Pushpa

The only aspect of my job that is stable is the smile on Pushpa-ji’s face when Jo Eun and I get off the bus near the slum colony. She wears a colorful sari everyday and without fail launches a giant hug towards both of us, squeezes our cheeks and hands, all the while her face is beaming, she’s grinning and giggling with excitement. It is as if we were old friends finally re-uniting, about to embark on a great journey, in reality though we only met in October and we travel to the same place everyday. I would never crush her childlike enthusiasm though, and frankly her joyful spirit is a must for NGO work.
Pushpa is the sole employee at our NGO since Jo Eun and I are volunteers. While she has no formal training, did not make it past the 9th class, and can hardly speak a word of English, her caring nature by far makes up for her lack of these skills. She stumbled upon NGO work when after years of an abusive marriage the site manager at Foundation for Sustainable Development (the organization based in the U.S. that I am associated with) helped her separate from her husband and provided her a job as a stitching teacher. Now she has been thrown into the position of field worker for a micro-finance organization, and don’t get me wrong she learns fast, but there are times when I feel like the whole community we are working in is going to turn against us because she misinterpreted something or makes a rash decision that a certain caste shouldn’t be included in the finance groups. I’m at a double disadvantage because I can’t speak Hindi, and she and the community only speak Hindi. So often they are arguing over something I have absolutely no control over and I can only conjure up the worst as I try to pick out the scattered words of Hindi I know. It’s in these moments I am imagining the community banishing me, only to realize they were arguing over the price of someone’s sari or simply having a conversation about where they went for Diwali holiday. I guess it’s a lesson for me to have more faith in people, even if they don’t speak your language. And it’s amazing how much you can communicate and hold a friendship based solely on body language (and laughing in Pushpa’s case)! I sometimes forget that as frustrated as I get at Pushpa because I can’t understand her, she must be thinking the same thing too. After all I am in India, and most people in Jodhpur speak Hindi, so she’s probably wondering what is this white girl doing here who can’t speak a lick of Hindi and she wants to help a community of people who only speak Hindi! If anything like this every crossed her mind though I would never know. Even when I try to act stern and communicate as best as possible that it is not ok to be late or that we need to stay in the field longer, she just chuckles, caresses my arm and leans her head against my shoulder, asking ‘why’? In other words, ‘Stef didi why do you worry about these trivial details, what you want to accomplish takes time, be patient and continue to smile and gain people’s trust in the mean time’.
I can only imagine her as a young girl, the same endearing grin present, only thinner and lankier. Her thick black hair in a knot behind her, her body language giddy and loose, she probably played in the streets with the other children, skipping over garbage piles and around cows loitering on the dirt roads, her laugh all the while echoing down the narrow streets and pathways that wind around Jodhpur. She probably looked forward to each Diwali, drawing henna designs on the palms and feet of her friends, while anticipating the numerous amounts of sweets to be consumed at the family gatherings. I’m sure she gossiped with her friends and talked about the cute boy across the lunch room. However, she also knew she would have an arranged marriage (as do most girls and boys still in Jodhpur). At age fourteen she was wed and a year later she had her first child. Her youthful spirit has not been crushed whatsoever despite her early and difficult marriage. Perhaps she is more appreciative of life now and that is why she cannot stop smiling. Whatever the reason for her pleasant nature, this women is the definition of hospitality and love. She is constantly inviting JoEun and I to her house, and the few times we’ve gone she serves an inordinate amount of food (which is why I can’t handle going all the time) and regardless of the weather, my mood, or what’s happening with the NGO you can count on her to be smiling and laughing through any situation.