Listen

by Lauren Smith (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find India

The mark of soot on the red earth floor was shaped like a dog and for a moment I had stopped listening. I urged myself to focus on the woman who had allowed me and seven others into her home, to observe her, to learn from her. My attention turned to the walls we had just learned were held together with a cement of gobar - dung, earth, and straw - and I thought of how the windowless interior felt warm, safe. Listen. “He would be useless. He is always drunk,” translated Hiranshi, capturing the hint of exasperation in the speaker’s voice that could be felt through the unfamiliar language. We all laughed, over eagerly. Listen. I wondered whether I had fabricated the underlying warmth behind her words trying to make the gravity of what she had suggested more palatable. That was all the answer we received to whether her husband could make chapatis, which she demonstrated with a deft flick of her fingers and a rub of the soft dough in her palms. There was a patient quiet as the hypnotic rhythm in which she tossed the dough between each cracked palm hushed those watching her. In the corner, the chimney faintly crackled and hissed with the splitting of dried wood. These were a new addition to the homes of the village, provided by the charity to minimise the risk of smoke inhalation; in the colder months the fires burnt throughout the night, inches from the heads of the sleeping family and the goats they brought inside for extra warmth. She broke the silence and gestured to a member of our group next to her to try what she had just demonstrated. I wondered if this person too had been deliberating how much of the labour of their small holding was left to the women, as well as making the food and tending to the animals. How much of her comment was a throwaway allusion to the men’s lack of culinary knowledge and how much was an indication of how progress in this community was put onto the shoulders of the women. My fellow visitor was surprisingly swift with the chapati dough and formed perfect little circles, passing the rest to me as I regretted not paying enough attention to the instruction. That night we sat around the table strewn with dishes of dahl, lal maas, and lashun ki, surrounded by the shadows of the Rajasthan hillside against the velvet dark sky, to discuss the highlights of the day. Some of my friends recalled the laughter of the barefooted children who mocked us for our poor effort drawing water from the well in pairs, much slower and more laboriously than a single child alone. Others mentioned the oddly pleasing ooze of patching a wall with the dung and straw mixture, feeding the impatient cracked toothed goats tethered to the side of the house, or the peaceful walk through the long grasses, which rustled against the flowing material of our garments as the laughing children ran in front. Some had cuddled the children, high-fived them, or played games with the more confident ones, remaining in sight of their mothers in the fields. But I felt like a fraud. I hadn’t found my ‘highlight’. There was nothing wrong in finding enjoyment in the day I tried to tell myself, that was the aim: to learn from the people about how they live and how they have benefited from the work of the charity. To see how the charity is creating lasting change for the indigenous people of the village through education. To observe. I cried. I cried about all the times I had taken long, luxuriating baths. For the times I had cured what felt like incurable thirst by simply turning on a tap. Opened a fridge to get food. Turned the heating on for longer in the winter. My peers placated me, telling me it was OK to feel this way, that it is OK to acknowledge your privilege and that we were there to do some good, to listen to others’ experiences. Somehow, as I stood under my hot shower that night, listening no longer felt like it was enough.