MARAG – October 14 to 16

By midday 8 students left with our MARAG representative Mona to visit the MARAG villages. MARAG works in more than 300 villages across India working on education and social issues, particularly with women and children and the Maldhari people. Maldhari's are landless pastoralists who earn their livelihood by using public lands to graze cattle. Increasingly, Maldhari's are losing their grazing land to development and industrialization.

We visited two villages the first day and a village and farm the second day. Our two days with MARAG cannot be summed up in a short blog post. We learned so much about the issues of access to education, child marriage, migratory patterns, and the Maldhari way of life. MARAG works tirelessly in these areas and over the last 15 years have really made inroads into what is traditionally a very disconnected population from the rest of society, but who are fiercely protective of their way of life. These are the marginalized of the marginalized.

After two days of being fed, chaperoned, translated, chauffeured, and taught, we met with the Director of MARAG, Laljit, who provided much more of the context of MARAG and demonstrated how they are using development communication and advocacy to drive changes in the villages. Laljit told story after story of their successes, as well as some things they'd do differently. Overall MARAG seems to be the textbook example on how to engage and act as a facilitator so those on the outskirts of society can take control and solve their own problems, on their own terms.

My reflections on this "authentic" experience

The experience of the last few days feels overwhelmingly one-sided; I feel that I am getting so much more out of this experience than I'm giving back. Perhaps it's a Canadian thing, perhaps it's a Western mindset, but as students we almost have a sense of guilt for receiving so much and giving nothing in return (though our instructors would argue that our presence alone does not go unheeded). All I can do is be intensely grateful for all the time, energy, and generosity we've received from the people who have made our experiences memorable so far.

Visiting villages in the countryside would probably be looked upon with awe by other tourists as we saw what some might consider the "real" India -- a common quest among tourists. I use that term somewhat ironically, because one of the things I learned was that authenticity is not a specific state, but a matter of degrees. Authenticity, or the "real" India, is a construct -- it's how we project our own images and ideas onto what we are observing. Are the piles of garbage on the road the real India, or is it the home cooked meal at an Indian's home? Certainly, there is a trueness of culture -- the languages spoken, the dances performed, how Indians themselves might view their culture; my only opportunity to experience this cultural authenticity is to remove all the identifiers of my identity as a tourist and Canadian. From everything from my race to how I was educated to how the fillings look in my teeth separates me from Indians. We may find plenty of common understanding over time, but when an old village woman walks straight up to me and lifts her saree to show me all the Hindi symbols tattooed up and down her arms and legs, she knew exactly what would interest me. In a sense, she was feeding into what she thought I wanted to see. After our MARAG visit, I felt a little closer to understanding village life, but realized even more how distanced I was from it.