Thoughts Leading up to Christmas
on Margaret Campbell's Rambles (India), 19/Dec/2009 11:01, 34 days ago
  For me, Christmas is a time to share warm friendships and make family memories. Entertain, relax, read, cuddle, do crafts, exercise, cook, laugh, eat good food, shop, and do something for someone in need. Not necessarily in that order. Many people have asked us what we're doing in India for Christmas. I have hardly thought about it and realize it's less than a week away, so if I need to do anything in preparation it had better get done this Sunday, as we work 6 days a week and I still get very tired in the evenings so I’m not good for much after 6 PM. Jan and I talked about going to a hotel with hot showers and movies on TV as a gift to each other but haven't made reservations. We wouldn't go on the 25th anyway as there is a women's tribal convention 25 - 27 that I want to attend. I think the compromise will be that we stay home and have dinner with the neighbors on the 25th, I go out to the field for the convention on the 26th and 27th, and we take a long weekend sometime soon and visit Visakhapatnam where I hear there are nice hotels and it's only a 6 hour train ride away. Or maybe 8. Who's counting? Christmas appears to be a national holiday here, or at least it seems to be widely celebrated even if Christians make up a very small sliver of the population. Probably a relic of British rule, and anyway, who wouldn't want sweets, gifts and well, who knows what they do here. I just hope there are fireworks but I am losing hope as I haven't seen any in the market. Oddly, at least to me, a holiday"shop" popped up in the market a few days ago with all kinds of tinselly things, holiday cards and even some little plastic trees with lights. Will we buy anything? Nah. There's also some cedar-like greenery for sale lately by the tribals who perch on mats along the road that looks Christmassy. Don't know what it is but I'll get some and put in a vase on my table. Good enough. I will say that I had the Christmas shopping experience of my life here over the past two days. Never have I had so much fun spending so little money for such a good cause. As Christmas"gifts" for my family I bought school supplies, uniforms, winter clothes and other life-sustaining items for a list of my NGO's most needy children, persons with disabilities and elders. So little makes so much difference in a person's life here. Many of the kids in our area cannot afford to go to school because their parents do not have the 300 Rs ($6) to buy them a mat to sit on and a bag to carry books plus a year’s worth of pencils, notebooks and other supplies. 150 Rs ($3) buys a school uniform and sandals so when they walk to school so they don’t get parasites in their feet. Another 150 Rs ($3) buys a shawl or fleece and a hat for winter nights which are quite cold in the villages this time of year. Winter is so pleasant here for me, with the warm daytime sun and the cool evenings spent in my comfortable apartment, that I didn't credit reports about how cold it is for the tribals. Then I slept in a mud hut under a thin blanket. And froze!  Every day when I walk to work and home for lunch I go through the grounds of the district hospital. I didn't realize it for a long time, but many people who come there cook and sleep in the field outside the building. Even though free health care is guaranteed by India's constitution, many cannot get care at all because they haven't money for transportation; those who make it to Koraput certainly don't have money for accommodations, so they build fires to cook and lie down in the grass at night. Tonight as I walked home at dusk it was quite chilly, even for me, and the Indians feel the cold so much more intensely. A tribal woman was squatting on the curb in front of the building, with her shawl wound tightly around her. I held her gaze for a moment and could see how cold she was, but that she was settling in for the night on the concrete. And I could see cook fires in the field behind her where others were making their camps. I thought perhaps I could take some shawls over there on winter evenings to at least alleviate some little bit of suffering but, really, how would that work? There is an endless supply of neediness and my pockets are only so deep. What to do? On Monday I am planning to go out to the tribal areas to do some interviews and photography to document village life and create case studies describing individual needs for our web site. I will carry all that I've purchased to our field office there so it can be delivered by someone from my NGO who can provide the appropriate messages - I don't want it to seem like Santa has pulled up on his sleigh - the people who are receiving these assets have been identified because they are particularly talented or particularly marginalized. But I will be perfectly satisfied, this Christmas, with having had the privilege of making a difference in a few lives. Soon I'll be sharing our new web site address with you so you can see for yourselves what a difference a small intervention can make. You may want to make one yourself. In the meantime, enjoy these photos and watch this space for more ...      Left: Boy's school uniform with fleece and hat Center: Girls School Frock and Sandals Right: Class 1 - 4 School Materials    Left: The front of the District Hospital is always a busy place. Right: The adjacent field serves as campground.