Thurs, June 26, Hottest Day So Far

Thursday was undoubtedly the hottest day yet in my three weeks in India. The sun was grilling us as we did the survey. We started in W85 now, the second slum of Zakhira. As soon as we walked in I noticed that it was much shorter than W85. All the houses were about my height (5'4) and had a pathway of about 4 ft in between them. We entered right off of the street, whereas with W88 there is a 50 foot entryway to reach the slum. Here we stepped around some fruit vendors and we're among the houses. This time unlike at W88, as soon as I walked in, I saw a familiar face. Shajadi, one of my younger students. She greeted me with the usual "namaste didi" and implored me to come to her house. Didi, by the way, is a general term of endearment and respect for women. I explained to her that i had to work on the survey but that I would come by her house soon. Anurag and I were working with the other Asha woman, Sushila, for the first time. She barely speaks any English, and kept referring to Anurag to translate between us. We got through about five surveys quickly because the women were clustered together. We then interviewed Shajadi's mother and father. Meanwhile she came over and put a circle of Mendi in the palm of my hand. I was a bit confused because I'd only seen the Mendi applied in intricate designs, how the girl at Jivah Nagar did it. I didn't want to offend her but, I had to wash it off in order to continue doing the survey. She understood and got me some water and a towel, then proceeded to apply the Mendi circles on her younger brothers hands instead.
We were invited into a woman's house to get us out of the heat. She offered us water but, despite the fact that we were literally dripping sweat onto the floor, we had to decline because we can't drink regular water or we risk getting sick. As we asked her the survey questions an unusual thing happened. She answered yes to coughing, with blood at times, and to having lost weight and appetite. It was a bit of a harrowing experience to be sitting in the home of someone who probably has tuberculosis, a disease which is transferred through close proximity to others. Dr. Martin had explained that it takes extended contact and that doctors don't worry being around a patient for a short amount of time. Still, I was in a bit of a hurry to get out of that house.
We then exited at the street and entered another section of the slum through another entrance from the road. There was a long thin pathway no wider than 2 feet. A tall brick wall was on the right, and several houses built in a row on the left. We had to press ourselves against the wall as residents edged past us going in and out of the slum. A thin lane of garbage ran along the wall as well. As we did a few surveys, the women made sure we stood in the bit of shade available. I saw another of my students, Khushbu, carrying her baby brother to her house. Even though I see these girls everyday, and I go to the slum everyday, it is still a slight shock to see them combined. As kerry, another volunteer teacher said, it is so much easier to see the kids in school and believe that they go home to a nice middle class house with comfortable beds and a green backyard. But they don't.





After work we headed straight to the tailors to pick up our saris. We hurried over excitedly and Anurag went to talk to the workers. After arguing for a few minutes, he turned to us and explained that the saris were not ready. Apparently the head tailor who had taken our measurements wasn't there that day. We still had some time before the dinner so we asked if they could please do them right now if we paid a bit more! Anurag sternly said, no, it wasn't possible. Only the head tailor knew how to cut the cloth, and he hadn't done it so the workers could not sew a shirt. We were really disappointed and annoyed, after last nights detour we figured at least we would have the saris to wear to dinner. Such is India though, doing things in a hurry doesn't really seem to be a priority. We headed back to FabIndia and picked out some nice salwar kamiz to wear instead. We quickly went from slumwear to formalwear, dirty to clean and headed out to Devins Asha birthday dinner.