A passage through India

Slums

2009-10-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

am writing my thesis on service provision in slums in India.

I will post on my progress.

I'm excited!

Internet and cellphones

2009-10-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in India I was surprised to see that this country with incredibly high growth rates was actually poorer and worse off in many respects than Mexico. But 2 things caught my attention as a major difference between the 2 countries: cell phones and local airlines. A widespread use of cell phones and internet at competitive rates and the surprising number of airlines and low cost flight to travel across the country help explain India's economic success and Mexico's stagnation. Connectivity and Information.

These days the Mexican Congress is debating the fiscal package for the upcoming year. Because of the financial crisis and persisting inefficiencies in tax collection, the government (that promised in the 2006 campaign to LOWER taxes) is proposing a tax increase for many articles.

One of the proposals is a 3% tax on internet connection and cell phone usage. The argument is that they are luxury goods, and that in fact only the top 20% of the income distribution consumes them. In addition, the demand for internet and cell phones of this group is highly inelastic. That is, no one will cancel their line or contract because of the tax. This argument makes economic sense if all you're trying to do is maximize revenue for the government at a particular point in time.

What the Mexican Government is failing to see are the positive externalities associated with the consumption of these two goods. Every day there are more development applications related to cell-phones having to do with governance, information, service provision, making markets more efficient; the list goes on. While in Brazil and Finland internet access is heavily subsidized by the government to the point of being defined as a Constitutional Right, in Mexico we think these goods are unnecessary. Something the rich consume. And in a country where inequality is large and the rich-poor discourse is rampant, what could be easier than taxing the rich?

Instead of going forward on how to reduce poverty and encourage growth, we will tax the rich and leave the poor as they are: hoping to get some scraps of the inefficient government subsidies. Way to go.

Himalayas!

2009-08-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Now that I have finished my internship I will be traveling in northern India for 2 weeks. Our first stop is Ladakh, in the heart of the Himalayas.
We first took a bus to Manali (14 hrs from Delhi), and from there a jeep to Keylong (8 hrs), crossing some of the highest motorable passes in the world. On Saturday we continued towards Leh, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and ragged peaks. After 12 hrs we arrived in Leh. Tomorrow we are going to Pangong Lake, in the border with China.
Pictures will be posted later, with more details on these adventures.

Gulbarga

2009-08-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to the field to see how the health insurance project is going on the ground. Being on the field was one of my major motivations for choosing this internship, but sadly, because of my foot, I had not been able to go until now.

I spent four days in Gulbarga and Bidar, two districts in the state of Karnataka. Every day we visited a village in the area to talk to the people and get a sense of how the study is going. It gave me a much better understanding of who the people in the insurance scheme are, where and how they live. Most of the people are very poor and live very simple lives. Some of the villages are so small the arrival of anyone from outside is a major event, and if the outside person happens to be a woman, and white, it is a great novelty for them. I would have little kids following me around to see what I was doing (which was problematic when I needed to go to the bathroom, given that in some places there were no bathrooms or outhouses at all). All of them have very pressing needs and worry about their health and their families.

Gulbarga is the capital of the district of the same name, and even though it has been growing rapidly, it is still no more than a large town. People are very conservative and not used to seeing outsiders. It is not common for families or couples to eat out; it is still a widespread idea that why would you go out and eat something that you can make at home? So it is mostly men who go out to have a drink with their friends. On the first day we had dinner at one of these restaurants, a nice place on a rooftop overlooking the city. Since it was a bit late no more women were around, so they set a special table for us behind a little wall (and under a cell-phone antenna) so we'd be away from the men. Two thigns strike me: first, that women should not come in contact with ousiders, particularly men; and second, that it is assumed women don't drink.

The next morning we went to a nearby village on a jeep and then on a bus to see the new mother survey take place. It was pretty obvious I was not from around the area, which is nice because people are curious and like to engage in conversation. So few foreigners go to that place, some people actually asked me if I was from the Russian Circus that was in town (agreed, I was wearing the crazy pants, but still!).

The New M other sur v ey goes to houses where women have had a baby in the last 72 hours and takes measurements of the baby and the mom as well as asking her some questions. I got to see a very beautiful baby girl that was 2 days old. Her mother, grandmother and great aunt were taking care of her. It was amazing. It was interesting to know that since it was her first baby she had gone back to her parent's house to have it and her family would pay for everything, not her husband.

The next day we went to another village to observe an SKS center meeting where the clients repayed their loans and discussed the health insurance product. Once again, it was interesting to see these groups of women, the difference in ages and how they engage among themselves and with the loan officer. I'm also always surprised at how old they look even if they are still young and how serious they are most of the time.

On Saturday we went to Bidar, where the earth is very red and the road is surrounded by fields being plowed and you might see some running monkeys alongside the bus. We visited a very small village to see how the endline survey is going. Probably no more than 200 or 300 households live there. It is surrounded by fields, and oxen and cows roam the streets. It was interesting that in that very small place they have a temple, a mosque and a christian church. Even though it is close (10-15 km) to Bidar, the district capital, it feels like a very remote place. If I had only looked at the data for this village in the computer, I would have thought that since it was so close to the main city in the area it would be better off than it actually is.

That's why going to the field is important: to conceptualize and give dimension to the problems we are trying to solve, and also to better understand the data we so aptly analyze. By spending those four days outside the office, I was able to put a face on the people we want to help, and that gave a whole new dimension to the work I'm doing and want to do.

Green Kerala: Backwaters

2009-08-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

The main attraction of our trip to Kerala was to go to the backwaters. The backwaters are a chain of lagoons and lakes parallel to the Arabian Sea that extend over half the length of Kerala state. The lagoons and lakes are fed by 38 rivers and are connected by over 900 km of canals, both manmade and natural.

It is one of India's most important tourist destinations and was placed among the `50 destinations of a lifetime' by National Geographic. It's easy to see why. The mix of salt and fresh water gives place to a very unique ecosystem, with many birds and fish. The waterways are lined with rice paddies and palm trees and small fishing villages.

In the cocoon-houseboat you glide along the quiet waterways, eating delicious food and drinking coconut water; you can swim, read, have good conversations; watch the sunset; look at the stars and fireflies in the night. It is incredibly beautiful and just what I needed for a birthday celebration.

Green Kerala: Kathakali

2009-08-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

In Fort Kochi we saw a performance of Kathakali, a traditional style of theatre from Kerala. It originated in the 16th century (more or less at the same time as Shakespearean drama). The name Kathakali comes from the Malayalam (local Kerala language) words "katha", religious story, and "kali", play or performance.

Actors in Kathakali do not speak, so they rely on elaborate makeup and costumes, marked facial expressions and eye movements, as well as advanced choreography that comes from martial arts to tell stories from the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. The story is sang in Malayalam by a narrator to the beating of drums and ringing of bells. All actors are men, so the different colors in makeup guide the audience to who is who in the play: yellow is woman, red is evil, green and red is hypocrite, and so on.

Kathakali was traditionally performed in religious festivals and temples, but nowadays more and more it is performed in theaters and in shorter versions of the original stories. It is very impressive to see the makeup and the gestures of the actors; and once you get used to the loud drums it is quite enjoyable.

The story we saw was about an evil prince who wanted to take advantage of a princess (who was in diguise as a servant). With the help of her husband they trick him and kill him. Serves him right.

Important visitors at the office

2009-08-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

Today has been a very exciting day. We had very important visitors this morning at the office. I really think they'll make a huge difference in the project...

They're a family of monkeys who are very happy sitting in the stairs picking off each others fleas.
We can't go out! If we try the mother monkey comes running towards us like crazy. She looks like the monkey in the movie 28 Days. See for yourself:

I think this can potentially become a twilight zone episode or something like the movie El ángel exterminador by Buñuel, where an outside force impedes the characters from leaving a certain place. I wonder what awaits us...

PS Could this be Hanuman at work?? Has Ganesh passed on the torch to a fellow god?

Green Kerala: Fort Kochi*

2009-07-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

The story of Fort Kochi is the story of the foreigners who have settled there at some point or another. The name Cochin actually means “like China”, and comes from Chinese traders from the court of Kublai Khan who settled in the area in the 14^t^h century¹.

The foreigners came because of the spices². Kochi was the centre of Indian spice trade for many centuries; Kerala has some of the most important spice and tea plantations in India and Cochin is still a major trading post for them. As you walk past the different warehouses in the market you see people unloading sacs of all possible spices; you can smell the peppers, cardamom, anise seed, cumin, and cinnamon in the air. And if you get close enough you can also smell the tea leaves packed and ready to be shipped. There is so much happening all around it is difficult to walk and take it all at once, the emaciated people carrying heavy loads on their heads, the covered women buying groceries, the dilapidated buildings from colonial times, the heat. It’s easy to imagine this place two or three hundred years ago. As in many other situations V.S. Naipaul’s words ring true: India exists in a multiplicity of time periods at once. Behind the old warehouses and the traditional coolies you can see the modern port, full of ships and containers ready to be sent off around the world.

Next to the spice market there is the Jewish quarter that was founded by the so-called Malabar Jews. According to tradition the oldest community was founded in Cranganore in the year 70 AD after the destruction of the Temple of Jersualem by the Romans and the resulting diaspora. They controlled a major portion of the world spice trade until the 16^th century, when neighboring princes took advantage of internal divisions in the community and attacked them. The Jews fled to nearby Cochin (legend has it that the Rabbi escaped swimming with his wife on his back), where the Rajah welcomed them and gave them land. Today there are very few Jews left in Cochin (they actually need outsiders to have enough people for a minyan), since most of them went to Israel after 1948³ or converted to Christianity. For this reason the Pardasi Synagogue (from 1568) and the neighborhood around it is now mostly full of antiques shops for tourists and bookstores (where I obviously bought more books).

Across town from the synagogue is the Church of Saint Francis (originally St. Anthony’s) built in 1503 by the Portuguese. It is the first Roman Catholic Church in India⁴ founded by the Franciscan monks who arrived with the Vasco de Gama expedition⁵. He died in Fort Kochi in 1524 on his third voyage to India and was buried in this church for fifteen years until his remains were taken back to Portugal to the Mosterio dos Jerónimos (built to commemorate his success in securing a trade route from India to Portugal around Africa). Fort Kochi was the first European colonial settlement in India. It remained the capital of Portuguese India until 1530, when they opted for Goa as their capital.

Also in the search for spices, the Dutch arrived in 1683 and destroyed many of the Portuguese buildings, particularly the churches (although even today Cochin has one of the largest Christian populations in India and there's a church in every corner). The Dutch stayed in Kochi until 1795 when they were defeated by the English. It was only in 1947 with Independence that Cochin ceased to be under foreign control. No wonder it was the first princely state to willingly join the Indian Union…

Today foreigners keep shaping the history of the town. Fort Cochin is still a main trade post and an important tourist destination as the gateway to the famous Kerala backwaters. It is very enjoyable for its calm pace, lush vegetation and delicious food.

*Two weekends ago we went to Kerala to celebrate 3 birthdays: mine, Olga's and Dany's. We spent one day in Fort Kochin and 2 days on a houseboat in the backwaters. Kerala is one of the most beautiful places I've been to. This is the first post on this trip.

¹All that remains of them are the Chinese fishing nets that are still used by the local fisherman. They are very large nets that hang from wooden structures and are lowered when the tide comes in.

²f you remember from primary school one of the reasons for the discovery of the New World was the search for a new route to India to get spices (the Turks had closed the route through the Middle East). From the confusion that America was in fact India comes the use of the word indians to describe the indigenous people of that continent.

³ A very good movie that deals with Indian Jews' migration to Israel is Au bout du monde à gauche (2004). Very recommendable.

⁴The church founded by Saint Thomas is known as Syrian Church of India. As with the Jews, the Portuguese also persecuted them since they wanted them to be part of the Roman Church!

⁵I’m always impressed at the Franciscan monks who would travel with the explorers and just get off on unknown lands and found churches. In Mexico with Hernan Cortes arrived 12 Franciscan Monks who started converting and baptizing the Indians. Can you imagine arriving at a place like Tenochtitlan and start telling people that their gods (who like human sacrifices) are wrong? That takes courage and a bit of madness I think.

Had I Been Born in India...

2009-07-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend in Cochin I bought even more books on India (I know what you must think: when am I going to read all of this? The answer is: someday, someday). One of them is a book on women in India by an American journalist called May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. Even though it is a bit old (1990) and not terribly academic it is a very interesting read (and it helps me become conscious of many of my prejudices and judgments when I read them from someone else).

One of the chapters is on female infanticide and sex-selective abortion. The author interviews couples who have done these practices in a rural district in Tamil Nadu and in Bombay. Some of the families were very poor and decided to kill their newborn daughter because she was the second or third girl and would not be able to afford her dowry and she would lead a miserable life, so better to spare her. In most cases they would poison her with a local plant. In Bombay, people of a higher socioeconomic level would get a test to know the sex of the baby, and in many cases would have an abortion if it was a girl. The reason why the rural women would not get abortions is not that they could not get one, but that it would require them to be on leave from work for a month, and they cannot afford losing that income.

As shocking as these practices are, they're not really that uncommon. They also happen in China and many other countries where girls are seen as a liability, not as an asset. In India it actually makes economic sense not to invest in girls, since they will leave their parents house to live with their in-laws. She will only take up resources and her parents will have to pay to get her to marry. In other cultures, even if women are seen as second to men, daughters take care of their parents in old age so it makes sense to have them around; to the extreme that in Spain (and thus in Mexico) the youngest daughter was not supposed to marry and would stay home to take care of her parents (becoming el báculo de la vejez)*.

What really impressed me is that the stories of these women are from 1985 or 1990, not from a century ago. If I had been born in any other country or situation, I might not be here writing this. As the fourth girl in my family I would have been considered a terrible curse. My mother would have been looked down on for her incapacity to have boys. If my parents had chosen to keep me, they might have become indebted their whole lives to pay for my dowry, and even then I’d have probably married with difficulties and would have lived as a quasi slave with the risk of my in-laws torturing me (throwing acid or burning me) because I did not bring enough money into the marriage. Dire prospects on all counts.

So even if women face many problems in Mexico, and machismo is still rampant; I do not believe even girls in the poorest households face these dangers. In my case (as exceptional as it might be), my family welcomed me when I was born and were joyous at the event even if my parents would have probably liked a boy after three girls (they did get 2 after me). I was well-fed and educated, raised to believe in myself, free to work, free to marry who I choose, and around long enough to be in India comparing my situation to others who were not so lucky.

*as is portrayed in Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Just some photos: Osmania University

2009-07-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

The last Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan founded Osmania University in 1918. It is the seventh oldest establishment of higher studies in India and housed in a beautiful, though unkempt, building.

Don´t Spread Foolishness: Sampoorna Surya Grahanam

2009-07-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow there will be a total solar eclipse (sampoorna surya grahanam) that will be visible in Northern India and neighboring Countries. This will be the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. In Hyderabad, because we're too far south it will only be a partial eclipse (70%-80%) that will take place at sunrise. Can you imagine? A rising sun partially covered by the moon? I'm sure it will be amazing.

But now I'm worried. It all started when my friend Angela's landlord told her not to move in tomorrow because it would be highly inauspicious; so we started discussing whether she should or not since she is already paying rent for the apartment (we finally concluded she shouldn't, if not for luck, for cultural sensitivity -I mean, who wants their landlord to think they're a bad omen?).

So I did a little research and it turns out that whether the eclipse is good or bad has been one of the most brainstorming questions of the year for astrologers, because there will be 3 eclipses in a 30 day period (lunar eclipse on July 6, solar eclipse on July 22, and lunar eclipse on August 6). During previous occasions when there were three eclipses major wars happened. First was the Kurukshetra war in the Mahabharata and also the World Wars took place after three consecutive grahams (!). Because of this most astrologers have indicated that this eclipse is a very bad omen that will be related to wars and violence, as well as to natural disasters related to water.

Since it is considered to be very inauspicious by all astrologers, people should not undertake any new projects on this day, eat anything prepared on this day and put a blade of grass on water or food to protect it. People are taking this very seriously. What is most interesting is that the measures taken regarding the eclipse have been the same for centuries; what science has brought is only the ability to predict when such events will happen, but no changes on how they are perceived.

This reminded me of one of my favorite books when I was growing up: "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur" by Mark Twain. It is a very fun book. When Hank Morgan is about to be burned at the stake (by none other than Merlin), he remembers that on that day in 528 AD there will be a solar eclipse and by "predicting" it he saves his neck... His science gives him power over the superstitious medieval English. Science and having the ability to predict natural phenomena has changed men's perception of himself and empowered him over nature (at least in his mind). Big contrast with the situation here. Take a look at this comments from the astrological blog about the eclipse:

Anonymous said...

Please folks, there is enough evidence to prove that there is no :harmful: effect of solar eclipse of pregnant women or even normal people. This is a myth, a superstition - and please keep it at that. There is no harm in partially blocking a source of light, any "harmful" rays would be blocked too ... such as UV etc.. and NO effect on an person, except AVOID looking directly at the sun - it is so bright, it can damage your eyes (eclipse or no eclipse - all the time). thanks; January 26, 2009 8:14 AM

Anonymous said...: Hey Anony.. are you a Christian to just tarnish Hinduism.. you are at the wrong place. SURYAGRAHAN DOES EFFECT FOR PREGNANT WOMEN AND NORMAL PEOPLE TOO.. DONT SPREAD FOOLISHENSS IT IS A MYTH.. YOU ARE A MYTH..

January 26, 2009 9:53 AM

I just love how rational-anonymous must have some hidden religious agenda to make the statements he/she makes...

But even if being scared of an eclipse is foolishness given what we know about this astronomical event, I still I worry given the recent happenings in my life. Apparently the effect of the eclipse is different according to zodiac sign. It turns out that the Surya Grahan is "unfavorable and bad (extremely negative according to another website) for the natives of Mesh (Aries), Karkataka (Cancer), Simha (Leo) and Dhanu (Sagittarius) rasis or zodiac signs". I'm Cancer!

I don't want to take any chances... Maybe I should just be a fool and stay home. A happy and safe fool.

Mamma Mia! Sono sul giornale!

2009-07-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

It turns out I was on the news in Hyderabad!

There was a huge traffic jam (almost as bad as that morning in 2006 when we woke up to find El Peje had taken Reforma), so I wanted to see what was going on. As always I had my camera at hand, since there are so many interesting things going on in the street on every auto ride I can't help but want to take pictures of them (most of them don't turn out so good... sadly).

The reason for the mess was that a Minister was going to pass and they closed some roads for him. (For a more detailed account on who he is and local Andhra Pradesh politics, see: http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/17/stories/2009071759160300.htm). As you can see I'm very perplexed about the situation...

And going through my pictures, I found him looking at me looking at him. Can you find him??

And just to have a quick poll: If you saw me on the street what country would you say I'm from? Please leave a comment!

On the Dignifying Saree

2009-07-05T02:01:00.001-07:00

When you arrive in India you can't help but notice the women wearing colorful sarees. Rich, poor, in cars, rickshaws, beggars, street sweepers, with jewellry, without; everybody wears it. Cotton, silk, muselin, embroidered, stamped, with brocade, light, heavy... the possibilities are infinite.

The saree (or sari) is a strip of unstitched fabric, from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. The most common style is for the sari to be wrapped around the waist, with one end then draped over the shoulder. The sari is usually worn over a petticoat with a cropped blouse known as a choli forming the upper garment. Women can start wearing half sarees (less meters of fabric) when they reach puberty and then when they reach 20 or 22 years or get married, they start using the full saree.

It has been in use since the Indus Valley Civilization (2800-1800 BC) and is thought to have evolved from the dhoti (the oldest Indian draped garment, today only worn by men). There is some discussion on how the petticoat and choli came to be. Many believe they were introduced by the British; since before them women wore the saree with nothing underneath, somewhat exposing their breasts, which would be completely against Victorian morality. But others say they were introduced earlier by Christian missionaries (morality again)... Who knows, what is true is that today almost everybody wears a petticoat and a choli, except in some very rural areas. After independence, the saree became a national symbol, since it was seen as something that could be worn by all women regardless of religion: Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Parsi.

What comes to my mind each time I see a woman in a saree is how dignified she looks. No matter what her body type, the saree is very flattering and makes most women look elegant, regardless of their socioeconomic condition or activity. I find it a stark contrast to western clothing, where lycra or other such body-hugging fabrics can have undesirable revelatory effects (the so called "efecto guerrerense*"). And they are extremely comfortable! (once it's in place, putting it on is very complicated).

Lately the saree has been losing ground to the salwar kameez (pant and long shirt combo) and western colthing. But I think it will be around for a long time still. I really like the fact that it has been around for so long and that women still use it, not as a relic from the past, but as a living part of their lives. On the downside, it is true that trying to do housework in a sari must be no easy task, and the fact that it has remained, even though it seriously limits women's range of movements (no running, or taking large steps, you have to ride sideways on a motorcycle, it doesn't have pockets), may well be due to the fact that women's lifestyles have not changed that much either...

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs: Must women empowerment and liberation come at the cost of efecto guerrerense?

*When a woman wears a tight t-shirt that unintendedly creeps up and shows her belly or lonjas.

The curse of the Indian mangoes

2009-07-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

I have payed dearly for my cheekiness. The mango gods have struck me down for my blasphemies and put me in my place. Pretending Mexican mangoes were better than Indian ones. What nerve!

This weekend I went to Kumbakonam for an Indian wedding (to be recounted shortly). The wedding was great, but I had a lot of misadventures coming back to Hyderabad. On Sunday I got very sick, but I decided to still take the train to Chennai in order not to miss my flight back to Hyderabad on Monday morning (enough plane stories for a summer, or so I thought).

After a miserable train ride, feeling terribly ill, we got to Chennai at 5 am. I was half asleep and in a lot of pain, I couldn't walk for fear of having to run to the bathroom at any second. After taking a shower at Olga's house, I called a taxi to get to the airport; the taxi didn't show up, so I ended up taking an auto (by now I'm cutting it really close to my flight and autos go at 30 kmh, max). On the way to the airport the auto driver stops for gas and asks me for a fare advance. I look for my wallet and... it's missing. It probably fell out after I took it out in the train station in my dreamy-sick haze to pay something. Woe is me. I had money and, more importantly, my debit and credit card I've been using to get money while here. And I also really liked that wallet. Double woe.

I freaked out but I pushed on to get to the airport. I would figure a way to pay the driver. But I got to the airport at 8 am and my plane left at 8:20 am. There was no way I'd get on the plane. So I turned back to Olga's house (poor Olga is paying some past life dues: she is always around when these things happen to me), who payed the driver, gave me money, consoled me and helped me get a train to Hyderabad that afternoon.

Since then I've been trying to understand why these things happen to me, it's not normal to have something happen every other weekend, is it? So I started wondering: Did I do something wrong? Was it my fault? Could I have done something differently? (not in this case, I think) Has someone put the evil eye on me? Whyy? Is some occult power at work? As I've said before, we try to find reasons for things, no matter how absurd, even when there are none.

So I was trying to convince myself to be rational and stop trying to find ludicrous reasons, when it hit me: It was the mangoes!!

It makes perfect sense:

1. I angered the mango gods. I challenged them openly and thought I could get away with it.

2. In Hinduism, the perfectly ripe mango is often held by Lord Ganesha. Outside the wedding hall there was a Ganesha statue. AND Ganesha is the creator and remover of obstacles.

3. Ten days later, which coincidentally is the crown radius of a mango tree and the duration of Ganesha's most important festival, I got terribly sick after drinking mango juice. This caused all the other problems.

This is not superstition. It's scientific. So there's only one thing to do: Extend a public apology for saying Mexican mangoes are better. I take it back! Forgive me! I was arrogant and conceited. I was presumptuous. I went above myself. I will never do it again!

(I hope this is enough...Cross your fingers. Maybe i should do a mango offering at the temple? coconut?)

Micro Health Insurance I: An Introduction

2009-07-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

During my time here I am working on a project to asses the impact of health insurance in rural India. Health shocks (accidents, prolonged illnesses, the need to be hospitalized) are among the biggest and least predictable forms of uncertainty that a poor family faces. There are two important economic costs associated with illness: the cost of the medical care for diagnosis and treatment, and the loss in income associated with reduced labor supply and productivity. However, less than 1% of households in rural India are estimated to have formal health insurance policies. Without insurance or access to credit, these shocks may sharply lower consumption in the short-term or decrease investments in very productive assets. In the extreme case the absence of insurance can lead to a poverty trap, where due to illness the family receives less income which impedes them to get proper medical attention, which prolongs the illness, which results in less income and so on.

With credit the household can smooth consumption and investment in face of the health shock (that is, to maintain a more stable level of consumption without sharp fluctuations due to unexpected events), but it might be very expensive smoothing compared to insurance, since with insurance the household only pays a premium that is the cost of the shock weighted by its probability, and with credit the household pays the full amount of the medical expenses plus the interest on the loan. Preliminary data from the project shows that most households borrow in order to cover medical expenses, which leads to the question on how are they going to repay (especially if that money is not being used in any productive investment). The most probable answer is by lowering consumption, which will leave the family worse off.

In reality there are many informal insurance mechanisms (outside the market), especially in traditional rural areas. These mechanisms are effective (and sometimes efficient) in dealing with idiosyncratic shocks, but not systemic shocks that affect the whole community. In addition, as traditional communities modernize, many of these mechanisms are weakened by societal transformation due to migration, diversification of income sources, splitting of households, among other reasons. The availability of market-based insurance then becomes more and more important.

So why don't people have formal insurance? Why don't insurance companies offer it? As with any insurance product there are informational asymmetries that lead to adverse selection and moral hazard, plus some special characteristics of health insurance that complicate the incentive design, plus the lack of statistical information on frequency of health events in rural communities that difficult calculating premiums, plus the high transaction costs of offering the insurance in these areas, plus demand-side problems as households are not used to these products. Micro health insurance schemes attempt to overcome these difficulties. How? You will have to wait for a future post. I hope you can bear the suspense...

Superstition

2009-07-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

India is a very superstitious place. People will not take any major decision in their lives without consulting an astrologer or without ensuring the appropriate signs are there. There are auspicious and inauspicious times for weddings, births, ceremonies. You should not marry someone if your astral charts don't match up. People protect themselves from the evil eye daily by putting a dot on their forehead. If you're going out and someone sneezes once, you are either not to go out at all or wait 10 minutes to avert the bad thing that would have happened. If milk boils and overflows it is unlucky and you have to put some yogurt in it to counteract the effect; BUT if you've just moved to a new house you have to let the milk boil and overflow. If a lizard falls on you, it depends whether you're male or female and what side of your body it falls on if it is unlucky or lucky. Black cats are bad, white ones are good. A twitch in your eye can mean you'll see a close friend or that you'll have visitors. And these are but a few I've come across.

I think superstition is a way of trying to control or know the total unexpectedness and randomness of human existence. There is no way to know what is going to happen, or to direct it one way or the other. By doing things in a certain order or not doing things because some sign was contrary to its success we won't really influence the results. And if you think about it, deeper questions arise, as for example, if you believe that if you see sign x scenario A will happen and you do something to avert that so you end up in scenario B, who is to say you weren't destined to scenario B to begin with?

But no matter how irrational superstition might seem, I think we all have our little superstitious beliefs. I certainly do. I have my personal signs I consider lucky or unlucky. For example, if the time and the radio station I'm listening to match, i consider it lucky (let's say, listening to station 105.7 at 10:57). Or if I think of a song and suddenly they play it on the radio, that's lucky, or seeing all cars around me are the same color (I just realized all this have to do with being in a car. I guess I spent a lot of time driving in DF).

I wonder how all these signs came to be. And how we can think that something as random as a sneeze can actually signify something bad will happen. I guess we just try to hold on to anything we can in order to avoid reality: we have no control over anything, we have no way of knowing what lies ahead, and we have no way of knowing how any single event will fit into the larger picture of our lives. But once we start to accept this, it's such much easier to sit back and enjoy the ride (even if it's on a rickshaw!).

Mangoes

2009-06-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

With love for all the chupamangos* out there

I think mango is my favorite fruit. If I have the option I will almost always choose mango (even when it comes to shampoo or body wash). And before coming here everybody told me about the pure deliciousness of Indian mangoes: "nothing to do with American mangoes", and Mexican mangoes? "No, no comparison!, Mexican mangoes have so many strings that stick to your teeth, they're no good."

So I have set myself on a quest to evaluate the truth behind these statements, risking not being able to fit into my clothes ever again. I have so far tasted a fair sample of the many varieties available. I have also tasted them in many presentations: cut, lassi, milkshakes, juice, chutney, upside down cake, popsicles, ice cream, etc etc. And yes, Indian mangoes are excellent (especially Alphonsos!), no doubt about it. And yes, they do not have the "hairs" or strings Mexican ones have.

But I must say I like Mexican mangoes better. They're juicier or sweeter. I don't know. Maybe it's cheap nationalism. Maybe it's the happy memories associated with eating mangoes. Maybe they're just better. There. I've said it. I'll probably break my other foot now.

*Chupamangos: http://caleidoscopeando.blogspot.com/2009/06/chupamangos.html

Trash

2009-06-27T15:13:00.002-07:00

One of the biggest problems in India, as in many other developing countries, is trash. It is everywhere you look: on sidewalks, parks, beaches, next to the roads, everywhere. There are no services that can deal with the amount of waste that is produced every day, especially since more and more things are disposable and made of plastic. This has serious welfare effects through many channels: health issues related to open air landfills, environmental issues having to do with trash-burning, water contamination through chemical seepage, aesthetic costs of seeing trash everywhere ruining the landscape, and many others.

In all the places I’ve seen so far I cannot help noticing the trash lying around, the plastic bags and bottles, tissues, food wrappings, all sorts of things. When I visited Marina Beach in Chennai I was taken aback by the amount of trash lying on the sand. And I won’t even go into water pollution due to sewage. The same in Mexico; I remember going to Acapulco once and walking on Revolcadero beach. It was filthy. I won’t even tell you the kind of things I saw floating on the water or lying on the sand. But in both cases everyone was so happy enjoying the ocean! I could not understand it. Did they not notice how dirty it was? Did they not care? And the immediate question was why do I notice? Why do I care? Is valuing a clean living space something that grows with income? With education? Do we have different preferences over trash/cleanliness? Or do we have the same preferences and face different constraints? Is the free rider problem so big no one will act to make things better even if they would prefer it that way?

I do not know the answer to these questions. What is true is that even if people want to put their trash in a bin, there are none (this is the constraints story). I have looked very hard and I do not find any (except for the funny animal ones). This used to be the case in Mexico City 10-15 years ago (lack of trash cans, not availability of animal ones), but at some point the city government started putting trash cans everywhere. It made a difference*. More anecdotal evidence supporting this idea is that many people’s reaction when they hear I study in the US is to ask what it’s like; “it must be very clean!”, which means they do see a difference.
The other side of the coin is that maybe there are no trash cans because people won’t use them (preferences story). They are not used to putting trash in a trash can (let alone separating it or recycling it). For example, the other day I needed to throw a tissue away and one of the train attendants saw me and took it from me, only to throw it out the window! I was appalled. I felt responsible. Whyyy?

Another issue has to do with sheer scale. Even if people put trash in designated places there is no capacity to process all of it. So most waste ends up in open air landfills (not necessarily outside villages) and after being scavenged by people and animals it will probably be burned. You see trash scavengers everywhere, with their dirty rags trying to find something of value in the heaps of waste.

Which brings me to another point I have to discuss in more detail later; in Mexico you do not see the landfills or the people who live from them if you don’t want to. In India you see them everywhere, you don’t have to go far to see slums, everything is mixed. I am presently staying in a guesthouse in a nice neighborhood in Hyderabad, Banjara Hills. Half a block from my house there is a vacant lot that has turned into a slum and a dump (where this morning they were burning some trash. Great). And it’s no problem, the neighbors don’t care about the stray dogs or the bandicoots (pig rats) roaming the place.

But regardless of Indian particularities, the big question is how to deal with waste in settings with low education, low government capacity, and where trash is definitely not a priority? Will rising incomes do the trick? How long will that take?

*I remember going downtown when I was 15 to visit Palacio Nacional and in my then naïve idealism being very upset by the fact that there were no trash bins (I thought it was such an easy thing to do, and the fact that not even that was achieved spoke of the incapacity of the government). But things have changed. After Slim and Fundacion del Centro Historico saw a business opportunity and took over there are trash cans every 20 meters, which in addition to city sweepers (an unemployment and political affiliation policy of PRD) makes the area be clean.

Traffic II: On Road Rage or the Absence Thereof

2009-06-27T15:13:00.001-07:00

I realized something today: in India traffic is bad, lots of honking, lots of smoke, lots of motorized vehicles, BUT no road rage!! People do not get angry (or seldomly) when someone closes in on them or when someone stops them at a green traffic light because they’re doing a forbidden u-turn. They just take it as it comes. Calmly. The most I’ve seen is giving the other driver a mean look.

I use many bad words when I drive (yes, road rage) and now, even as a passenger, I find myself many times swearing in Spanish to the surprise of the driver (who can obviously make no sense of my words), who calmly looks on and brakes or swerves around the wrongdoer, while I fear for my life and wish bad things on others. So I’m not sure what is more stressful: the driving or my inner upheaval.

So I had a moment of seeing things as they are and realized: Maybe Indian traffic is not so bad after all. This comes as a revelation to someone from a city where people have been known to kill each other because one blocked the other, where you drive in fear. Driving in India is an exercise in sublimation of the self. Deep stuff. Will continue to ponder.

Many happy returns of the day

2009-06-26T06:01:00.001-07:00

Today is my very auspicious* birthday! Actually, I don't know if it is truly auspicious, but I believe it is since I turn 29 on June 29, 2009 and there won't be another nice numerical rhyme like this ever again in my life. Also, I am very happy about the moment where I am in my life and I believe this year will be excellent. I have a wonderful summer ahead of me, MPA/ID2, big decisions on what I'll do and where I'll go next, friends to visit and places to see (Oh! The places you'll see!). Also it is the last year before the big 3-0. I will be done with my twenties. Ufffff.

In India on birthdays the common expression is "Many happy returns of the day", which I find very poetical. One interpretation is that hopefully this day (year) bears much happy fruit; another is that may the sun return many times to its position today, that is, that you live a long life;. I like them both. I hope I'll be around for a while and I hope this 29th year of my life brings many good things. I'm sure it will.

So far it's brought a lot of cake, many friends, and multiple plans to celebrate: now and when I'm able to dance and jump around. I would definitely call this auspicious (and guess what? I just checked and indeed June 29, 2009 is on the auspicious list!)

*Auspicious: promising success; propitious; opportune; favorable.

Accidents do happen

2009-06-26T01:30:00.001-07:00

I arrived in Hyderabad on a Thursday and on Friday night took a bus to go to Hampi. I was very excited because Hampi is a fantastic place and the group I went with are all people who are also working here for the summer in very interesting projects.

After a ten hour bus drive during which I froze (always, always, always carry a blanket if you're traveling by bus. This time I did not heed Paulina's advice and suffered for it), we arrived in Hospet and took an auto (a rickshaw) to Hampi, 15 km away. The landscape is beautiful, very green and lush, with palm trees and some incredible boulders strewn around.

There is a small river that goes through Hampi. We were staying on the other side so we crossed by "ferry" (a small motorboat). After getting settled in the hotel and eating a very good -and very slow- breakfast, we were ready to explore. We crossed the river again and rented bicycles to go see the ruins. My bicycle even had a basket! Yeiiii

We stopped at the first group of ruins, which were not that exciting, and going down a couple of steps I misplaced my foot and twisted my ankle really badly. It cracked. In seconds it had swollen to the size of a tennis ball. Not good.

Someone went to get a rickshaw to take me to the local clinic (which is in Hospet, 15 km away) and another girl went to get ice. There was no ice to be found so we used a plastic bag full of mango popsicles instead. I got on the rickshaw with Elizabeth, a girl from the UK who is studying medicine, who was great and accompanied me all the time.

As i have mentioned before Indian roads are a bit chaotic. I thought it was an urban thing. It's not. Rural roads get even trickier because now, in addition to the cars, rickshaws, bicycles, scooters and pedestrians, you also get cows, carts, and tractors. So the auto is swerving left and right to avoid these obstacles while I'm trying to keep my leg elevated and still. Riiight. Then the auto breaks down. The conductor takes out a little key and opens a box underneath his seat. He takes out a small wire and starts fiddling with the engine. 10 minutes go by. I start thinking about what our options are (not many). Finally the auto starts again and we reach the private clinic in Hospet (we decided against the government clinic because it would probably be understaffed and would take forever. I don't think there was that much of a difference...).

I limp inside and the nurse says the doctor will be back in 20 min and that we should wait outside (in the hot hot hot sun*). Obviously I did not move from the chair I was on. After a long wait they take me upstairs (there is no elevator, so I jump up the flight of stairs) and take an x-ray of my foot on a machine that was probably donated by Pierre Curie. The doctor looks at it and in very bad English says the dreaded words: "broken". I can't believe it. I can't really see anything from the x-ray (not that I'd be able to, anyways), but neither can Elizabeth and she should know.

The doctor (a general practitioner) then calls the orthopedist who arrives 2 hours later. He looks at the x-ray, says broken, and tells me he'll put on a soft cast to allow the swelling to subside and that in Hyderbad I should go to the doctor again after 4 days to get a hard cast. Between this and the actual cast half an hour goes by. I really need to use the bathroom by this time. Problem is it is a squat toilet. Using this type of toilet using only one leg is a feat worthy of any circus. And I managed it! I was soooo proud of myself.

The new doctor put on the soft cast and decided that the bandages had to be wet even if they are not plaster bandages. They leave and then we realize a very important thing: we need to get back to Hampi before 6 in order to get in the last boat to go to our hotel. It is then 5:10 pm.
Elizabeth started pressuring the nurses to get the doctor so we can pay and go, wet cast and everything. But always the answer was: In 15 minutes, in 10 minutes. It wasn't until we threatened to leave without paying that the doctor showed up.

When the doctor finally came he wrote down the bill on a quasi-scrap of paper. It amounted to 44oo Rp (about 80 USD). We didn't have enough money to pay! The doctor suggested we leave our passport and pay the following day. We don't have passport either. In the end Elizabeth hopped on a scooter with the doctor to find an ATM to be able to pay!! lucky us.

We returned to Hampi as the sun set. This is a big problem because if it gets dark it will be impossible for me to go down the steps of the ghat next to the river. So we're rushing and avoiding more cows, more tractors, more rickshaws, very intense. We make it to the boat to cross over. Success. From there, the rest of the group members had arranged for an auto to pick me up to go to the hostel. Perfect.

I still wanted to see some of the ruins, so on Sunday I went on a rickshaw with Mike to see some of them. I hobbled around on my new crutches, in other parts on a wheelchair and in other parts piggy-backed. They're fantastic and very much worth the visit (I'll write a separate post).

On Wednesday I went to the doctor in Hyderabad, to a very nice hospital. I learned 2 important things: my foot is not broken, it's just a very bad sprain and I have to be on crutches and a cast until July 9; and second thing: the doctor in Hospet completely scammed me! He charged me almost 4 times more than what they did at the hospital. I hope he gets some bad karma.

*For Emily

Hyderabad Limited

2009-06-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

In Mexico, very sadly, there are no trains to speak of (except Chepe on the Sierra Tarahumara, but it's different, it's a tourist thing), so other than the one at the zoo I don't remember taking many trains before I lived in Switzerland for a year (almost ten years ago!). During my time there I traveled a lot by train and since then I find it very exciting. There is something romantic to it, and it is very comfortable. You don't have to worry about traffic, or other cars, you can just sit back and enjoy the scenery. And I especially like overnight trains, so I was very happy when I heard I was going to Hyderabad, where I'll be living until mid-August, by train. My first train ride in India! Chennai-Hyderabad, 17 hours, III AC.

Trains in India were developed by the British starting in the 19th century. The Governor General at that time, after analyzing proposals for a rail system, came to the conclusion that the East India Company should assist private capitalists who sought to setup a rail system in India, regardless of the commercial viability of their project (solving the coordination problem!). The British government encouraged the setting up of railways by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of 5% during the initial years of operation. Once completed, the company would be passed under government ownership, but would be operated by the company that built them.

The system grew until the Great Depression and WWII (almost 85% of the railways today were laid before independence). By 1947 the network was in very bad state. Almost half of the railways passed through Pakistan and had to be rerouted. The system was consolidated in 1951 as Indian Railways and is an important source of revenue for the government. It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting over 18 million passengers and more than 2 million tonnes of freight daily, has more than 1.4 million employees, services 6,909 stations and covers more than 63,327 km (equivalent to going round the equator 1.6 times). It is very impressive that even with the many low costs airlines that fly all over the country the trains are still so used and prosperous.

The train I traveled on, the Kacheguda Express, was very comfortable. I was in 3rd class AC and paid 16 USD. Many families were in the car. The train left in the afternoon, so we had many hours to see the scenery and enjoy the ride. At different stops people come on the train selling water and sodas, candy, and you can order dinner that will come on the train at a designated stop (I didn't know this, so I had only crackers for dinner :( ) I got to see some very beautiful stretches of rural areas that I tried to photograph with litttle success. The car attendant found it very curious and told me on numerous ocassions to be careful or I would fall off, which was very funny since I was 2 feet away from the door. I slept very well (I was well prepared with ear plugs and eye mask) and woke up with enough time to enjoy the morning air before reaching HYD. It ran a bit late, but nothing too serious. At the station, Bala, the office boy (who deserves a post of his own) was there to meet me. I had arrived. My internship project awaited.

Seeing is believing

2009-06-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Saint Thomas was one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. He is known as Doubting Thomas because after the Resurrection Jesus appears to his disciples but Thomas was not there; and when they tell him they have seen him, he does not believe them and says "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." The following week Jesus appears to his disciples again and this time Thomas is with them. Jesus tells him "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:24-29)

After this he goes East to preach the gospel, reaching Persia and India.
According to local tradition he arrived in the Malabar Coast (Kerala) in 52 AD. After building seven churches on this coast, under the patronage of the Hindu Kings of the time, Thomas crossed to the East. It is believed that he died in 72 AD pierced by lances on Saint Thomas Mount in Chennai because the local monarch was enraged because Thomas converted his wife and a relative to Christianism. He is buried on the site of Santomé Cathedral.

In the whole world, there are only three churches built over the tomb of an Apostle : the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela built over the tomb of St.James in Spain and the Basilica of the National Shrine of St.Thomas in Chennai, India.

Who would have thought?

India 49-O

2009-06-15T10:42:00.002-07:00

I was talking to a couple of girls from my internship about all the discussion about null-voting in the upcoming Mexican elections. They told me that in India there is a rule, Rule 49-O, that formally establishes the possibility of annulling the vote to express discontent with all options in the system. The rule has been in place since 1969 and states:

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

If the proportion of null votes is larger than the proportion of votes obtained by the winning candidate, there is a new election and the candidates who participated in the first one are not allowed to run again. As 49-O is written today it only registers voter's deliberate intention to cancel their vote because they do not like any of the running candidates.

The only downturn is that in order to discourage lightly using this option the officer at the ballot must register the voter as under 49-O, which violates the secrecy of the vote. Hmmm...

I won't be in Mexico to vote, but I wonder if there will be a large enough number of null votes to have an effect. I also wonder if people from a certain part of the political spectrum are more prone to annul their vote and if this will give undue advantage to other parties, thus bringing about a worse scenario (for them) than if they had voted.

Regardless, it would be good to have a Mexican 49-O, don't you think?

Nataraja

2009-06-15T10:40:00.002-07:00

The Government Museum in Chennai is an interesting complex of natural history, children's museum, painting, technology (very strange assortment of objects) and ancient South Indian sculpture. The bronze collection is outstanding (they're also kept in an AC room, which was very welcomed).

One of the most common subjects in Indian bronze sculpture is Nataraja, a depiction of Shiva's destruction dance. This dance sets the stage for Brahma to start the process of creation.

In the sculpture Shiva dances in the middle of a circle of flames, lifting his left leg while balancing over a demon-dwarf (apasmara) that symbolizes ignorance.

He has four arms; a cobra uncoils from his lower right arm, and that hand shows the abhaya mudra (a mudra is a posture or symbolic gesture usually done with the hands that has symbolic meaning in hindu and buddhist iconography) which represents fearlessness and bestows protection from evil and ignorance to those who follow the righteousness of dharma (virtuous path that leads to correct understanding of reality).
The upper right hand holds a small drum (damaru) which symbolizes the sound of creation, a sort of heartbeat if you may. In opposition, the upper left hand carries fire, symbol of destruction. The lower left hand points towards the raised foot which signifies upliftment and liberation.

The pose is extremely graceful and almost peaceful. But Shiva cannot stand midair like that forever. And the moment he moves everything will be destroyed to be created once more.

Hand in Hand

2009-06-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Today we visited three rural villages near Chennai to see the work of Hand-in-Hand, a local NGO created in 1998 to end child labor in Kancheepuram District in Tamil Nadu. Their activities expanded to offer an integrated poverty reduction scheme aimed at building self-reliance of disadvantaged groups by alleviating poverty through sustained income generating programs. Their strategy is based on five pillars:

1. Child labor
2. SHG and microfinance
3. Governance - Citizen's Centers
4. Health
5. Environment

Given all the activities they promote and the nature of their microfinance activities (self-help groups) they require donations to maintain their operations, which make them completely different from the highly profitable microfinance-as-business type of MFIs. I believe both schemes have a place in the development arena and the discussion on how bad or good one is compared to the other doesn't make much sense (to me at least). I'd be happy to know what you think.

We visited a small community (900 people) where they offer microfinance products for income-generating activities. Most of the people in the village embroider and sell the fabric to an intermediary in the city who sews the fabric and sells the sarees or salwar kameezes. Needless to say the embroiderers get a very small fraction of the selling price of the final product. HiH helps them by giving them loans for working capital and is trying to help link them to the final seller so they will get a higher price for their work. They also offer an education loan at the beginning of the year to buy supplies and a sanitation loan so households can build an outhouse with a septic tank.

Then we visited some businesses run by self-help groups: a bicycle shop, a flower shop and a candy store. HiH helped them get very good storefronts next to the road provided by the government and gives them loans for working capital. I'm not clear if they are better off than before, but they seem happy with their businesses.

We had lunch at their headquarters and learned about their environmental activities. They promote solid waste management through compost development and community trash collection as well as trying to reduce plastic usage (BIG problem in India). In the villages where they operate these programs they have been very succesful since communities get very involved and take ownership of the programs HiH runs.

Afterwards we visited a training center where they teach women to cut patterns and sew. They offer the intensive 2-week course for free and they have partnered with a local enterprise that provides the materials. The women who take the course can later on start their own business or work in a factory. Since now it is the summer many young women were there and they were very excited about taking this training. At other times of the year it is mainly married women who take the course.

To finish the day we presenced a self-help-group meeting. First a financial literacy training and then their group meeting to sort out loans and payments. This was the best part of the day for me. In the training they commented on how before being in the group they would have not gotten together to discuss their issues, let alone talk to us about them. The women form their own groups (10-15 people) and decide on how often they will meet. HiH only acts as a facilitator for the group and as the link between them and a formal bank.

The group we visited (I obviously don't know if HiH took us to visit them expressly) was fantastic. The women had a very lively discussion on their loans and repayments, especially because one of the members has not repaid (and was not present). But they were very clear they did not want anyone meddling in the affair, least of all mothers-in-law and that they should have another meeting to see what this person has to say for herself. They later explained that the whole discussion was because they have been saving for a while to go visit a nearby temple as their group activity and were only missing that payment to have all the money they needed. They had already spoken to their husbands and mothers in law and they were going no matter what. It was so exciting to see how being in the group has brought them together and has created another feminine space* where they can express themselves and where an identity that goes beyond their husbands and their families can filter through.

This was a stark contrast to the SMILE groups we saw on Friday, where the groups discussed making repayments and little else. If you have a chance and are interested visit their homepage:
http://www.hihseed.org

*For more on this idea -in Spanish- http://caleidoscopeando.blogspot.com/2008/06/el-mundo-de-las-mujeres.html

Surprise, surprise

2009-06-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

We went out on Friday and leaving the place we got party favors:
Could this be a sign? after all it's the auspicious year and everything...

SMILE

2009-06-12T07:13:00.001-07:00

On Friday we visited SMILE (Semam Microfinance Investment Literacy and Empowerment Ltd), the largest JLG-model MFI in Southern India. It was established in 1999 as Mahasemam Trust to target poor women offering microfinance services including savings, loans, and insurance to promote poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It currently has over 175 thousand active borrowers and a total loan portfolio of USD 16.4 million with total assets of USD 20 million, making it a very profitable MFI.

My impression was that the expansion of their MF arm has overridden their other operations, which makes their objectives as an NGO and as an MFI not necessarily aligned. When talking to the loan officers and the office managers they were not very well informed on the larger workings of the organization; and could only tell us very precise things about the JLG groups.

After visiting the branch office for Chennai we went to see a sector meeting (a sector is made up of about 8 groups of 5 women each) in a slum in the outskirts of the city. The houses give out to a small alley where community life takes place, so there were children playing, clothes drying, hens walking around, dogs, people coming and going by bicycle and sometimes scooter, and a lot of trash and flies.

This is the space where the meeting takes place since there is no other space where 40 women can get together. They all stand in rows with their group, some have a group saree (the most organized ones -also one of their entreprenurial activities is making sarees) and they are all different ages, from very young (maybe 20) to very old. They looked very serious during the whole meeting, it was only at the end that we were talking to them that they loosened up and were laughing and smiling and very excited to tell us stuff about their lives. I always find it moving how we will all take up any chance to have an interested listener. I guess we are all lonesome deep down. More so people who are marginalised for some reason, in this case because of poverty and lack of education. It is likely that no one has ever been interested in their personal story, so it is strange and touching for them.

The meeting starts with the women lined up and the loan officer playing SMILE's anthem on his cell-phone and a pair of portable speakers (I wish I had a picture, very surreal). The women listen intently (or at least pretend to do so). The reason for this is that in many cases the women identify with their loan officer but not with the MFI. That is, when asked who gives them the loan they will say Mr. such-and-such, not SMILE. After the anthem they make a pledge saluting with their right arm over their chest saying they will be responsible and pay on time and be cooperative to their group.

Watching this I couldn't help thinking about one of the lectures we had in the course (What is wrong with microfinance? by Amy Mowl, an ex-MPA/ID) where she made the point of reminding us that JLG models in microfinance are a way of solving the numerous market imperfections in offering credit to poor households, but that it is a second best solution none of us would take if given the option. The women have to go to these weekly meetings and spend their time on them and be subject to extremely harch social sanctions if they are not abel to repay. Watching them take this oath and listen to the anthem seemed a bit demeaning. Also the fact that all employees of SMILE are men, and given cultural practices in India, particularly in rural and low income areas, this creates or perpetuates power relations between the MFI and the borrowers that go beyond financial transactions.

After this they sit down and they take attendance. Each group hands their weekly repayment to the section leader, who counts it and gives it to the loan officer. If any one member of the group is unable to repay that week someone in the group pays for them, but none of that is discussed in the meeting. So in fact there are lenders and borrowers within each group, that sort their issues internally without SMILE knowing. They only see their 98.7% repayment rate.

When talking to women they told us that most of them make sarees, others prepare batter for dosas, others make flower garlands. All of them sell their products within their small slum community. When asked why they don't scale up they said that they do not have a place to increase production, since they all rent their houses and apparently the landlord does not allow them to use it for business purposes.

On a larger scale I also think growing their business and selling to other communities would imply a big change in their lifestyle and the way they deal with their daily activities which goes beyond having the fixed or working capital to do so. These type of issues are supposed to be addressed through financial literacy and training programs offered by the NGO, but many of the women did not receive the training previous to taking the loan.

So it seems they are using their loan to smooth consumption and not really for income-generating activities. Which is not a bad thing, but it will definitely not get them or their families out of poverty. They also did not seem to have a plan on a time to stop borrowing, they would stay in the group "as long as they would have them".

It had been such a long time since I had gone to the field and interacted with people in the beginning I was overwhelmed, but I really enjoyed it; talking to them and seeing them interact with each other, as well as the children who want to shake your hand and be in the picture. But mostly starting to understand how MFIs work and what joint liability groups look like.

And the H stands for...

2009-06-12T07:12:00.001-07:00

The Theosophical Society was founded by Madame H.P. Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in New York in 1875 with the purpose of investigating, studying and explaining mediumistic phenomena, which was very popular at that time. After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, Madras (Chennai). There, they also became interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. In addition to the stated objectives, as early as 1889 Blavatsky told a group of students that the real purpose of establishing the Society was to prepare humanity for the reception of the World Teacher when he appeared again on earth (!) in approximately a hundred years' time. Among other groups the Theosophical Society is linked to the Order of the Temple of the Rosy Cross.

Madame Blavatsky was born in Russia and was married at 17 to a 40 year old man. She ran away back to her grandfather's house, but missed her ship, so she started traveling the world. She is said to have visited Egypt, France, Canada, England, South America, Germany, Mexico, India, Greece, and Tibet where she studied for two years with the men she called Brothers and was initiated.

After this trip she went to the US and based her career on her psychic abilities and mediumship. Throughout her career she claimed to have demonstrated physical and mental psychic feats which included levitation, clairvoyance, out-of-body projection, and telepathy. Her most famous book is Isis Unveiled, where she states that humanity descends from a series of non-human "root races" that evolution over time, until the 7th one. The fourth one, where we come from, originally came from Atlantis.

After her death in 1891, the Society split. The original organisation led by Olcott and Annie Besant* remains today based in India and is known as the Theosophical Society - Adyar. The other group further split into a faction led by Katherine Tingley, and another associated with Ernest Temple Hargrove. While Hargrove's faction no longer survives, the faction led by Tingley is today known simply as the Theosophical Society, but often with the clarifying statement, "international headquarters, Pasadena, California".

And the old banyan tree that I visited grows in the garden of the original society next to Madame Blavatsky's bungalow.

And yes, the H in H.P. Blavatsky stands for Helena... (freaky freaky)

*As an aside, Francisco I. Madero, Mexico's first president and one of the starters of the Mexican Revolution is said to have been very much into occult phenomena, specifically spiritism. He was deeply influenced by the theosophical ideas of Annie Besant, Madame Blavatskys succesor as leader of the Society. In his diaries he tells of a spirit "José" who told him he would embark on a democratic crusade for the bettering of Mexico. This is why he wrote La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession of 1910) that would lead to the Mexican Revolution. (For more on this: http://www.letraslibres.com/index.php?art=5664)

(NOTE: This whole story made me think of Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, a very entertaining book if you haven't read it...)

Banyan Tree

2009-06-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

This morning, before going on our field visit to SMILE, a local MFI where we would see an urban JLG (joint liability group) meet, we decided to try our luck and go see the famous Banyan Tree.

I guess you might be wondering why I wanted to see a tree in some weird garden in Chennai. So, for one thing, I really like trees, especially old ones, and this one is supposed to be the oldest banyan tree on the planet (450 years old! Imagine, since 1660's it's been growing in the same place. Makes you think). Second, I had heard a lot about banyan trees but never seen one. And third, there's just not that much to do in Chennai... So, why not? It should be worth a 45 min rickshaw drive in traffic and car fumes, no?

For those who have never heard of a banyan tree before, here are some facts: It grows to a height of more than 21 meters and lives for many years. Its branches spread out and send trunk like roots to the ground in order to support itself. These type of trees are very typical in Southeast Asia and have an important place in eastern religions and mythology. In hinduism the banyan tree is considered sacred, Shiva in one of his incarnations is nearly always depicted sitting in silence under the banyan with rishis at His feet. It is thought of as perfectly symbolizing eternal life due to its seemingly unending expansion. It is also it thought to be a wish-giving tree. In contemporary India, the banyan is the national tree. Its interlinked roots and branches are often used as a symbol to describe the country's unity within its diversity.The word banyan comes from 'banyans' or 'banians', hindu traders seen resting or carrying out their business under the tree by portuguese sailors; the term spread and came to signify the tree itself.

The banyan tree is also famous from Robinson Crusoe, who built his house on one; from the series Lost (apparently the characters take shelter in a banyan tree when the monster is chasing them? -not a big fan of the show, sorry); and from other things like the Australian "Banyan Rig", casual (and often traditionally tasteless) clothes worn for BBQs on deserted beaches (!); or The Economist's weekly column on Asian affairs.

We got to the place after various detours to find it closed (again), but this time we convinced the guard to let us in (a smile and teary eye can take you very far). The tree is in the garden of the Teosophical Society (which deserves a complete post), a very large estate that has many prayer halls (among them parsi, liberal catholic and others) amidst plants and birds. It is a very serene place; you could actually think it is uninhabited if not for the casual person every now and then.

After following the signs "To the big banyan tree", we found it in the middle of a small field. The way the branches have grown and the roots have developed it looks as if there were many trees in a circle, but in reality it is only one. Underneath it lie dried leaves where the light that filters from above forms shapes that constantly change. You cannot hear anything except the cicadas and the cries of birds. It is a beautiful place.

PS All of what you see in the picture is the banyan tree, it is a mini-forest

Microfinance or on Why I'm in India So Far Away in The Heat for Such a Long Time

2009-06-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

The reason I'm in India is, as I've mentioned before, to work in a micro health insurance project with the Center for Microfinance (CMF). Before starting my work on this project I'm attending a 10 day intensive course on microfinance in Chennai, where CMF is based. CMF is a non-profit organization focused on improving accessibility and quality of financial services for the poor through rigorous research, knowledge dissemination and evidence-based policy for Microfinance Institutions (MFIs).

For those of you unacquainted with microfinance, the basic setup is as follows: Credit markets by definition have information problems. The lender faces two types of information asymmetries: adverse selection, that is, not knowing the type of the borrower, if he will repay or not, and moral hazard, if once he gets the money he will not use it adequately to be able to repay.

Collateral solves these problems since the lender can tell the type from collateral and no matter what the borrower does he will at least get that. Poor households do not have collateral in the form of assets that can be valuable to a formal lender (a bank, for example), so credit markets are either non-existent or very costly. The high cost comes from the fact that the local moneylender has to invest in gathering information and monitoring his clients to know their type and their actions. Also the opportunity cost of those resources is high for the moneylender, so interest rates are very high.

Microfinance solves the collateral problem through joint liability. Borrowers form a group and are screened for a period of time, either by requiring them to save some amount before they get a loan or by lending them increasing amounts and seeing their repayment rate. Once the group members get loans they are all responsible for the payment of the total amount, so they bear the full risk of one member defaulting. The joint liability setup is further reinforced by the presence of social sanctions among group members. By making group members be women (and married women most of the time) the risk of migration/fleeing decreases, so the market can exist or theoretically be less costly than moneylenders.

Most microfinance schemes in India operate as self-help groups (SHG), that is, the group of women is pursuing some other development goal than just getting loans and are usually sponsored by an NGO. In this type of scheme the NGO only acts as an organizer and supporter of the group and as the link between the group and a formal bank. But in the past years there has been a tremendous increase in MFIs that use a JLG model, since it can be scaled up very quickly and is sustainable (moreover, highly profitable).

This past week we have been discussing many of these issues and listening to very good speakers on the subject. To round off things today we went on a field visit to SMILE to actually see an MFI in operation. Tomorrow we will visit a local NGO, Hand-in-Hand to see their work. I'm excited.

P.S. I dedicate this title to C.Schubert

Too good to last

2009-06-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I finally got sick. I was feeling quite proud of myself that my stomach was holding up so well. Believe me, ten days of new food without a problem is a record. Even though as a Mexican I should be more resistant, I'm not. Since I was little any new thing would be costly. But today I'm feeling fine, so I guess the first step of the initiation rite is complete.

Monsoon birthday

2009-06-08T20:24:00.001-07:00

On Monday I got my first impression of the monsoon, the summer rains that last from June to September. We decided to go out to dinner to celebrate Caroline's birthday (one of the interns). We started walking and were just commenting on how the weather was so nice, when the first heavy raindrops began to fall. In five minutes it was raining very hard and we were absolutely soaked. We were also lost and did not know how to get back to the house. But, maybe because it was the first time, it didn't really matter. After all the heat of the previous days the rain comes to cool everything down and is very enjoyable. Not so much the puddles and the state of the roads afterwards. Oh well.

Sunday at the beach or Indian Asnières

2009-06-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

After trying to see the sights in Chennai with little success we went to Marina Beach to see the sunset. It was full of people. If there are 80 lakh* people in Chennai, at least 10 lakh were there, enjoying a Sunday afternoon.

It was so nice to see families, children, friends, couples walking around, buying sweets and food, getting their fortunes read (either by a parrot or by stones), riding the merry-go-round, getting their pictures taken next to cardboard images of their favorite Bollywood actors, buying jasmine garlands for their hair, shooting darts at balloons, getting their feet wet in the surf, or just strolling the length of the beach.

No matter where in the world you are I think all popular Sunday afternoons have the same feeling. It is a moment in time where all is well, the work week is starting in a few hours, but it is still far away and there is time to enjoy that little free time with no obligations. The beach or the plaza become the central public space that re-enforces social ties, that allows people to come in contact with each other once again in ways that the city does not allow. People become a little less alienated from each other and laugh and are something else than just their weekly activities.
Then Monday comes and work starts again.

*a lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system: 1 lakh=10,000; 1 crore=100 lakh=10,000,000

India vs Latin America

2009-06-08T20:21:00.002-07:00

On Monday we started our ten-day course on microfinance: Total Immersion Program in Finance and Development (TIP/FD). The first speaker was Jessica Wollock and she spoke about development and finance in India, giving a brief overview of economic policies in the country since Independence.

She mentioned that there exist many similarities in economic and industrial policy with Latin America before the 90's; for example, a very large public sector with a desire for central planning, as well as close collaboration with the private sector in policy making. By the mid-80's they had unsustainable government spending and debt that led to a balance of payments crisis, which in turn forced them to slim down the public sector and start opening the economy.

Here is where the two stories differ. Whereas Latin America followed very radical free-market reforms in capital and goods markets, India has followed a more gradual process. This can explain to some extent why India has been growing so rapidly while Latin America has stagnated. By following unorthodox policies they have been able to deal with the constraints that impede growth and also with distributional conflict (Rodrik's argument). This was certainly not the case in LA.

So when I asked the speaker about why if the stories were so similar we saw such different outcomes, her response surprised me. She answered from the viewpoint that LA is better off than India, which is something I didn't expect, since in my mind growth rates can be seen as a parameter of success of an economy and India is growing and we are not.

But she is right. Per capita gdp is higher, on average, in LA (surely in Mexico); access to basic services and infrastructure is also higher and poverty incidence is lower. Her argument was that even if policies were similar, LA had a better starting point, so even if growth rates have been lower, levels of gdp are higher.

This is not to pat ourselves in the back and be satisfied; LA should also be growing. The relevant comparison is then not against growth rates or levels of indicators, but against policies that promote and sustain growth. That is where we are falling behind and where we have a lot to learn from India.

Madre de Deus! Chennai

2009-06-08T20:21:00.001-07:00

After having a very delicious South Indian breakfast which consisted of papadam and some sort of soup, a coconut rava masala dosa (hmmmm, pure deliciousness) and my most favorite drink: fresh lime soda, I went to the airport to catch my flight to Chennai.

I was very impressed by the domestic airport in Delhi; it is newly renovated (re-opened 15 days ago) and is very modern and comfortable. I couldn't help but compare it to our infamous T2 in Mexico City (tons of money spent on a medium class, low quality terminal in the most important airport in the country). All departure terminals are distance terminals (you take a bus to get to the plane), which maximize space and it has many shops, among them a very large bookshop (I bought even more books on India) and, to my surprise, no cosmetics-perfumes shops.

I flew on one of India's many low-cost airlines: IndiGo (2.5 hrs flight for 80 USD). Very good service, good airplane, left on time. No complaints.

I arrived in Chennai at around 7; this time my bags came with me, thankfully; and people from CMF were there to pick me up. They thought I would get scared at the traffic, but being from Mexico and after Delhi, Chennai traffic was old news.

Chennai is the fourth largest city in India and the capital city of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the fastest growing urban areas in India with over 8 million people. Until 1997 the city was called Madras, a name derived from Madraspattinam, the name of a fishing village that was in the area. Apparently the name of this village comes from the portuguese who settled in the area in the 16th century and named it Madre de Deus. the neighboring town was called Chennapattinam, and as the city grew they were merged. The British went by Madras, and the locals by Chennai.

Many tropicalized Victorian buildings remain, giving the city, especially around Marina Beach, an interesting personality. Outside the main area of the city there is the Teosophical Society Garden, with a Banyan tree that is over 400 years old. I have yet to see it, since they were closed the day I went there (they open 3 times a week from 8-10 am and from 2-4 pm, riiight).

So instead I visited the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, dedicated to Shiva. Legend has it that one day Shiva was talking to his wife, Parvati, and she got distracted by looking at a peacock. The god got angry and turned her into a peacock and sent her to earth. She prayed in penance for a while before Shiva decided to turn her back into her old form under a tree in the place where the temple now stands. Since she was there in penance, it is believed she will grant the visitors their requests regardless of who they are, so it is a very popular temple in Chennai.

After making some undisclosable petitions, we decided to visit Fort St. George, another sight in the city. None of the rickshaw drivers knew where or what it was, but we pushed on, until we got there to find it was closed, and not very worth it. Autos know best.

Vatican monkeys

2009-06-08T20:20:00.004-07:00

True story:

The Vatican Embassy in Delhi has monkeys that live in the trees. Very aggressive monkeys. They like to jump into other embassies and destroy the garden, steal food, and have even attacked people.

The Norwegian Embassy decided to do something about this after one of the monkeys bit the ambassador's wife's dog. They hired protection in the form of another monkey that seems to keep the intruders at bay. Since this is Norway, land of rights and ranked highest of all countries in human development, this monkey has an official post at the embassy: Special Security Attaché (or something to that effect) and is on the payroll. I think they pay him in kind.

Delhi traffic

2009-06-08T20:20:00.001-07:00

Half of the time I spent in Delhi was either in a taxi or in a rickshaw. This inevitably led me to think about traffic and how such apparent chaos seems to work. There is actually a fairly clear system underneath. First of all who has priority over who: trucks-buses-cars-taxis-rickshaws-motorbikes-bikes-pedestrians. The buses and trucks will take their place and around them the cars. Any free space between them will be taken by rickshaws and motorbikes, and on the sides bikes and people will try to get by. Since at any moment you might find someone coming in the wrong direction, doing a crazy u-turn, reverse or any such unexpected action, when driving you only look at what's happening in the front, not the sides and never behind you. It is the person behind you who has to maneuver around what you do. This explains why many cars and rickshaws do not have lateral mirrors. What for?

In order to keep traffic flowing all vehicles are constantly changing lanes and passing each other, especially the most mobile ones (rickshaws and motorbikes). For this to work they use honking as a signaling mechanism: once means "I'm here", two honks mean "I'm passing you", three or more mean "$$%@@!!". The problem is that sometimes they just honk for the fun of it, so the signal loses all value and all you get is a lot of noise and a lot of chaos.

Even if the system appears to work it is very stressful and very costly. So the question is: how to make it better? I have the idea that if all the vehicles on the streets were to abide by the number of lanes available and not take up the space in between they would not fit. There would be gridlock, a permanent traffic jam. This is what happens when you have more people and cars and rickshaws than kilometers of roads. Someone told me that with the entrance of "nano", the 1000 USD car, rickshaws will disappear, since it will be the same price to have an AC car than a rickshaw. I think not. Rickshaws exist to be able to move between all the cars and buses and get people to where they need to go (funny fact: Mexico is now importing rickshaws from India. It's the latest thing in small towns: cheaper than a taxi and perfect for small distances).

So I still don't have a clear idea on what might work. Clearly the system is an informal institution that solves the problems that would otherwise make driving impossible. Can it be ameliorated? Probably. I think usable sidewalks for people, not for cars to park in would be a very good start. I'll keep thinking about it.

Delhi

2009-06-08T20:19:00.001-07:00

Delhi is one of the ten largest cities in the world with 16 million inhabitants. As many other major cities in developing countries it has grown haphazardly in strange ways. Large inflows of population and changes in lifestyle make it almost impossible for public services and infrastructure to keep up. Roads are congested and unwalkable, half of them seem to be under construction, there are no sidewalks to speak of in most parts of the city and there is constant honking and car noises. And in the summer before the monsoon the heat is unbearable (at least for me).

At first I felt as when I was little and I visited my grandmother in northern Mexico. The heat in the summer is as bad or worse than Delhi's. Story goes I would open the door to the street and after feeling the hot dry wind I would shake my head and say "nooooooo" and close the door, as to keep the heat out. But Delhi has ways of opening the door unexpectedly. For example, you might not realize it right away, but there are actually a lot of trees in the city and parks. My favorite were the Lodhi gardens. After crossing the gates all the traffic and noise and stress of the city disappear. The old mughal ruins and the trees take you to a different world. As the sun set and the heat diminished people came to the park to walk and to socialize. Children playing, couples taking a stroll, old men talking, some joggers (women in full salwar kameez and tennis shoes); and then the city takes on a very different personality that is very enjoyable, as if a door opens into a private courtyard away from the noise of the street.

Delhi is a very old city and you can feel it, the way it refuses to sit still in any period. Inhabited since the 6th century BC, it became the capital of the mughal empire in 1639. would remain the capital of the empire until 1857, when Calcutta became the capital of the British Raj until 1911. From the Mughal period comes the Red Fort, that even if a bit unkempt, still shows signs of what it must have been, with fountains and marble halls with jeweled inlays; the same for Humayun's tomb. It is funny to see how the mughals, and later on Lutyens, tried to impose structure and geometry on the city, and the city rebels against it. It will do things its own way, no matter how much we would like to order it, Delhi follows its own rules. Trying to do things in our own terms will only tire us. It's better to sit back, wait for the sun to go down and wait for the city to surprise you. Opening the door might not be so bad.

On arrival

2009-06-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Delhi on June 1st at 7 am after 36 hours of very stressful travel. I bought the most complicated plane ticket possible: Boston-NY-Mexico City-Atlanta-Newark-Munich-Delhi, and was completely exhausted. After missing 2 flights, changing 2 others and being delayed because the plane's bathroom would not flush, my suitcase did not arrive. Perfect. But I was so excited about finally being in India, I did not care much.

After patiently waiting in line to file a report (there were many passengers in my situation, including a group of very shady middle-aged Italians) I realized that the concept of standing in line in India is very diffuse: people will sort of stand around, not really in line, and will get in front of you if they can. I took a deep breath and decided I did not have the energy to fight. I would patiently wait.

After an hour, I left the airport and took a cab to my friend's aunt's house in Saket (South Delhi). The traffic in Delhi outdoes its reputation, so all I saw were cars, motorbikes, metro walls, honking, rickshaws, more honking and all I wanted was to arrive. I clearly had no idea where I was going, so I kept trying to make sense of the roads and signs I saw; but since they are building the subway to the airport half the roads were blocked and all of them have walls to guard the construction, and I couldn't see anything (and not that it would have helped much, anyway).

Finally, after many u-turns and asking around (Saket can be a complicated neighborhood), I arrived at M-9 2nd floor, where I was warmly greeted by Ms. Veena Bhandari and her husband. After all the commotion of exams, going to Mexico for 3 days and a very long trip, all I could do was sleep. And sleep I did.

A Passage Through India

2009-06-08T11:45:00.001-07:00

I read E.M. Forster's A Passage Through India more than 10 years ago, and was deeply impressed by it. I was very curious (and a bit scared) about a place that could change and confuse a person so much. As the years have gone by, I have become more and more interested in India, its history and culture.

Now, in the summer between the 2 years of my Master's program in Public Administration in international Development (MPA/ID), I have the opportunity not only to visit India but to do development work here. India is one of the most vibrant and exciting places to work in development given the quality of the people involved and the sheer number of projects in place. I hope to learn more about microfinance and health insurance schemes for the poor.

The book was written in 1924 and it's about an English woman who travels to India and is overwhelmed by everything she sees and experiences. It portrays the relationship between East and West in the later days of the British Raj. In the book E.M. Forster frequently refers to India as a "muddle" because the logical Western mind cannot accept the extreme diversity of Indian religion, society, wildlife, and even architecture. For him, Westerners are always trying to categorize and label things, but India defies labeling; it has to be accepted and not explained in terms of reason.

I don't know if I'll be as shocked as Adela Quested (and I hope not to have her problems!), but I expect to be very impressed and changed after my time here. We'll see.

(For a more comprehensive review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India; there is also a movie on the book that is very good. Watch it if you can).

Disclaimer

2009-06-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

I will be living in India for the next 3 months working with a research center for microfinance (CMF) on a micro health insurance project. I will be posting my views and experiences on this blog, as well as details on my work and how it relates to development.

The opinions posted on this blog are from a Mexican woman traveling to India for the first time, and will probably be inaccurate many times and prejudiced many others. I apologize in advance. This blog is not meant to be academic, but more a reflection on my experiences in the subcontinent.