AIF Exposure Visit: Kutch's Migrant Population & Education

Last week, while recovering from a mutton biriyani induced illness, I flew to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, took an overnight bus to the city of Mundra in the district of Kutch, Gujarat and spent two days visiting the migrant communities a fellow AIF fellow, Diane, has been working with for the last 8 months. Working within the education sector with urban disadvantaged populations I have not been exposed to the rural scenario. It was hot, it was dry, it was sparse, it was dire and unlike anything I had seen before. The following attempts to highlight and explain some of my observations as I continue to process what we did, where we went, what we saw and all the questions that were raised.

AIF Exposure Visit

After Prev and I found our ‘honeymoon suite’ on the bus, I walked up to the front, called Diane and handed my phone to the driver’s assistant so she could tell him in Hindi where to drop us. Seven AC hours later we were awoken by the driver’s assistant and escorted off the bus. But not only were we escorted off the bus, we were escorted through the early morning dark cool desert directly to Diane’s doorstep. Apparently, Patel Travels and Diane are close, really close, next-door neighbors to be exact.

There was little rest for the weary. After a few minutes of shuffling around stuff and settling on a sleeping arrangement that would only last an hour, we crashed, woke up, showered, and ran out the door to catch the bus with peanut butter and nutella sandwiches in hand.

The next two days of buses, jeeps, walking, meeting people, trying to stay hydrated and trying to stay out of the sun was exhausting and while fascinating, was ultimately depressing and it left me asking lots of questions about the role of NGOs, development and education:

• What is the role of funders in projects? Is it purely monetary? What level of accountability should be required?
• How can marginalized migrant communities be brought into the network of public services such as primary education and primary health care?
• If governments can’t (or don’t) provide marginalized communities with basic services and NGOs also struggle, who will provide these services? What needs to be changed so the government or NGO sector can integrate these populations?
• Is something (minimal services) for a few better than nothing at everyone?
• What are the benchmark indicators for primary education? How many days does a teacher need to be at school to call it education? How many days does a student need to attend school to call it education? What resources need to be provided in a school to call it a center of learning? What skills do children need to acquire for primary education to really be an education?
• Are there sustainable models of education for migrant communities that have worked in other areas? What can be learned from those?
• Are NGOs and donors doing adequate research before implementing projects in particular communities? Do they know enough about the communities they are working with? How can those of us working in development improve the information gathering process to better serve the communities we work with?
  

The primary reason I wanted to visit Kutch was to see how education was (or was not) happening in these migrant communities. The government has schools in the villages, but these schools are not accessible by the migrant populations: saltpan workers, fishing villages, and the animal herders. Realizing this need, an NGO in Kutch works primarily to provide basic services for the migrant populations.

Day 1-Surveying the Salt Pans


After munching on our sandwiches and getting briefed by Diane on the almost 2 hour bus ride, we arrived in a town called Adipur. We met our jeep driver and their research assistants and headed off to the a nearby Salt Company’s saltpans outside of a village on the southern coast of Kutch.



The saltpans are expansive and sunglasses are required to stare out at the glaring bright white salt. Similar in size and shape to the endless square rice paddies of Japan, the saltpan squares disappear on the horizon. While most of the workers work at night to avoid the heat, the day landscape is also dotted with bright pinks and oranges, and the brilliant blues and greens of the saris of the day labors raking the salt under the hot sun.

The primary activity of the day was observing the research assistants administer a demographic survey, focused on the women of each household. The aim was to collect qualitative information about the saltpan workers, because not much is known about who they are, where they come from, or how they are living. Apparently, most of the workers are from Eastern Kutch, the Rajpur and Bachau blocks. They work 6 days a week, and make about 300 rupees. They get one day off, decided by the salt company, to go and buy necessary food provisions in the town nearby. Perhaps because the workers and their families come from various villages and areas in Kutch, or because the work demands that families live near their particular saltpans, there does not seem to be much of a community atmosphere among the workers.



Each family lives in a collection of burlap tents, their only protection from the sun and heat of the desert. Since most of the parents work at night, the kids sleep alone in the tents. Consequently, while the parents are sleeping during the day, the kids are alone to entertain themselves. While I was there, walking from house to house following the researchers, I saw lots of kids. Without access to much fresh water, they looked like they hadn’t bathed in a long time—matted salt filled hair. The few babies I saw had skin rashes of varying severity, in one extreme case flies coated the baby’s buttocks.



While we were driving around the saltpans with the research assistants, Diane pointed out the cement building designated as the school. It sat empty, and looked unused, no teacher or students in sight. Perhaps it is just summer vacation? However, while we were doing our research, one of the young girls came up to Diane and asked her “Where is my teacher? He hasn’t come in a long time.” It was a sad situation, and there was nothing to say to her. Diane’s earlier attendance tracking study indicated that the teacher had indeed not been at this particular school in quite awhile.


After the research team called it quits for the day we returned to the college, dropped off the assistants and sent the jeep driver home. We went to the local “College Canteen” and sat down for a much needed refreshment - ice cream and cool drinks. We reflected on the day and the dire situation of education and life in general in the saltpans.


Day 2-Finding the Fishing Village

After another delicious feast of peanut butter and nutella sandwiches on the bus, we were dropped off in a small village where our jeep picked us up and drove us to the Muslim fishing settlement on the coast. This settlement is drastically different from the saltpans. Most of the fisher families come from villages 10-50 km away, and commute on a regular basis. The fishing village is set up to replicate a real community, with several small shops, and burlap tent compounds encircled with wooden fences hugging the shoreline. Many of the compounds have animals presumably both used for transport and food. We also saw a solar panel, several motorcycles and even a car at one house. But even as we arrived, several families were packing up and leaving, apparently the fishing season had stopped being as productive as they had hoped.


As soon as we parked the jeep and got out, an old man, one of the elders of the village, approached Diane and proceeded to tell her all about how various NGOs had been coming to this village and the work they were doing there, or the work they had promised to do. In the end he said that the NGOs had disappointed the communities. That was evident when we went to visit the school and had a look at the dry water tank.

The school consisted of concrete block rooms with a corrugated tin roof. There were colorful paintings on the walls to teach kids about fruits, the Gujarati alphabet and body parts. But nobody had used the school in such a long time that there were bird droppings covering the floor causing a horrible smell and ants had already destroyed parts of the floor. Furniture was piled up in a corner, unused for sometime. Another concrete block floor base had been built but did not have walls. It looked like the villagers had constructed a makeshift room with burlap bag walls, but it had also been neglected.


We walked around the community and along the beach, which was eerily waterless. The tide was so far out we couldn’t see the water. This also meant that the boats just sat in the muddy sand, stranded until the next tide. On the way back to the jeep, we stopped by a water tank that had been built to help supply the community with fresh water. However, when we looked inside the tank was bone dry. Apparently it was assumed that the nearby village would be the fresh water source for this community and they would not allow it. So families continue to commute into town on a daily basis for water, or have a tanker come and deliver water to their homes.



After leaving the fishing village we headed to the main office of Yusuf Meherally Center (YMC), Diane’s NGO placement. While the office itself was quiet, nearby is one of YMC’s hostels for migrant workers children. The idea behind the hostel is to allow kids to stay in the community and attend the local government school. Considering the teacher attendance is problematic at the migrant worker schools, this seems to be a more viable option. However, it too has downsides. Many parents do not feel comfortable leaving their children with strangers, especially the girls. In addition, some families do not always migrate to/from the same village; they do not have a home base, so keeping kids in a hostel in one village is counter intuitive. This particular hostel had about 24 students both boys and girls, but is probably capable of housing double or triple that. The kids were in the middle of eating lunch when we arrived, but were happy to show us their living quarters and take a quick picture with us.



Before returning to Diane’s lovely little row house, we had the driver take us through the new Mundra port area. This port is quickly changing the landscape and economy of the region. And with increased levels of pollution in the water, the migrant fishing community may be forced to find a new livelihood in the near future.


Before boarding another overnight bus, we played with the neighbor boy, Samye, the son of the Patel Travels employee. On our way to the bus stand, we took a quick tour of the walled old city and stopped off at a little snack place for dinner. Eight AC hours later and we were back in Ahmedabad knocking on Natassia and Ekta’s door at 5am.

Thank you to Diane & Dean for being such wonderful hosts. I could not have asked for better exposure! Thanks also to university research grants, the skilled jeep driver, the College Canteen, Patel Travels, and Diane’s friendly neighbors, especially little Samye.

Rural & Urban School Visits

Almost two weeks in

Good news is we found a great flat and our furniture is being moved today. We aren’t sure yet how AIF will help us financially as we had to incur some costs for the deposit, etc. but we moved and have a safe, well ventilated flat on the 2nd floor of a home. Feeling a little closer to being settled in--thankfully!

As for my ‘work’ in the last two weeks I’ve mostly sat and surfed the Internet and read documents. But I’ve also visited several schools (both rural and urban), attended several meetings and almost have a project proposal—but not quite.

The best part of the rural school visits: getting out of Chennai and riding a bicycle around a village.
The worst part of the urban school visits: being witness to corporeal punishment over and over and over again.

Rural Visit:
The first school visit was very exciting because I got out of the office and out of Chennai with my co-worker. We chatted on the commuter train, shared food and got to know each other. When we turned up in Minjur (a community North of Chennai) we took an auto to the NGO office and met the representative. She showed us to our bikes and off we went. Cycling through villages is always amusing, especially for my co-worker who enjoyed not being the center of attention. She translated for me some of the comments expressing ‘awe and surprise to see a foreigner’ from the villagers as we cycled by. But she didn’t translate everything, and that is probably for the best. We visited two schools, both one-room classrooms with one teacher. The students were busy with the ABL (activity-based learning) program when we arrived but put their cards away and prepared for their English class. My co-worker and I observed the lesson as the representative and sometimes the homeroom teacher taught. Ideally, there is a CD component to each lesson and the schools have been supplied CD players and speakers. Sadly, one school’s CD player broke and the other was having problems with the connection. The storybook was also left at the office, so the representative improvised and demonstrated a semi-typical lesson. At both schools we were served bright orange Mirinda—sugary sweet orange soda.

In Japan I was always the one teaching, with others watching! Now, I’m the one sitting in the back observing. I decided against taking notes since it was my first visit and I really am in learning mode. There were about 25-30 students in both classrooms of various ages. They were pretty eager to participate. They stood up and spoke when asked. They played pass the parcel. They identified corresponding flashcards. And they practiced introducing themselves. Interesting overall!

Finally we watched a focus lesson, which was similar to the first but with the audio component included. After the sugar high of the Mirinda and seeing a similar lesson for the 3rd time, I almost passed out. The ‘ladies compartment’ of the train coming back was packed and we stood most of the way. It was fun to watch the female venders get on and off with all their goods—selling to everyone in the car. The most popular item on this particular trip were the banana stems and flowers, they were going like hotcakes.

Urban Visit:
One of my co-workers teaches a focus class at a local government primary school in the same neighborhood as our office. I asked to observe her lesson to learn more about her approach, the kids, the school and what might or might not work in the Indian classroom setting. She has been teaching phonics everyday afterschool for 1-hour to a group of 4th standard students. And what a group they are. I’ve never seen anything like it…except for one of my classes in Japan that was highlighted on national TV for its misbehaving: throwing chairs, sleeping, swearing, hitting, yelling, etc. The class that I observed here brought back the horrors of teaching that group of students in Japan. The children in this class were throwing water bottles, pencils, pens, and even each other. They were hitting, kicking, punching, and pulling hair. They were talking, yelling, screaming and so engaged with other activities I couldn’t hear the teacher at the front in a small classroom. I lost count of how many times my co-worker had to go and fetch the head mistress, their homeroom teacher or another teacher to quiet them down. In each case, they brought a stick or ruler with them and hit whoever was acting up on the hand, arm, shoulder, back, head or leg. The kids would wince and quiet down for a second, but as soon as the teacher left the room, they would be back at it again. I never saw a student cry from the pain of being hit, apparently they are used to it. Shockingly, my co-worker uses the same method although had even less authority over the students.

Knowing that my presence alone was probably contributing to their acting up even more, I dared not say or do anything. I just had to sit by and watch it happen over and over again. It was both brutal to watch and legitimate brutality toward the children. Honestly, I would want to drop out too if my teachers treated me like that. Given that most of the kids come from impoverished families probably living in slums and have life experience beyond their age, their need for appropriate attention is critical. But the schools are understaffed and corporeal punishment is seen as the only way of managing the problem, creating a cycle of abuse, neglect and acting out.

I had grand ideas of teaching myself. But this has made me think twice about it. Let’s see what happens. But maybe staying in the office isn’t such a bad thing.

Food, toilets, clothing norms, bugs, etc. aside, these are the real issues that make living and working in another cultural context difficult.

A room with a view

(Window picture taken in Tibet, 2007)

Orientation in Delhi was exciting, overwhelming, exhilarating and exhausting. It was too much information that left us with lots of questions. It was meeting engaging speakers and getting to know the very dynamic group of AIF fellows. It was boiled eggs everyday for breakfast and sitting on plastic chairs for 6 hours. It was two fancy dinners out with an open bar at Delhi’s most exclusive restaurants. And it was two weeks of constructing and reconstructing expectations of the coming months while being told not to have any expectations.

But is it really possible to expect nothing? I thought I was a blank slate of zero expectations. But apparently I wasn’t. At expecting ‘nothing’, I’ve failed. That doesn’t mean I’m disappointed with my experience thus far, I’m just adjusting to it and readjusting my expectations without creating too many more future expectations that may be unrealistic.

I expected to move into my flat immediately and set up house. It’s been almost a week, and I’m staying with my roommate’s family. The hospitality and the food are fabulous, it is so comfortable here, but I was hoping to have my own place by now. I expected my flat to have windows, air, light, a view of something—anything green, but it doesn’t. But I can (if I were staying there) walk to the Bay of Bengal in 15 minutes. I expected it to have running water all the time, but it doesn’t. I expected it to be clean, but there is garbage on the floor, moldy sheets in the corner, and stained pillows. Maybe the new fridge, stove and utensils were supposed to make up for what it was lacking. But honestly, my heart sank when I walked in and saw my new ‘home’.

The most frustrating part of the housing situation is being caught in the middle, trying to negotiate between all the different players, all who have their own opinions and ideas and don’t want to consider the alternatives. Local family members say the flat is unsafe and unhygienic (looks like we might have to pump corporation water), my NGO is convinced it is VERY safe, and I’m worried I’ll have a mental breakdown if I don’t have any light or air for 10 months. And to top it off, AIF wants proof of these things…intuition and our observation apparently aren’t enough.

I think the biggest adjustment of moving to India this time has been trying to manage my expectations, and adjust to scenarios I could not have expected. I’m trying to be okay with living in a dark hole, but ultimately it makes me really sad. Maybe posters, plants, and a few extra lamps will help. But I’m hoping we can pull out of the lease and find a brighter, cleaner and safer place—fingers crossed!

All that being said, I’m slowly feeling my way around my NGO. I can almost taste the project proposal and I’m excited about it. And while I know I’ll be busy in the coming year, the office is very laid back and flexible, but oddly enough, my office doesn’t have any windows either.

Looking for a room with a view--any view!