Christmas in Koraput

On Tuesday I attended a public hearing in Koraput.  This was facilitated by SPREAD and was a platform for some of the adivasi people that SPREAD works with to present their cases in their quest to attain their right to land.  Although I did not understand the dialogue it was interesting to see the dynamics of the meeting and compare it to a similar event in the UK.  I don't think many British public hearings start with a song.

The mood seemed to be quite buoyant with smiles from many of the participants and the District Collector.   It will be around 6 months before decisions will be made about the cases presented at the hearing but such delays are common with most public hearings

Christmas here in Koraput was quiet.  My son arrived on Christmas Eve on the overnight train from Bhubaneswar.  It was easy to spot him amongst all the other passengers who disembarked, he being the only white man!  This being rural India, Christmas is not a big festival although there is a public holiday on 25th December.

We went for a walk out of the town on Christmas morning, strolling through a small village where we were greeted by people that I see regularly on my walk to work who were curious to know who the new white people in town were.  Despite feeling slightly uncomfortable as it felt a bit like walking through someone's back yard there were cheery waves and smiles coming from all directions.  We wandered back into the town to go to the market.  I've visited the market most weeks since I arrived here in Koraput and have got fairly accustomed to the noise and bustle but I'm not sure my visitors found it quite so easy to walk around.  We had a fun evening round at our fellow volunteers' house, all of us contributing something to the dinner.  Tomato soup was carried up the road from my house, somehow surviving the trip in the kadei without sloshing overboard.

The next day we were taken out into the field to a remote location somewhere near the border with Andhra Pradesh as guests of a Women's Convention around 80km from Koraput.  This was organised by the adivasi women with the support of SPREAD to discuss the rights-issues that they face and what is being done to address them.  As ever, I could not understand the speecehes but it was a great privilege to have been invited and to have everyone's permission to take their photos as the SPREAD photographer.

The kids seemed to have fun, the older ones playing outside the tent where all the activities were taking place,  peeping in to see what was going on.

We stopped for a cup of cha in the village of Padwa on the return journey and were interested to see just how many people you can get into one auto.  We think there were 20 in this one but were not entirely sure as they were jumping in, on the roof and spilling out the other side.   I didn't realise that auto engines could pull that much!

I didn't try to count how many were on board this vehicle