Uniform Change

Today is the 35th anniversary of International Women's Day!  In honor of this day, I will share an anecdote involving my parents.

 

My first voyage to India was when I was seven years old.  I made the trip with my family and spent most of the time with my paternal grandparents in their small village called Bodali.   I visited Bombay (now Mumbai) for a few days, but mostly I was in Bodali.  I have vivid memories of that place and time.  I remember that in honor of our visit, a friend of my grandparents sent a live chicken to cook for our evening dinner.  I remember a couple of neighborhood boys gave my brother and me hand-carved wooden sling shots.  I remember heating the milk every morning and storing it in the cabinet to use during the day because there was no refrigerator.  I remember watching the maid milk the buffalo...and the buffalo droppings all along the dirt road that runs through town.  I remember my grandmother cooking over an open fire pit in the backyard.  I remember my father brushing his teeth with what looked to be a twig from a tree.  I remember trekking to my grandfather's fields and gnawing on fresh sugar cane right then and there.  I remember pomegranate fruit, Thums Up soda, well water, and mangoes.  These memories are made all the more special because I would not return to India for another 25 years.  

When I was 32, I traveled with my mom, again to Bodali to visit my paternal grandmother and again to Mumbai to visit my uncle and family.  Aside from the moving inner spiritual experience, what struck me about India this time was the contrast between the poor village and the big city.  The first time around Bombay was slightly more advanced than the village.  This time, Mumbai reflected what I thought a city should be and Bodali didn't seem very different from 25 years ago.  True, many people (not all) had TVs now and many people (not all) had Western bathrooms.  But, life was pretty much the same.

The first time I went, it was an eight hour journey from the Bombay Airport to Bodali.  It was a four hour car ride the second time around, thanks to a more efficient highway system.  In the U.S., it would likely be a three hour drive because although a lot of the trip was on paved highways, the last hour was still on a one lane dirt road.  The kind of road that if a farmer is going by with a buffalo, then you pull over and wait.  It is a long way from the small villages to the towns and cities.  A long way.

During our time there, my mom told me that she and my father keep a bank account in the Bodali bank (which was once founded and managed by my grandfather).  Every year the local elementary school for boys and girls in grades 1st to 7th withdraws funds from my parents' account to buy its students new uniforms for the school year.  This was the elementary school my father attended along with his older brother and younger sister when he was growing up. 

I thought it was admirable that my parents gave back to our little known family village in India.  I admit, though, that I was a little unimpressed that we gave uniforms.  I'm part of the generation that "thinks big" - give a car, get the latest and newest textbooks, order computers.  What good will a uniform do?  

These memories of India and my parents' effort to give back have been on my mind as I read the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  This is an inspirational book about unlocking the potential of women in many 3rd world countries, such as India, where women's roles have been traditionally minimized.  There are numerous lessons in this book, but I will mention the one that struck a chord with me because it showed me how important it is to target small communities like Bodali and how valuable it is to "think small" sometimes.

Education is the key to increasing the role of girls and women.  Easier said than done because girls drop out when their families do not have money to pay for the schooling or when they are married off early and get pregnant.  Keeping girls in school leads them to earn income and support their countries' economies; thus helping to tackle global poverty.  Educating women means less early age marriage and pregnancies; thus helping to lower the world's birthrates.    

How can we help?  One way, a Kenyan study found that giving girls a new $6 school uniform every 18 months significantly reduced dropout rates and pregnancy rates.

As usual, I have a lot to learn from my parents.