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Field Report From Kesavanpalem, Tamil Nadu |
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Srinivas Mirle, AID-Cincinnati, Jan 19, 2004
Tamil was the first language I learnt - and forgot. I was five
when my family moved from Madras to Bombay. My baby Tamil,
or the remnants of it, helped me immensely during my five days in
Kesavanpalem. It particularly helped me in befriending the kids
who were either amused by my broken Tamil or were keen on improving my
Tamil. For instance, when I pointed to the sea, barely half a
kilometer away, and said "Thani" (water), they instructed me on the
more specific term "Kadal" (sea).
At the start of the week, the children looked at our group of AID
volunteers with nervous shyness. It had only been two weeks since
the tragic tsunami came out of nowhere and they seemed to be in
differing degrees of shock. They had been in a relief camp but
had to came back to Kesavanpalem when the camp shut down. Apart
from a dozen or so homes with concrete walls that survived, all the
other (65 or so) homes were completely washed away. In all the
homes, all their possessions were completely destroyed and nine lives
were lost to the onslaught of the tsunami water. AID volunteers
constructed 30 tents with supplies provided by the Holy Bible Institute
and the tents became temporary homes for many families. Further
work on the tents was stopped as the government started building two
large semi-permanent structures, each supposedly capable of
accommodating 45 families.
Once the tent construction work stopped, the AID volunteer team (which
I was asked to lead) focused on improving morale, especially among the
kids, on helping with disinfecting surrounding areas, on cleaning up
the village and on trying to address unmet needs to the extent
possible. Another important responsibility was in
completing the PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) for Kesavanpalem -
AID is partnering with several other NGO's to create a detailed
database based on observations and interviews that can better guide the
rehabilitation process.
We started activities with a few kids and, in a few minutes,
practically all the village kids had joined us in singing, playing
games and participating in whatever activities the diverse volunteers
(on that day, 9 of us from different parts of India as well as from the
US, Canada and England) could think of. We sang silly songs and
they joined in willingly. We played "Follow the Leader". We
wanted them to sing songs they knew but they were struggling to pick a
song; I asked if they knew the Indian National Anthem and they promptly
launched into a gusto-filled and somewhat raucous rendering that many
of us joined in.
From then on, the kids were our companions. They wanted to hold
our hands, they wanted to play more games and were eager to learn the
different craft activities that Jodie, Casey, Jennifer and others came
up with. The resilience of the kids was remarkable and these
Dalit (unfortunately, a marginalized community that lives in isolation
and that typically takes on menial jobs; see my Jan 12 report) children
were affectionate, smart, full of hope and had electric smiles that lit
up their innocent faces.
As the week went by, volunteers got assigned to other villages but some
of us continued to visit Kesavanpalem everyday at least for part of the
day. We tried to come up with different activities and their
enthusiasm ran highest when participating in competitive group
activities such as relay races. The older children loved playing
Kabbadi, an Indian game that involves two teams with marked areas to
defend; a member of the opposite team intrudes and tries to tap people,
who are then out, while trying to avoid being nabbed. One of our
volunteers was a Buddhist novitiate, Subaga, from the northeastern
India state of Tripura and he was dubbed "Jackie Chan" by the kids for
his Oriental looks and his athletic prowess.
Some of us (Daniel, a world-travelled monk of Belgian origin; Shirish,
one of a dozen or so Colgate employees from Mumbai; and I, on personal
leave from P&G in Cincinnati, USA.) were determined to involve the
villagers in cleaning the village. We obtained 18 buckets and
thought that we would take turns to collect garbage but this did not
elicit much enthusiasm. We then offered the reward of a pen to
the child who collected the most paper/plastic bags/containers and laid
down some other ground rules (e.g., clothes were collected in a
separate pile for craft activities); the kids went off with much
excitement to collect trash or "kuppai", as they taught me.
The kids would talk excitedly about playing on the beach and in the sea
but they said they were also still afraid. We acknowledged their
fears as one cannot begin to imagine the shock of seeing the same
placid sea they have known all their years suddenly charge towards them
as a moving mountain of water, of having to grab loved ones and of
running as fast as humanly possible. We showed them a Tamil
newspaper article that described a geology professor's declaration of
no tsunami for at least twenty years. In order to shore up their
confidence, we also went down to the beach with the kids and two of us
went swimming in the water.
The fear of the tsunami surfaced at two am last Wednesday when a few
drunken people started yelling tsunami warnings and running. Word
spread like wildfire and the sleeping folks stirred and scrambled in
the dark. Next morning, many of then showed us cuts and
bruises. With prompt help from Hima, a volunteer from Colgate, at
the AID Relief Coordination Center and the local government, a clinical
team arrived and provided medical attention.
In Kesavanpalem, there is a strong sub-culture of violence and we smelt
alcohol on the breath of some men. The slightest disagreement or
provocation can lead to physical altercation between men, between women
and between the sexes. Of course, the kids clearly mirror the
behaviour of adults. In all our activities, we reinforced the
need for each one of us to be able to express our minds and to be able
to disagree. We noticed that the pushing and jostling had
decreased by the end of the week.
The children and the youth of Kesavanpalem are bright and capable and,
with the right opportunities, I believe they would demonstrate their
potential. For example, Brabu is a young electrician who has
supplemented the few government-installed streetlights with additional
lights at several areas of the village at his own cost. He asked
me if he could see how our digital video camera worked and was
operating it effortlessly in a few minutes. Raja, another
teenager, is extremely athletic and demonstrated his ability to do
backflips and other gymnastics.
Talking of opportunities, we were curious to see a busful of students
from a polytechnic in Rasipuram, about 250 km away. In
conversation, one of the polytechnic officials told me they were
providing some relief materials and were also taking ten young men with
them. I said that was wonderful that they were providing
educational opportunities for these Dalit youth. The official
pointed out that these youth were being provided menial jobs. I
said the jobs would help them and it would be great if even a few of
the youth got scholarships to study - a pipedream at least for the
present.
All week, we had been videotaping our activities and the villagers were
keen on viewing the footage. The village had been issued a brand
new TV by the government to replace the old one that was
waterlogged. Unfortunately, I did not have the specific type of
cable to connect the video camera to the TV. Brabu and Karthik, a
soft-spoken nineteen-year-old who looks 14, and others wanted to
connect an old cable that they said they could modify and I
declined. I asked several people and everyone said this specific
cable would only be available in Chennai; Karthik, however, was
confident we could get the cable in Karaikal and his friends
agreed. In India, it is hard to sometimes understand if
emphatically expressed statements have some basis in fact or are
largely conjectural. The villagers were so keen that Karthik,
Daniel, Subaga and I set off that evening for Karaikal. We
hitched a ride to Thangambadi, caught a 30-min bus to Karaikal and
walked a kilometer with a young man on the bus who knew exactly where
the store was located and, very kindly, insisted on leading us
there. With bated breath, I pulled out the video camera and we
all heaved sighs of relief when the shopkeeper produced the cable (cost
Rs 105 or about $2.50; a similar cable would be $10-$20 in the
US!). Back in the village, we all crammed in to the largest tent
where Brabu had provided lighting and he made all the audio-visual
arrangements. We stayed up late that night and watched the
tapes. It was a pleasure to see the villagers get excited each
time they saw one of their own on screen and to notice they really
relished each frame as it pertained to them and their village, even if
it seemed mundane!
The schools had not reopened yet and they are located some distance
away - the primary school is 1 km away and the high school is 3 km
away. The kids do go to school and the highest educated is a girl
who has passed her 12th. Several kids had stopped at the 10th or
dropped out earlier. Karthik said he had lost interest in
school and was planning to take up a job in Rasipuram. Further
education does not seem be an option for the children.
In terms of relief and rehabilitation, they were finding it difficult
to survive, as the days passed by, on the Rs 4000 and the bag of rice
provided by the government. AID provided them with additional
food materials and vegetables, as they requested. In the week,
several NGO's and the government had also stepped up their support and
Kesavanpalem had received several in-kind donations. While the
relief activities are largely complete, the rehabilitation needs are:
? counseling and mental health for all groups
? women's self-help groups
? livelihood for the previously employed; alternative
vocational training will be good as they largely worked as laborers in
loading/unloading fisherman boats or in the fields; both the fishing
and agriculture areas still need revival
? post-school enrichment activities for the kids
(AID plans to focus on the health and education aspects of rehabilitation.)
As they walked me to the bus-stop on my last day, I was pleasantly
surprised that Raja, the macho man, vocally thanked us for coming and
said that it meant a lot to them. Kesavanpalem also meant a lot
to me and I learnt a lot from the tenacity of their spirits and the
simplicity of their lives. Nantri, thank you, to Raja, Karthik,
Brabu and all our new friends in Kesavanpalem!
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