On Friendship and a Caterpillar Burn

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” –Oprah Winfrey

Tonight, as we were walking through a congested neighborhood and marketplace in Guwahati called Uzan Bazaar, I felt an unfamiliar burning sensation on my upper back which hit me with a slow intensity. I reached back to see what it was and was even more perplexed, as this thorny burning spread to my hand and the other areas of my neck and back which I had touched. Amidst the darkness and chaos of the street, I stepped aside and asked my teammates walking with me to find out what it was. Thahira reached back and tried to wipe away the yellow powder that had accumulated on my back, and Martin did the same. They reasoned it must be some kind of leaf or plant that had fallen from a tree, but a few seconds later, they noticed that this acute prickly sensation had spread to their fingers as well.

We all tried our best to remain calm, despite my growing sense of panic at the uncertainty of what had at this point spread over my back, neck and hands and seemed to be pricking me from under the skin in hundreds of places. After unsuccessful attempts at using water and clothing to dull the pain, we decided to abandon our usual 40 minute walk back to where we stayed in search of an auto-rickshaw, which could get us home in a quarter of the time (although we weren't sure if heading to a doctor would be the smarter option). Inside the auto, I sat up right, making sure not to touch the back seat or anything to my back or hands. We arrived at our lodging and headed to the common room, where we correctly figured we could find out what to do from some of our local colleagues. After Martin described the incident to a captive audience (four or five people), nearly everyone looked just as confused as us. However one woman, Genny, came forward and told us not to worry; this was caused by a caterpillar-like insect native to Assam that she knew about from her village, which spread its small hairs across human skin upon contact. (What a relief...it was actually a living organism that had spread all over my back? My anxiety increased at the thought). But the remedy was simple: rub human hair over the affected areas to remove the invisible caterpillar hairs.

Before I continue, I must admit that I have been feeling waves of homesickness and longing for both the conveniences and familiarity of life in the US these past few weeks. While I am enjoying the project, my team members and our group dynamic, I have been missing my friends stateside. Outside of my team and our project coordinator, the people I have met in our host institution and where we reside seem cordial, yet dry. Interactions tend to be limited to asking about the present state of affairs (e.g. how is work, how do you like Assam, local food, and other pleasantries) and even extended conversations do not usually develop into much more. My friends in the US are outgoing, charismatic, and lively to be around. This is, of course, my perception, and there are also elements of freedom and security (financial, political, social) that may be very different by comparison and could easily affect social norms and acceptable behaviour.

In any case, what happened next changed my perception of the people I had labeled unexciting, and it made me in some ways re-consider the meaning of kinship and community. After Genny told us the remedy, she offered her help without hesitation, and we headed to my room to treat it. This meant spreading her hair over my back several times to extract the burning caterpillar hairs out from under my skin. And because it had spread so much, we actually required the help of another young woman with longer, thicker hair to assist; before I knew it, my room was like a kitty club of young Assamese women, plus me as the confused Westerner. Even the cook and her young daughter had arrived with special oils and a lime ointment, to apply to my earlobes (??) after the hair treatment, washing and talcum powder had been applied to my back and hands. After all of the commotion died down and the women filtered out, Genny explained that I would be fine and symptom-free within the hour. I asked her what would have happened if I had gone to a doctor instead of coming to them, and learned that I had made the right decision. She explained that most people in Assam are unfamiliar with this rare insect and its treatment; only because she grew up in a rural village did she know. (In other words, the doctor would not have known what to do.)

After this experience, I felt an obvious gratitude and new respect for these women and this community. Their care toward me and personal sacrifice during my time of humiliation and fear was something which I had rarely felt before in my life; only from my parents, siblings and a few very close friends. Experiencing this from people who barely knew me was a testament to their culture’s emphasis on collective responsibility and community caretaking, which could teach us volumes.

Weather

Last night I woke up to an earthquake. Guwahati must be on a fault line, because I’ve experienced more earthquakes here in the past six weeks (three, to date) than I have ever before in my lifetime. This most recent event lasted longer than the others. At 1:30AM it shook me awake, I quickly came to my senses, got up and headed to my bedroom doorway. I stood there for a good 15-20 seconds as the building and walls around me shook in slow, deliberate jolts. Then, I heard and watched this force of nature move to the other side of my room by the window, where it continued for another 10 seconds. Mother Nature continued her fury into the depths of the night as monsoon rains began several minutes later, and have continued on and off today.

Perhaps because it feels slower than expected, I’ve never felt scared in an earthquake. Just curious. The other two incidents here in Guwahati were both during waking hours – during dinner my second night of arrival in Assam, and on a Saturday while working in our office a few weeks back. It is exciting to experience these phenomena, but at the same time I feel a pang of guilt for enjoying the heavy rain and quakes from the safety of this solid dormitory. Others face these things head on and suffer from the after-effects, in particular, the heavy flooding which has destroyed thousands of homes and forced families to abandon their possessions and migrate to higher ground, pitching makeshift tents on the side of the road.

Photos below: Flood affected areas in Morigaon

Field Work Highlights

My team recently completed two weeks of field work in two districts of Assam. UNICEF has partnered with the Government of India to initialize an accreditation process of all maternal and child community health centres (Anganwadi Centres, or AWCs) in Assam, and it was our job to use the accreditation checklist to cross-verify information and collect data for our project. Ultimately, our findings will be used to refine the accreditation tool (checklist) and process. Our work involved observing activity at the AWCs, checking records and registers, interviewing the primary health worker, supervisor, village mothers and community members. Our first district, Dibrugrarh, is in Upper Assam and located 440 km from our base city of Guwahati. We spent a total of ten days in this lush, remote region known for its tea gardens. The eight days of field work in Dibrugarh were bookended by travel days to allow us to fly to/from Guwahati, as UNICEF security restrictions forbid our train travel, and by road it would have taken upwards of ten hours each way. During this time, my team of four broke into teams of two, with at minimum one translator per team. We alternated visiting 2 and 3 AWCs per day, allowing us collectively to visit and gather data from 40 AWCs in 8 projects. After completing our field work in Dibrugarh, we returned to Guwahati and traveled over 200 km daily to the district of Morigaon, for five additional days of field work in this Lower Assam district where accreditation of AWCs has not been initialized (our “control” district). Remarkably, we were able to visit 40 AWCs in Morigaon as well, splitting into individual teams and each visiting 2 centres/day, with the assistance of a translator for each of us. In addition to conducting interviews and small group meetings at each centres, we organized focus group discussions of about 50 supervisors and 5 higher officials in each district on the final day of our data collection.

So much happened on our field visits. We met an elephant on the road on the 4th of July, I watched a boy climb a 20 foot fruit tree to retrieve berries presented to me as a gift, and an Anganwadi Centre management committee member insisted that I had the nicest nose she had ever seen (yes, all of these things actually happened!) In Dibrugarh we were particularly impressed with the warmth and hospitality of each centre. At nearly every AWC, we were offered drinking water, tea and biscuits and very often were presented with the traditional gamosa, a hand-woven red and white ceremonial shawl given to esteemed guests. Each village has a distinct pattern reflected in the embroidery of the shawl. The centres are small, similar to a one-room schoolhouse, sometimes with an interior partition used for storage or where a coal stove could go. The extent of hospitality was particularly impressive given that each centre has a miniscule budget with which to operate; nearly all funds allocated by the government are intended for supplementary nutrition or take home rations for the children and families that come to attend preschool or for immunizations, counseling and health check-ups.

On our fourth day in Dibrugarh, Thahira and I visited a centre called Thanachuk, which quickly became my favorite visit. Located in a very rural area about 2 hours drive from Dibrugarh, this centre is surrounded by tea gardens and accessible only by a dirt path. We arrived around 9AM in a heavy rainstorm, but were greeted at our car by the health worker, community members and preschool children. This entourage of around 30 people held umbrellas over our heads and presented us with flowers that the mothers had picked and the children had assembled. After we settled into the centre, we were offered even more gifts, in the form of freshly steeped Assam tea, fruit, local pastries and the ceremonial shawl. The worker expressed her delight at having visitors come from so far, and explained that many of the community members had never met a white person prior to my visit. (We tried our best to convince her the truth: that it was she who was doing us a favor by allowing us to visit and collect data for our study.)

In many areas like this, the level of community participation is remarkable, a testament to the investment and genuine concern they have in caring for their children and young mothers. In several centres, community members had come together to build the center a walkway, kitchen, boundary fencing and even a toilet; many also performed building maintenance and would regularly assist the worker by bringing clean water to the AWC every day. Each centre in Assam is meant to have a volunteer management committee, and it was always clear when this group was active.

Days in the field were at once exhilarating and exhausting. Most mornings we left at 6AM and returned between 6 and 8PM, traveling by car long distances through heavy rain and muddy, unpaved roads to meet with eager participants. While I did my best to treat everyone with equal interest and energy, my inner battery usually ran low by mid-afternoon, and we didn’t usually break for lunch until 3 or 4PM. It was disheartening at times to meet with young mothers who had not been adequately counseled on breastfeeding and monitoring their child’s growth status, and to visit centres in Morigaon which had lost all health records and preschool supplies in the recent flooding. On the other hand, I visited several centres that were clean, bright and full of life, where the health worker was doing an excellent job at monitoring child growth, counseling parents, providing regular immunizations and supplementary rations. In a discussion with one centre’s very active management committee, I was pleased to hear them ask for advice on what more they could do to improve the centre and continue to invest in the children of their village.

Our favorite meal was in the village of Thaiphucket, located near a sprawling Buddhist Monastery. After completing our field work that Saturday, we had our 5PM “lunch” at a family dhaba which served us fresh-caught fish, locally grown vegetables and other traditional fare flavored with ginger and cardamom, instead of the more common masala spice.