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We initially arrived in Barmer to assist and observe during the five-day in-residence Craft Manager Workshop that Rangsutra held. Women practiced several skills during the workshop, in addition to learning about fair wages and other compliance standards that Rangsutra workers must follow.<\/p><\/div>\n
As soon as we enter the villages, a group of women pile into the room, all of them staring straight at us and chuckling and whispering\u2014not so quietly\u2014to their friends. Obviously, we can\u2019t understand a word, but thanks to Mukesh, our translator here who understands the local language, a dialect of Marwadi, we are able to communicate with the villagers. Whenever we introduce ourselves, people always ask clarifying questions about my background. After all, how on earth is it possible that I look Indian, but am also from America?!<\/p>\n
Mukesh chuckles slightly, and explains that my family is originally from India. This is often followed up with a question from the other end of the spectrum, as someone or the other generally asks if Grace and I are related.<\/p>\n
Then, the women wonder why on earth Grace isn\u2019t working earrings\u2014or any jewelry for that matter. The women here are adorned head to toe, and as we have learned through our interviews, they often save money to buy gold jewelry in the future.<\/p>\n
The women are generally quick to ask about our families, which is always a fun topic to discuss. There is a lot of importance placed on family here\u2014people simply would not survive if families did not work together to do what is best for each other, and it is inspirational to hear stories about how family members support each other. When word gets out that I am an only child, they all stare at me with a brief look of shock and pity combined, and hurriedly whisper to each other. I can only remember interviewing one woman here who only had one child.<\/p>\n
Once the women settle down, we introduce our action research. Our goal is to obtain a baseline socioeconomic assessment of conditions in Barmer, because Rangsutra is just beginning to start working in the area. Rangsutra is already well established in other cities like Bikaner and Varanasi, but working in Barmer allows us to create a baseline to compare future impact. It is important for any social enterprise, and any organization, for that matter, to understand the impact that they have made to date so that they to they can understand where they need to improve, as well as plan to invest time, energy, and money in the right areas of their organization. Most importantly, expressing the impact to date is crucial for a social enterprise to gain investors.<\/p>\n
At this point, we have interviewed over a hundred women in Barmer. Something that I have found frustrating about crafting and implementing survey questions is that despite how clever you may feel while preparing questions, it is completely impractical to assume that you are controlling for every variable. If you did implement a survey that tried to control for every possible nuanced difference in responses, you would have a survey that is pages long, and collect such specific data that it would hardly be useful or paint a clear picture. Our survey questions tend to center around how much income women earn compared to the rest of their household, and how women spend their money compared to other earners in their household. There is a difference between a woman being the primary earner in her family because her job is more stable than her husband\u2019s job, and a woman being the primary earner in her family because her husband passed away. Similarly, there is a difference between a woman never visiting a doctor in her life because she has had great health, compared to a woman who has never visited the doctor because she can not afford to. There are several clarification questions I wish I could ask women during interviews, but then the issue of uniformity in the interviewing technique arises. I am confident in the way that we are grouping like answers together while collecting survey responses, and know that similar techniques are used throughout academia. But sometimes, avoiding small details still hurts. I wish every data point we collected could have a footnote with additional information.<\/p>\n
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We have learned that huts made primarily from cow dung tend to remain the coolest throughout the heat.<\/p><\/div>\n
![\"At](\"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/sbodapati\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_5209-300x200.jpg\")
At every center we visit, we are always offered a fresh cup of chai. Mamta, the girl in this picture, is 18 years old. We have visited the center where she works several times. One day, we watched as she prepared chai for us. We were quite surprised when the first thing she did was grab a pail and chase after a goat–for milk to make the tea!<\/p><\/div>\n
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This is my favorite picture that I have taken throughout this fellowship. It is very simple, but I think its a picture that truly speaks a thousand words–about what Rangsutra has achieved. Because of her stable income through Rangsutra, this mother is able to send her daughter to school and take care of her family–with a genuine smile on her face.<\/p><\/div>\n
Overall, interviewing women to collect data for our assessment has been an enjoyable process. I really enjoy asking women how old they are and then asking them how old their eldest child is\u2014they nearly always respond with ages and numbers that don\u2019t quite make sense or add up, but I enjoy creating a timeline to help them approximate how old they actually are. There are several women here who are the primary earners in their household and several women who are paying for their children to go to school. One thing I have noticed is that many women who earn more than their husband or are primary earners are reluctant to speak about their dominant income. They simply respond by saying something along the lines of, \u201cthere is nothing to it\u2014if there is a need that needs to be fulfilled, I will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, we were in Bikaner for a day to conduct interviews in the craft centers that are located in restricted areas bordering Pakistan. We had to apply for permission to visit this restricted area a month in advance. Applying for permission meant several trips to local government offices, physically transporting documents between police stations to expedite the timeline of the process, several phone calls to various people, and several days of visiting the local government office with the hope of receiving word about whether or not the authorities had reached a decision about our request. When we did finally hear that we were granted permission to visit the restricted areas in Bikaner on July 21st and 22nd, it was already 13:00 on July 21st. Within an hour, we arranged a cab and packed our bags to head straight to Bikaner\u2014a seven hour drive from Barmer. One thing that I have noticed through this permission-process is that there are several things that people in India patiently tolerate that many people back home simply would not have the patience for.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, we made the most of our time in Bikaner, where there were several established Rangsutra craft centers. Interestingly enough, the villages had names such as \u201c2AD,\u201d where the numbers and letters corresponded to certain stops along the water canal that ran through the region. One general observation I noticed was that in Barmer, we heard several stories about women who were able to hold their ground against abusive or alcoholic husbands because they were earning their own income. In Bikaner, where Rangsutra has been making progress for years, we heard no such stories. Perhaps this is because our sample size in Bikaner was small, or perhaps it was because there was a greater sense of female empowerment and respect that husbands show toward their wives because of the impact Rangsutra has made after working in the area. I look forward to analyzing our data in depth in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
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A beautiful desert landscape during the journey from Barmer to Bikaner.<\/p><\/div>\n
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While in Bikaner, we met the “poster-girl” for Rangsutra. She has been working with the organization for years.<\/p><\/div>\n
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As I mentioned earlier, I have fallen in love with the beauty of the Thar Desert. Driving around the restricted areas in Bikaner was particularly beautiful, as was the ride between Barmer and Bikaner. During every car drive, I peer out of the window with keen eyes, admiring the beautiful desert animals–peacocks, goats, camels, and mules, to name a few–and I appreciate the small shrubs and patches of greenery that adorn the golden sand. This is quite a surprising statement coming from a city-girl like myself, but one thing I have really gained through the past few weeks is a sense of appreciation for nature. I love being woken up by the sound of the small brown desert birds chirping. A couple weeks ago, I saw a peacock fly across the road right in front of our car as we were driving down a highway. Today, I attempted to chase a peacock through the desert with my camera, trying to get a close-up glimpse of its breathtaking beauty. It rained last night, so the peacocks seemed to have come out of their shelters a little more than usual. Throughout the day today, we could hear the sound of distant peacocks and peahens cooing. It was amazing.<\/p>\n
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I wouldn’t have expected to see peacocks in the desert, but they are certainly a very pleasant surprise.<\/p><\/div>\n
As a final thought, I have been thinking a lot about the following quote by Maya Angelou through the past few weeks: \u201cI’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.\u201d I may not be able to directly communicate with the people we interact with, but I can smile, spread warmth, and try to help them feel proud of what they are doing for themselves and their families.<\/p>\n
![\"I](\"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/sbodapati\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_5925-300x200.jpg\")
I hope that these women never lose hope, and always have a reason to keep smiling.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four weeks ago when I first arrived in Barmer, I described it as \u201cthe middle of nowhere,\u201d a \u201cplace with only one road that goes through it\u201d and \u201csand covered in small unruly shrubs.\u201d But now, all I can think … Continue reading