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Revision of: Thu, December 6, 2007 |
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A Country of Villages Mahatma Gandhi once described India as a country of 100,000 villages. Kalamb is one such village in Maharashtra state and is probably typical of a rural village in India. The population is about 3,000 comprising a mixed community of Hindu, Muslim, and Adivasis, or tribal people. Kalamb is administered through a council known as the Gram Panchayat. Elections are held every five years. The village head is known as the Sarpanch.
The main problem in Kalamb is water shortage, particularly during the hot summer months from February to June before the blessed monsoon's arrival. The main occupation is rice farming but this is only possible during the rainy monsoon season from July to September. Three rice crops per year are theoretically possible, but severe drought limits farming to one crop due to lack of irrigation. The rice grown is for the family's own consumption - rarely is there any left over to sell. Other occupations are working in the brick kilns, supplying bricks for house construction, and making hand-made earthen pots on a hand-operated potter's wheel. Outside of the monsoon season, many adults are forced to move out to nearby towns to try and get odd jobs. Average family income in the village is around 10,000 rupees per year (about $265 CDN). As we drove past mile after mile of scorched earth, seeing the outline of lifeless rice paddies, we could only wonder how these rural people mustered the courage to go on year after year under such difficult conditions.
It was wonderful to see the smiles of the 200 children from Kalamb as they received their bedkits. We heard that all of these children attend school. Hopefully their bedkits will not only help each child get a good night's sleep, but also give them hope for an education and a better life. Our SCAW team saw other villages on this trip and heard similar descriptions concerning life in rural areas. We visited residential boarding schools, where students sit on a stone floor to listen to their teachers, and at night sleep on those same floors. These students are able to attend school thanks to government grants that cover the cost of food, school uniforms, and supplies for the children. Another theme we heard repeatedly on this year's distribution was the damage caused by severe flooding in July 2005 in western India. Readers may recall hearing in the news that over 960 mm of rain (over 3 feet of water) fell in one day in Mumbai. In fact, this heavy rain fell throughout much of western India, and was the heaviest in more than 100 years. These rains caused severe damage and washed away entire villages. Several Rotary clubs selected areas affected by this devastation for distributing bedkits.
The severe rainfall in July 2005 caused river levels to rise dangerously. In one rural area near Belgaum in Karnataka state, utility operators had no choice but to open a dam to avoid its destruction by surging waters. This released torrents of water that devastated downstream areas for miles. Villages, people and animals were caught in the surge. Complete villages were submerged, with extensive loss of human and animal life and destruction of crops. Rotary chose to do this year's distribution in one area where four villages were particularly devastated by this flooding. Marks on a building showed where water levels had risen twenty-four feet at the flood peak. Waters have since receded, and we were told that reconstruction efforts continue to restore the most basic of services in these villages. Time did not permit us to visit the villages directly affected by this flooding. But rest assured that six hundred very needy children are tonight sleeping comfortably thanks to the bedkits that SCAW donors made possible. 
This was my third trip to Mumbai, following visits in 2004 and 2005. It has been a privilege working and developing friendships with our overseas volunteers there, each of them so committed to helping the children of India. SCAW's partners in Rotary in Maharashtra and Karnataka states are selecting more and more rural areas to distribute bedkits, continuing a trend we saw last year. SCAW supports this trend since the rural poor, representing much of India's population, receive few if any social services. I want to thank team members Diane Blair, Edie Haslauer, and David Kiddle for all their efforts and support during our trip. And thank you again donors, for continuing to make the dream and vision of Murray and Margaret Dryden a reality, and allowing 7,000 children to know that they are loved. Impressions of India India is an old country, full of old grey hills like greying old bones. The lifeless trees stand forlorn and dust-covered, waiting for the rain that will come one day - not next week, not next month, but three months away. The poor rice farmers patiently wait. Everybody waits. Every day seems hotter than the last. By ten o'clock the sun is already hot and the sky is like brass.
We drive on, hoping to get to our destination early but we never do. We take back roads. When there comes a fork in the road, we always take "the road less travelled." We lurch and crash through craters, not potholes. The dust rises and we keep the windows closed and the air on. At last we arrive at the village, small in size. It exists here for no apparent reason. This piece of land looks just as barren as the last piece. We arrive at the school to be met by five hundred children: five hundred pairs of soft brown eyes watching our every move as we set up.
The children are nervous. Some have never seen white people up close. Big white faces, large white hands, hold frail brown limbs, some so thin we feel they would break if we grip them too tightly. We sometimes coax a smile and five hundred *namastes later we are finished. The people of the village still hang around. We are the only show in town. They've never seen this before. If there were a newspaper we'd be in it. We drive off along the wandering road again, lurching over rocks. We may see somebody walking: perhaps a man in a clean white shirt and pressed pants, or an elegant woman carrying water pots on her head. More often we see a bent old woman carrying a load of sticks. We drive on through village after village, no particular feature or pattern ... just one more village. We may see men breaking rocks with sledge hammers - pile after pile to be broken. But it's work, and somebody gets paid for it. On a more modern road, where a $250,000 paving machine is at work, we wonder how the rock breakers and the expensive machine can exist side by side. We see ditches being dug by machines - a mile away, people are digging the same trench by hand: hauling out 200-pound rocks. Still the sun beats down; every day the same. We say, "Are we there yet?" But we are never really there; we are just passing through. We will leave soon and forget about this place. They, with their goats and cows, will remain - waiting for rain that will eventually fall. One day we get to the shore of the Arabian Sea. The water is flat and grey, almost lifeless. It seems that even this sea waits for the monsoon. No waves crash on the shore. The sea is waiting and watching just like the people. No gulls wheel and call; no pelicans dive into the warm water. Stillness prevails "and no birds sing."
One day we are in the city. We see more in one hour than we've seen in three weeks but this is unusual. We don't do Taj Mahals and Red Forts. We do byways and back roads. It's quieter and we like it that way. Rotary - Our Overseas Partner Rotary is a worldwide organization that provides humanitarian service. It is made up of business and professional leaders who encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace around the world. Rotary has about 1.2 million members with 31,000 clubs in about 166 different countries.
On this SCAW distribution, Rotary and SCAW had the opportunity once again for teamwork. Rotary and SCAW have been working together for 35 years to deliver bedkits to the children of India In my opinion, it is a true blessing to see the dynamics of teamwork between Rotary and SCAW.
Having had the opportunity to spend time with various Rotarians from over sixty clubs in India and sharing stories about the work that goes into preparing for a SCAW distribution, I saw this teamwork in action. The Rotary clubs involved in the SCAW project spend one year preparing for a distribution. A SCAW committee is formed and a chairperson along with 6-12 committee members are assigned to the SCAW project. Each member is assigned various tasks to facilitate the SCAW distribution.
Rotary tasks for a SCAW Distribution:
Children Selection
SCAW Distribution Day
When you read the task list you begin to have an appreciation of how much time, planning, organizing and effort the Rotarians dedicate to the SCAW project. They work extremely hard to follow the exact guidelines set by SCAW. Rotarians are extremely kind and dedicated individuals. The SCAW project is only one of the many community and international service projects that each Rotary club makes possible and completes successfully on a yearly basis. I feel genuinely privileged to have met and worked with all the Rotarians that took part in the SCAW project. There are no words to describe the gratitude and respect I have for each and every one involved. SCAW distributions in India are successful because of the teamwork between SCAW and Rotary. The inspired teamwork that began 35 years ago in Pune, India between Murray Dryden and Shamaldas Parekh continues today. Thank you, Rotary.
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Namaste, (pronounced “namastay”) is a greeting and a blessing spoken with palms pressed together near the heart while bowing to the person being addressed. One holds one's head up during this greeting to make eye contact. This greeting often occurs when our team arrives at a distribution site and we are meeting the volunteers, the children, their parents, and others for the first time. The person greeted in this way responds with the same greeting
