Ahmedabad

This week I joined the staff of my NGO on an exposure visit to Ahmedabad. We're visiting an extremely innovative and impressive NGO called SEWA (pronounced seva), Self Employed Women's Association. SEWA goal is to organize female workers in the informal sector. I was amazed to learn that only about 7% of the Indian labor force works in the formal sector, which includes government and private industry. The rest of Indians work in the informal sector which includes everything from domestic workers, to street-vendors, handcraft-makers, midwives, agricultural laborers, auto-rickshaw drivers and the like. SEWA's goal is to promote the self-sufficiency and self-reliance of female workers in this sector and much of their work uses a market-based entrepreneurial approach. For example, SEWA will organize agricultural laborers into a cooperative, which will buy the product from the farmers and sell directly to traders in the market thereby cutting out middlemen and supporting higher prices for the agricultural laborers themselves. SEWA also operates a highly successful bank and insurance company, both of which develop financial products to meet the needs of poor, working women.



I of course was very interested in the insurance products offered. (If you don't also love insurance, you can skip this paragraph) SEWA Insurance has about 120 agents which they call Aagewans, or barefoot agents (barefoot because the agents go directly to the customers' homes and communities, where shoes are removed, on average the agents visit the household 3 times to explain benefits before the policy is purchased). They offer several insurance schemes, all are packages covering many household needs. The products are available to SEWA members (women only), who can choose to extend coverage to their husbands and children. The most popular (91%) is the lowest premium/lowest limit combination: 400 rupees premium per year ($8) covers the woman, husband and one child for the following limits (in dollars): life- 10,000 rupees ($200) for wife and husband; health - 2,000 rupees ($40) for each family member, House - 10,000 rupees ($200), Accidental death - 40,000 rupees ($1000) for wife and husband. SEWA Insurance has over 103,000 women as policyholders. They have a staff of only 75 plus the 120 agents. SEWA has found that this type of micro-insurance scheme provides essential economic support to poor, working families. In addition to helping those with claims, insurance plays a important role in the communities SEWA serves because it encourages women to begin planning for the future, rather than simply living day to day.



In other news, tonight is Christmas Eve. So strange it is to be in a land where Christmas is a non-event. There are Christians here but Christianity itself is not highly visible, and certainly not visible in the way of an American Christmas. Actually, there are three Christians who traveled in our group of 17 to Gujarat. I was surprised that this trip was planned for Christmas week but no one else commented. I spoke with the 3 Christian ladies about being away from their families for Christmas and they were sad about it but each felt it was their duty to participate in the exposure visit. As someone accustomed to being a member of a minority religion as well, I empathized with them and helped them locate a church in Ahmedabad where they could attend services for Christmas eve. The gratefulness they expressed for this small gesture absolutely made my day.

Yoga

This morning I attended my first yoga class in India. It took a while to find the right yoga center but now I think I have it. All credit for finding the center goes to my clever and resourceful friend Debbie (and long-lost near relative), who pointed out that the ashram we plan to visit has a branch center practically in my backyard. Actually, I'm finding that this is a trend - things I desire that seem very far away are actually very close at hand. I was recently wishing there were a western-style coffee house in my neighborhood and BAM - my neighbor points out just such a coffee house on an evening walk. I needed to fill a prescription and asked a colleague where a chemist is located, expecting a trek across town. Turns out there is one at the end of the block that I walk past all the time. I think what's happening is that I expect a coffee shop or a drug store to look like a coffee shop or a drug store from home, but instead they look really different here.

Back to yoga. Class this morning was at 6AM. It was still dark out as we made our way over to the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre, located 1 block from the beach in an open-air gazebo-like structure. In the front of the gazebo, there was a puja area with pictures of various Hindu gods. The pictures themselves were draped in flowers as is the style here and there were candles burning. There were also pictures on the wall representing most of the world's religions. Instead of sticky mats people rolled out straw mats for their practice, although I did see one woman with a sticky mat on top of her straw mat. I think I might do that next time as I found the straw mat a bit pokey. Aside from a friendly German man who works for the center, we were the only western-looking people there.

Overall the class followed a pretty familiar routine. Class started off with Ohms and then breathing exercises. We spent quite a lot of time focusing on breathing and I found the breathing exercises pretty challenging. It was terrific to be able to hear the birds chirping and feel the sea air on my skin. By the time I opened my eyes after the breathing routines, the sun had started to rise and the lush greenery surrounding the center was becoming visible. Next we moved into sun salutations, followed by leg lifts, headstand, shoulderstand, fish, backbends balance postures and shavasana. Class followed a pretty mellow pace and lasted about an hour and a half.

After yoga, we walked back along the beach, buying fresh young coconut along the way. The vendor used his machete to cut off the top of the coconut and handed it back to us with straws. For breakfast we made a fruit salad from papaya, pineapple and bananas purchased the night before. I felt ready to greet the day.

Happy Birthday Mom!

In addition to being my mom's birthday, today was also Tamil Nadu's Hanukkah, Karthigai Deepam. (It's not actually anything like Hanukkah, except being a festival of lights.) In the evening there were special celebrations in honor of the Hindu lord Shiva -- the temples were lit up with thousands of small oil lamps and people also lit lanterns in front of their homes. It was really beautiful. I celebrated with my colleague Chitra's family and went to temple with them. Afterwards her kids set off a ton of fireworks which of course made me extremely nervous. Luckily we all made it through.

Routine

It's been extra-ordinary four weeks since I arrived in India. Last week Chennai experienced massive flooding due to monsoon. As a result I was house-bound with intermittent power supply but plenty of good company.

Now I am beginning to settle into a bit of a routine. I know where to buy corn flakes, soy milk and dried pasta, I have a favorite restaurant ("hotel"), and I know how to direct autos so they take me home. These things may sound trivial but they took a long time to figure out! There have been lots of pleasant discoveries. There is a terrific beach for morning walks less than a kilometer from where I am staying - a peaceful pedestrian street along the sea that fills up with walkers (human and bovine) around 7AM.


Everywhere in the city extremely comfortable lightweight cotton clothing can be found at very low prices. There's an ironing wallah (man ironing behind a stand on the street) a few doors down from my office who irons my clothes for 3 rupees (6 cents) per garment. There is tea each afternoon that is milky and sweet and sometimes arrives with a piping hot samosa. My office is very near one of India's preeminent dance schools, just gearing up for the winter concert series. It is a good life!