The population of India is roughly 1,300,000,000. Think about that number for a minute… India is 1/5th the size of the US but has approximately 340 million more people. How can so many people be in one space and what exactly does such a large number physically look like? I arrived in India before I even boarded the plane, instantly I could see something was different when I reached the gate bound for Mumbai. The plane was not boarding for another 40 minutes yet everyone was in line. Then, the moment we were called to board a stamped ensued. They have spent a lifetime competing with millions for jobs, education, relationships… even when a seat is assigned and booked in their name- the fear remained that someone else would occupy their space. Before I touched down in India I saw that 1.3 billion people generates competition in order for individuals to assure their place among the millions. Space has a whole new meaning in India. Even on an uncrowded street, of which there are few, people will bump into you. Not because there is an absence of space to go around, but because there is no reason to give the standard arm-length passing distance, which we are accustomed to in the US. They have spent a lifetime in close proximity to everyone around them, elbow room is a foreign concept. While standing in a security line for a domestic flight, if I allowed the comfortable 1-person space to remain in front of me – inevitably some woman would move around me without saying a word and into my buffer zone. From her perspective, I allowed that space to go unfilled so I must not care about moving forward- it is rightfully hers to take. Quickly I learned to expand like a blowfish while standing in lines, using my backpack to assure space behind me and extended arms to allow for breathing room in the front. Still they would find a way to skip the queue, moving around to the side of me and slipping in at the moment there is movement in-front; but stern looks and a raised voice crosses cultures in saying, ‘don’t even think about it sister’(even if they had no idea what I was saying). The rule of no space also holds true on the roads. Cars, bikes, cows… they all move with an invisible 6-inch bubble around them and no more, yet the bubbles never seem to burst. In the chaos there is an agreed upon order. First, a car horn means “I am coming… move” and somehow magically just enough room is given for them to pass. Second, the cows have every right to stand in the middle of the road, cars should go around them even if it means creating a bottleneck that backs up the whole roadway. Next, lines are merely a suggestion- wherever there is space (whether it is the other lane, the ditch, or where a person is currently standing) it is free game. The larger you are the more right you have to the space, yet there is no need to scurry out of the way because they see me and my invisible bubble will not be popped (I still don’t get how Indians could stare down our SUV plowing toward them and not budge an inch). Lastly, when in doubt just go ahead and ask questions later. I found my ground transportation to be like playing a game of frogger, move into the first space you see then look for your next available opening. 1.3 billion people necessitates organized chaos and the mutually agreed upon concept of ‘I won’t hit you if you don’t hit me’. Next, when there are so many people there must also be many languages, gods, traditions, political groups, etc… to create at least a representation to uniqueness. When traveling by road we would inevitably be confronted with a mass of people taking a stance for something. In a place where one voice can get lost in the crowd, there must be a gathering of voices in order to be heard. People were marching for religion, politics, holidays, weddings… While passing through one town there was a whole wedding procession, complete with caged DJ and strobe lights, happening in the middle of the main road. At no point do these large gathering seem to question how they are impacting those around them; they march, dance and parade to demonstrate that there are sub-groups within the larger crowd– the traffic will be there regardless so who cares. The worst part about these gatherings was that most of the roads go right through the center of towns. So, our 3 journeys would turn into 6 hour backups waiting for the mobs to move… just like the cow they have every right to be in the middle of the road. Subgroups are also formed by state. I always thought of India as one defined country – they speak Hindi and eat naan bread with tika massal… but in actuality each state is like its own individual country. In total I went to three states (which have populations larger than whole countries – one state had 110 million people) and each one was significantly different in language, dress, even appearance. The closer you get to the north-east the more people’s features blend with China, the further South the darker in complexion, and people in the West blend more with Arab traditions. The level of spice differs by state, which meant I had to adjust what I ordered in order to be able to palate the food. India is a massive and diverse country, allowing the 1.3 billion people to at least stand out in the individuality of their birth town, culture differences, political stance, and religion. Most significantly, religion is everything in India. In the US I feel most people place religion as an intermission, prayer and church happen but at scheduled points in the week. In India every moment is because of religion. There is no hunting, because animals are related to gods and thus are protected. There are close to 50 holidays in the work calendar, and any time people take off from work or school to march in the streets for their holy days, travel to the Ganges to worship on the full moon, attend a weeklong wedding celebration, or simply visit the nearest prayer site. In the name of religion all things are done – marriage, food consumed (or not consumed), vaccines taken (or not taken), forests preserved, animals given free-range, etc…; and without it nothing is accomplished. In fact, the health workers tie public health interventions to religion in order to assure they will be taken up. In one district the regional health officer wrote a ‘vaccine prayer’ teaching the importance of having your child vaccinated in relation to a local prayer cadence. As I am not a religious person myself, this both baffles and astounds me. 1.3 billion people in India believe that there is something outside of themselves. Whether they believe in the Hindu gods, the Buddhist enlightenment, or the guidelines of the Quran; they believe it so much that their whole lives revolve around it. It’s actually quite amazing when you think about it… only because of tradition and blind faith does their way of life exist – and in that there is an order created. 1.3 billion people can be in one place because there are enough gods to go around and a mutually agreed upon acceptance that anyone can believe what they want.
Lastly, the 1.3 billion people means a lot of waste and consumption. One thing I could not get over was the trash and smog. Everywhere you look there is trash and a constant thick haze surrounding you. At some points I would need to cover my face to keep from coughing in the smog (don’t in-hale). Even in the remote villages children play over piles of plastic bags and animals graze in areas that appear more like landfills than pastureland. Imagine Pigpen, from the Charlie Brown series, the constant grey scribbles that follow him wherever he goes – that is what I felt like in India. People talk about the smog, a news article mentioned local Bollywood stars canceling performances in Delhi because of high-toxin levels… but it all seems to be accepted. The rich will still drive their cars, the brick makers will stoke their kilns, and the people will toss their trash. They have become accustomed, because what is the alternative? How can 1.3 billion people exist and there not be mountains of trash and haze in the cities? So, what does 1.3 billion look like – congested roads, no personal space, and trash everywhere. Still, there is a tranquility, a kind of beauty in the fact that they can all share the space without confrontation. So many places are torn apart because of their differences, here it seems to keep them together.
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I remember Kenya at the center of my African history courses. A rebellion in the mid-twentieth century freed it from colonial rule and its first president, Jomo Kenyatta, became one of the fore fathers for African Independence. Because of strong early leadership and their position between the Arab and Africa worlds - it is now the richest country in Central Africa. A green revolution also preserved its lush landscape – allowing parks and protected forests to remain while other countries struggle to maintain even a semblance of green space. You’ve seen their exports in coffee and tea shops, and their athletes on sports channels leading the pack in marathons. For a while it was a peaceful, quite nation; but recent questionable elections and a refugee influx have created instability and insecurity. Peace Corps officially left the country in 2014 and now whole districts are off limits to American visitors. It is hard to tell what will happen to Kenya in the coming years, but I must say my first impression is that it currently stands leaps and bounds above the development levels of other African countries I have seen. It is a country with potential and hope, but also with some challenging years to come. Its borders were formed by colonialism, but the clans which live along its Eastern edge do not recognize political boundaries. I came to Kenya because polio and other vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) are coming into Kenya from Somalia. I helped facilitate a focus group training for Kenyans to interview Somali migrants who cross into Kenya, with the goal being to understand where we should target immunization campaigns. We printed large maps for focus group participants to show migration routes, where nomadic people cross the border and where they access healthcare, etc... One of our questions was, ‘where are the Somali communities settling in Kenya?’ This question, however, confused our trainees because “we are all Somali”. They explained that Somali are a people, not a country. People move freely across eastern Kenya and southern Somalia, as they follow the seasons with their cattle – searching for greener pasture and water, and in more recent years they are also escaping the effects of global warming and terrorist attacks. Lesson one, the people we needed to focus on do not define themselves based on a nationality, but rather a way of life- so our question would have to change from ‘Somali’ to ‘nomadic’. We asked our trainees to submit their photographs, maps and reports through the internet. They all have smart phones and email addresses which suggested that it would be a possible option. To make sure it would be feasible, we enquired if there were ever network problems and if they could they submit electronically. “The tower was bombed three months ago”. A fact stated so casually that I had to double check to make sure I heard them correctly. The more I listened the more I became lost in the complexities of their reality. “Do not send them in nice vehicles, that’s what ‘they’ target”; “We should not invite security people to our meetings- the community is afraid of them”. Al-Shahaab, the regional terrorist group, are mostly focused in southern Somalia, but the porous borders allow them to also focus some attacks on the Kenyan side. They, like the other terrorist groups of our era, attack anything which does not fall within their idea of ‘correct’ and use bombings as a visible way to create fear. Lesson two, they could collect all the data in the world, but I will never truly understand their lives because my reality is nothing like theirs. We sent our data collectors to the field two days after the training, and hope that within the next two weeks we can receive a glimpse of what is happening on the ground. Also we will get to see if we conducted the training well enough to get back strong data – data we can use to support the region. In my short tenure at the CDC I have learned that I am in the minority. My colleagues are Scientists, with a capital “S”. If the sample is not large enough, the correlations are not sufficiently proven, or the study under enough control; then the results are invalid. This perspective makes it very challenging when studying people, because each person has the ability to make a choice. Unlike mice, our choices are intertwined with our realities, which are the direct result of our social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. This is where those trained in the hard sciences stumble. We cannot implement a program in a community and say with exact certainty what will or will not work. This is where I come in, the only anthropologist in my entire division. We need to train our data collectors to not think like epidemiologists – people live in village A. We need to train them to think like anthropologists – people live in village A because… The method of study needs to be qualitative, because ordinal values do not exist in the gray areas of human society; causing those trained in the hard sciences to struggle with training others to think outside of Excel boxes. They do not know how to collect it, analyze it, use it…. That is why I was brought onto this project, to create a training which would bring back qualitative data sufficient enough to inform programmatic direction. I look forward to seeing the data and getting another glimpse into their lives.
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Bonnie HarveyCurrently working in northern Malawi as Programs and Evaluations Coordinator for Temwa Archives
June 2019
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