Rajahmundry…continued

The day after visiting the orphanage and school, my cousin Pratap took me into the jungle to see one of the village churches.  This is a ministry he and Sunitha have been working on for years.  They now have 20 churches.  What I didn’t realize, nonetheless, is how extensive the program is.  I peppered him with questions most of the drive and was astounded at what I learned that day.

India has a very complex caste system.  Although many will try to tell you that it is not in use any more this is simply not true.  When Sunitha showed me the roster at the school, I was puzzled about one of the rows of entries and asked about it.  The intials in each row stood for the child’s caste!  Apparently the Indian government keeps strict tabs on this information.  It matters for things like scholarships (there are quotas) and rations, and religion.  Tribal people have certain rights on their land.  In India you are not allowed to take or use even a twig or leaf from tribal land unless you are a card-carrying member of the tribe.  (It seems you actually get a card.) This entitles you to use the land, sell crops or firewood, or get rations etc.  There are even quotas for spots in the universities. Interestingly enough, if someone converts to Christianity, those rights are revoked.  They are no longer eligible for food or scholarships etc.  Apparently many people convert in actuality but don’t “actually convert” on paper for this reason.  There are also many many other castes and hierarchies within and between them.  When Sunitha briefy outlined this to me that morning at the school, it was the clearest, most concise and yet thorough explanation I’d ever had of the caste system.  (I’m sure I’m getting only a tip of the iceberg and missing many salient points, so forgive me for what I missed.  Again, this is only my rudimentary knowledge!)  I was very thrilled to have this information, however, and fascinated to see it actually in play in the school roster and as I was traveling onto the tribal lands that next day.

Anyway, we drove out of Rajahmundry for over an hour into the jungle/mountains onto tribal land.  It is quite beautiful, but the area is rural and undeveloped.  One part of the program Pratap and Sunitha have developed is that a roving medical team goes between the 20 churches.  It helps ensure that everyone has vaccinations and also distributes antibiotics or other medications when necessary and other basic medical care.  I was, of course, thrilled to hear about this.  Many of these underdeveloped areas suffer from medical problems that can be fixed with vaccines and simple antibiotics.

Also, my cousin told more about their program.  In each village there is a church that gets set up, built by the people, and eventually sustained by the locals.  Usually there is an evangelist and also a sort of supervisor who I believe oversees a larger area.  But frequently the evangelist is a local person, more or less.  The evangelist lives in the village full time where there are very few commodities – the villages are extremely isolated.  It is more frequent that someone who is local is both willing to live there and accepted by the people in the town.  I guess it didn’t occur to me to think about whether or not that person would have a family, but when we got to the village, we met the evangelist and his wife and children.  I found out that typically the wife runs a school from their house, located next to the church.  Each day the children from the town are able to come and get a good meal and education! It’s great to see how they are caring for the next generation and providing for so many basic needs.

So, the village had known that we were coming ahead of time.  This is pretty typical, I believe, because whenever Pratap comes, they will usually have a service.  (I guess it’s always Sunday wherever he goes!)  When we arrived, the children had all assembled at the gateway to the church with garlands and wildflowers.  It was wild.  ( I felt a little like Olivia Wilde in the Half the Sky documentary, but I don’t believe anyone sang an actual Vagina Song for me…)

I was introduced to the supervisor, evangelist, and his wife and then we went into the church for the service.  All of the kids sat in the front, which was fun to see and they sang songs during the service.  Pratap gave his sermon, and then asked me to speak. I didn’t have anything prepared, but I started my super-short talk by saying a couple sentences in Telugu (Hi, my name is Shantha.  Sorry, I only know a little Telugu…)  After that, Pratap had to translate for me, but on the way home he said that it was good enough that most people could understand my Telugu and I didn’t have too much of an accent – compared to the Germans and other Americans who came and tried a few Telugu sentences, that is!

After the service, Pratap produced a bag of candy and asked me to hand it out to the children, which was fun, if a bit chaotic!  Then, they asked us to stay for a ground-breaking.  I guess the home on the church property (kind of in the front yard, really) where the evangelist and his family stay is not really holding up very well.

It’s old and falling apart.  (The church was built recently by the parishoners themselves.) So now, in the area behind the house, next to the church, they’re going to build a new house for them.  It will also be used as the school, as I mentioned.  Since Pratap has many churches to visit, he can only come infrequently and the people wanted to have the official groundbreaking while he was there so they wouldn’t need to postpone beginning the building when they were ready.

So everyone went to the back of the house, by the church and gathered, as the sun went down for the ground-breaking ceremony.  Pratap asked me if I would do the actual ground-breaking.  I said okay, but was a bit stymied when they gave me not a shovel, but a metal spike.  When it came time, I awkwardly pushed/twisted it into the ground and pushed up a little clod of dirt.  Then someone mimed/told me that I should throw the spike into the ground and then it would go in further and break.  So I hurled it at the ground like a spear!  It broke through and when I levered it down, a nice chunk of dirt came up.  Ground-breaking accomplished!

On the way home, I was able to ask tons more questions of Pratap and found out about an amazing program Sunitha is involved with to help local women.  It’s a group of local women, including lawyers and policewomen, and businesswomen etc. who are available for women to come to when they need assistance they can’t get elsewhere.  These women try to mediate the situations, preferably confidentially and without involving any sort of legal or judicial force if possible.  But women who have been abandoned, or are in abusive relationships can come to them.  Young women who are pregnant out of wedlock or  in financial straits can come.  This group is all local and their time is donated.  My cousin is an amazing woman – she was requested especially to join this group!  She does this on top of everything else they already do!

I was very sorry to leave Rajahmundry, because there is so much they are doing there and I am interested in many of their projects.  When I return to India, I’d like to see more of what they do.  It turns out this is Holy Week, however, which is a very busy week for a pastor, so I was very appreciative that they took so much time from their schedules to show me around!

I was happy also to visit my second cousin Swaroop and his wife Anita.  They have a new little boy, Joel, who is 10 months old and one of the cutest kids ever!  He’s named after Swaroop’s late brother, who is sorely missed by all.  I saw their parents, Willimama and Shyamalatha in Hyderabad, and both they and Swaroop have come to the US to visit, so it was nice to be able to see Swaroop’s new home and beautiful new son here in India.   I’ll be going on an overnight train to Kolkata via Vizag/Vishakapatnam next…