Dirty Wall Project

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Written and photographed by Cindy Ryan

Flying low over Mumbai, the plane rushes over squares of torn blue plastic, pulled and pinched, secured with bricks and steel pipes. Squint your eyes and slum homes from the air resemble a river of water, its tributaries  invading every space not occupied by high-rise towers. With my forehead pressed against the window of the plane, I try to sort out which blue plastic roofs belong to the Saki Naka community and I get excited about landing. Soon I will be in the thick of it and my heart sings at the thought.

I’m only here for a scant three weeks this time and already my guts are telling me to stay longer. There is always so much to do, so many people to see, and what will I find behind the curtained doorways of the slum community this time?

I leave the plane with an imaginary coat of thin armour to protect me from what I can’t do in such a short amount of time and step out into the humid air of Mumbai. Kane, one of the few white faces in the crowded arrivals area, steps out and welcomes me once again. Suddenly, I am mobbed by Indu, Shashi, Seema and Ruby, who have waited patiently to welcome me. Now I am giddy with excitement again. I have worked side by side in the GCB centre with these beautiful women for months, and I think of them as friends, albeit the conversation is limited to what Indu can translate for all of us.

This whirling, active, bleak and bare bones community, stuffed with too many people, is also the scene of a meeting that has ended in a wedding, another reason why I have returned to Saki Naka. Sarah Petrescu, a journalist from Victoria B.C., volunteered with DWP last October. She immediately attached herself to the women of the GCB and helped us create prototypes and products before leaving for a volunteer stint in Bangalore. Within days of Sarah’s arrival in Mumbai, she attended a Diwali celebration in the community. Also invited to this event was Ashley Fernandes, a friend from Mumbai who has  contributed to DWP. A brief introduction in the midst of the overcrowded garden in the middle of the slum community during the Festival of Light, has led to their wedding 10 months later.

On July 26th, 2012, Sarah and Ashley were married in the Catholic church just down the road from Kane’s apartment. Wanting the community to be part of the celebration of the relationship which blossomed in their midst, Sarah and Ashley invited the GCB women and their small children and Ranjana and her family. Ashley Pereira (Janvi Charitable Trust), a devoted member of the church where they married, did a reading, and beautiful fabric garlands, made for Sarah by the GCB women, draped the elegant doorway to the church. A full circle of events inspired by the generosity of a slum community, friends and family, in the middle of the monsoon season where cement walls resemble, thick, wet, green sponges.

Between wedding festivities, I have been running after children in the slum, jumping over puddles thick with mud and gooey remnants of garbage, finding shelter from the rain in the school or in slum homes where I am invited for chai and dal, and nodding in faint comprehension in conversations conducted in Hindi or Marathi.

While the monsoon rains bring relief, and sometimes a cool breeze, slum dwellers, hiding from the rains, stay inside, breathing the foul air of their cramped huts. Infections, coughs, runny noses, plus lethargy, bring a host of complications to already fragile health. Sweet, young, frail Maya, who is four months pregnant with her fourth child, was hospitalized with the worry of TB. Almost excited for her to be confined to bed rest in the relative comfort of a soft bed in the confines of a hospital, I was incredulous when she was desperate to go back to her tiny home, where the family of five sleep in an 8 foot by 6 foot cement room, on plastic billboard vinyl laid over a bare cement floor. Putting aside my assumptions of comfort, I must understand this is what Maya knows and this small, damp hut is where her family heaps its joys and sorrows.

Opening my eyes in the morning, the first shaft of light from dull, cottony skies brightens the room where I sleep and I take it in. The rain water has been sucked through the coarse mix of sand and clay bricks that form the outside of the building, creating water stains on the side wall of the room, damp to the touch. Mould forms at the corners and the flaking paint on the ceiling above the whirling, clicking fan, threatens to fall in thin slices onto the bed. The honking that never abates invades the room with a crying, tinny sound. Mumbai is not comfortable, inside or out, it is never clean, never quiet and never dull. What is comfortable here is the people I have met, the slum community I feel at home in and the notion that why I’m here is because it’s where I should be. It will be hard to leave, again. It will be divine to be back in the fresh air of Vancouver, Canada. That is the push and pull of Mumbai, up close and personal.

* A full post about Sarah and Ashley’s wedding with photos from the beautiful day coming soon…

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I climb up an unsteady pile of rocks just off the side of the road. Before me, hundreds of colours swirl, and voices fight to be heard. I change my lens and and bring my camera to my face snapping off a few quick bursts of photos, trying to capture the frenetic market scene in a still photograph. Unsatisfied, I look for a better vantage point and spot a small brick wall, fifty feet away and head for it. I attempt to hop up onto the wall, sweat from the humid desert air glues my new green shorts to my leg, (my girlfriend Salomeh  had just purchased these for me with strict instructions not to wear them to work) and as I stretch to make the jump, the pen in my pocket bursts through, cutting a hole in my shorts. I hear the noise and look down at a three-inch gap exposing my pasty white thighs, and see the pen from a hotel, through the newly formed hole, mocking me.  S**t…! I hear a giggle, and look behind the wall to see a young boy of about ten years old, sitting bare-assed and shitting, while pointing to the hole in my shorts and laughing…

A week ago I arrived in Jaipur (dubbed the Pink city), Rajasthan after a nearly two year absence. It was over three years ago that I arrived in Jaipur, having travelled overland from Mumbai, weary from the train journey but excited about my new adventure, The Dirty Wall Project. DWP was just three weeks old and I was wide-eyed, but excited at the prospect of helping. Previous to my initial trip to Jaipur, DWP had delivered food to hospital patients, given rations to a blind community, funded kidney dialysis for a patient in Mumbai, and handed out umbrellas for shade, to poor street vendors. I was fresh and naive, but wanted more . A friend of mine had told me about Vatsalya and I was eager to see their work first-hand. It was clear from the start that Vatsalya was one of the good guys in the NGO world and was truly helping. Over the next week or so, I visited their programs, donated some DWP funds, and helped set up a health clinic in a slum community in Jaipur. It was my first time being in a slum community and after two hours, I knew that’s where I wanted to work. I wanted to find a community where I could bring joy and a helping hand too. In the end, that community was 1200 km’s to the south in one of the biggest cities in the world, Mumbai.

Fast forward 3 years and DWP has become a recognized NGO in India, and has had the chance to help thousands of people. DWP has continued to stay in contact with Vatsalya (run by Jaimala  & Hitesh Gupta) and over the last few years has joined with Vatsalya to work on several projects, including health camps and selling Vatsalya’s womens’ products in Canada. Just recently, Vatsalya opened up a school just off campus from the orphanage located just outside of Jaipur, and I was eager to visit and see what other new initiatives Vatsalya had started since my last visit.

Vatsalya is always busy and this time was no different. I spent the first few days being Vatsalya’s photographer, taking event photos at several of their vocational training graduations around Jaipur. I continued to lend a hand and used DWP’s photography to capture their new school,  their programs and the new womens’ products, for use on their website and for fundraisers. During my time I also had several meetings with them, trying to get a handle on what DWP could do financially for their organization. DWP has been blessed with some very generous donations as of late and I wanted to help Vatsalya with some of their programs.

One of the main problems I have encountered during my time raising funds for DWP and watching other organizations battle for funds, is that certain stuff is easier to raise funds for and some things are damn near impossible. Everyone wants to have their money go towards the building of a school or the sponsorship of a child, but funding the repair work for a fence or a teacher’s salary is not quite as “sexy” to be a part of. It’s understandable, but also a difficulty for all NGO’s trying to keep their programs running with the high cost of maintenance and upkeep. DWP has raised money on the mandate “to see a need and fill it” and it requires a great amount of trust from our donors. Supporters donate funds to DWP not for a specific cause, but with the knowledge that I am on the ground, in the thick of a situation, witnessing things first-hand, and making decisions that we all hope will have the greatest benefit and reach.

After a week visiting and photographing Vatsalya’s work, I crunched some numbers and worked out what I believe to be a generous donation to Vatsalya from DWP.  Like all honest NGO’s, Vatsalya was interested in knowing what I hoped the money would be used for. I replied that the reason DWP was donating at all was because I trusted their work and integrity and that they know best as to where their funds are needed. They spoke to me about repairs around the school and orphanage and parts for their tractor to which I’m excited to be able to help with. There are a million things that go on to keep an amazing NGO like Vatsalya running and I am humbled that DWP’s supporters and friends have put me in a position to fund the small things that will keep Vatsalya looking good and creating possibilities for children across Rajasthan.

*DWP donated 80,000 INR – $1600 CAD to help Vatslaya make repairs to their school and orphanage grounds.

*DWP also sold 20,000 INR – $400 CAD worth of Anoothi products in Canada on behalf of Vatsalya.

To read about some of the projects DWP has worked on with Vatsalya check out the links below:

1. http://dirtywallproject.com/blog/?p=274

2.http://dirtywallproject.com/blog/?p=390

3.http://dirtywallproject.com/blog/?p=222

To learn more about their work in Jaipur check out: 

http://www.vatsalya.org/

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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My shoulder rubs against the pale green wall of the school, and crumbling bits of paint fall to the ground behind me. I squeeze past a row of teen age kids, who are eager to get a look at the foreigner amongst them, and I smile, prompting laughter and giggles. I pass classroom after classroom, filled with row upon row of children, sitting at old wooden desks, surrounded by damp walls covered in flaking paint. The boys jet black hair is oiled tight to their head, the girls hair is braided and looped and tied with floppy, pressed, ribbons. Maybe, in these classrooms, sits a handful of India’s next generation of doctors and engineers.

I reach the main gate, which is a rusted metal door. Twenty women stand on the other side, clutching the bars. The scene resembles a women’s prison, and I hesitantly reach for the gate and slowly swing it open. A swirl of colourful sari’s part, and I move through the group of waiting mothers, and then I feel a hand on my arm. I turn around to see a Muslim woman in a full black burka. She releases the piece of fabric covering her face and smiles quietly. I recognize her as Javed’s mother. (Javed is one of her four children, and just last year had open heart surgery which nearly ruined the family financially).  I reach to shake her hand, which she offers to me, shyly. I tell her in broken Hindi that I have paid for her son’s yearly school fees, and she smiles and thanks me. Then I begin to tell her, that as a surprise, I have also paid her youngest daughter, Yasmine’s, school fees. She looks confused for a moment, and then her eyes well up with tears and she offers her hand again.  I clasp her hand in both of mine, and tell her, “You are most welcome”. I am humbled to be of help, and as I turn to walk away, she thanks me once more, and dabs at her eye with a piece of fabric.

June is the start of the new school year in Mumbai, and a very busy time for families, and all NGO’s working in the education sector across the city. DWP currently has nearly 60 sponsor children, from grade one to college, in about 15 different schools, throughout the area. Each June, parents looking for help, crowd the doors of Janvi’s centre, bombarding Ashley with stories of hardship and financial woes in a bid to get their child sponsored.  Discover Urjaa, (run by Vanessa and Vignesh Manjeshwar) runs an amazing sponsorship program through Janvi’s centre, with Ashley at the helm, sponsoring over 200 children.  In slum communities, almost everyone requires some help, but determining who needs the most help, is the difficult , strenuous and a frustrating part of the work. As Discover Urjaa reaches their threshold of children that they can sponsor for the school year, DWP steps in and takes on some of the cases that they could not.

Every day, for the past week, I have set out from the community, my notebook in hand and back pocket filled with worn Indian rupees, into the soaking wet streets of Saki Naka. Although I have visited these schools several times over the last few years, navigating the small network of alleys, jumping over huge puddles and dodging traffic is forever difficult and time consuming. When heavy rains fall suddenly, and without warning, I find myself huddled in shop doorways with groups of strangers, all quietly and happily waiting for whom ever is in charge, to turn off the tap, so we can all resume our lives and get back to the hustle of the maximum city.

I arrive to each school, find the fee counter, and lineup behind mothers and fathers, also waiting to pay. I encounter stares and intense curiosity where ever I go; a white spec in a brown landscape.

I practice my Hindi in my head as I wait in line, and finally it’s my turn. The rehearsed line is ready, sitting on my tongue. My mouth opens, and the practiced Hindi words that sounded so good in my head, come out garbled and backwards. I smile embarrassingly, and feel awkward as the grumpy woman behind the counter looks up for the first time and sees my white face and smiles condescendingly. I repeat the child’s name over and over till she tells me to stop, and then she quickly flips the pages of my damp notebook, looking for the records, feeling the burning stares of impatient mothers behind me. Five more minutes pass, and finally I reach for the rupees in my pocket and count out the full years fees. I’m handed my receipt, and I feel a sense of accomplishment and excitement. I turn around and realize, no one cares, or is particularly happy, that the guy with the “golden” hair and the speech impediment, has managed to do something right. I smile awkwardly for the hundredth time that day, and head for the exit. I immediately get lost again in the labyrinth of water-clogged alleyways, until a small girl takes pity on me, and walks me to the main road. I turn to thank her but she is gone, quickly disappearing into a row of tin shacks. A large truck thunders past, smashing a three-inch deep puddle, covering me in brown water and mud. I pull at my shirt, and wipe my face,  but it doesn’t matter. The sky opens up, and soon I’m soaked again, searching for cover and the next school….

In the past week, DWP has paid the full year fees for 18 children at 6 different schools across the Saki Naka area. I am working hard at reviewing last years sponsor children, and paying their fees, and I have also added three new cases this week. I’m a sucker for a heartbreaking story, and I find myself nodding and committing to new cases before I’m ready, adding to my workload, and the overall cost.

While DWP has been busy attending to the educational needs of individual cases, I have also purchased 250 school books (nursery rhyme, picture, and notebooks) for Janvi’s kindergarten class in Saki Naka. Each child has been given 3 books, and pencils, to help reduce the cost for their parents, and to encourage more parents to enrol their children in kindergarten to give them the chance at an education.

* I would also like to thank DWP’s friend, Jaita Guha, from Mumbai, who, last year, arranged for 11 students to be sponsored via friends and colleagues. This year she has doubled her efforts, adding another 13 cases. She’s personally responsible for filling an entire classroom!

Cheers,

Kane Ryan

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