Message from your sponsor....in India

That's not an Indian Girl Scout in the picture. That's me trying on my single purchase in India so far- a simple cotton outfit that I wear almost everyday. I can wash it and it's dry in no time in this heat.

I'm still getting the hang of this blog software and I've made some edits to blogs I drafted earlier. So you may just want to scroll down a few entries just to see if something new has popped up out of sequence. You can also check the sidebar for topics. Make sure you check out the picture of Fr. Ravi holding the baby. He's my supervisor here.

I think about home everyday and I love all the emails that I get with news from the USA. My international email is:
Dawnmcnerney@live.com If you want to know anything specifically about my adventures here, just send me an email and I'll be happy to answer you.

yours truly,
It's Dawn in India

Mass Weddings in India

This couple is one of 55 poor couples who agreed to be married in a mass marriage at the Cathedral. It was an interdenominational ceremony as their were many different faiths involved. The Cathedral just happens to be large enough to hold everyone.

Only the very poor are eligible for this government sponsored program. When couples are married, both families host multiple celebrations so each side gets to know the other family. The entire village is invited because it takes a whole village to care for a marriage. Everyone gets involved as the new couple becomes part of the community. It's every one's responsibility that they are successful.

But the poor people often borrow to accomplish this and they can not repay the debt. This causes more poverty and results in all kinds of problems. So the government offers this special program. If the couple agrees to a mass marriage, the government will give them the clothes in the picture, some money to get started, and a number of gifts. Each family can only invite xx number of members to attend in exchange.

They all gather in the morning. Whole families come riding in wagons pulled by tractors decorated for the occasion. Brides went to the girls' boarding school and got ready with their mothers and sisters. it was a madhouse. Mothers were holding their daughters and crying, there was much scurrying around, brides were everywhere. The grooms got ready at the Cathedral. Father's were yelling at their sons to shake a leg, ties were tied,shirts tucked in, grooms were everywhere. Then there was a long procession of couples and their families to the cathedral led by a typical Indian band of clarinets and drums. it's quite a parade. It looked like a performance of Admiral King's marching band back in the old days- everyone out of step, out of tune and out of line.

Then the couples all gathered in the front pews while the families looked on from the back and in the windows. There is a short ceremony and the groom puts a heart necklace on the bride. They exchange flower garlands and they are showered from above with marigold petals and everyone throws rice...inside the church! It was a mess!

The government and the Church insist that girls must be at least 18 and boys must be 22 but they want to raise the ages. In the villages girls sometimes are as young as 12. If the parents want her out of the house, they lie about her age. There are no birth certificates so there is no proof. Ask a person in the village when someone was born and they may answer, "When the rains came or the year of the flood, or the year the Twin Towers fell in America."

Sitting there in the church during the ceremony, the couples looked about as excited as if they were watching paint dry. No one was smiling. They each went through the motions like they were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

I couldn't attend the celebration because of the heat. I was starting to get dehydrated again so I had to head back to the Bishop's house to protect myself. The party lasted until 3:00 and then everyone went back to the villages and the couples started their new lives.

and the Winner is....in India

for for Best Dance Number..............The local Folk Dancers from Andhra Pradesh
for Best Art Design.................The Hindu temple
for Best Costume......................The tribeswomen of Andhra Pradesh
for Best Set................................The ancient Fort of Golkonda, circa 1500 A.

Government Hospitals in India

Fr. Balaswamy and I made a quick two day trip to Hyderabad to purchase supplies for the new Bishop's house which is due to open in late March. Our driver's daughter is a nurse and he asked me several times over the two days if I wanted to see her hospital. I don't like to visit hospitals under the best of circumstances as I have been known to feint walking through empty ER departments. So I was pretty sure that I wasn't ready for an Indian government hospital but I finally relented and we went. Fr. declined to visit. Smart man.

The hospital is a former Queen's palace, now a 1500 bed general surgical hospital, no OB, no peds, no specialties like cancer. I'm guessing it was deeded over to the state sometime after the British pulled out in the 1940s but the building is much, much older than that. It apparently hasn't had a repair done to it since the Queen left town and it shows. Archtectually it's a stunning building. But the outside is covered in moss and broken stucco, tilework is coming off the inside walls, spit stains the corners of the corridors, stained glass windows are broken out of the entryway ceiling, and the grounds haven't seen a gardener in years and years.

Patients beds overflow into the halls. All wards are dormitory sytle. there is no such thing as privacy let along a private room. I visited the post-op department where two house doctors keep watch and two nurse take care of 60 patients, male and female in two long rows. No bed had a chart on the end. IV drips were running everywhere. They recouperate there for two or three days and then move down to less intensive care.

Ceiling fans provide the only air conditioning and the sun provides heat during the cold weather. The wards were mercifully cool but I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like when the summer months rolled around. The beds were all simple metal cots that looked like they were left over from WWI, or made the US Civil War.

Families are free to come and visit and to help provide care. Small groups were camped out in the halls having their meals on the floor while they took a break from overseeing their loved ones. But orange peels and other garbage gathered in the corners of the halls and fell down stair wells.

All care is provided for free I was told by my proud driver. I said it was amazing.

Genetics in India

Earlier I wrote about a home for disabled children that I visited. Some of the children were clearly victims of terrible accidents. But recently I've determined that the rest were probably victims of genetics.
Look closely at the little boy in the picture and you'll see that his skin tone is as white as mine. His hair is coal black but it's obvious that it's been dyed. His natural hair is platinum blond and he has some form of albinoism. I've seen a number of these children during my time here and I finally inquired as to the cause.

In a world where marriages are always arranged, families examine the consequences of a marriage very carefully. If land is involved in the transaction, a family may have first cousins marry in order to keep the land in the family. The price they pay is genetic malformations. It's not that they are unaware of the reproductive consequences. They understand them but to the land owners, it's deemed an acceptable price to pay. To the kids who suffer, I'm sure it is not such a fair deal.

This little boy was in an orphage and he was delighted to meet someone who looked like him. we had a good laugh about our "whiteness". But I do wonder how many of these children met with very early childhood fatalities.

Fundamentalists in India

Today is Ash Wednesday. For some, the term applies too literally.

India has had religious tolerance for 5,000 year. That is until about 1875 when some Hindu fundamentalists decided that India was only for Hindus. They reasoned that since both Islam and Christianity came from the Holy Lands, neither religion has any place in India.

The situation has since reached devastating proportions. In 1998, a mob of 5,000 attacked Christians setting fire to 92 houses and burning churches. Two Australian missionaries were burned to death. Their crime had been caring for lepers for the last 25 years. All of the lepers were Hindus. No one was ever converted.

Christians are forced to reconvert to Hinduism by drinking "holy cow urine mixed with dung" to counter the effects of communion on the body.

On Christmas Day in 2007, six people were killed and 100 homes burned. On August 25, 2008, 111 were beaten and two missionaries were set on fire. Their crime had been taking care of lepers for the last 10 years. None of the lepers were Christian.

Today, the Christian community lives in a tent city under the protection of the government until a "solution" is found. These are relief camps for the people who had to flee their homes and land in fear of killing. Sixty people were killed in further violence in November, 2008 and 20,000 were rendered homeless. Today around 10,000 people are still living in the camps. Priests from the Society of the Divine Word are secretly living among the refugees and attempting to minister to their needs. While the government has proposed compensation for the losses incurred, the Fundamentalists are already mobilizing a counter attack opposing the use of state tax money to support the victims. The interesting thing is that no one wants to talk about this issue. It's not in the press and even the Church doesn't seem to want to call attention to it in fear that more publicity will just fan the flames of reprisal. It makes me think of the classic poem during WWII about how no one protested when the Nazis rounded up different groups of people and no one protested. The last line is "And then they came for me". There was nobody left to protest.

This isn't a very good report on the situation and you can read more about it by googling "Orrisa Christian attacks". Historians, government officials and sociologists will tell you it's a complex situation rooted in the ancient past and woven into the culture. But as an accountant, my general rule is always "follow the money". Scratch the surface just a little and you'll find that the castes with money are mad because the Church is taking away its cheap labor. By trying to fight for human rights for the Christians, by educating them, and giving them skills, the Church is attempting to elminate poverty. Poverty means people will work for nothing but food. I'm pretty sure this is called "slavery" and you know what happened in the US when someone tried to "free the slaves". It's always about economics even when its about religion.

India is a dangerous place right now and we haven't heard the end of the Fundamentalists.
As you enter the season of Lent, remember to be thankful that you can express your beliefs without fear in the USA, even if you have no beliefs.

Girls in India

The village girls in the picture might be all smiles but they have had the bad luck to have been born female in India where boys are clearly preferred.

While the Church is working on empowering women, the government has created a campaign to "Save the girl child". Last week the paper carried a story of a baby girl who had been buried alive by her parents. She was the 14th child and they did not another girl. Someone found the baby and today she is back at home with her parents who are receiving government-supported counseling. For every one that is saved, who knows how many are not?

What exactly is so wrong with girls according to the locals?

• Girls are more expensive to maintain supposedly than boys. They must have pretty saris, earrings, bangles and ankle bracelets.
  
• The family must raise a dowry in order for another family to take a daughter off their hands. Dowries are expensive.
• Girls can't help to provide security for the family in the event of an attack.
• Girls can't work as hard as boys and they don't earn as much.
• There is no sense in educating them as they will join the husband's family after marriage and her family will get no benefit from the investment.

Overall, they're not considered daughters, they're liabilities. Sometimes, India is really hard to take.