Having spent 5 nights living with the Adavasi community of Andhra Pradesh, all my hopes and dreams for India have come true.
It took many trains, a few rickshaws, several buses, a flight, and one wet jeep ride through the jungle to reach the offices of LAYA, a partner organization of Drishti, but Kaberi and I made it! The office is a 3 story building that is home to the Community Video and Community Radio programs as well as all the program participants.
Yep, everyone lives in the office. Since infrastructure is unreliable in the rural areas, participants, especially the women, are given the option of living in the office.
If they can make it to work on time every day, they are free to go home, but being to work on time is a priority so if you cant garuntee it, well, then, welcome home, I suppose.
The girls wake up, cook veggies and white rice for breakfast, do their laundry, sing, work, sing, work, make lunch, iron their laundry, sing, work, sing, work, make veggies and white rice for dinner, watch tv, sing, clean up, sleep, and then wake up to do it all over again. They sing religiously. In the mornings I was awakened by their harmonious melodies and then throughout the day I wrote, ate, and breathed to the rhythm of the tribal songs. They seem to have a song for every occasion- a bull pulling a cart, a man going to buy bangles for his bride, the duties expected of women, and working in the fields. If only I knew their dialect. damn.
The days were slow and we were rarely concerned with time. We woke up with the sun, ate lunch when it arrived, napped when we wanted to, played badminton when we sensed the day light was coming to an end, and slept when the darkness took us over. Work happened at a casual pace, and why not? There was no 9-5 time limit. If you finish you are free, otherwise do what you must to finish.
My objective for the trip was to write about the people we work with at LAYA. I wanted to hear the thoughts of the video and radio team, as well as their reflections. The video team has been working for about 4 years to create and sustain an operational unit in the area while the audio team is just starting production. I asked one question at a time, the question was translated, they wrote, handed in their answers, those were translated, and now I am taking a break from making sense of the broken English to write to you. I am close to having a complete profile of the Radio team, so hopefully I can share something with you next week. I also have some recordings of the songs, so if the internet breaks down and I experience writer's block, I will share an edited audio file with you!
Random thought worth sharing: Members of the tribal communities are often Christians, because their ancestors couldn't afford to be Hindus. Now, they are being encouraged, often by political heavyweights, to connect to their roots, their Hindu roots. One of the reasons given? "Look how colorful our gods are!"
Brides sit for up to 7 hours getting detailed designs traced on their bodies and are then unable to move, its frowned upon to smear the dye, for another 2 to 5 hours. Its a task. But the result is beautiful, elegant and something that bonds women from all over India.
