As I already told before, India is so big and has many different things to be discovered, from the pure Comunism from North Corea to the colorful India with its castes.
It has been a bit more than one month, but days have run, it has been very intense and full of experiences. India is very big, but I just confined my time to know Koilkuntla and its people. Koilkuntla is a rural village and most of the population work on farming and cattle farming. Far from the image of big cities as Delhi, and from what many people can imagine about India, here people do not starve oneself. There is poverty and few development, but it is a small village and a rural area where there is not the extreme poverty one could find in the big cities. Quite the opposite, everybody is very warm and welcome you to their home to have a “chai“. Although we were the only white people in the village, and the police was more worried about us than about its people, we never had any problem, not even the previous volunteers. One of the main characteristics of this area is hospitality and warmth.
Nowadays, social rules still remain in a tradictional way. Here is remarcable differences between rural areas and cities. India is a country that divides, still now, the society in castes. We could say that, as higher is the caste higher is the social satus and therefore everything related on the everyday life. In this area, Karnul district, many people belong to the caste of “dalits“, one of the poorest and excluded by the society, what means low access to education and qualified jobs.
This division is also noticeable among men and women. At school, boys and girls are separated; arranged marriages are still common, with young girls who give up the studies to devote herself to the house and family; widows socialy stigmatized… These are social rules that, even if one can think they are unfair and retrograde, one has to accept and respect if you want to live with a society and a culture different from yours.
Just married couple. She is 16 years old, and look how happy she is…
Even if I alreday knew I was going to a rural area, one of the things that impressed me the most is the surprise or admiration by some people when they saw white people. Some villages have never seen before white people and they came to touch you and take your hand. And even worst when they see a camera… they are very serious and then they laugh of themselves when seeing the pictures at the same moment. Ah! And we were on the local newpapers different times :)
Volunteering
Well, some of you already know my vocation as a social worker and this year I couldn’t resist to leave once again to work in an international development project. This time I have been with Haribala NGO, which basically works with sponsorships of children from Koilkuntla and nearby villages. If you want to learn more things about the sponsorships, you can have a look to their website (it will be soon updated), and if you want to know about the everyday life of Koilkuntla check its blog out.
They currently sponsor around 400 children, that means that they can go to school, school fees and material is payed by the organization, and if they have to go to the doctor any expense is covered. Thanks to these donations, every child have an education that in other circumstances they would remain at home taking care of their relatives or working on the field or family business.
Finally this year, the organization opened the shelter for children. Those who have a more complicated case, most of them are orphans, can stay in the center. Now, there are already 20 children, and in the afternoons it is full of children who come to play and do their homework.
Apart from that, many activities and games are organized to allow all children to participate, even if they are sponsored or not, as a big birthday party celebrated every month.
The project
Besides daily tasks of going to school, doing homework, cleaning of bedrooms and common areas… children are the protagonist of different projects held at the same time. This August happened to be a very active month due to many volunteers stayed there. Everyone participated by carrying out its own project with children or related to the center. From painting the walls of the building to supervise the works, or doing audiovisual activities or dancing classes.
With Elisa, a real photographer, and the help of a couple of volunteers, we held the project of pictures. Thanks to a donation of second hand digital cameras we could held photography courses with children and other activities. Actually, we did not need to teach them many things, thay took the cameras as if they do it every day!! By groups, all children had their opportunity to try the cameras and take pictures in different places, they learnt how to take pictures with tripod and use the timer. To complete the project we organized a photo competition in which every child chose its own photo and then they selected the 3 winners.
Here you are a video made by Elisa with the pictures selected by them:
Some tourism
India has many places to visit and I couldn’t ressit myself to visit one of the 7 wonders of the world: the Taj Mahal. I know is the most touristic place of India, but I could not miss it because it would be like visiting Barcelona and do not see the Sagrada Familia.
It is a very touristic place indeed, with many tourists and lots of security, but there were more local tourists than foreigners actually. No wonder, as you have to pay 750 rupies being an international tourist (around 12€) instead of the 20 rupies that Indian pay (around 30 cents of euro). Apart form that, white people are also part of the show and from time to time people take pictures of you, sometimes not even asking you, as if you were one stone more of the building.
Well, it is one of these places that until you are not there you do not know what to think about it. To be honest, being there and know a bit of the history was impressive.
Here you have some more pictures of the mausoleum, but with pulpito! ;)
Note: comments on the pictures are missing, soon they will appear!
Written by Anna
4 Comments
Maria
Sep 15, 2011, 6:54
Que chulo el post y las fotos! un año pequeña, nos vamos juntas! besos
Magda
Sep 15, 2011, 10:11
Anna, U did something wonderful and ur pictures are amazing too. Not really like travel photos but photographs taken by heart of people who feel very comfortable with u over there. we can feel it just by watching them. . it’s precious. .. NO u are precious girl. Can’t wait to see more photos from ur project? GOOD LUCK ON UR coming JOURNEY. ??????????
Lourdes
Sep 17, 2011, 22:13
Molt xules les fotos són de concurs com diu el Carles :) Gràcies a tu i al Albert puc viatjar des de casa, a més de fer-me venir a la Xina i al Japó!!
Abili i Carme
Sep 18, 2011, 18:09
Molt interessant tot plegat. Les fotos criden l’atenció pel seu detallisme.
El”Pulpito” ens fa enveja, ja que segueix els viatges en primera línia.
Amb tot plegat ens has convençut per apadrinar un nen o nena a través dels
responsables d’Haribala a Mataró.
Que chulo el post y las fotos! un año pequeña, nos vamos juntas! besos
Anna, U did something wonderful and ur pictures are amazing too. Not really like travel photos but photographs taken by heart of people who feel very comfortable with u over there. we can feel it just by watching them. . it’s precious. .. NO u are precious girl. Can’t wait to see more photos from ur project? GOOD LUCK ON UR coming JOURNEY. ??????????
Molt xules les fotos són de concurs com diu el Carles :) Gràcies a tu i al Albert puc viatjar des de casa, a més de fer-me venir a la Xina i al Japó!!
Molt interessant tot plegat. Les fotos criden l’atenció pel seu detallisme.
El”Pulpito” ens fa enveja, ja que segueix els viatges en primera línia.
Amb tot plegat ens has convençut per apadrinar un nen o nena a través dels
responsables d’Haribala a Mataró.