“ Crowds of children, some shoeless, ran after us shouting a phrase left over from colonial days: Ta ta! ” In the afternoons after school visits, staffers would drive truckloads of goats—prized for their milk—into village squares, where we would distribute them to needy residents. The giveaways were mostly joyful occasions, with village officials reading out recipients names, and observers laughing and clapping. Occasionally, a widows name would be announced and a hush would fall over the crowd. In these rural areas, women who had lost their husbands were considered bad luck, and were shunned; they entered the squares alone, with their faces covered, and retreated quickly once they had claimed their goats. No one cheered for them; no one watched them leave. Our days took on a cadence: ride, then programs; saddles, then schools and goats. As we threaded south through the villages of Mukham and Kakku, the landscape grew more desertlike. Rugged plains and farms eventually swelled to towering sand dunes. The settlements we encountered also became shabbier and poorer, with cement homes replaced by huts of cow dung and thatch.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 10:36:26 +0000
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