Rural celebrity

It's been a long week of signing autographs, being generally worshipped, and shaking hands with the cheering masses. Such is the unintentionally glamorous life of the NGO worker. I work to raise money for grassroots Indian NGOs, which work in some of the most remote villages to be found. When I visit, I am taken out out out to the countryside to see the projects being undetaken by the villagers.

It's amazing work -- organic agriculture, household biogas production systems (scoop in the poop and capture the gas, then cook the food!), small businesses started by women finding personal and financial freedom (who were previously rarely allowed out of the home, many didn't even know the name of their state or country)...

Many times, I have had the honor to be the first foreginer to visit. I am greeted like this: I am approached as I enter the village by 2 or 3 ladies holding a tray of red liquid which is lit on fire and the smoke blown around my head. Another lady comes up with two little cups, one with a yellow turmeric paste and the other a bright red powder. I dip my finger in the yellow cup, touch my third eye, then do the same with the red to give myself a colorful bindi. Then a lady or little girl comes up with a lime, or two or three, and hands them to me. Then yet another person comes up with a rose and puts it in my hair.

I should mention that this happens even when my organization hasn't found any funding or anything for their projects - it's just a random visit! I am brought inside the school or temple and made to sit in the one plastic chair behind a table which bears a tray of flowers and fruit with 10 smoldering sticks of incense stuck in a banana. All the villagers sit on the floor while I sit facing them. I am introduced by my local NGO partner in Tamil, and asked to address the village. By this time they have usually presented me with a shawl or plastic flower or some other trinket and everyone claps wildly every time my name is mentioned.

I have to stand up and think of something to say. Mostly I complement them on the beauty and peacefulness of the village and say that I am actually a normal, average person in my country. I say that I have come because I admire what they are doing to strengthen their community and that I hope my community can learn from it, for we lack such beautiful organization. They love that and clap and smile hugely. I ask them questions and finally it is time to go. I standup and the whole crowd of 200-300 women and children races towards me, holding out their hands to shake and pens to get autographs. The NGO partners act like my bodyguards and get me in the jeep to take pictures of the village projects (necessary to document for my job), go to another village and repeat.

I have to repeat this torturous proces up to 8 times a day. I loathe it with my whole heart. The race/class barriers so enforced, my inability to interact with people on a human level, the overly-ceremonious circumstances which are totally uncomfortable. I don't really want to visit India alone again - this kind of work would be a lot better with a partner because at least we could commiserate and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

But I am alone for now, and have gotten through it in one piece. I hate being treated like I am special.