Gender, Conflict and Disaster in South Asia

Preparation:
Since we began our internship at Visthar, Ambryn and I have mostly been engaged with preparing for the Gender, Conflict and Disaster in South Asia Conference that Visthar hosted March 4th-6th. We've mostly been delighted to find ourselves in the midst of this NGO, with all of it's quirks and beauty. We've especially bonded with Mercy, the associate director, a champion of gender issues in India, (with global recognition) and Lyola, in publications, a woman close to our age whom we've quickly identified as our friend. (We're keeping a list of characteristics of Mercy's life so we can aspire to emulate her fabulousness some day.) Along with these women we've condensed research on the 2005 Tsunami, Nepalese floods, and armed conflicts in various Indian states. We've made hundreds of copies. We've run around this campus with somewhat elusive tasks. And, we've found ourselves frustrated by the difficulty of communication due to cultural and language barriers. It was probably on Friday that I said, "I'm definitely out of the 'euphoria' phase of the culture shock wheel." That said, we've smiled and laughed a lot at the the situation we've found ourselves in. Five years after planning several events a year for the Womyn's Awareness Center (with many other phenomonal women and men) we find ourselves working side by side again, and most of the difficulties we've run in to are ones we've faced before. Though at the end of a too-long day we don't find ourselves sprawled out on the comfortable couches in the dearly beloved womyn's awareness center (wac) trying to find the place on campus with a free meal (or at least caf' cookies). Instead, we sit in our mosquito netting and wait for the chapatis and pineapple that will come with dinner in the open air.


Day One:
After a day of asking a lot of clarifying questions (to which Mercy would respond, "Questions are good. Questions bring about change.") our participants began to arrive. Ambryn and I were equipped with several lists, keys, ledgers, and the responsibility of seeing to it that our guests were happy. The first to arrive was our keynote speaker, a woman from a U.N. affiliate (UNFPA), Indian but stationed in Kathmandu, with decades of experience and impressive credentials. Her fanciness was immediately detected by Ambryn and me. It was clear that this sort of engagement is not usual for her, but she believes in the importance of remaining connected to the people in the field. She said she was embarrassed by how long it has been since she has been to a conference of this sort. She was a bit flustered by the mosquitos, the open air dining room, and our remote location (which feels far from remote to me...coming from Holden Village)...but she rolled with it graciously. Conversation with her was very stimulating and she was very kind. Ambryn and I found ourselves running all over making some arrangements for her (while welcoming and registering other guests), and marveled that here we were, doing some bidding for a U.N. official.

Today progressed rather smoothly. The key-note address was amazing. I feel very affirmed in pursuing my MSW and continuing down that path. I feel very lucky to be surrounded by women and men doing such important work. There is a senior official from the Afghanistan Department of Health, who wears a suit and tie, and laid-back non-profit field workers, all throwing their ideas around together. It felt good to be back in a classroom. It felt good to be theorizing about gender. It's interesting to note what is similar and what is different from our women's studies education at Gustavus. We sit in the back of the room trying to catch as much as we possibly can in our "documenting" role, and put out small fires (in the figurative sense) during the tea breaks.

Here's us at our post:

Day Two:

Today Ambryn and I struggled with our role as "documenters." We're responsible for catching as much of this conference as possible, collecting the power point presentations from various presenters, and compiling all of our information so it can be published on the web and used for a future manual publication. The conference content is very interesting, but the days are long and hot as we frantically type everything we can possibly catch (some of it presented in rapid-fire Indian English or translated from Tamil, Kannada, etc.).

This afternoon I was asked to help a senior Afghani Bureaucrat (a physican from the department of health) to transcribe his notes and create a power point presentation. He was very gracious and thanked me often, but still, I felt like I had taken a step back into time...a time when it was okay to ask a young woman to do your typing! But, how many days of my life will I have done such a task? Not many, so in the words of many Indians ,(with a head bobble) "It's okay."

Here we are:

We shared our desk with Kiran, the woman from UNFPA, today. She continually amazes me with her stories and references. Rarely in my life have I met someone with so much class. She exudes professionalism. I feel very honored to be in her presence and hearing her editorial comments throughout the conference. Also, I think I feel a little better knowing people like her are doing what they can to make positive change in the world.

Ambryn was charged with creating a "dance session" this evening. We had very little time to prepare. Ambryn was ready with some "body mapping" ideas...but when we arrived in our space it was quite apparent that everyone else had a different kind of dance experience in mind. People sang different Indian songs (from all over the country) while we danced in a circle. We shared dances from our cultures...which means that Ambryn and I found ourselves screaming, "Roll out the barrels, we'll have a barrel of fun!" while we polkaed around the room, trying to teach the Indians this piece of our rural Minnesota culture. Eventually a funcitioning computer with some speakers arrived (Ambryn and I are not equipped with such technology, much to the chagrin of our participants) and we all settled into dancing to Bollywood soundtracks. It was fabulous. Dances that were also present: The hokey pokey, the chicken dance, the macarena, some Indian hippie 60s trans-esque dancing (from when all the hippies came overland in their VW buses from Europe), disco, Punjapi gyrating, coy traditional female moves, the worm...People that were referenced: John Travolta, M.C. Hammer, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias. Who knew the hokey pokey crossed so many national borders?

After we pulled ourselves off the dance floor and into the dining hall, and consumed much watermelon, Anthony (one of the participants) told us that he and his wife sing to each other on the phone. (Anthony proved himself to be quite the vocalist at the dance.) The next thing we knew he was on his mobile, then held it out so we could hear his wife's sweet singing! It was quite precious. There are a lot of really wonderful people here. I regret that we've been so busy and I haven't been able to spend as much time socializing as I'd like. (Consequently, I'm not surprised Anthony is from Calcutta, where the Benalese people hale. The Bengals are famous for their appreciate of art, music, dance, theatre. It is clear to many Indians that the city of Calcutta is such an infrastructural mess because people don't have time for things like road building when they could be discussing something beautiful. Interesting, huh?)

Day Three:

I'm currently feeling the calm that spread through one's body after completing a long anticipated task (though it hasn't been long anticipated at all, actually). There were some trying moments of this conference, but I walked away from it feeling incredibly honored to share that space with such inspiring people. It was humbling. Granted, we still have lots of editing and merging of our documentation ahead of us, but for tonight, we can relax. The final minutes of the conference were very joyous. We had heard each other's powerful stories, learned so much, and made connections with people from all over the world. Ambryn and I will meet up with two incredible women, Neha and Usha, youth workers in Delhi (one of whom is applying to law school in the states) later in our trip, and perhaps they will even travel with us. I spent some of last evening viewing photos of the very traditional Indian wedding of Mayank's brother. Mayank will be best remembered by me for his stellar Punjabi dance moves. And, I have contact information from people from all over...from UN dignitaries to NGO workers who will house us during our travels.

Here's us with the Afghani Bureaucrat. He requested a photo taking session with us. He was very sweet: