While Nalini spends her days at the tailoring workshop, her husband works far away in the district where he was born and can only return home about 4 days a month. Despite this, their income is only enough to cover basic needs and leaves no room for urgent expenses, such as medicine. Nalini was unable to continue her education beyond 9th grade because her family could not afford it and there were problems at home. In previous jobs, she has done agricultural work and other manual labor.

Nalini’s favorite part about stitching is completing the inside of the bags. One of her favorite parts of the training program is the spoken English class and she is proud of the progress she has made! Nalini says she is very happy with the tailoring school and is looking forward to the launch of the tailoring cooperative.

The bus lurches in to Valad and sputters to a stop. I exit the bus and begin my walk to Prashanthagiri. The morning is bright as the sun climbs over the hills and shines with all its radiating glory down upon the village and its people. I take a path off the road that leads me to the site of one of the wells. As I get closer I can hear voices mixed with excitement, urgency, laughter, some shouting commands, some handing out the morning’s chai. I hear a motor purring loudly. As I come upon the beneficiaries of “Well #2” they are all working hard. We exchange greetings and smiles. I can feel the sense of comraderieship and teamwork. No one stands idly by, everyone is doing their part.

After taking some photos to document this benchmark moment in the community, I figure it is time to get my hands dirty. With my red nighty on, I have one of the women tie a white towel on my head to ward off the sun and to do as the locals do. When in Rome, right? It is certainly worth the many nods and looks of approval I receive, mixed with a few bemused smiles. I join an assembly line of women, and with small pillows on our heads, we begin passing, slowly and steadily, cement blocks, head to head. There is a sense of fulfillment to be one part of a larger whole. Like a chain, if you remove one link, the functioning of the whole is affected. Once all the cement blocks were transferred, we each take a shovel in our hand and literally got down in the trenches. We wind up the hillside digging a canal for the wiring needed for the well’s motor. The ladies are all very jovial, plucking lemons along the way to make some lemon water. We hack through roots, we dig out rocks, as we wind up and up the hill; a myriad of colors in our nighties.

Meanwhile, the men are working hard, pumping water out of the old, broken well and beginning to deepen it to allow for a larger capacity to meet more families’ water needs. At 2:00 we all put down our respective tools, wipe our brows, and sit down to some home made pumpkin curry and rice. Lunch has never been so satisfying. After lunch, I must leave for the day to complete some other tasks. I leave with a smile on my face as the others get back to work. I walk back up the path, with such a feeling of contentment. Knowing that all the hard work, sweat, and teamwork will produce the earth’s most precious resource, water.….life, for the families in Prashanthagiri.

This Sunday our village was full of sounds. Firecrackers marked the beginning of the Hindu New Year according to the Malayam calendar in Kerala. Anxiously awaited by many of the children at our English classes, this “Vishu” Festival carries a very suiting (yet unorthodox) name for a new start. “Vishu” meaning “equal” according to the Sanskrit language or equinos, the time when the day and the night are equal in duration. So, as children were running around with fire-sticks, their mothers prepared the traditional  “Vishu” dinner with the interesting requirement of having equal portions of sweet, bitter, sour, salty and spicy flavors. I found this apparently simple culinary tradition a beautiful poetic way to start a new year. Without a countdown nor champange toasts, the families use their homemade meals to honor resiliency and teach their children how to enjoy and expect an equal balance of bitter, sweet and sour memories for this oncoming new year.

Meanwhile, the Profugo team was also celebrating our own new beginning. We finally moved to our house in the village! After 8 months of a two hour daily bus commute, we can finally wake up in the village and have our morning chai with the ladies at our tailoring workshop.

As per the community’s request, and following our curiosity, Emily and I decided to go forth with a traditional Kerala style Open House. We wore our sarees, boiled the traditional sweet milk and lit our Nilavilakku oil lamp (pictures of the banquet table above:  Oil lamp next to the baby bananas, Indian cupcakes, the coconut cookies and spicy chex mix). All of this traditional formalities were complimented by the communities children who came first thing in the morning carrying a big homemade WELCOME poster and later spent the morning playing “catch the chicken” on our new terrace.

This move is very significant because living in the village will not only save us the commute but will also make us more present in our members’ lives. The move will take us closer to understanding and learning from our community’s daily achievements and struggles in the farm fields, academic and family life. I’m also particularly excited to live at the Profugo’s Farm to wakeup to the crowing roosters and personally water our seedlings in our experimental gardens of vegetable and repellent plants.

*More updates to come. You can also find more photos, updates and details on the gardens in my previous entry.

For the next six weeks, we are going to run a blog series on recipes using ingredients that are grown in southern India where our international development projects are currently taking place. It should be an interesting eight weeks since I am going to attempt making all of the dishes myself, but we can guarantee unique recipes that taste good and all mistakes will be documented –let’s be realistic here – so that you can avoid making the same ones.

So stay tuned for our first recipe in The Grand Masala series, Pepper Coconut Chicken.  How good does that sound right now?

Tavishi

Next up is Tavishi, who at 27, is the youngest of the women in the tailoring workshop. She moved to Prashanthagiri just nine years ago, after marrying her husband. Tavishi has a passion for learning and expressed that she would have liked to continue studying after she passed 10th grade. Unfortunately furthering her education was not feasible because of the expense it involved.  Like others in her situation, she got married instead. Tavishi’s husband does agricultural work (planting and farming) and other odd jobs that he can find. They have two children, an 8 year old daughter and a 6 year old son. Besides tailoring, Tavishi is also responsible for collecting the milk from the cows in the community 2x/day, taking it to get processed by the government’s milk corporation. She enjoys the freedom the tailoring workshop has provided for her (both social and financial) and having the ability to use her time productively. Tavishi takes great pride in her work at the tailoring school and has even expressed an interest in becoming a professional tailor!

I just returned from a 10 day trip to India.  The agenda for my trip was ambitious, which included forming a partnership with a new fabric vendor, checking on various projects in Wayanad, filming for an upcoming video, checking on the digging of the wells that are being implemented, seeing how renovations are coming along on the Profugo House, and the interviewing of the shortlisted candidates for the program manager position that we are looking to fill.  This trip completely exceeded my expectations.

At Srishti’s guest house where we stayed while visiting Aranya Naturals, we met Muniyandi, who is the one man staff of this facility.  He was the most gracious host.  His attention to detail and his craft in cooking was out of this world.  We labeled him the hidden gem of Munnar, which he truly is.  This man probably cares for max 10 guests per month, but he takes his job most seriously and gives 200% in effort. I was deeply touched and inspired by him.  I hope everyone gets a chance to taste his celery soup – Bobby Flay has met his match!

Another precious experience was an impromptu dancing session that erupted at the tailoring workshop.  The women had been hard at work as they knew I wanted to bring the spring inventory of merchandise back to the US.  They expressed that they were tired from their efforts and we tried to cheer them up with some music.  Before we knew it, everyone was on their feet, bopping their heads and shaking their hips!  Moments like these, I am reminded of why we at Profugo are doing what we are doing.  To see people like Muniyandi and the tailors take pride in their own craft, to share in the joy of them living a fuller life, to have something to dance about!  A global neighborhood for a better quality of life!

Every one of us has a spirit of adventure deep in the fiber of our being. I wanted to bring this spirit out by having each student create a passport. The first step was filling out their personal information and decorating their passport. Each one is adorned with the Indian flag and the Indian mascot, a peacock. Each student put much effort in to the fine details of their peacock’s tails and the flag, pictured blowing in the wind. Next, I asked each student, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

Germany! The Gulf! Bangalore! Malaysia! Oman! America! Trivandrum! Brazil! Argentina! The students all shouted their answers out with excitement. The next question was, “Why do you want to go this place?” A pause, the students sat deep in thought. Then, we worked around the room and each student told us their particular reason. Anish wants to go to Oman to visit his father who works there. Kavhita wants to go to the Gulf to see the sand. Abhirami wants to go to Trivandrum to visit her Aunty. Rajesh wants to go to Brazil to see a football game and his brother wants to go to Argentina for the same purpose. (I sense a bit of a rivalry there.)

Next, the more logistical questions were discussed such as; How will they travel? Who will they take with them? What will they bring with them? After all the details were sorted out, each student entered in their passport their destinations, their purpose for going, and the other detailed travel information. To finish their first page in the passport, they drew a picture representing their destination. Each week we shall take a “journey with our imaginations” to new places. As far as I’m concerned the sky is not the limit. Perhaps we shall take a rocket to Saturn in order to see its rings. The adventures continue…..

While $1 dollar in America can only buy us things of little significance, it can make a world of difference in other countries. In Kenya it can buy you 8 cups of milk. In Ghana you can purchase 87 tablets of Penicillin. A family of four in Bangladesh is estimated to spend 80 cents a day on food and fuel combined.  In Costa Rica you could buy a watermelon, a papaya, and a pineapple and in India it can get you can get you a hearty meal of boiled rice, dal, vegetables, pickles, chutney and papads.

What if we gave up a pack of gum a week? Or that coffee we didn’t really need. While $1 dollar a week seems dispensable to the average American, it could make a huge impact on a family in Bangladesh or Ghana. As Mother Teresa said, “We cannot do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” With an informed mind and good intentions, even the smallest actions can make the greatest difference.

So what does a dollar mean to you? Or better yet, what can you make it mean to someone else? 

This post marks the start of a series of biographies featuring the women participating in Profugo’s Tailoring Training Program. Our initiative aims to allow these women to develop skills in tailoring, spoken English, and woman empowerment and business. Each month we will feature one woman, briefly explaining her background and how working with Profugo has helped improve her standard of living. As you can imagine, the life of a woman in India is much different than that of a woman in the United States. These five amazing women (along with their teacher) have faced extreme hardships throughout their lives, ranging from poverty-to illness-to domestic unrest. Despite their struggles, they all have one thing in common: seizing the opportunity to make their lives better by participating in the tailoring school. Some of these women had never even worked before because their husband’s would not allow them to leave the village. Now they are contributing to their family income and have even become leaders in their community. It really is true that every thread has a tale!

Aishwarya

Aishwarya is 38 and has lived in Prashanthagiri her entire life. She and her husband met at work after he had recently moved to the area. He is now sick with tuberculosis and unable to work. They have two children, Alisha (who is 11) and Jaswant (who is 12). Aishwarya is a skilled builder and even helped her husband build their house. Although they are able to get the medicine her husband needs for free, they must travel a great distance to reach the nearest hospital. She has taken a serious risk by choosing to take care of him in her home, since typically someone infected with TB is isolated. For this reason, both Aishwarya and her children had to be tested for TB. Since beginning the tailoring workshop, Aishwarya’s spirits have risen. Her favorite part of sewing is stitching the Profugo label. She has expressed feeling a sense of relief upon getting involved with the tailoring school and is proud of her progress in the spoken English class. When asked what she would like to do in the future, Aishwarya responded that she is “ready for anything.”

This past week we finished mapping the land that will soon house our Center for Development and our laboratory for various sustainable agricultural initiatives. Gilgy, our local project coordinator, and I climbed up the high slope of existing crops to measure the altitude and coordinates all around the 2 acres of land. We have MANY ideas for the Center and this mapping activity has given us a better view of some exciting challenges and innovative possibilities.

Despite, my not so graceful falls and a couple of scratches, I loved this early morning trekking adventure. We started surveying the land early Saturday morning, before going to work at our Spoken English school. It’s my favorite time of the day, when the sun is not too strong, the dew still draped over the sloppy terrain, the canopy of trees shine jade green above us and the great clear view from our town’s highest hills is breathtaking.

I was also particularly excited because this was my initial attempt to plot all the coordinates of the farm with our GPS device. Who would have thought that holding a bulky GPS in my hands while sending some coordinates to the sky would be such a spiritually meaningful experience? For all technical and metaphoric purposes… Our dreams became even more tangible now that we have a clear topographic idea of our working field. We are finally “on the map”. It is rewarding to know that we marked our presence after our arduous work trekking up and down this hilly terrain, our initial coordinates are in and we are getting closer to implementing new agricultural and building projects.

Our most immediate plan involves the experimentation with Sunn Hemp as Green Manure Crop. Emily and Lauren, our environmental resource management interns, and I have been researching Sunn Hemp as one of many different crops to experiment with as potential sustainable farming activities. We want to plant Sunn Hemp as a green manure crop because it can be planted for a certain amount of time then uprooted and stuffed under the soil to add organic matter and nutrients. It is an environmentally sustainable way to start interacting with this newly acquired soil by “rejuvenating” its over-farmed spots and preparing it for our next experimental crops. Aside from reenergizing the soil with its nutritional qualities, Sun Hemp can be useful here for our local farmers as it produces a compound toxic to several local pests.  This experimental crop is also considered an organic mulch that, when mowed and left on the soil surface, will slow down the release of nutrients from the crop residues.

We look forward to starting to test with this type of Sun Hemp as a viable agricultural innovation for our local farmers and examining its effects with local crops such as bananas, ginger, coconut among many others.

Keep in touch for future updates on the progress!