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Pushpa enjoying the GCB picnic!

-Another instalment in the interview series with the women of GCB, written by Cindy Ryan.

“If you are rich people pay attention to you, but if you are poor no one asks you about anything.”

Pushpa’s hands were busy stuffing small balls of newspaper into the plastic carcass of a heart. Sitting in the women’s centre in the heavy heat of early afternoon she was huddled with the other women who were chatting and busy with the task of making heart shapes out of plastic bags. Regardless of the heat the women sat so close to each other they often touched; their sari’s pooled together on the cool tile floor. Guddiya stared open-mouthed at nothing, and her hands moved slowly, mindlessly tearing strips of newspaper and crunching each strip into a ball.  Pushpa’s two children wandered into the room and yanked at their mother’s attention. Her son pulled at her sari while her daughter dangled her arms around her mother’s neck. Tended to warmly by their mother, the children finally dawdled out of the room happy to play outside in the lane way.

I wanted to interview Pushpa as was my plan with the other women. I took my small notebook out of my bag, searched through the boxes of sewing supplies for a pen, and finally settled, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the tangle of women amidst the litter of cut plastic, torn newspaper, skeins of embroidery thread and sequins that stuck to my pant legs. More children filed in to the room, twirling, expectant, curious always, eager to stay in this wonderland of women. Kane joined us and the kids used his body as a prop to swing on, sit on, lay on and sleep on. Pushpa shyly agreed to talk about her life but was suspicious about why I would want to know her story.  Threading a needle, she stared straight ahead and said,  “if you are rich people pay attention to you, but if you are poor no one asks you about anything.” A lump of emotion welling up in my throat I replied, “I am curious about your life, how you arrived in Mumbai, when you came here, what you think about and what you want for your children.” With some gentle prodding from Indu, Pushpa stretched her perfectly shaped lips into a shy grin and began to talk.

What I was beginning to find out about most of the women living in the community was also true about Pushpa. She has no formal education and she has endured the death of more than one child.

Pushpa and her husband are from the Gwal caste (traditionally milk and curd sellers). They started their married life in a large village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh when Pushpa was 13 years old. On the day of her marriage, devastated to leave her parent’s home, she moved to the home of her 15 year old husband’s parents, living in a separate room for  two years. While she gave birth to her first child at age 16 her husband struggled to find employment in the village. He left his young family in the care of relatives and travelled to Mumbai by train; an arduous, tedious third class journey that takes almost 24 hours. Mumbai beckons impoverished yet optimistic villagers from all parts of India with no assurances of a better life, but with more options for making dismal money and the dim hope of better education for their children and better living standards which might include running water, electricity, and hope. The reality of Mumbai for Pushpa’s husband was a deal with an unscrupulous relative who provided him with a job but refused to pay him. In lieu of wages he was given food, clothing and crude shelter. For three years he toiled under these conditions and visited his growing family when he could. Pushpa remained in Uttar Pradesh caring for their two young daughters, enduring the death of a 10 month old son and the stillbirth of another child.

After a fight with the relative who enslaved him, Pushpa’s husband managed to find a job driving a truck that paid him 4000 rupees ($80 CAD) a month and he was able to rent a small room for himself. It took him 4 years to save enough money to bring Pushpa and his two daughters from Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai. In Mumbai, Pushpa gave birth to two more children and the two oldest children returned to Uttar Pradesh to live with their grandparents. The family has called the Saki Naka slum community home for four years, with Pushpa living one year with her husband and their two youngest children in Mumbai, and the next year she and her two youngest children gather some belongings, and board a third class train, returning to her two oldest daughters in Uttar Pradesh while her husband remains in Mumbai to work. Although Pushpa travels every second year to Uttar Pradesh, she otherwise rarely leaves the Saki Naka community. The family has no extra money for rickshaws and Pushpa is reluctant to venture out of the community. Instead, covering her mouth with a swath of her sari to avoid the choking, black fumes from large trucks that rumble over the bridge that dissects the slum below, she waits for her husband to deliver supplies to his family while driving his work truck, clutching her two young children to keep them from wandering into the jumble of erratic traffic.

Pushpa starts her day by preparing chapati and a pot of  spicy dal, while her children, asleep on the floor, wake slowly. The children’s donated school uniforms are plucked from nails on the walls, their faces are scrubbed under a community tap and teeth are rubbed with a stick. Skipping down the lane way in front of their mother, the kids are excited to be dropped off at the Balwadi for their morning of kindergarten classes. Pushpa then quietly makes an entrance to the women’s centre, looking regal in her sari, her black hair glistening with coconut oil which keeps any stray hairs from escaping the neat braid that drops down the middle of her back. Her gold coloured earrings and her nose pin are a beautiful complement to her coffee coloured skin. She is always serene and much quieter than the other women. When asked if she liked her job at the centre, she replied, “Yes, I can send money back to Uttar Pradesh for the care of my oldest daughters”. She is proud that her two daughters, aged 15 and 16, are taking science classes because she hopes that will enable them to have a job with some prestige, where they will work in an office while waiting for marriage,instead of living in a hut in the shadows of the glass and steel towers. The future she imagines for her daughters comes with a thick coating of tradition as Pushpa is planning to return to Uttar Pradesh in a few months to begin the hopeful search for suitable husbands for her daughters.  Managing three dowries for her three daughters will further drive her family into precarious financial strain. Each daughter will ‘cost’ Pushpa and her husband up to 3 lakh ($1800 CAD) in dowry payments to future in-laws. In turn, she will demand a generous dowry from her son’s future in-laws, continuing the tradition which financially hobbles poor families..  When asked what she thinks about the caste system (which keeps her life in a perpetual dead-end), she surprised us by saying she doesn’t agree with the caste system, but she will strive to choose husbands from higher castes for her daughters.

The rent on their room in Saki Naka costs the family 1500 rupees a month, with bills for water and electricity added to the monthly cost. Her father-in-law is ill and requires treatment costing 50,000 – 60,000 rupees ($1000 CAD) pushing the family into using a money lender who will tack on interest charges at 10% per month. The additional cost of three dowries will contain Pushpa’s family in an insufferable, dangerous relationship with an unsympathetic, unscrupulous money lender, who will use physical force when necessary to collect his loans.

Pushpa’s life seems grim with the realities of poverty based on the caste system, a system that ignores the grueling, punishing life that is lived in slum communities. However, she maintains that she is happy even though she would like for her children to live a better life. I suspect, she has no imagination about what life would be like if she weren’t poor. Her knowledge of the outside world is so limited that she doesn’t understand why I am light skinned and she is dark skinned.  She understands that Canada is a country (whatever that means to her) and I have to fly in an airplane that she sees overhead to get to Mumbai. Watching her two youngest children wander in and out of the women’s centre, I hope their world is full of possibilities; that the ‘new India’ that is both burgeoning and groaning under the weight of government corruption, might reserve a place for them in the glass towers that pass shadows over the slum community.

For now, Pushpa is content sitting among the women in the centre, creating beautiful products, making a wage, and tending to the possibilities that she hopes lay ahead for her children. Although shy, she is calm, determined and confident in her ability to create something beautiful out of nothing, whether it is a plastic heart ornament or a future for her children.

- A week ago we helped Pushpa, her husband and two children into a rickshaw with all their worldly possessions. They have decided to move back to their village in the north of India and it’s very sad to see them go. On behalf of the ladies of GCB we wish Pushpa luck on her journey north. She is a part of DWP/GCB and is welcome back anytime. DWP donated 1000 INR – $20.83 CAD to help them on their journey.

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I hear the faint sound of running water and I sit upright quickly from my position on the floor. I sit motionless for a moment. The overhead fan squeals, the sound of evening prayer from a nearby mosque drifts in through the open window competing against a symphony of horns from passing cars. The sound is faint but I hear it again. Could it be??  Excited and anxious I run towards the bathroom and look up at my water tank above the kitchen but see no sign of water. Opening the door to the  bathroom I can see a drip forming under the tap and my excitement resumes. I open the tap and hold my breath and hear a quick creak and a guttural sound from the wall, and like magic, water gushes from the tap! I quickly fill all the buckets in the bathroom and take a shower immediately. I have been without water in my apartment for the last couple days and the weak dripping water feels and looks like Niagara Falls.

I arrived back in Mumbai just about a week ago, sleepily moving
through customs and eagerly awaiting my first “head bobble”. The humid
heat of the pending monsoon coupled with nearly 20 million people
living far to close together hits you seconds after you get off the
plane. It’s smothering but welcoming all the same.  As Ashley and
Fatima greet me just outside the the gate, I look up to see hundreds
of people running towards us and I step back confused? A second later
we are surrounded as families jostle for position near the arrivals
gate. I scoop up my bag and Ashley asks what’s going on.  “Guru
Ji..Guru Ji is here!”, a local man proclaims, a photo of “Guru Ji”
clipped to his shirt pocket. Moments later a small pudgy man clad in
orange is whisked passed security and people begin to shout and
scream, all hoping to get a glimpse of the holy man or at best to
touch his arm and offer him a garland. Guru Ji, surrounded by
security, moves quickly past the throngs of people, pausing to collect
a garland from a few lucky devotees, and then he disappears into a
waiting car. Families had waited hours for the experience that lasted
only seconds. The three of us then piled into one of Mumbai’s rusting
black and yellow Fiat taxis for the short ride to my apartment in
Marol, passing Guru Ji worshippers making the long walk home on the
dark and dusty streets.

My first night in the apartment is sleepless. Restless, I make my way to the roof top and sit overlooking Mumbai and wonder what the next few months will have in store for both DWP and myself. Morning finally comes and I head by rickshaw to the community I left two months ago that has been my second home for the past two years. Walking into the community I’m greeted by children and soon I hear ” Kane Sir” being yelled down the main lane way.  Children pop their heads out from  doorways and I reach out to shake hands and say hellos as I move towards the school. The community is quiet because many families have gone to their native villages for their yearly visits. The temperature hovers around 35 degrees but it feels hotter. For the next several hours I walk through the community greeting families, DWP sponsor children, and friends. Ashley gives me a tour of the work he has done since I left and we take a few minutes to sit near the large garden that DWP built last year. The colourful mural wall of the garden still looks beautiful and I watch as 3o kids play cricket. A few families sit in the shade on the benches and as word gets out about my arrival more and more children stop by to say hello.

I walk back to the centre and see that the door to the GCB centre is open and I am greeted by a smiling Indu. Indu has done an amazing job over the last few months while I have been away and we spend the next hour viewing the products that the ladies have made in my absence. Indu is excited to show me the account books and receipts she has carefully maintained and she fills me in on the gossip of the community. Megha, Ranjana’s daughter, comes running into the room and gives me a big hug and pulls at my arm to come to her home for tea. I agree and head next door and sit down for a cup of sweet chai with Ranjana. The taste of chai and being in Ranjana’s welcoming home, brings me back and I feel at home and at ease, excited to be back in the community.

With all the excitement and smiles, I forgot why I am here, but the realities of slum life lie just below the surface and behind every door in the community. Soon mothers and fathers come knocking, knowing that my arrival also means a chance at a helping hand. I sit down with Ramesh Pujari’s wife and she explains to me that Ramesh is in need of a surgery and will I help. Behind her is another family waiting patiently for a chance to be heard and I slowly catch up on all the pending medical cases that need urgent attention. A new strain of drug resistant TB has hit Mumbai and this disease is causing problems for several families along the pipeline.

Over the last few days DWP has begun to put the last two months of fundraising to work.

• Ramesh is taken to Sion hospital and undergoes Angiography surgery. 5500 INR – $110 CAD (Includes medicines)
• DWP makes a visit to a new sponsor case and subsequently adds Riba Shaik as DWP newest sponsor child. 6167 INR – $123.34 CAD (Full years fees)
• Kajal a twelve year old girl was taken to a Doctor to see why she has been suffering from high fevers. Blood tests and medicines and have taken and we are now waiting for the last results to find out more about her condition. 830 INR – $16.60 CAD
• DWP has paid the women of GCB their monthly wages plus cash bonuses for all the women.
• To celebrate being back together and to mark Pushpa’s departure from the community the women of GCB brought their children and we all sat down to a special lunch. 16 people ate for 1200 INR – $24 CAD
• GCB received a donation of fabric from Deutsche Bank employee and DWP friend Leon Cohello.
• DWP purchased a new pair of sandals for a young boy who works collecting garbage in the community. 60 INR – $1.20 CAD
• The biggest and most exciting project over the first few days was the purchase of two new swing sets for the big garden! Cost including delivery and local masons and labour  – 40,000 INR – $800 CAD
• DWP paid the medical bills for a young boy with Cerebral Paulsy today who was suffering from Typhoid fever. 5500 INR – $110 CAD

In great news, the latest rumour in the community is that we will be safe from demolition until possibly 2014!! We don’t know if this is fact or fiction quite yet but the community is excited and hopeful.

What this means for DWP is uncertain still. I plan on working hard over the next six weeks here in Mumbai getting all of our DWP sponsor children back in school for the upcoming year and adding as many new children as I can, while also funding the many medical needs of the community. I’m thinking of heading north for the month of June to meet up with a few other organizations and fill needs as I move through the country.

It feels good to be back and helping again and I look forward to keeping all of our DWP supporters and friends up to date on the needs we fill over the next several months.

Cheers,
Kane Ryan

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I watch in a daze as the computer spits out 3 boarding passes, my head feels foggy and my eyes moist. “Mr. Ryan”…”Mr Ryan”… Exasperated, she not so quietly yells, “Sir, your boarding passes, please move along!” I mumble a reply and move my bags towards the scale. The conveyor belt sucks my bag into the bowels of the transit world and I move towards the security check. The familiar sounds of the airport echo through the concourse. Flights are announced, suitcase wheels creek and groan and loved ones hug goodbye. Soon I’m standing in a a line of strangers, some sad, some happy and some standing quietly in contemplation. Belt and shoes removed, pockets emptied, I’m patted down and on my way.  I find my gate and sit and it hits me like it always does.

The gate is crowded, businessmen chat on phones, groups of teenage sports teams in head-to-toe sweat outfits, “Rams” proudly displayed along the back of their pants, jockey for position amongst each other while two young hipsters sit hungover in the corner, too cool for everything. A baby cries, a man coughs, the electric whine of an airport porter whizzes by on a golf cart. The familiarity of the airport is soothing, but I’m sad. Departure days are normally exciting for me but I feel uncertain and uneasy. For the first time in ten years I’m leaving behind a girlfriend, someone that has been my partner and my love and I’m confused. “Good-byes” have been the only regular and constant thing in my life for as long as I can remember. My parents and sister have been at nearly every airport goodbye in Canada and we’ve become accustomed to it. It’s sad and we miss each other but we’re prepared, as this is what we have done for such a long time.

Being in Canada is confusing for me; it’s beautiful and possibilities lay around every corner; it’s my first home. But I can’t find the rhythm.  DWP has given me the ultimate travel experience and the ability to be part of a community in one of the craziest and most chaotic cities on earth. I have learned more than I ever thought I would about my personal ability and how to be a positive change in the world and that’s exciting and rewarding.

But this trip is different. Our community in Mumbai, which has been my home away from home for the past 3 years might be on the brink of destruction. Government bull dozers are waiting for the call from local politicians while the thousands of families that line the pipeline await their destiny. For the first time since I arrived in this community, I don’t know what I will do or how I will be able to help. How and where DWP helps will be a new challenge and I will have to adapt and find the needs that need filling.

For the last few months a DWP doc has been in the works but only hrs before my this first flight it was cancelled. Timing was off for the film crew, visas were canceled, flights changed. So now I sit  at the boarding gate, a line up of passengers slowly disappear down the hallway and I sit trying to figure out DWP’s and my new adventure….both scary and exciting.

I know that DWP needs to change but I’m resistant. New ideas float through my head but nothing sticks.  After 3 years of working for DWP with no pay I realize that it’s not exactly the most prudent life style choice. Spending nine months of the year volunteering leaves me few choices. When I started DWP I wanted to show people that a regular, normal guy without previous non-profit experience could arrive in a foreign country and make a difference to hundreds of people.  I have raised thousands of dollars by taking photos and selling them and writing stories of the people and communities I have helped. DWP is unconventional, remaining small, independent with a simple goal to help those less fortunate than myself. On each journey
I have brought with me a loyal following of people across Canada and internationally who believe and trust in DWP’s work and donate the funds that make it possible.

This next several months will be interesting as I try and figure out what’s next for DWP and myself. I know that I want DWP to continue to help people but how I manage the process may change. I need to sort out a way to continue DWP while surviving myself and I’m not quite sure what that looks like….yet.

Three years ago I landed in Mumbai with $4000 CAD a backpack and absolutely no clue about how or where I could help. Schools, gardens, a women’s centre and the funding of hundreds of medical cases and school sponsorships later, I will arrive at the same airport with the same backpack, but this time I have $40,000 CAD and a new adventure in the wings…

India has always had answers for my questions and as I prepare to land I look forward to hearing what this crazy country has in store for me.

Cheers,
Kane Ryan

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Shalu sitting on the pipeline in front of her home with her youngest son Ritik.

Avoiding the brown door with the small cut out window rimmed in black challenges all of us. We walk by it a hundred times a day but never purposely linger in front of it, moving to the left or the right, ignoring the pain for another day. Ranjana, gripping the rustic, hand made broom with the handle so short that she has to stoop to use it, sweeps in front of her doorway and makes a pass in front of the brown door. Children running in and out of the Balwadi, run their hands along the brown metal and lean against the door while waiting for their mothers to come to take them home. The door remained closed, the secret of what went on inside the last time it was open, still a mystery, still a painful reminder of the death of Shalu and subsequently the death of her husband. Her boys walk by this door everyday, as does everyone who comes and goes from this community. They play within spitting distance of their former home but never linger or peek inside through the tiny window. Harsh words, physical abuse, and the grim reality of poverty turned this small room where Shalu and Suresh were attempting to build a life with their three boys, into an inferno a year ago. The last time Shalu walked out of her home, pushing open the brown door,  she was fleeing, in shock, and engulfed in flames. Suresh, still in the home, with one of his sons who bore witness to this scene, finally appeared in the doorway where neighbours berated him with angry words and shaking fists and refused to help him. Shalu was attended to by neighbours who smothered the flames that were searing her tiny body by wrapping her in hand-made quilts that they hastily pulled off bamboo poles where they were drying in the sun. Shalu’s brother, who lives just a few doors away, picked Shalu up in his arms, carried her the few hundred metres to the steps which lead up and out of the community to the roadway. With burns covering her entire body, her polyester sari melted to her skin, Shalu still had to endure a bone-shaking ride in a rickshaw to a hospital where she would live in unbearable pain for the next week, until her death. Suresh, seriously injured, walked out of the slum, accompanied by his 10 year old son, and flagged a rickshaw to the same hospital.  The couple never spoke to each other again. Suresh who was still able to communicate never asked about Shalu.  Suresh died almost a week after Shalu’s death, after being moved to another hospital far from the community they both loved.

The Saki Naka slum community is crowded, intense and unforgiving and no one yields to domestic abuse, unless it affects them. Shalu’s house is in the centre of the community, sharing a space with the Balwadi, with a ‘view’ of the community garden and play space. Suresh was sick with AIDS and TB and was barely a stick figure of a man. His handsome features morphed into sharp prominence on his face, his head with his full, curly black hair seemed too large for his body. The family of five lived in the small room in a space shared by the Balwadi. When DWP and Janvi built the Balwadi, Shalu and Suresh’s home was partly destroyed by the renovation. Living with her brother and his family until the building of the school was complete, Shalu was kept busy picking out new tiles for her new ‘home’, and choosing a pale blue colour for her four walls. I helped Suresh paint the walls over a year ago, when he was a happier man, excited about his family’s new and improved home.  When the renovation was complete, Shalu and her family moved back into their home, excited about their fresh new space. A new door was hung with the cut out window to allow some light into the space and Shalu was presented with a bold, blue shower curtain to give her some privacy from her boys when she bathed in the corner. Hired by Janvi to help out at the Balwadi, Shalu was the main wage earner for her family, although they were supported by DWP and Janvi with medication for Suresh and school sponsorships for the boys. Not long before their deaths, Suresh, feeling much better due to new medication, managed to get a job driving a delivery truck back and forth to Pune, a two hour journey from Mumbai. When he arrived home from work, he fueled his body with cheap, toxic, home-made alcohol which is easy to purchase behind unmarked doors anywhere in Mumbai. Drunken rages followed, angry outbursts belched from the tiny room and threats to Shalu followed. Accused of cheating on Suresh while he was away, Shalu, innocent of those accusations, protested loudly and told some of the other women about her troubles. Although they may have listened intently to Shalu’s problems, there would be no solution, no easy way out. A woman without a husband is doomed to live on the lowest rungs of traditional Indian society.

It has been just over a year since I spoke on the phone to Shalu. Shalu, covered in bandages in a Mumbai hospital and clinging to life, had the phone held to her ear by Ashley while I paced my backyard in Victoria, Canada thousands of miles away. Using the very few words I knew in Hindi I told her I loved and missed her, she told me that she would wait for me to arrive back to India, both of us knowing there wasn’t enough time.  There has barely been a day since, that Shalu hasn’t passed through my thoughts. The guilt I feel for not realizing how terrible she was being treated by Suresh and how close she was to the edge, will be something I carry with me forever.

But, Shalu has not faded away from our community and over the past few months she has come back in the presence of a spirit. Our community in Saki Naka believes heavily in spirits and although I was quick to disregard this aspect of the community during my first couple of years working there, I have heard too many stories and witnessed far too many happenings to discount their presence. Ranjana, who was Shalu’s neighbour, often speaks of an intense heat that radiates around Shalu’s door.  This was the beginning of Shalu’s re-emergence into the community. Soon eery sightings of Shalu were seen late at night. One such story was from a young pregnant woman who was headed to the communal toilets  near Shalu’s home. A few feet from the toilets she looked up to see Shalu, dressed in a red sari speaking to her dead husband, Suresh. As she squinted and moved closer, Shalu turned and moved towards her and pushed the young woman. Backpedalling she ran back to her home. The next day, the young woman, feeling sick went to the doctor and found that she had suffered a miscarriage which she believes was caused by Shalu’s spirit. Within a few days there were several more sightings of Shalu walking through the community. Our recently built women’s centre shares a common wall with Shalu’s home and a few weeks ago as the women sat in a circle sewing and chatting, Shashi felt a presence in her body. Shashi, who is a quiet and reserved young woman, started to feel ill. Moments later she started to groan. Indu (GCB manager) noticing Shashi’s discomfort, sat beside her. Shashi began to speak in a voice different from her own and then started to yell obscenities in Hindi, shocking all of the women. Indu, sensed there was a spirit and asked who was there. Through Shashi, Shalu answered, and began telling the women that she didn’t wish to die and asked why we couldn’t save her. She told the women that she took her injured husband to the spirit world because he shouldn’t be allowed to live, and that she was now back in the community to bring more people with her. She told the women that Ashley and I should have saved her. She spoke of her love for Shashi, that Shashi is beautiful and always happy, and she wanted her to come to the afterlife with her. She said she had been hiding in Shashi’s body for eight days and wasn’t planning on leaving. Shashi then collapsed. Shashi’s mother was called and she was taken to a Hindu exorcist. Shashi spent the next week in bed, suffering from fevers, exhausted from the experience. But Shalu wasn’t finished harassing the community and showed up next door at Rajashree’s home. Rajashree, feeling sick one morning, began to light her gas stove when all of a sudden huge flames blew from the sides of the small kerosene burner. She believes that this was Shalu’s presence. A few mornings later as Hema opened the door to our school she looked up to see Shalu standing on the stairs, holding a broom. Hema, shocked and scared moved quickly away from the door. Shalu’s spirit has accosted one young family so much that they have packed their belongings and moved to a different community. The presence of Shalu’s spirit in the women’s centre keeps the women who work there on edge and nervous. No one wants to be alone and they huddle together while they work.

This is tremendously sad for both our community and Shalu. The presence of her spirit is proof that her death was sudden, violent, full of anger and that she was pushed to leave this world, leaving many unanswered questions surrounding the day of her death. Shalu’s spirit claimed that she was very hungry and thirsty and the community had organized a feast in her honour on April 14th (the anniversary of her death) to convince Shalu’s spirit to make the transition into the next world. But, the night before the event, a young boy named Sanjay from our community died suddenly and out of respect to his family, the community has postponed Shalu’s feast.

Shalu’s spirit is still wandering, helpless, in this lively community that was once her home. In death her spirit is angry and vengeful, in life Shalu was quiet, reserved and very meek. The brown metal door was opened recently when Suresh’s mother decided to move into the community to protect the ownership of the house. A quick peek through the door revealed the pale blue walls, a colour that Shalu loved, and a darkened room without light. The community will continue to nudge Shalu’s spirit into the next world, out of respect for her and her young sons, hoping to bring her spirit and the community some relief from her ghostly, unsettled wandering.

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Note: Shalu’s two sons are living with Shalu’s brother and his wife a few doors away from their former home. The boys are happy and involved in community activities. DWP pays 1000 rupees a month to this family to help alleviate the expense of adding two more mouths to feed. Shalu’s oldest son Sumeet lives with Suresh’s sister and mother across the city. Shalu is not forgotten here.  In the tiny, narrow home, among the clothing hung on nails and piled household goods on thin shelves, sits a photo of a smiling Shalu once given to her by DWP.

Sincerely,

Kane & Cindy Ryan

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DWP’s photography show will run until May 5th at Luz Gallery in Oak Bay, Victoria.

A catalog of DWP photographs are available for purchase through the gallery and will be available on line soon.

The show is a new collection of photographs which were taken over the last 6 months in Mumbai, India.

Come down and have a look into the lives of the Saki Naka slum, the community DWP has called home over the last few years.

DWP’s Kane Ryan will be back in Mumbai on Monday to continue work on existing projects  and start new.

A big thank you to Diana and Quinton (Luz Gallery) for their support and to all that attended opening night.

DWP was able to raise nearly $4000 from sales and donations which will be put to use in less than a week in Mumbai, India.

Luz Gallery

1844 Oak Bay Avenue

(250) 590 7557

Links:

Hoyne Brewing

Luz Gallery

Look forward to seeing you!

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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DWP had the opportunity to sit down with Harneha Gulati of Omni News this morning in Vancouver.

The video above ran nationally across Canada this evening (March 27th) at 9pm.

A big thank you to Omni and Harneha for giving DWP the chance to showcase our community and projects in India.

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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Beautiful Vancouver, where the mountains meet the sea.

The rain whips my face and my cold hands struggle to tie the knot in a soaking wet rope. I shuffle toward the edge, nervous and cold, a brief nod of the head from my foreman and I awkwardly push my chair over the edge.

In front of me, beautiful yachts sway in the oddly still Vancouver harbour. Low clouds hug the shore while snow capped mountains tower over the city. I look back over my shoulder following my safety rope that snakes its way through puddles on the roof to a hook tied with a knot that I learned only yesterday. I swing my foot over the edge and look at my black sneakers and instantly remember haggling for them in a side street in Mumbai. The temperature had hit nearly 40 degrees that day and I smile at the journey my shoes and the weary feet inside them have taken over the last six months.

I step into the small wooden chair as my harness clanks against the flashing of the roof and I yank against my rope and breathe a sigh of relief as the chair holds my weight. Slipping into the chair I reach up and grab the rope and begin my first descent into the quiet streets of Vancouver below.

I arrived back in Canada less than a month ago after 6 months in the mega city of Mumbai. After years of travel and 3 years of life between Canada and India, the transition is easy but never completely smooth.

DWP is a labour of love, but as my time in India comes to an end the stress of heading home and finding a job while raising funds for DWP’s next round of projects begins to invade my mind. A three day stopover in Munich, Germany to visit my friend, Sammy “the bullet dodger” Khamis, proves to be a great way for me to slowly adapt to the change in ideologies and cultures slipping quietly from East to West. Sammy, along with Kirsten Langsdorf, have been great DWP supporters and thanks to the incredible generosity and craftsmanship of Sammy, a box laden with one of the most beautiful vintage Italian racing bikes lies packaged somewhere between Germany and Canada en route to be sold in Canada to fund DWP’s next project in India.

This last 6 months in India has been the most stressful working trip of my 3 years of doing charity work in India. While our major project, ”Girls Can Be”, has been a great success, deaths and problems in the community were present with every moment of happiness. Over the last 3 years DWP has lost 5 employees (Shalu, Hitesh, Simon, Ganesh and David) to unexpected deaths.These five people were not just employees but also friends and the community will never be the same without them.  Working in poor communities is difficult and marred with tragedies and miracles alike but it seems as though the community lost more than its fair share of children and adults in terrible circumstances during my stay this time. I have begun to find myself more affected by the tragedies of lives lost and the lack ability to not stop them from happening. But, amongst the sadness, amazing things happened as well, and DWP as an organization chooses to focus on the ”great and the good” that somehow surfaces from terrible situations.

I am now back on the rugged and beautiful west coast of Canada bouncing back and forth between Victoria and Vancouver. My goal of keeping DWP free of high administration costs and Canadian wages results in me looking for new work every time I arrive on home soil. In the past 3 years I have worked in restaurants, auction houses, diamond companies, gold companies and hotels in an attempt to fund myself and keep 100% of your donation to DWP going to those who need it. As DWP’s projects and the amount of people we are able to help increases, so does the work involved at keeping it funded and to increase the support connected to our community and projects. I couldn’t do this without the support and help from my parents, Cindy and Todd Ryan. My parents spent the last 5 months sharing a 400 sq ft apartment with me while also hosting Canadian friends who joined us for brief stays in support of DWP and the community in Saki Naka. Being a “one man” charity my parents have been the sounding board for everything involving DWP since the beginning and it was amazing to have their support on the ground in India.  Like myself, my parents supported their own travel and living costs while working 10 hrs a day for the Saki Naka community and living in less than ideal conditions  inside my apartment. We do this not because we have to, but because we want to. I have had countless discussions with friends and supporters about the need for me to take some form of payment or living costs out of DWP’s funds to keep the project going. Every time I consider this I decide against it soon after. It is not until I get home and find my self desperately looking for employment that I begin to think about it again. Over the last couple of weeks I have been printing out resumes and sending off emails to potential jobs in the Vancouver area. My first week I was offered a job as a bellman/valet at a hotel and as an event photographer in the Vancouver night life scene. The third and certainly most interesting was a position as a high rise window washer in downtown Vancouver. After some deliberation I have taken the job as the window washer and have worked  washing windows and loading gear to the roof tops of some of Vancouver’s tallest buildings. Friday was my first day repelling and although it was a cold and rainy BC day, I enjoyed the unnerving feeling of being suspend above the hustle of the city while remaining outside the cubicles of the city’s offices.

Although India is thousands of miles away, I am constantly connected and I speak to Indu and Ashley a few times a week, keeping abreast of the happenings in the community and doing my best to fund any emergency medical problems and keep our current projects running.

So, what’s next for DWP?

This question is hard to answer as local and general elections in Mumbai have just taken place. The results of the election may change the decisions of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Promises are made during election time that often have a major effect on the poor in living the Saki Naka slum communities and all slum communities in the city. DWP  and Janvi has worked closely with the BMC to build and revitalize the Saki Naka community making it one of the cleanest and well cared for slum communities in the country. But this does not make our community safe from demolition and we have begun  to hear the rumblings of a complete demolition. The hottest topic in Mumbai is the demolition of slum communities. Mumbai’s population has exploded to over 18 million people, and of that 18 million nearly 10 million live in slum communities just like ours in Saki Naka. Every week the local papers and TV networks show government bulldozers knocking through the tin walls of poor communities across the city and country. Saki Naka has not been spared as the community and I have witnessed two small demolitions in the slum over the last few years which has wiped out over 250 homes from our community. While I know this is part of life for poor villagers who seek jobs, homes and a place to live in Mumbai, the demolitions come suddenly and with shock every time. Both times I have watched as police swarm the community quelling any unrest while protecting bulldozers that hungrily chew on torn metal and asbestos roofing tiles that were once home to large families.

For now I live in limbo awaiting my next visa for India while hanging off the sides of buildings trying to pocket enough cash to head back to a community of people I consider family. The demolition of our community may or not happen but it is a real-life threat to the thousands who call it home. With amazing success, we have invested our time and money into this community and will continue to help until the bulldozers come knocking, if and when they do. If the demolition actually takes place and the thousands of families and the women of GCB lose their homes, DWP will be there to help when they need it most.  Bricks and mortar don’t make a community, it’s the people who live in it, and it’s those people that we have all come together to help.

DWP has touched thousands of lives in Saki Naka in the few years that we have been operating and you can count on DWP to continue to support these women and children and their families long after the bricks fall.

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DWP will be looking to hold new photography shows with images taken over the last 6 months while I organize and set up potential fundraisers for DWP in Victoria,Vancouver and Calgary.

If you have any ideas on venues or spaces for DWP’s new photography show in either Victoria or Vancouver or fundraising ideas please contact me directly - dirtywallproject@gmail.com

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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Indu...

The third installment  in our interview series with the women of  the Girls Can Be centre.

-Interviewed and written by Cindy Ryan

We don’t remember meeting Indu for the first time two years ago, but since then she has become a friend, a translator and a co-worker despite the issues of culture and language lingering in our Hinglish conversations. Of all of the women we have daily contact with, Indu, who speaks English easily meets us halfway. She refrains from treating us as outsiders in her constrained world by allowing us to treat her as an equal. In India, especially among the poor, foreigners or firangis are treated with the utmost respect. Often when we have helped someone or when we meet someone for the first time, they gently bend at the waist to touch our feet and then they touch their heart. With all due respect to this tradition, it is met with uneasiness on our part to be the one who deserves more respect for simply being foreign and white, but Indu allows us to be friends and it is in this relationship that we have had many conversations and shared many light moments full of mutual teasing, sarcasm, and pranks often with Indu raising her voice while she says, “Hey Bhagwan!!”

Indu has the most beautiful hazel eyes set against copper coloured skin with sharp, defined cheekbones and a grin that stretches from ear to ear. As a 27 year old unmarried woman who has worked at a few jobs and has an education that reached the 14th Standard, she has confidence, ambition and aspirations. When her formal schooling ended she started working for a neighbour making jewelery, and when the neighbour opened a shop, Indu was hired as a sales girl and happily worked there for 3 years gaining skills that she would carry with her to her present job with Janvi Charitable Trust and recently as the manager of the Girls Can Be women’s centre in the Saki Naka slum community. This outside work experience plus her education set her apart from the other women who work at the women’s centre who are mostly illiterate and play traditional roles in their families.

As a young girl Indu lived in a slum in Mumbai with her parents, who are from Uttar Pradesh, and her two brothers until the slum was demolished and they were granted a slum rehabilitation apartment near Saki Naka. After the demolition of their slum home, they lived in a camp for two years until their very basic apartment was built. Her father works as a mechanic at the airport and her older brother works there as a forklift driver. Her other brother, also older than Indu, died 6 years ago of kidney failure and soon after her mother literally cried herself to death, despairing over the death of her son. The other members of her family include her sister-in-law and her 2 year old nephew, Granth, all of them living together in under 500 square feet on the fourth floor of the recently built, but never finished apartment building with a smudgy view of the hazy Mumbai skyline and the international airport a few kilometers away.

While at work at the women’s centre, Indu, who sometimes dares to wear jeans and a t-shirt instead of the traditional outfit of a colourful kurta and leggings, is either singing Bollywood tunes while she works or is cradling her cellphone against her ear while she expertly guides the women in their work. On the other end of the cellphone is her boyfriend. Indu wants a love marriage and she declares that she will marry her boyfriend within a year. At age 27, in her community, she is marrying late. The early death of her mother put the brakes on her family looking for a potential mate for Indu and she found her life partner on her own, causing tension in the home because her father is insisting that she wait until he finds a suitable match who makes more money than her boyfriend. Indu is boldly hoping that her father will come to accept her decision for a love marriage once she is married. Because Indu’s father won’t agree to the marriage, Indu and her boyfriend will not be allowed a traditional Hindu ceremony and they will have to marry at a court, although Indu insists she will wear a sari.  Indu has a curious mix of traditional and modern thinking and is aware that as a poor woman in India her desire  for a more modern way of life will be difficult. A woman is not supposed to work outside the home.  Instead she is to concentrate her energy on her husband and home life, which means cooking, cleaning, having children and obeying her in-laws. Indu sees life differently from her parents and hopes to instill modern values in her children with a link to tradition. “Independence and love marriage will be allowed for my children”, she said sofly. After a moment of quiet contemplation, she remarked, “If I have a daughter I would like her to become a singer because this is what I wanted for myself.” As we watched Indu answer these questions about love marriages and independence, we also noticed she became quiet. She knows that, like a flower that loses its petals in a brisk wind, the gales of tradition might keep her from realizing a more modern way of life.

With marriage to her boyfriend on the near horizon, Indu is saving her wages from the women’s centre and Janvi. Although poor, Indu is somewhat savvy and invests her meagre savings in gold jewelery. With no bank account, this is the way many poor Indians ‘save’ for the future. Gold is king in India and sometimes glitters on the fingers of the poor although most would have to use a money lender to purchase it. Cashing in her few pieces of gold jewelery and using her boyfriend’s savings, the couple plan to buy a 14 foot by 18 foot plot of land in the far northern reaches of Mumbai for 70,000 rupees ($1400 CAD).  Indu has calculated that it will take them months to save enough money to buy the tiny plot of dirt and then it will take a further eighteen months of saving to build a simple brick dwelling.

Once Indu’s  work day ay the Girl’s Can Be centre is finished she makes her way home, stopping to talk to friends in the chaotic, garbage strewn streets of her neighbourhood which is where her social life starts and stops. Her relationship with her boyfriend is carried out for the most part on her cellphone as she is not allowed out in the evening without her brother as a chaperone. She looks forward to her evenings in her tiny apartment where she helps her sister-in-law cook and clean, and then she settles in to watch Hindi movies on television.

Ending our Indu ‘interview’ with a philosophical question, we asked her, “If you could have anything or do anything, what would it be?” She stopped sewing and took a minute to think, her eyes moving slowly back and forth, pondering the question. Her answer was inspiring and passionate. “I would want to be a politician and change the corruption in India. I want India’s money to be for the people”, she declared. Although it is unlikely that Indu will become a politician, her attitude towards education, jobs for women, the right to choose one’s own path, and her declaration of raising independent children who will be allowed to choose for themselves, we are hopeful that her children may have that opportunity.

Inviting us for dinner at her familiy’s apartment a few weeks ago, Indu excitedly showed us the view from the end of the common beige hallway dotted with doorways every ten feet with a cluster of footwear outside each door. In the near distance an airplane was landing at the airport. Saddened that we were about to leave from that airport in a few days the moment was met with shuffled feet and sideways glances and fortunately interrupted by Indu’s nephew who wanted some adult attention. A few days before, our departure bearing down on us, we held an impromptu geography lesson in the Girls Can Be room. Using our laptop and Google Earth we showed the women where Canada was and told them how long it takes to fly to Canada from Mumbai. They weren’t impressed because it takes longer to get to their native villages in northern India by train. We tried to tell them how many kilometers a plane flies in one hour giving weight to our argument that Canada is indeed very far away. This was met with suspicion and loud chatter. What they agreed on, is that although we disappear in the airplanes they see flying overhead, we will come back the same way, all of us anxious to see each other again.  In the meantime, Indu will keep singing Bollywood tunes and planning her love marriage and the children she wants to have, who she hopes one day will have the chance to fly in one of those airplanes.

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Shashi & Seema

Shashi and Seema 

This is the second installment in our interview series with the women of the “Girls Can Be” centre.

Interviewed and written by : Cindy Ryan

Shashi, a striking beauty with high cheekbones, large eyes with lush lashes and a wide generous smile, was 18 when she started working with Ashley in the community as an assistant in the kindergarten. Her sweet presence in the kindergarten charms the children into listening to Usha Teacher.  Rarely speaking in voice above a whisper when we first came to know her, two years later and now twenty years old, she has blossomed into a chattering, excitable young woman who charms not only children, but us as well. She is second in command to Indu at the womens’ centre teaching women much older than her basic sewing skills.

Her father who is a private car driver and her mother, who takes in sewing for money,are anxious to arrange a marriage for Shashi. Although busy with the upcoming Hindu nuptials of Shashi’s older brother, they are keen to find Shashi a suitable husband. Shashi has two brothers and one sister, all living together in a chawl house. ( A chawl is a neighbourood of permanent, legal brick two story homes of about 500 sq. ft., with meandering lane ways connecting the chawl to the busy city streets).

Educated up to the 12th Standard, Shashi is literate, confident and exhuberant but her life experiences have been limited to her parent’s home and her job with Ashley. When we asked Shashi if she wants an arranged marriage, her eyes popped open wide and she exclaimed, “No, I want a love marriage!” Then her eyes narrowed and her smile dissolved quickly as she reminded herself that her parents will not allow her to make this kind of choice for herself so she must be confident that they will find her a good husband who has an education and a good job. Her brother, who can advocate for Shashi in the family structure, can tell the parents if Shashi doesn’t agree with their choice of husband for her but this is just a formality in a traditional household and her parent’s will ultimately decide for Shashi who she will spend her life with.

We asked her what kind of wedding she envisions when the time comes. When Indu translated our question, Shashi, just like most young women of marriagable age, became animated and the two of them chattered on about the details of her impending wedding. She wants to wear a yellow saree for the wedding ceremony, but during the course of the 5 days of festivities, she will change in to three or four different, equally beautiful sarees. Regardless of the exhuberant festivities involved in a Hindu wedding ceremony, the young bride is usually tearful, frightened and pensive because after the last marigold garland comes down she must begin a new life with strangers, leaving her family behind. Visits to her parents and siblings will be dictated by her in-laws and her husband. Shashi, like all brides in arranged marriages must endure and adjust to her new life and never complain.

We asked Shashi about what she would want for her future children and she answered, “I want them to have an education”. Regarding arranged marriages for her children she replied, “No, they could have a love marriage, even to someone of a different caste.” We take note that although women who are in the circumstance of having an arranged marriage, they boldly assert that their children will have choices. For the next generation, perhaps the roots of ‘modern’ India will take hold among those who toil at the bottom of the caste system.

While Shashi is educated, beautiful, and confident, she is also an obedient daughter and will be an obedient wife. Her job skills will be shelved, replaced by the routine of caring for children, her husband and his parents. She must give her mother her full salary from Janvi and Girls Can Be to help offset the cost of her dowry. She is not allowed to socialize in the evenings, occasionally seeing her friends on Sunday. Instead she must cook and clean for her parents and brothers while she awaits her arranged marriage. While this is what life has in store for Shashi, she is not unhappy and when asked if she could do anything she wants, what would it be, she looked up from her sewing, thought a minute and replied, “I would like to work in an office on a computer.” While Shashi will unlikely ever work in an office, or touch a computer, her education, her work experience before marriage and her beautiful confidence and sweet, sensible nature may ensure her children get to realize their ambitions beyond arranged marriages and the confines of tradition.

Seema

Seema, Shashi’s 18 year old sister, is lovely, bright, funny, energetic and deaf. Born with only the ability to hear faint noise when she wears a hearing aid, Seema lives with her disability with all the grace she can muster.  Her parents took her to doctors when she was young, trying to find meaning and answers to her deafness. Hearing aids were tried, but Seema couldn’t bear wearing them, finding they did very little good. Sign language was never offered as a way to communicate, probably due to the cost of a teacher. Regardless of her disability, Seema is capable and confident. She was hired by us to work at Girls Can Be alongside Shashi, who would help her if needed. Watching Seema take her place among the women of Girls Can Be has been a joyful experience for all of us. Although she can’t hear, she makes herself heard with her cheerful grunts and high pitched exclamations. This is Seema’s first job and she is always early, excited to push the thread through the needle and create little works of art.

Seema was born in Uttar Pradesh and like Shashi, was brought to Mumbai by her parents when she was young. Her parents allowed her an education up to the 9th Standard. When the conversation turned to what Seema’s future would hold, Shashi, who was answering our questions about Seema, became upset. Her eyes were suddenly wet with tears, and she  stopped to compose herself. Wiping her tears with a piece of fabric, Shashi said it was unlikely that Seema would ever marry. Although her parents would look for a husband for her, because of her disability, she wouldn’t fetch the kind of husband she deserves. Finding a boy who would agree to marry a deaf girl would be almost impossible, a match only likely if her parents find a boy who also has a disability. Shashi explained, while tears dropped into her lap, that Seema would live with her once their parents can no longer care for her. Looking at Seema watching Shashi talk, although she couldn’t hear what was being said, the closeness she shares with Shashi was palpable.

Seema’s intelligence transcends her disability and her cheerful squeals enliven a long day of sewing in the Girls Can Be room. She is loved dearly by Shashi who will take her by the hand into the next phase of their lives, allowing both of them a sister to lean on. In the few months we have spent working with Seema at the women’s centre, we have been witness to the extreme joy Seema is capable of.

It is bigger than all of us.

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“Girls Can Be” products have arrived on the West Coast of Canada!

Last week 50 of GCB’s “Hearts” arrived in Victoria and were sold at a yoUnlimited Event and privately at UVIC selling out in a matter of minutes!!

I have since arrived back in Canada with bags bursting with GCB products.

This morning our Hearts have gone on sale at Poppies Floral Art in the Atrium Building on Yates St. in Victoria while Rundle Academy in Calgary Alberta are running the “Have A Heart Campaign” this week!

The products including Hearts, Mini Wallets, purses, garlands, hair bands, baby mobiles, gift wallets and beautiful hand embroidered greeting cards all individually designed, one of a kind and made using recycled materials are now available here in Victoria and Vancouver.

Anyone interested in helping to sell or interested in purchasing our products contact Kane Ryan – dirtywallproject@gmail.com

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