When we pass the regional border to Bihar in East India it seems we have done a travel to the past. The NGO driver, a project manager and myself are on the way to Buxar to visit a sanitation project, steered by Healing Fields. This is one of the Indian parts I have not visited…
Tag: women
Indian women, napkins and the dream of Europe
Today we stay at a huge and vivid “function” in a small town. It is one of the festivities where year per year thousands of women come together for celebrating the international women day. Some women sell self-made products: tailoring, jewelry, sweets and spices. In one corner there is an overloaded booth with sanitary napkins…
7weeks in India – The tribal cooking invitation
Arnattokadu, Kalekkadu – these are the names of two small villages in Tamil Nadu, South India I have visited in the last weeks. During the visits these women showed me their houses, told me about their lives, their self-help groups and how they want to create their own future. I learnt also about their challenges, poverty…
7weeks in India – Meeting the cashew nut maker
Cashew nuts are a popular snack – probably all over the world – and a healthy food source, full of energy, antioxidants and minerals. Have you ever seen where they grow and how the processing from the tree to the final nice eatable nut works? We visit a rural region in the surroundings of Pondicherry,…
The beauty of old tribal women
The beauty of old tribal women – and their role as change agents Isn’t it amazing? In many big cities, with the ongoing globalization and higher education, huge changes of family structures are taking place – also in India. Young families need to go for work in other areas and personal independence gets higher rated…
7weeks in India – A travel to the past, a life without mobility
The importance of mobility: For us in the developped world reaching from A to B is always possible, sometimes it might take some more time, but every village, every place is connected. If some trains or busses are on strike we get crazy, but ….can you imagine a life without any mobility? A life where…
7weeks in India – Momos in Ooty
I see them and can hardly resist: momos, veg balls in garlic sauce, boiled in water. One my preferred foods in India. I spend the weekend in Ooty, a hill town in the Nilgiri mountains at 2.240m. Talking with the momo lady The lady is preparing momos at a cooking stand when I pass by….
7weeks in India – Tribal culture and an unknown artist
At noon we arrive in a small tribal village in the mountain region, close to the border of Kerala. The view from this place down on the hills is beautiful. Less than 20 families live here, a hundred people. Under a tree, in the middle of the road (there is just this only one) they…
7weeks in India – From woman to woman, part 1
When I decided to go to the rural and tribal parts of India there was a special thing I wanted to find out: Who are these women living there? What is in their mind? How does life look, what do they think and feel, what are their thoughts? What do they perceive and think when…
7weeks in India – Female tribal self-help groups building their own future
The mushroom cultivation – it is just one small business idea for poor women that could lead to a different way of life. When we enter the tribal village most of the women are working on the right and the left of a small muddy road that takes us to the mushroom cultivation facility. Day-workers….