Dirty Wall Project

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Brand new baby Radha

by Cindy Ryan (with Aarti Kalro) (photos by Aarti Kalro)

Maya’s howling, healthy, full-term baby girl, born in a cramped, low-ceilinged home the size of a small bathroom in North America arrived not in a hospital as we had hoped, but in her home with the help of neighbours. Prem, Suman and Nandini have a new sister named Radha. The news of Radha’s birth was given to us by Aarti Kalro who, along with Jaita Guha, has been helping Maya keep her appointments with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health. Dr. Rupal and her excellent caring team were responsible for giving Maya the much-needed advice to keep her healthy during her pregnancy and give hope to all of us that she would have a healthy child.

Just before I left Saki Naka, I helped Maya register at a municipal hospital with the thin shred of hope that she would manage to give birth there when the time came. While municipal hospitals are in need of scrubbing and staff with more time to give, giving birth in one is possibly cleaner and safer than giving birth in a slum home. A hospital birth ensures the baby will have paperwork, a leg up on the system of becoming a bonafide person in India.We can only speculate as to why Maya gave birth at home. Her husband may have been at work when Maya’s labour started and Maya may not have had time to make it to the hospital or she decided she wanted to give birth at home. Radha was born without benefit of doctors, nurses or bureaucracy, as well as being a girl, all a possible recipe for poverty in the mired caste system. What she does have is a loving mother, a father who seems to be excited by her birth and two sisters and a brother who have managed to live through malnutrition and stunted growth to become healthy, active, very smart children. Given a chance in India’s complex social system they could live a fruitful life. Maya is about 25 years old and is a strong, yet physically very tiny woman who is able to stand up for her children and herself and do what’s best in very difficult living conditions. Since Radha’s birth about  6 weeks ago, Maya’s family has chosen to move from Saki Naka to a different community in Mumbai where they will have some help from her husband Pramod’s relatives and a larger room to live in. For that we are all grateful. DWP will continue to assist Maya’s children and support the family with much help from Aarti and Jaita.

Below, in Aarti’s words, are her thoughts on Maya and her involvement with the family.

Maya. 

More than words I am overcome with emotion when I think of Maya.  
While many who don’t know her, might make the assumption that she is shy and a victim of her circumstances, I think differently.  
Maya has been a positive influence in my life. Rather than me giving her anything she has given me a lot. Maybe (it’s my hope) that we give each other strength. I know that Maya has become more brave now that she has DWP’s support. In return, she is an inspiration for me and a reminder that your circumstances do not dictate your happiness.  With her perennial smile, and her innocence, she lifts my spirits when I feel low. 

The last nine months have been exciting and also fraught with worry. Maya calmly left it to us, accepting help and suggestions with full faith. We all hoped at DWP that Mayas pregnancy would go smoothly and the baby be born in a hospital with a birth certificate. We tried. It was not to be so. The baby was born at home with the help of the neighbour . However the baby is healthy and that is most important.  She has an aura of calmness about her and beautiful curious wide eyes like her older sister Nandini. Will she be mischievous like Prem ? Or bubbly like Nandini ? Will she be blatantly truthful like Suman? I don’t know.. She will be loved without doubt.. By 5 wonderful people-her family-and then many more. While she may not grow up with the chances that a lot of us are fortunate to have, I know that she will grow up into a loving individual and have a vibrant life.I hope we can give her a chance to study and a chance to dream. 

Aarti was given the honour of naming the baby which required her to think passionately about what she hopes for this new life. Below is her reason for choosing the name Radha.

Radha was Lord Krishna’s advisor and friend. He was in love with her but she was married. However they are always depicted together, and some say she was even more important than Lord Krishna himself. She is also supposed to be the original goddess of Shakti ( power/energy ).

It is a beautiful name and just has a loving feeling , and softness to it…   Aarti.

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The ladder shakes as I reach the top, I steady myself and turn around. I look down through the top of the window where the brown paper has started to come undone and watch people as they walk by. I remember three months ago my bike leaning against the window, face pressed against the dirty glass looking into the space for the first time. My memory flashes forward and I see myself weaving through downtown traffic on my bicycle, a roll of brown paper tucked under my arm, a personal loan, and a rolled up copy of the lease jammed into my front pocket.

It has been two months since I have written a post about DWP and our newest project but things have been anything but quiet. Ten weeks ago, my parents, Salomeh and I walked into the 100 year old building on Vancouver’s downtown east side armed with a tool box and energy. Since then the floors have been ripped up, walls built, puttied and painted, equipment purchased and the kitchen built.  Perched on top of the ladder I look out at the space that will become the ” Lost + Found Cafe”. Four years ago I combined my love of travel and photography into a way to give back to the communities who had welcomed me and DWP was born. Now with the help of my family and Salomeh we are combining my love of travel, photography and social work and adding great food and atmosphere to the mix plus a great space for fundraisers and events. DWP will have a permanent home in the new space. Products sourced from women’s collectives and independent NGO’s have been purchased from South Africa, Cambodia, Uganda, India and Mexico giving funds directly to the people who make them and in turn providing DWP with retail products to sell which will generate funds for DWP projects both in India and Canada. Although the website and Facebook pages have been quiet, India and the communities we support have been steadily in our minds. With the help of Jaita and Aarti we have been able to monitor Maya’s pregnancy from afar. Maya has passed her suspected due date but is relatively healthy. She is nervous but resilient and we all anxious for the arrival of the newest addition to her family.  We speak often to Ranjana, Usha, Indu, Shashi and the girls of GCB.

Over the last month DWP supporters have not gone quiet and donations have continued to flow in despite my relative absence from the website. The continued support has been amazing and I can’t wait to show all of you what the DWP team has created in a 100 year old vacant space in what is dubbed the poorest neighbourhood in Canada.

On behalf of all us we wish you all a Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year…

 

Cheers,

Kane

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The glass door swings open to a wet Vancouver morning as a man and his girlfriend step out of the way to let me by. Outside, fresh rain streaks my dirty face. Head down I clutch my new purchase and slowly bang it against my hand. My right hand is covered in a thick banding of masking tape acting as a impromptu bandage over cuts and fresh blisters from the morning’s work. My clothing is ripped and dirty from tearing up flooring. I look up and see a group of  hipsters quickly part as they see me coming. I realize how this may look, bloody hands, dirty clothes and clutching a large crowbar walking through one of Canada’s poorest streets and I can’t help but smile. I open the metal gate and slip through the open door. Before me is my newest project…

I have found myself saying that “something needs to change” for the past year but for the longest time had no idea what that “something” was. DWP is an amazing adventure but it has taken a toll on me (health) and my personal bank account and I had to figure out a way to top up both in order for it to continue. When I started DWP I vowed to keep it administration fee free with a pledge to have 100% of the donations going to those who need it. To manage this I return to Canada every 6 months to find short term work to keep myself fed and clothed. I have found interesting employment and been given opportunities from generous employers who value what I do in India, allowing me to work for short periods before I head back to India. However, this isn’t a good, sustainable long term solution for me or DWP if I run out of energy and funds for myself. I often find myself telling others that “change is good” and three months ago I realized that it was time to take my own advice.

I come from a long line of entrepreneurs including my beloved parents. After years of saying to my father that I wasn’t interested in running their restaurant they sold the last of their places a few years ago and joined me in India. When I returned to Vancouver from Mumbai in August, riding the sky train into Vancouver, sitting beside my dad, I told him that I’m ready to start a business here in Vancouver. This venture required a personal loan and my commitment to a lease.

Days after my arrival home, my girlfriend (Salomeh) and I began to walk around downtown Vancouver peering in to empty storefronts and looking for the “perfect” place while my parents began to scour East Van, Commercial Drive and Main St. for a space. Phone call after phone call ensued and my heart skipped a beat as I realized just how expensive a proposition this was going to be. As the agents stated the rent over the phone I day- dreamed in rupees and Indian prices. As I got over the initial shock of Vancouver’s pricey retail rental market I began to realize that downtown may not be an actual option. I rode my bike to East Van following up leads sniffed out by my parents and found a nice corner space in a good area.  Standing in the space I started to visualize the new place and the nervous excitement came flooding back. The next morning was spent at City Hall and after a couple of hours I found out that the space could never be zoned correctly and my day dreams of lax Indian bylaws and crooked officials filled my head once again.

Although it had only been a few weeks of looking for space to lease, I was feeling frustrated. Somewhere in Vancouver was the perfect place, but where? A week prior, while phoning an agent about another space, she mentioned that she had a large space in Gastown in the Downtown East Side that I should check out. I cycled to the address she had given me on East Hastings St., Vancouver’s most infamous stretch of road. Wiping the window with my sleeve I peered into the cavernous dark space. My initial reaction was that the space was too big and probably way too much work and money. But after three weeks of looking, that space kept finding its way into my mind and once again Salomeh and I found ourselves peering through the window.  Salomeh put out my fears of taking on the large space and the phone call was made to the realtor.

I have been back in Vancouver for just over 60 days and for the past month I have been working on creating my first ever “for profit” business. There has been a few weeks of negotiations, proposals, lease amendments, meetings with lawyers and countless hours on the phone berating my dad with endless questions. Stage One of many is now over and the creating of the actual business has begun, which is extremely exciting.

This beautiful new space will give DWP its first real home here in Canada and give it a chance to gain a new group of donors and friends here in Vancouver. It is not by mistake but by good fortune that DWP and I have landed back in Vancouver and have set up shop in the Downtown East Side. After 3 years of work in India where 1/3 of the world’s poor reside, DWP’s new home is right smack in the middle of Canada’s poorest postal code. It is my hope that while continuing to support our friends and families in India that we can also begin to work closer to home and start a new chapter of helping locally as well.

I will be putting up sneak peaks of what I am up to leading up to the reveal of this new chapter for me and for DWP. Stay tuned….

Change is good..

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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