Handicrafts and Monkey Business

July 14, 2016

Yesterday I visited Okhai, a non profit that assists rural women. Here is what their website says:

Okhai Handicrafts has been identified as a promising means of generating livelihood for hundreds of rural artisans. Okhai has made a significant contribution to the lives of the women artisans working with it, which has helped improve their economic as well as social status. It continues its march towards fulfilling its vision of being a brand that symbolises empowerment of rural and semi-urban women while recognising and promoting traditional handicraft techniques that are in danger of dying out with increased industrial growth and rapid urbanisation.

You can learn more by visiting Okhai.org. It is currently an online company. It had a store at Alpha Mall, Ahmedabad’s premier mall but lost its space to a restaurant development. They now expect to get a kiosk or some other space there in the near future. Currently they assist 500 women with a goal of 5,000 in the next three years. The items they sell are all handcrafted and quite attractive. I had emailed to ask if they had stores here and was told no but I could come shop at the office. I think I described the office in a previous post. Anyway they don’t really allow shopping at the office but I got a special privilege so took advantage of it and bought lots of goodies, mostly gifts but a few items for us like a primitive wall hanging of Shiva, a major god in the Hindu pantheon. Today I hung it in our bedroom. I showed it to Sankar and Rahul after I got it up thinking they would like it and they did. After seeing the quality and the actual colors which aren’t always accurate on websites I will shop on line until they have a presence at the mall. I was asked to pray for them to get a space at the Mall. Please do pray or send positive energy their way as they are doing good work.

I tried to visit a neighbor, Priti Jhala, to learn about housekeeper behavior in India. Alas she was out of town also. So I wrote to my dear friend Kamla who is away for ten days and asked. She is very familiar with my frustration with Sankar. He works for her washing the family’s cars. She confirmed that household staff which she refers to as servants do miss work and do not notify her.

I have decided to give Sankar another chance and I have decided I need to be more aware of the culture here. Tomorrow we will talk and I have some changes that I think will help us both. For starters I am going to have him work M-S and take Sunday off since his religion is very important to him. He has missed the last two Sunday evening shifts because he was at temple. His pay will be reduced accordingly. I’ll see how it goes. I will remain flexible regarding his and my needs. I am hopeful that the two of us will find a way for this to work for both of us. 

We had one evening and one day of rains then nothing for almost two full days. Today it was hot and sunny until 4:00 when it again started with a hard rain. Yesterday I asked Ron where he thought the monkeys go when it rains. Today the mystery was solved. I went upstairs for something and there on our upstairs porch were six monkeys waiting out the rain. They sit on the ledge of our balcony and look out at the rain, waiting for it to cease or slacken.