The rest of our time in the rural area!

Get ready, get set-here's another long post from the rest of our week in the rural area!

The following day I woke up earlier with the MSc students to make breakfast. They cook everything on a propane stove, from coffee to curry. For breakfast we made a porridge, which is vey different from what we would call porridge at home. It starts with fried peanuts, and they add curry leaves, cumin, split peas, chilies and a few other non typical porridge items. We also had what they call yellow rice here, which is more like a fried rice where they add roasted peanuts, tumeric, curry leaves, chili powder, ground coriander, and some other spices too.

Our cooking set up in the rural area

After breakfast, we walked to the nearby village to do home visits. It took us about 20 minutes and it was nice to be able to walk peacefully somewhere without constant smog and honking. When we arrived we went to a rice paddy. It was so cool! The rice grows it little green shoots that are in semi deep water plots that are divided by thin strips of dense grass that you can walk along. We balanced our way through the fields, trying hard not to fall into the deep, mucky water that lay beneath us. We made our way towards a group of workers in the fields. Using our MSc friends as interpreters, we learned that the women working in the fields work from the early morning til 6 pm and make only 100 rupees a day, which is less than 2 CAD. I talked with one of the sisters at the convent after about til, and she said that this was not enough to even buy food for one person for one day. After watching the women work for a while, we decided to get in the field and give it a try. It was really fun going in the high mud trying not to fall, and working alongside the women grabbing the young stalks, putting them into bunches and tying them with straw. These will be used for replanting in other fields later. After we cleaned the mud that was up to our knees off, we made our way to the village. The village felt very different from the "village" in the urban area we visited. There are nearly no men in the village during the day. Many women seem to congregate at one family's house and visit during the day. We visited with these women, but it requires 2 translators because only the community health nurse could understand the local dialect, so she conferred what the women said to one of the MSc students in Telugu, who then told us what was going on in English. All ages of women were in the home, from very old looking women to ones who had just finishing her Bachelor's degree. It is common for mothers to live with their son's family. We also learned why all  the post natal mothers wear either a scarf over their head or have cotton balls stuffed in their ears. It is because they believe that if air gets in their ears after birth it will cause their muscles to go loose and it may stop evil from coming in. We had noticed some of the nurses in the clinic who had this and stated that they did it despite the fact that there was no scientific proof.

Wandering through the rice paddies

The women working in the rice paddies-we gave it a try after!

Us on a home visit

After, we made our way back to the convent and had coffee and tea. Here they make it by boiling water and adding a tea powder or instant coffee to the water, and leave it simmering for about 15 minutes. They then boil milk in a separate pot, and add the boiled milk to the water along with sugar. The tea is strained through and then served in tiny cups, about the size of an espresso cup. The tea is never strong, and though they call all tea chai, it is more like orange pekoe tea than what we would consider to be a chai tea. We had lunch pre made in the morning, and we made something that they call "meal makers" which is like a processed soy, meatless alternative that comes dry and looks like a brown Captain Crunch. They soak it in plain water until it expands, and then they squeeze out the water and slice each piece in two. Then the typical spices are added along with some potatoes and green beans. It was actually quite tasty, but I feel as though my stomach has shrunk because I cannot eat more than a third of a cup of rice with just a bit of curry before I am full. Not a problem I am used to having, that is for sure. In the afternoon after a short siesta, I did my laundry outside on this massive smooth laundry block that you can really scrub your clothes on. It was really peaceful and I felt as though it was the first time since I've been here that I've really cleaned my clothes. As I was working one of the sisters at the convent came along and was teaching me how they do laundry. She then took my around the massive grounds, pointing out all of the food that they grew. I saw coconut trees, lemon trees, guava trees, plantaine trees, mango trees, rabbits, water buffalo and their own rice paddy. It was interesting to see how self sufficient the convent is in many ways, and it made me jealous that we are not able to grow such delicious foods in our own backyards. Another thing about here that we've become accustomed to are many questions about our families. When you meet someone new, they always want to know what your mother and father do, how many siblings you have and what they do, and whether your are married or not. Often we are answering these questions 2 or 3 times a day for the various people we meet along the way.

Since some of us had been having troubles eating the lovely food the MSc students had been preparing for us due to sickness, they asked me to help them prepare the chicken in such a way that we'd be happy to eat lots. Using some input from the other girls I tried to get creative with he ingredients we had and made boiled chicken with onions and tomatoes, and then fried it with their super yummy ginger garlic paste, butter, chili powder, pepper and more onions and tomatoes. It was bland compared to the food we had been having which was I think we needed for just one day. I loved being out in the little house beside the convent cooking with the girls, especially when they finally let me actually help with something. They definitely treat us like guests here which is nice but it's strange being serves by people you're becoming friends with, and i always like to help out in the kitchen. While we were out there I talked with the girls about arranged marriages vs what they call love marriages. They said that parents will allow a love marriage as long as the partner is of the same religion and caste. They said if the parents don't approve and the couple wishes to marry anyways, they will be separate from the parents and have very little contact, which is a big deal in India where parents often financially support their children for long into their adulthood, and the favour is then returned in their old age. The girls then told us how they would likely have arranged marriages, with one girl's parents already looking around for a good match for her. If both parents agree its a good match, the people will meet to see if they get along. If everything is set and the the groom's family asks for a dowry, the girls told us that this is not only very offensive, it is also illegal and can earn you jail time. I was very surprised by this, because of the benefits given to parents who have female babies in order for them to pay in part for the dowry. From what I understand, dowries may be more common among poorer families, where the belief that taking on your daughter into our family will be very costly, and you should pay us something for taking the expense off your hands. This is definitely a simplified version of the seemingly endlessly complicated process of Indian marriages. I also found it interesting to learn that the rules of love marriage apply to all religions, so even though the caste system is a protect of the Hindu religion, it permeates deeply into Indian culture. The girls also said that though they and most people know that discrimination based on caste was bad, it was  nonetheless widely accepted as part of the culture. 

Today I found to be a very rewarding day as it was nice to do as the locals did instead of just observe. I also really enjoyed talking with our new friends, as I feel I have so much I can learn from that and I am just starting to wrap my head around the intricate Indian culture. I also feel very fortunate to have the experience of getting to know people in the country you are traveling in, as often sightseeing along doesn't allow a full picture of what life is like for the people living in the area.

 

The post office in the rural area

Us riding in the back of the rickshaw

On our following day we awoke to French toast, or what they call omelet bread or Bombay toast. Though I don't really like French toast at home, it was so nice to have some familiar food for breakfast instead of such spicy food. We made our way to a school today to do health checks on the children. We measured their height and their arm circumference to assess their nutrition status. We then did an impromptu health education session on hand washing where we sang the kids a song. It was fun, and then the kids sang us a song as well. We also visited what was basically the mayor's office in the village we were staying at and learned about how taxes were collected and forwarded to the state government. When we arrived back at the convent we had the most amazing surprise - what seemed like one hundred monkeys were all out and about on the convey grounds. There were all ages of monkeys, with some of the bigger moms carrying little babies hanging from their stomach. They were literally everywhere-crawling up the convent walls, on hydro lines, all in our cooking shed, climbing along the sharp glass coated exterior walls of the convent, swinging from the trees eating guava. It was such a cool experience as we watched quietly trying to let them get close to us. They are definitely not afraid of humans, and I think that we were actually more afraid of them and their unpredictable patterns of movement. It was basically like being at African Lion Safari except that this was real life. Very cool!

One of many monkeys we saw

Our reception back at JMJ College of Nursing

Today we made our way back to Hyderabad, and presented our experience to the MSc students and faculty at JMJ College of Nursing.  I found it kind of sad to say bye to our new friends who we had gotten to know over the week. After we were treated to such a lovely feast of food, and we made our way back to CHAI.  Only one week left here in Hyderabad before we start our travels, so we have a list of things to finish up for our program, as well as a list of things to get done in the city before we leave. As always, thanks for reading! Until next time...