally—with each sip? And this was the beginning of December; the most dangerous period for drinking water is thought to be from May to August. During the months leading up to monsoon (May and June), many wells run dry and more dangerous sources must be drawn from; when monsoon arrives (July and August), wells are inundated by rainwater and effluent gushing down from the hills, a shit-dimmed tide mingling with the well water. What would tests reveal then?
It would certainly be enlightening to conduct a household health survey in Dhala now. How many cases of typhoid would be reported for the last four months? How many bouts of diarrhea? How many instances of hepatitis? Cholera? How many days of school will have been missed due to waterborne illness? How many days of work? How much income will have been lost? How much discomfort endured? How much misery? Meanwhile, Seva Mandir’s strategy is to deal first with protecting the community’s water supply. Purifying the water will come later, once sufficient momentum has been built within the community for the idea of clean water, the idea that it is something worth investing in. Besides, I am told, people aren’t yet ready to use and maintain a household-level filter, no matter how simple. It’s better to move slowly with these things. Communities must be prepared for changes in thinking and doing; things don’t happen merely because we want them to.
And they’re probably right. Certainly I’ve never implemented a project on the ground in the developing world—not in Africa, nor in India, nor in Rajasthan, nor in Udaipur District, nor in Jhadol Block, and certainly not in Dhala. I must take them at their word; I must trust in their experience, for I haven’t any of it. I make inferences based upon what limited observation I have done here; I calculate probability with a limited set of data. I am not so arrogant as to presume that I know better. Am I?
We will protect wells with walls; we will repair handpumps; we will educate the community. It can’t hurt. Some of it may help, even in the long-term. But I’m afraid that it won’t. Still, after nearly three months of bearing the private indignity of having my ideas undermined and ignored, I am now entirely resigned to the progress of the pilot as currently constituted. After all of this time, it is moving forward, and I am content in that. It is the three months that irks now, the 200 days, the four months elapsed since test results revealed horrific contamination. Certainly this isn’t a case in which torpor is a virtue. Contaminated water continues to be consumed. Volunteers and interns at Seva Mandir are told to scale back their expectations; perhaps Seva Mandir should be meeting us halfway. The notion that change takes time, that development is a painstaking process is a valuable, practical insight—it shouldn’t also be an excuse.
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