Day Seven

Maybe I got addicted to the endorphin rush of so much strenuous exercise, and now that it’s diminished, so has my enthusiasm for the work. We’re still at it four or five hours a day, but now there are breaks and a bit of milling about. Or maybe it’s the context under which we’re working. I know it’s hard to imagine a worse context than incessant digging, but there was a simple satisfaction to that. All we do now is haul bricks and sand and cement and rocks. The masons are busy laying the walls of the septic tank, and soon will cap that and build up the walls of the house. They’ve let us lay a brick here and there, but seem unhappy with our work. So they keep us busy moving building supplies closer and closer to the action. Often, we step on each others’ toes. My sand pile keeps the cement from getting where it needs to go, so it must again be moved. For the last two days we’ve labored under the scowling eye of a new supervisor. Speaking no English, he still keeps us updated on what a bad job we’re doing. For even the most menial tasks (like shoveling sand into a rickshaw), he’ll pull the tool from our hands to show us how it’s to be done. And when the time comes to direct the load onto the dumping pile, he takes the lead, lest we dump it wrong. There’s a special kind of shame in being deemed too dumb for mindless work.

As the work loses us, we find ways of busying ourselves. I sulk. That’s working well for me. Katrina gets in tighter with the children, learning names and playing games. Their favorite being when she takes their photograph, then they rush her to be the first to see the image played back on the tiny screen. Recently, she’s started chasing them, in a sort of tickle-monster pose, sending them fleeing down the street.

It’s hard to explain, just how distracting the throngs of children and onlookers are to the work. These are narrow alleys, and at any time there might be six adults and twelve children getting between us and our tasks. Mostly they watch. A few brave ones strike up conversations. These consist of saying hello and asking us our names. Sometimes they try to repeat it back to us. Sometimes they get it close. I do no better reproducing their names. We’re just not used to each others’ sounds. One of the home-owner’s sons was having one of these conversations with me, while nearby a handicapped boy flailed around a bit. I think he has muscular dystrophy. He walks with limbs akimbo, and grins wildly, but seems to follow what’s going on pretty well. The son gestures to this boy in a variety of ways, pointing and waggling his fingers. Finally he points and says, “Potato”. Or maybe there’s a hindi word that sounds similar. Either way, his meaning was clear.

The hours we work make it difficult to take care of our daily needs. We leave and return outside the hours of the hotel’s business center, so rarely have access to internet. I post these updates through a rube-goldberg pairing of my cell phone and laptop. We’re often too tired to venture out from the hotel at night. Our rock hard mattresses surprisingly exert a magnetic pull once we come into range. For this reason, along with a few others (I want to contribute to the slum economy; I want to show the locals I’m here to interact with them) I decide to get a slum haircut. Like most small businesses in Bawana, the barbers setup shop on the side of a wider alley. There are no permits, and no rents. I imagine there’s significant pressure to keep out of the way of traffic, and that territories fall under some type of local supervision. Our community center, laying at the intersection of two larger alleys is lucky enough to have a pair of barbers right on the corner. There’s often a queue of men waiting for a trim and a shave. The barbers, shockingly young, work with deft fingers to cut, and a vigorous lather to shave. Each one takes about twenty minutes. I was lucky to have only one boy ahead of me when I sat to wait my turn. My team members who came out from their lunch break to document the process served to attract even more local attention. By the time I took my seat and received my smock, there were twenty men, women and children around. Our project coordinator stood by, insuring a decent translation for my instructions (“shorter”) and my fears (“make sure he uses a fresh blade to clean up”). If the crowd made him nervous, my barber did not show it. I’ve gotten faster haircuts, but never with just scissors, and never with such precision and care. It took about fifteen minutes. I was curious to try the shave, but I’m more curious to see where my beard will go in another week or two. When he dusted me off with baby powder and took away the smock, I faced the crowd and asked what they thought, “Acha?” (“Okay?”). There were actual applause, and not just a few. This turned out to be one of the most satisfying interactions I’ve had on the site. I’m often working with skilled tradesmen, but as an untrained subordinate. This was a more normalized exchange between a patron and a vendor. Volunteering is one thing, but it felt nice to participate directly in the services of the community I was there to help. Maybe next I will see if I can find a dentist…

This ends our last full day of labor. On Monday, we visit an orphanage in the morning, and Tuesday we tour the work sites and say our goodbyes in the afternoon. The rest of the trip is sightseeing. I have mixed feelings about the work I’ve done. On the one hand, my efforts saved the homeowner from having to hire additional laborers. This expense, while paltry compared to how much I’ve paid to be here, is a major savings for them. On the other hand, I don’t feel like I’ve contributed to any greater good, or made progress towards some grand solution. And the region is desperately in need of one. I’ve felt this way before when donating my time or my money, and I suspect this fear will nag at me through all my charitable endeavours. Perhaps a good measure of an activity’s worth is whether the social good one contributes outweighs the sense of self satisfaction earned by the contributor? It’s hard to be objective about such an evaluation. I tend to be stingy on both fronts.

And the other side of the coin is that the slums of Bawana are a thriving, functioning community. The children seem happy, the mothers seem busy, and the goats wear sweaters. Yes there is disease and poverty and hunger, (and to be clear, I am against those things), but when you see it every day, and accept it as the status quo, then all your hopes and dreams start from there. And there is opportunity for escape. The children study computers at the community center; The women manage micro loans for small businesses; the men work their trade. I don’t believe there’s a thing I can do to speed the development of Bawana into something I would find more civilized, but I also don’t believe that’s a tragedy. It’s just life.