Back in the Saddle

One of the unfortunate things about international travel is that in a lot of cases one is completely dependent upon technology for the most basic things including, but not limited to, communication. The current predicament that I find myself in is that my laptop has contracted the computer version of H1N1 and is on its way back to Dr. Kari. This also means that my computer will be eating at Buffalo Grill before I do.

However I am entering the last week of my project and I cannot believe it is here. My classmate and good friend Ashley Davis is the only one who precedes me in terms of being completely finished with the entire project and I took a few lessons from her blog about what life is like outside of this intense experience (www.davisashley.blogspot.com). As I spoke with Ashley during her final week she could not believe it was happening, much as I cannot. Ashley also told me that she could not even think about it because of how busy she was during the final stretch. Yet another similarity in the "Final Week" experience.

I have however had the time to reflect only for a moment as to what I have experienced here in the just nine short weeks. From the monkeys bouncing around at all hours of the day on their pedestrian appendages (sometimes two and sometimes four), the unique and all to familiar taste of the curry leaf, the heat (122 where I was for the Fourth of July), and the extreme warmth and generosity of people here including the ones in the villages who were all to eager to spend a day's pay on me so that I could have a Fanta. However there are of course other things that will not soon escape my mind as I have never seen such poverty and hopelessness, whether the people who are living it knew it or not. How life's basic necessities can be absent when the when pain and suffering are so present.

A final thought for now came from the wonderful experience I had just yesterday. Ela Bhatt, the founder of SEWA and a very influential and gracious woman, gave me the honor of sitting down to have a conversation with her. She met me at my guest house where I had prepared a table with the fresh picked flowers that my security guard assembles for me everyday and places into water bottles. I also had a bottle of water with two glasses on a tray underneath the fan on my front porch so we could escape the heat outside and the train wreck inside that my place has become. We sat and talked for close to two hours and one of the many things that she said to me that I will never forget is that, "We are all trustees of society". I have not fully digested all the possible meanings of that statement but initially I could not help to think to myself that if we all felt our vested interest in society and the responsibility we have towards each other, people will begin to see the need for their positive role and participation in society.

For now SEWA will continue to bring people together to give them a voice. A voice that is necessary as the people here are truly under-represented and not empowered. This Union does not represent those that are already making $80/hour but rather those that will make $80 in year (if that). As Ela Bhatt said to me yesterday, "Organization without values is a terror and values without organization is just as bad". I have a new concept of social justice that puts into plain sight the words that Professor Jehan Raheem spoke to us about during the spring semester.

I hope to be online again tomorrow to keep you updated as to my thoughts about my final days here in Ahmedabad. In the mean time please keep Nikolai DiPippa in your thoughts and prayers for a full recovery. He his a wonderful staff member at the Clinton School and even better friend.