Learning from Field Work

Sometimes life is too ridiculous to explain here. At the end of work day I have to pretend it’s all normal just so I don’t stay up all night thinking what I might have done wrong or spend too much time criticizing the work process among NGO’s in India. I have been working to form Self Help Groups among women in a local slum area, basically groups of women who have a common objective such as opening a shop or simply improving their livelihood and so they generally save money together and have regular meetings. The NGO I was paired with ended up being completely useless and non-supportive so one other intern and I have spent the last two month going independently to this community with another field worker (who does not speak English but wants to help women) and educating the women about Self Help Groups, along with teaching English and a few public health classes. Of course we also spend a lot of time just chatting, drinking chai, dancing, and taking photos, but this was also part of the process of gaining the trust of this community. With lots of luck and some persistence, it seemed we would have the chance to actually take these women to the bank to open a group savings account. But as I am frequently reminded of while working here, it is never a good idea to get your hopes too high. Perhaps this is true of any project in life, you need to keep your emotions and expectations on balance, but after daily committing to this community for just over two months (despite our lack of translation skills) I was sincerely hopeful we would help them open a savings account (I have one more week so you never know what will happen but..). The trouble started when my co-worker and I were given an advisor. He’s a smart man, speaks Hindi and English, and was a former government employee in the agricultural department. The only issue was that he didn’t respect the work my co-worker and I have done, and for that matter he only wants to listen to himself talk and our meetings consisted of him lecturing us on what we have done wrong. On his second day to the field with us he got in a dispute with some older men who were questioning our presence in the community, and this one incident was enough for him to turn to JoEun and I in the field and tell us right there and then to quit. Well that was the last thing on our minds after over two months with this group of women, but I was reminded of previous experiences I had had with ‘respected’ members of society, such as government officials, and it is not a good idea to disagree with them particularly if you are a women. So I swallowed every nasty comment I wanted to hurl his way and sat in silence on the rickshaw ride home while he told me how under-qualified I was to set up a microfinance institute, despite the fact that I had mentioned every chance he stopped talking that we were not setting up a microfinance institute. The next day we had another lecture (which I guess was suppose to be a meeting). Luckily, the FSD director (the main US organization I am working for) agreed this man is preposterous and has terminated our partnership with him. Tomorrow JoEun and I will go back into the community to restore any damage and maybe we will be at the bank by the end of the week!