After my time in Peru, Romania, Tanzania, Mongolia, and India, I’ve reached a point where people no longer look different, food all begins to become the same, languages are simply a way of expressing aspects of life that are all too visible, and the only thing that is different is the number of cultural and social characteristics that impede development. The impoverished and oppressed of Romania may have slightly fairer skin than those in India, but the children still have the same enthusiastic spirit in meeting a foreigner and the struggling parents still have the same tired look. In Peru they may eat heaps of white rice with a side of potatoes generally in a cream sauce while in Mongolia they eat the same but with soy sauce, in both cases they lack sufficient nutrients and as a result, the children are shorter by Western standards. In Tanzania they express themselves in Swahili and in Orissa, India, in Oriya, but in both places, the community members are telling me about their needs and asking for money. The situation of poverty is essentially the same all around the world: the family struggles to make enough to feed the sizeable family and the children are forced to help with the workload so everyone’s focus is survival. Thus, it becomes the discrimination, the political atmosphere, the traditions that make each country distinct and that make India possibly the hardest country to change.

Varying levels of negative stereotypes, corruption, and inefficiencies exist in all five of the countries, but India slaps on one more, the caste system. In this intricate hierarchy of four major castes with innumerable sub-castes your rank defines crucial aspects of life. For example, the only people who can sweep floors must be members of the sweeper sub-caste. Thus, if you are not a member of the sweeper sub-caste, you’ve never handled and refuse to ever handle a broom. The simple task of sweeping the floor becomes a concrete definition of where you are in society. It’s no wonder that for such a richly endowed country, the people remain so poor.

India’s wealth is not unknown to the rest of the world. Their precious metals, silks, and IT boom are part of the reason why the marginal rich can live so lavishly. The large mansions cleaned and guarded by at least 10 subordinates with a nice car parked in the paved driveway and a well-maintained yard enclosed by an architecturally pleasing wall is an crude juxtaposition to the world on the other side the wall: dilapidated small buildings, uneven dirt roads, neglected cows, bicycle rickshaws and cars from the 60’s and 70’s. How can someone live in such a house and ignore the reality of what is just outside the door? It’s absolutely unbelievable!

After so many visits to observe the educational situation in Ruchika’s impoverished communities, I was starting to become depressed about helping India. Yes, the children are getting some semblance of education, but it’s simply insufficient to bring them out of their current situation. They will continue to take on jobs in the railways stations, scavenge for recyclables, or sell wood and agricultural products. Then I saw the government school that the Ruchika shelter children attend and the students were running amuck while the teachers were negligent and I became even more depressed. Where is the quality education? Yesterday I got my answer while visiting the Ruchika Preschool and High School, independently run apart from Ruchika Social Service Organization (RSSO). The children there were simply excelling, even by Western standards. At the tender age of 2 and 3, they were already being taught English on top of Oriya, were being trained in respect and responsibilities, and were encouraged to express their individual creativities. All children deserve that same level of education with teachers that are invested in each an every child--I simply can’t understand how Ruchika can be providing this type of education to the “haves” and a wishy-washy education the “have-nots”! But as with all things in India (and around the world), I guess it boils down to money. Ruchika pays their slum school teachers and train platform teachers 1000 rupees per month (that’s about $23), while the teachers in just the Ruchika Preschool are paid 3 to 5 times that amount! (To give you an idea, common laborers make about 1,500 rupees per month.) No wonder the slum children can’t get quality education.

BUT, I have to have hope that India can change. Knowing that they are capable of high education standards leads me to believe that one day every child can receive such an education. (…However, in my conversations with RSSO staff members (who make only 2,000-5,000 rupees per month, disregarding the salary of the top few staff members who make about 15,000 rupees per month) concerning education and injustices in India, they always laugh and say that such change will not occur, the caste system will not be absolved, and the people will always look for ways to make more money by exploiting fellow Indians, at least this will be the case during our lifetime. One staff member said, “You know, people die just hoping.”)

I thought I saw my share of poverty before today: the adobe houses of Peru, the primitive kitchens of Tanzania, and the trash filled mazes of the Mongolian slums. However, nothing compared to the narrow corridors and malnourished children here in India. After visiting the Malagodowm Street Children Project we took a tour of the slum. Now I finally understand how 1.2 million people fit in this seemingly small city.

Weaving my way through the hanging laundry, the environment was completely overwhelming. After peering into the half open doorways, I would guess that no room was larger than the size of a king-size bed; yet, an entire family lives in one room. We're not talking about the modern-day father and mother with a few children type of family; we're talking about one father, three wives and an average of 8 children all cramped into this small space to eat, sleep, and basically live. I couldn't imagine being confined to such a space. The streets along the slums were not much better: barely wide enough to allow me to pass, filled with trash and wet with dirty water. The houses were continuous--packed tightly one after another. In truth, I can't even really call them houses, simply a continuous string of rooms each overflowing with women and children. At times, I wanted to escape. The people were crowding me, the air was filled with smoke coming from the houses, the walls of the houses to my left and right were closing in on me and the roofs were coming down on me, forcing me to duck lower and lower. It seemed like every corner we turned, the world became smaller, more compact, and more populated.
How do we battle such a poverty? Sitting in the classroom filled with poor street children, there were just as many, if not more standing outside peering into the doorway. In this one slum Ruchika has 10 schools, but it's obviously not sufficient capacity for even half the children living there. With their 300 teachers and innumerable schools and projects, Ruchika still can't help ALL the children in Bhubaneswar. I couldn't help think, "And this is only in Bhubaneswar. What about the rest of India?"

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/05/asia/AS-Mongolia-Election.php

A few years back the Japanese came to help them not only build a library, but provide alternative energy via wind turbines and solar panels--Go Japan!!!!!

The beauty here spans far beyond the green mountains that envelope the city and dominate the skyline...the children here are absolutely wonderful!

I've been living in a traditional "ger" (Mongolian house) for the past week with the children at Achlal (www.achlal.mn) who have been left by their parents. It's surprising the transformation they must have gone through as a result of living together and being at Achlal with teachers who care deeply for each and every child. The children here are so responsible, performing their dailiy tasks as a unit.

There are two things this school does well:
1) Provide responsibilities for the kids:
Vulnerable children need responsbilities. Not only do they feel like an important member of the team, but it helps shape their behavioral problems. At times, their violent street-mannerisms come out, but from the interview, I found out that actually many of them have reformed drastically since they arrived.
2) Create an environment that is conducive to creativity and imagination:
The school is colorful and creatively decorated with paintings, mosaics, and posters. The children have music class, painting class, and crafts courses, including how to make wool felts the traditional way. During the interviews, the children always voiced that they enjoyed these activities the most at school. For grades one through four, these types of stimilating activities are truly the best!

Though the last post painted a negative picture of Tanzania and my experiences here, it is an incomplete picture.

During my week and a half at Boko One-Stop Secondary School, I experienced the most heartwarming hospitality from everyone. Just their willingness to help me in such things as getting water from the well showed me that though they may have little, their give all that they are able. I can not say that I was impressed by the education at the school and here in Tanzania, (just the opposite in fact, I was terribly dismayed) but nonetheless, the students are eager to learn. They constantly ask me questions about America and about the subjects they are learning in school. Considering their backgrounds—orphans, abandoned, abused, impoverished—they see light in every opportunity and “want so much a good education.” They are lacking good teachers and people who treat them as equals, as valuable members of society and I wish so much that I could have stayed longer to share everything I have to offer. There is simply not enough teaching occurring at an institution that is meant to teach the children. What do I mean by this? Example: Sometimes teachers don’t even go to class. Even making mandaazis (donuts), they did not know that it is a waste to use baking soda and baking powder in preparing the mandaazis and that it is essential to have live yeast in order for the dough to rise. Actually, before Aaron and Kaitlin came into the scenes on behalf of Ark, the students didn’t even make mandaazis, which they now sell for 50 schillings each to make a bit of profit and to provide food for breakfast.

At Boko, they are only given two meals a day (at 2:00pm and 7:30 pm) and each meal consists of ugali (this maize-based mush) and boiled beans. I ate every meal with them and was saddened at the site of ugali at every meal. Still, the students are grateful, grateful to be fed at all. By Western standards of course, this seemed unacceptable to me since 1) breakfast is the most important meal of the day and they were not provided such a meal and 2) you need to get vitamins and essential minerals from vegetables and fruits and they had none. But even this situation is better than the situations of many students in Tanzania. Can you just imagine? Some schools give a brownish ugali, which is a lower-grade maize than the white one we had.

I’m happy to see that Aaron (from Australia, Masters in International Development) and Kaitlin (from US, Masters in International Education) are there now and starting to get things into shape. The children deserve to have a chance to get further in life and I’m positive the two of them are the best on the ground team that Boko can have! It’s such a difficult situation though because in truth, it would be best for the own community members to make efforts to better the situation of their children, but some of them just don’t care. That’s not to say that none of the staff at Boko are dedicated to the students, but that they are not enough. One such person is Rodgers, who has been an Ark child since he was young and has a personal connection to struggling youth. Another is Mary. Oh Mary. She was my roommate at Boko and simply a lovely person. I observed her nursery school (at Boko they have a Nursery school to help the surrounding community) and her children are astonishing. They are learning so much English through songs and pictures and games—this is the kind of interactive learning that all nursery schools need in Tanzania! Right now I am with Mary at the Capacity Buildling Workshop help by Ark Foundation in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Probably the best part of being in Bagamoyo: no ugali and beans! Haha

One last positive note, I met an attorney assistant Jean, during my brief trip to Arusha to visit the UN International Criminial Tribunal for Rwanda. He was able to explain the cases more to me and give me an inside look. On the negative end, I can tell from the responses of the judges during the session I sat through that the entire case is so politically loaded and definitely weighted towards the prosecution (UN community) side. You know, the case I was watching has been going on since 2004, and it’s actually one of the shorter cases. Other cases have been going on for more than 10 years now. Crazy eh?

(Pictures were brought to you by Mama Rhoi and Aaron and Kaitlin.)

I have to admit that the robbery has really dampened my experience in Tanzania because it has exposed me to all the negative aspects of the society. After trying to get a hold of the boss of Akana Hotel for the past two weeks for some kind of reparations for the robbery, he finally met me one hour late, after I called him from the cell phone of one of the guests of the hotel. That’s right, the employees wouldn’t call him for me, they said there was no money on the hotel phone and they didn’t offer their cell phones. “Why?” you might ask. It’s because they are afraid to call their boss because then they are the bringers of bad news: “Ke Wu is here at the hotel waiting for you.” Mama Rhoi, from the Ark Foundation has spoken to him on my behalf already and he asked that I call him and meet him. So actually, after a week and a half spent at the Boko One-Stop Secondary School, I went to Akana Lodge to meet him. He did not show up and no one could reach his phone. That means when I met him yesterday, this was the second time I physically stood in Akana Lodge waiting for him. Is this what is considered proper treatment of hotel guests? I’m absolutely appalled and disappointed by someone who seems to be highly regarded in the tourism industry. (Akana Lodge is not his only business.)

So by now, you’re wondering how the meeting went:
Well, to start off, he answered his phone 3 times during our talk, interrupting me each time. And after his initial greeting, he accused me of making bad friends when I first arrived and that’s why they “personally targeted me.” HA! That’s a laugh. The only person I met when I got here was the personal driver, Rogers, for Ark Foundation. He took me directly from the airport to the hotel, where I slept till dinner time, which was when my things were stolen. I couldn’t even identify the two men who stayed—I don’t know what they look like, I never met them. I was appalled that the first thing he tried to do was put the blame on me. He said it was my fault I didn’t ask for a safe…how in the world was I to know there was one when none of the workers offered? He also didn’t believe me when I told him that my travelers checks were cashed. He said it’s not possible for the company to know overnight so it must have been stolen beforehand. I informed him that travelers checks have a number, so though the physical checks have not yet been mailed to American Express, they know when a check number has been cashed and have that information right away, though they don’t know where it was cashed. Moreover, he said it was not the hotel’s responsibility! Excuse me?! NOT the hotel’s responsibility?! The men didn’t even write down their identification and this was due to negligence of the hotel. They have been at the hotel two times before and they didn’t write down identification information then either. You know why we can’t catch the two men? We don’t even know what their real names are!!!! Thus, it is absolutely unprofessional of him to say the hotel is not responsible. They didn’t even follow expected procedures to ensure the security of their guests. I was SOOO angry and frustrated that I couldn’t speak! He said to me, “Here is my suggestion, if you don’t have money, go back home to America.” Excuse my language, but WTF?! I am doing a research project in an effort to better society and his suggestion is to quit and go home. Absolutely unbelievable! When he saw me crying out of frustration, he said, “I know some rich Americans in the tourism business, maybe I can fundraise for you.” And on the phone he told the other person, “I’m with someone who is distressed right now, do you know any rich Americans?” WHAT?!
He was EXTREMELY rude and absolutely unprofessional. I felt so disrespected and finally understood the frustrations of the younger Tanzanian generation. In their interviews, they told me that they were treated as children (and we’re talking about mostly 18-22 year olds): completely disregarded and undervalued. Even Mama Rhoi said that a big cultural barrier here is the generation gap, meaning that either you are a child, or you are an adult and the adults treat the children like they are nothing. That was how I felt, I felt like I was treated as a stupid child who made a stupid mistake. In light of this, maybe I can say that it did at least enlighten my research and allowed me to understand a little more of their culture, but this experience was definitely the blackest so far. As much as it was a learning experience for me, it will also definitely be a learning experience for him because he has underestimated the power of the younger generation…