Eashwaramma contracted chikunguniya and her body was racked with the chikun
guniya post fever pains. She contracted the fever after overworking, carrying heavy headloads of groundnut leaf for her cow
through a whole day from morning to evening. Krishnaiyya offered
it to her in exchange for her cowdung heap at the end of the year, and she did not want to let the
chance go. As she explained to me that other people would have asked for money upfront, and where could she get it.
I asked her
why she needed a cow at all asaying that we could help with basic expenses for her and her grandchildren. She explained that only if
she had a cow, could she in times of need ask money lenders for a
loan. They would consider her loanworthy as she would be able to
sell milk and repay the loan. I had no answer to give.With her body pains she is unable to do any work and Kavya, her grandchild, is getting
fodder for the cow, cooking, cleaning, preparing the
decoctions for the grandmother - and then leaving for school ... and coming
back and taking the cow grazing ...
Eashwaramma had severe body pains after the
chikunguniya attack. Given her already debilitated health, she was badly affected. She started asking me to find a good hostel for
them. We started searching. SOS has good hostels but the children are sent home only for ten days a year and distanced from their roots so that they can own up SOS as their
home. The comforts of the hostel were also very much higher than of their spartan homes. To thus alienate the children from their village and grandmother did not feel correct. Government hostels are not much good generally. In other middle class schools - how would the poor dalit children fit in, even if kind sponsers were ready to support ...To anticipate how children who have had everything against them - dalit
backgroud, utter poverty, death of one parent, abandonment by another, poor
schooling, undernourishment -will adapt to a set of children far better off is
very very difficult.
Finally it seemed that the best option for the children would be to stay in the kind and loving care of a village and the gransmother. And we worked at assuring Eashwaramma that their basic expenses would be met, and at organiing tutions for Sasi
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