Three Swamis, a driver, and I left the
Ramakrishna Ashram in Rajkot on Sunday by jeep, heading to the Ramakrishna Ashram in Bhuj.
On the way, we stopped at the village of Jawaharnagar, in the Kutch district near Bhachau,
because the ashram is considering adopting this village (as well as about five others).
Jawaharnagar was totally destroyed by an earthquake in the mid 1950’s and was
relocated to a nearby site and rebuilt. But the construction was not earthquake resistant
and the village has again been totally destroyed. The Ashram is looking into the purchase
of some adjoining land on which to rebuild, and we toured both the village and the
adjoining land. I was shown the newest house in town in which had lived a nurse with her
husband and daughter. I was told that she had run out of the house during the earthquake
only to be pinned under a falling section of the concrete wall that surrounded the house
and yard. She was freed by villagers, but died a few minutes later. The house was badly
damaged, but remained standing.
At the Ashram in Bhuj, we found temporary structures being
built from poles lashed together and covered with corrugated metal sheets and burlap. They
were to be used to house volunteers and homeless ashram members. Food, blankets, and
plastic sheets were being distributed to local residents. A medical team,
working with the local people, was also based at the ashram. I took the opportunity to revisit the
buildings were Mr. Joshi and his family had lived. I found the site deserted. It appeared
to me that all of the places where Mr. Joshi had thought his wife, daughter, and
granddaughter might be buried had been excavated. I have no way of knowing what, if
anything, the rescuers found.
Late in the day, we left for Dhaneti and the Vivekanand
Vidhyalaya School, which is affiliated with the Ashram, and was to be my home for the next
several days. The school sits in a walled compound about 150 feet by 250 feet and consists
of an L-shaped school building containing an office and six classrooms (being used for
storage of relief supplies and sleeping), a garage (being used as kitchen and dining
room), and a bathroom building. A temporary lashed pole and burlap building provided
additional sleeping space. Classes have been suspended during the relief effort. The kids
and many of the village men come to the school each day to help.
On a typical day, we loaded the truck and
bus with supplies (usually large sheets of plastic, blankets, bottles of cooking oil, and
sacks containing bulk flour and grains, spices, tea, matches, and candles), and left the
school about mid-morning with a crew of about ten people. We would drive to a pre-selected
village and determine if help was needed. If it was, the vehicles were parked near the
center of town and a survey team (sometimes more than one) consisting of a local villager
who knew most everyone in town, a senior volunteer, and the stamp-pad and token person
(that was my job) would move out—often running—to
visit every family in the village. The senior volunteer would write the name of each
family head on a form (often arbitrating as to what constituted a separate family). If the
family head could write, he or she was asked to sign, otherwise a thumbprint was taken,
and a "token" was issued. The tokens were pieces of paper which had been stamped
with an ashram stamp and, when presented at the truck, identified the holder as being
eligible to receive a "unit" of supplies. Volunteers were stationed at the
vehicles to collect tokens and hand out supplies.
We would distribute in one or two villages
in the morning, return to the school to have lunch and to reload the vehicles, and visit
one or two more villages in the afternoon, usually leaving the third and last village at
dusk. We would occasionally have to visit several villages before finding one that needed
what we had to offer; some villages had already been visited by relief teams, or simply
felt that others needed aid more than they did. I helped with distribution in about ten
villages in the area bounded by Bhuj on the west, Lodai on the north, Bhachau on the east,
and Anjar on the south, but the group from the ashram based at the school has distributed
relief material to about 3000 families in 21 villages so far, I am told.
In one village, we helped an affiliated organization
distribute their supplies, and I found myself leaning over the hood of a jeep in the
middle of the road near the center of town, rubble on one side of the road and tents on
the other, writing "Sarada Math" on about 200 scraps of paper that were to serve
as tokens (our usual tokens having been left behind) while a herd of cattle galloped by
behind me, kicking up a cloud of dust. The thought struck me that one month from now, when
I am back home, it will be hard to believe that all of this actually happened.
In many of these villages, it is literally true that not a
single building is left standing. Many streets are heaped with rubble and impassable or
barely passable. People are living in makeshift shelters, most of which help keep out the
sun and the cold, but will not keep out the rain when it arrives in May or June. The
relief work we are doing is vital, but even more important will be the long-range
rehabilitation of the region. The Ramakrishna Ashram has plans to adopt and help rebuild
six villages; five in Kutch district, and one in Rajkot district.
While based at the school, we slept in a
tent, ate in the garage, and washed with cold water from a bucket. For the first couple of
days, before power was restored, electricity was provided in the evening and early morning
by a portable generator. I sat on the floor like everyone else for my first meal, but one
of the swamis noticed that my legs didn’t bend quite enough, and from then on I sat
at a chair and desk. I tried once or twice to join everyone else on the floor, but they
insisted that I use the desk. For the first few meals, I ate what everyone else ate—spicy vegetarian food. But,
concerned about my intestinal fortitude, the swami requested boiled vegetables for me, and
from then on lunch and dinner consisted of boiled potatoes, chopped carrots and cabbage,
roti, buttermilk and, for desert, a chunk of sugar made from fermented sugarcane.
Breakfast every day was chai and biscuits. At home, I make chai for Rita but never drank
it. Here, I’ve gotten used to it and have found that I like it—once it has cooled off a little.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be returning to Dhaneti and
continuing to help with distribution of supplies to villages. I expect to be there at
least until Friday, February 16, and I will report again as soon as I am able.
My thanks to those of you who have contributed to the
Assisi-Downs Ramakrishna Ashram fund. Your money will be put to work helping with the
ashram’s ongoing relief effort and program of village rehabilitation.
A note on place name spellings: Most of the place names in
Gujarat are (surprise!) in Gujarati and have been translated into English in different
ways at different times. Add to that my poor spelling ability and tendency to forget how I
spelled a name previously, and you end up reading a variety of spellings. If it sounds the
same, it's probably the same place (Kutch, Kutchh, Kuchchh; Danaty, Dhaneti). My
apologies.
I am writing this report on my (Dave's) laptop computer in
the Ashram's computer room, because they are in the process of creating a web site, and
will be using some of my digital pictures. I was just told that we will be leaving early
tomorrow in order to be at the school for an expected visit by Sonia Gandhi. I read last
Monday's and Tuesday's newspapers last night and found three stories concerning the
Ramakrishna Ashram and its earthquake work. It seems that the Ashram is among the leading
NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) involved in the relief effort. From what I have
seen, they deserve to be.
