Setrawa

I seem to keep ending up in small towns with no atms but sandy streets, beautiful sand dunes and wonderful people. Setrawa is a small village north of the city Jodhpur. Until 4 years ago there were no foreigners here and today the only foreigners are the volunteers with Sambali Trust. The people of Setrawa have graciously welcomed us into their daily life. We've been part of a wedding, settled into routine at school and cared for by our host families. It is hard to walk down the street without hearing "hallo", "hi Jen", or "mera ghar" (which means my house and is generally an invitation for tea). The streets are virtually traffic free unless you include goats, cows, camels, peacocks and dogs who all roam freely. 

Daily life
Everything is completely different than life back home. There is no furniture in any of the houses. Instead there are mats that get moved around the house depending on where people want to sit. There isn't much clutter of things so all the rooms are quite spacious. Our house, like most has a temple where someone in the family prays to a God twice a day. There is much less garbage than back home because toilet paper and Kleenex are non-existent. There is no garbage pick up so the small amount of garbage produced is burnt or tossed in the streets where the cows, goats and people pick through it. There is no such thing as a hot water tap. To heat water for showers I place an electrical probe in a bucket of water. It is impressive how little water you need to take a shower. In my host family is Usha (she teaches at Sambali school), her brother Moti (studying agriculture at college) and their parents. Her mom doesn't speak English but always gives me a big smile when I come home. I'm learning little bits of Hindi but we use mostly actions to communicate. The Dad has been gone for the past couple of weeks. It is a small family but like every other home the door is usually wide open all day. Various neighbors, family members, or friends stop by to visit or help with a task. 

My mornings begin with a cup of tea followed by a spicy breakfast. It is surprising how much I like the spicy kick to start the day off, although I am starting to crave some eggs. After a relaxing morning I head to school to prepare lessons. It is quite nice to have more than 15 minutes to get ready for my day and always wake up completely rested. I come home for a yummy lunch, usually chapattis and a spicy vegetable stew. Then Usha and I head to school. The first class is the Dahlit girls, from the "untouchable caste".  These girls have never been to school before and come from families that can't afford to send their kids to school. They have just been going to Sambali for 3 months are learning to read and write Hindi, English and basic math. When they arrive at 1 we help them brush their teeth and wash their hands, feet and hair. After it is fun to have everyone braiding and helping brush each other's hair. Then we have lessons and end with some games or dancing. They love trying to teach us how to dance and laugh when we mimic their moves. Next month 6 of these girls will be sponsored to attend private school. 
Next we have the afterschool classes. These are girls who attend school but want extra English help.   I teach the advanced class (conjunctions, opposite words, how to write question etc.). It is tricky because some girls are older so there is a variety of levels in the class. Amelia teaches basic English (shapes, colors, to be verb) and Usha teaches letters and spelling to the smallest girls. It is quite the magical setting to have about 40 students keen to go to school afterschool to improve their English. On Friday we play games and on Saturdays we run workshops.

When I come home from school around 7:00 there is usually five or six of the neighboring kids playing in the street. They run over and greet me. I usually play a couple games out in the street with them and sometimes they wander into our house to continue playing (or just to stare at me if I'm too tired to play). Mangu, the neighbor across the street and mother of 2 or 3 of the children often also greets me or stops by our house in the evening to say hello. She has an incredible smile and always seems happy. Our conversations are limited mostly to "ap kaise ho" (how are you) but we always try to communicate a bit more through actions and pointing.
Then around 8:30 we have dinner. Usha and her mom make a container full of chapattis, a pot of vegetable stew and chapattis. Sometimes they let me help, although my chapattis never seem to be perfectly round. We all sit on the floor and are served one by one. The notion of "wait until everyone is seated" doesn't exist. Instead people are served in specific order, guests, men, women, children. This is something I don't like about Indian culture, I prefer eating with everyone at once. Although sometimes once Moti and I have eaten a few chapattis Usha and her mom will start too. The rest of the evening I spend with the family before falling asleep to the sound of crickets and the occasional dog fight. 

Happy holi!
During our travels before Setrawa any Indian we met invited us to their hometown for holi. It seems like everyone thinks their holi celebration is the best. Luckily we were here in Setrawa where it actually was the best day yet! The day before we bought bags of powdered colors in anticipation. The holi morning we were sipping our tea when Sonu and Samta (sambali girls) rushed inside and rubbed colors on our faces. Usha's mom sent us all up to the roof. Across the street it looked like war, about 10 teenage boys appeared. They were all colored head to toe in pink, red and other colors. They had water guns and were shooting colors at each other. At the appearance of the boys the girls all ran back downstairs. On holi boys mix their colors with kerosene instead of water (which stains the skin and clothes for weeks). Either way boys and girls play holi separately. Just then a gang of shouting girls from Sambali came running down our street. They were covered head to toe in colors. We joined them. Everyone rubbed colors on each other's faces and clothes and said "happy holi!". We went around from house to house ambushing other friends and covering them too in bright colors. When the colors ran out it became a water fight. Conveniently there are taps outside most houses, perfect for water fights! The only tradition of holi I don't understand is why everyone cleans their house top to bottom the week before holi, because no matter how much mothers try to barricade front doors the colors end up everywhere! It is a few days later and still some front porches are stain red or purple. After the colors we spent a couple hours scrubbing the colors out of our hair and off our skin. We did the initial was in the street until the soap coming out of our hair was no longer pink. Today some girls are still a little pink behind the ear or have nails stained an unnatural red. After we were clean we enjoyed a relaxing Sunday afternoon. In the evening we joined Usha and her mom as they walked around town and visited various friends and relatives to wish them happy holi. We returned home full or chai and sweets and exhausted after such a colorful day. 

Being girly
Over the past couple of years some people have suggested to me about how I should try wearing some jewelry, dresses etc. Now I had stubbornly ignored most of those suggestions until now. In India gender roles are so clearly defined and genders are for the most part segregated in social activities. So hanging out mostly with women has rubbed off on me and most days I wear Salazar suits (a dress that goes to above the knee with pants/tights underneath) a dupatta (light scarf) and bangles to match. I have beautiful henna on my arm. Many of the girls are very talented at henna. Usha who is a beautician as well even threaded our eyebrows.