December 14, 2006 by o.wiltshire.

Kutch is an incredibly diverse and beautiful area. There are so many different communities that I am having a very hard time working out who is who. Our contacts at Agrocel were busy this week, but Alice will be going to Mandvi tomorrow to arrange the next set of interviews. She is having a hard time communicating with Agrocel employees over the phone, and I’ve refused to step in because I thought it was best if she remained the primary contact… Things seem to get done best when we can speak with people face to face! Especially when all the parties involved are speaking in their second or third language!
While Agrocel has been busy we took time to chat with a few more NGO’s working in the area. In the interviews we did with farmers it was interesting to hear that they had “no health problems”. What I’ve come to understand in talking with NGO’s that work directly in health related issues, is that its not easy to get somebody to admit they have health problems! Also, many people have no idea what kind of health problems they might have. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and other illnesses is pretty unsubstantial. In the news today I read that the Kutch area has no access to HIV drugs or medications, and that in the past month 18 patients died due to the lack of access to medication. This kind of information, along with reports we’ve collected from other NGO’s should help put into context the interview data we have collected from farmers.

We visited Shrujan on a pretty perfect day. Shrujan had recently won some Rolex international development award, and in turn was putting on a celebration for all the artisans involved in the organization! We showed up to find 1500 of the Shrujan embroiderers all visiting the Shrujan head office and sales outlet. We had no translator with us, so we have no idea what the speeches were about - but the music and food was great.

Yesterday we took a tour with four other travellers, two Bangalorean, an Australian, and a German. We visited a number of nearby towns which rely heavily on crafts production. I can’t get over the feeling that I’m an invader - not speaking the language is a huge barrier - and a translator just doesn’t get us passed it. A real conversation is 100% impossible with a translator. I would never want to conduct any serious ‘cultural’ research in an area where I was not fluent in the local language - because the kinds of questions you can ask, and the kinds of responses are very limited. We can get a general sense of whats going on, but its hard to gain peoples trust and to have them let down their guard. (ie why we cant get information on health problems in a community simply by asking them). Funny enough, spending money works to break down barriers very well.
For example when we arrived in one town, I asked if I could take a picture of a man and woman. They didn’t want me to take the picture, so I thanked them anyways and put away the camera. We walked around the round houses, looked at the interesting paintings on house walls, then after a few minutes started to feel like uninvited aliens. Thankfully a woman came up to us and invited us into one of the houses - this made us feel a bit more welcome. The house we were invited into was the ‘trading post’ of sorts. The room was filled with beautiful embroidery. We bought a couple pieces and immediately everyone seemed happier and livelier. We stepped out of the house and the man who denied my photo, asked me to take his photograph. Then all the kids surrounded us and asked us to take their pictures as well.
Spending money works to break the ice it seems… We were alien intruders up until we filled our role as “foreign rich ass big spenders”. Being on a tour with other tourists we didn’t bother trying to get passed this… Tourism can be strange.

I’m pretty convinced doing interviews through a translator is a bit hopeless - it works, but it works a lot better speaking the language! Maybe paying people for the interview time would help too!

artisans visiting exhibit of their own work at Shrujan + speeches, music, lunch, as thanks for winning the Rolex award.

Some more pics from around Bhuj…

Some pics from our tourist shopping tour around nearby communities…

and a few more…

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December 2, 2006 by o.wiltshire.

During the past two weeks we’ve finally managed to break into some serious research for Alice’s project on fair trade and cotton production. Unable to make any breakthroughs by phone, Alice decided to ’show up’ at Agrocel’s main office in Mandvi. Where emailed and telephone failed, the face-to-face approach worked like a charm. Agrocel was incredibly welcoming and open to us both. Lucky for us they had their top inspector/farming consultant ready to hit the field - they asked us who we wanted to visit, and helped us work out a program for the very next day.
He met us at our hotel the next day, and we took a bus to Rapar - a village about 200km away that had been chosen as an ideal location for organic farming. One of the reasons organic farming can do so well here is that with the low rainfall and frequent droughts, conventional farming just doesnt work very well. Many small farmers were already working mostly organic - either due to insufficient irrigation for most chemical fertilizer/pesticides, or due to religious beliefs whereby they didnt want to harm insects.

I’m working on compiling information on all the different communities and ethnic groups in the area to help fill-out Alice’s research. For now though, here are some pictures from our most recent excursions.

drying fabric, brewing natural dye, rinsing

Alice’s Interviews - at farm, focus group in town, nearby school (where fair trade group donated funds for drinking well + compost)

Other great sites… Beach near Mandvi (find this in goa!), ship building in mandvi, more farmers after focus group

Cooking millet chapati’s, hanging out with embroiderers

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December 2, 2006 by o.wiltshire.

Today we decided to take a break from the research to instead hit up the boutiques. Kutch is famous for its handicrafts and Alice’s pockets were on fire after receiving the FARE scholarship! We had heard about a wonderful co-operative during last nights dinner conversation with an Australian couple, who said “they have some of the most beautiful embroidery I’ve ever seen, and believe me I’ve seen a lot.” No map in hand, and speaking only English we jumped a rickshaw who ushered us into the back with a reassuring nod. He sped off out of town to a nearby village (10 minute journey), then dropped us in front of a gated building with no sign. Confused, we walked in and found two ladies sitting at a desk. They spoke no English but it didn’t take long for us to realize we were in the wrong place. Eventually they went and found someone who did speak English, and this woman walked us out of wherever we were, and gave proper directions to our rickshaw driver, who then drove us back to town, and then to another signless building which we discovered was a government office building. Somewhat frustrated we found another English speaker who gave a new set of directions to the rickshaw driver and we sped off one more time.

He drove around some narrow winding streets till he found a gated house that was locked.  Being the wrong spot again we decided it would be best to pay him and look around ourselves – he wanted 40 rupees to get there originally, but having been a longer route I gave him 50 – he then demanded 80 saying that he had taken us there and back. Seeing my stress Alice jumped in,  “Don’t spazz Owen.” Reminded of my obnoxious outburst in front of the Gandhi ashram, I kept calm, and asked the driver why he hadn’t told us he didn’t know where it was. He replied “80 rupees. Please.” We ended up paying to avoid another of my trademark outbursts.

Walking the rest of the way we asked people for directions each couple of blocks and within 10 minutes we found our goal – Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. KMVS works with women in Kutch providing micro credit loans, promoting education in terms of health and legal issues (ie domestic violence). They have also begun a tourism project where a local village has created a hotel/resort of sorts. Their aim is to create a culturally friendly kind of tourism whereby the tourist and villager learn from each other.  We met 2 American students working for the organization on fellowships – they were very informative and helpful and should turn out to be very good contacts! The long journey paid off… and we hadn’t even started shopping!

After taking up much of their time we went to visit the retail arm of the organization – Qasab. There we met a very nice guy, Punit, the marketing coordinator. He began by explaining the history of the organization, and how they went about helping women through micro credit loans, higher wages, etc. He explained how mass production, and lower wages led to the degradation of the art form. Women would work to produce the highest volume, as well as the smallest pieces. The desire to make a profit led to the production of smaller, less detailed pieces. With the increased margins, and marketing provided by KMVS/Quasab the women have the opportunity to work on larger more exquisite pieces. In this way they earn more money, and further develop the standards of art and production. The difference between the items sold in their shop, and those sold in the street market was pronounced.

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