Hard work

There is no way to deny the fact that people in India work very hard for relatively little. We have toured two such places, a washing cooperative and a cotton weaving factory. There is no way to deny that both of these visits have had a profound effect on me. Leaving me with a million questions.... Our guide explains to us that these people are NOT working below the poverty line in their state! These jobs are considered to be of average earning potential. But for me, seeing all this the biggest question is....If this isn't poverty then what is?

At the cotton factory today we saw people working in appalling conditions. ( By western standards). The whole thing seemed like it could have come out of a textbook that talked about cotton plantations and slavery. The workers here weave 10 meters of fabric a day and earn an average of 70 rupees. That works out to $1.44 a day. 2100 rupees a month or $43.31! NOT POVERTY? When you do the math they make just over $500.00 a year! According to lonely planet, the average yearly salary is around $950.00.

This beautiful little boy was sitting on the floor in the factory doing his schoolwork while his mother was weaving. As a teacher, this was hard for me to see because it was not a good work environment! However, I need to remind myself, at least he goes to school. His mother is blurry because of the speed of her work!























The Laundry place was in the state of Kerala which is a bit more well off. The hotels and local people send their laundry here for the low caste people to wash. This happens by hand. Everything is beaten on a cement block and rinsed. These folks make about 5 rupees per t-shirt. (11 cents). The bugger of it is, the hotel charges us 20 rupees to have the shirt washed, obviously taking 15 of it for themselves. According to our guide the washers can make up to 300 rupees a day but talk about back breaking work!!









I'll never take my washing machine for granted again.

It should be noted that the caste system in India is officially defunct. The government has made it illegal and there are no more "untouchables". Our guide has explained that this change in law was very superficial. For example, On a school registration form where it used to ask your caste, it now asks for your community. BUT the answer to the question is still the same. The names of the castes are now the names of the communities.



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