Wells are drying up all over India, and Gandhigram is no exception. In fact, the drought here is tremendous. Over the past several weeks, our side project has been to build, with the help of several local people including a hired concrete worker, a large (14ft diameter and 6.5ft high) rainwater catchment tank. We are hoping that once we finish getting the gutters installed, the anticipated rainy season will finally arrive. Regardless, working on this tank led to several observations.
Working as a Woman
I’m not one to shy away from hard work and I’m not afraid to get my hands (and more) dirty. So when we’ve been short on hands, I’ve out there digging, mixing, carrying, etc. to the best of my ability. But being a young girl, this behavior has been a bit out of the ordinary. For the most part, the team of workers has been open to have me working along with them. However, one neighboring village man doubted my ability to do anything more than serve water to the rest of the team and told me that at my age, I should be studying and getting ready to be married. I laughed these comments aside and told him I had been doing much, much more. Though I moved passed this conversation quickly, my thoughts lingered on it for some time. I am used to noticing and handling sexism, being a woman in a STEM field. But this man’s comments quickly revealed a much more limited view of women than I normally face. It’s not that everyone shares such opinions here, but facing these perceptions so bluntly made me reflect on the privilege I have to be following my dreams.
Who Desires Efficiency
Countless experiences have revealed that efficiency is not always a priority. For me, I’ve lived most of my recent life working towards deadlines, wanting to squeeze everything out of my waking hours, and valuing time tremendously. I survived in school, doing many activities and stretching myself in many directions, by being efficient with my time. I value my time and I especially value everyone else’s time. But for people who are getting a daily salary, such as many laborers in India, why push for the project to be completed too soon? The longer the project goes on, the more days you have guaranteed work, right? I have grown up seeing guys sitting around at construction sites in India, hardly lifting a shovel. And it feels like the metro construction has progressed by only one brick, each year that I visit. In the back of my mind, I knew this was a problem. But to organize and plan a project on a limited schedule and then have simple tasks take twice or four times as long as they should, I felt the frustrations of this work mentality in a new way. Even working with a group of people who seem to care deeply that this tank is built properly, there is little urgency in their step. They would rather fall behind and complete something slowly and perfectly, than push forward and find a way stay on schedule. This is the pace of things, and it’s hard to rush them. Weddings can suddenly stop progress for a day. A funeral may delay progress the very next day. A bundth, where everything in a city stops as a protest for a particular issue (including banks, gas stations, and all public transportation), may interfere with progress the following day. But while I felt frustrated by the inefficiency, I also adjusted to letting go.
Community Curiosity
As we erected this massive tank very near to a common pathway into the Gandhigram campus, we attracted many inquisitive visitors. More so than I have experienced in the US, people are willing to stop strangers and start asking them questions. I guess you could call it being nosy or having fewer personal boundaries, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There was a group of college students who checked in on the tank and came by to hang around as we worked. They gave us some good laughs. Various neighbors wanted the full details of what we were doing, where we have come from, why we are here, etc. In some cases, being repeatedly interrupted to answer dozens of the same questions was a little exhausting. But in other cases, it led to great new relationships. A mechanical engineer who lives just behind the campus, wandered by and was naturally very intrigued. We discussed (and I defended) some flow-pressure calculations I had done. We explained our BioSand filters project and he got curious. Turns out, he runs a welding shop and makes tools/molds for a living. (I mentioned him in my previous post.) Quickly, he studied the blueprints and said he could make the molds for a fraction of what we had paid. He and his wife excitedly took us out to dinner after bringing us to his welding shop so he could show us his work. If you’re receptive, people here seem ever ready to make new friends.