Life is impermanent and situations in the world are unpredictable. However, the smiles on the faces of Tzu Chi volunteers and Kotda villagers are deeply touching. Perhaps what the world needs is simple caring and interaction between people.

The setting sun dyed the sky a yellowish color. Some 200 Kotda villagers had been waiting on a vast, vacant lot by the entrance of their village for hours when our vehicles arrived.

As the Tzu Chi and CARE France members got out of the cars, some girls in traditional dress approached and performed the diika ceremony: a few grains of rice painted in red were used to mark a red dot between the eyebrows of the visitors to indicate the villagers' most sincere welcome.

Vasantvhai, the village head, remarked in a speech, "No matter where you came from, we have become one big family after the earthquake and the reconstruction. We also sense a bond as strong as steel between us that no one can take apart."

As everyone clapped their hands, a red cloth was removed to show English words carved on a stone plaque: "This plaque was erected to commemorate the construction of 227 Great Love houses by the Tzu Chi Foundation and CARE France-India for the earthquake survivors."

During the plaque unveiling ceremony, David Liu, director of the Tzu Chi Malacca branch in Malaysia, told the villagers, "We would like to bring blessings on behalf of loving people in Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan to you all. When we arrived at your village, we were happy to see smiles instead of worried looks on your faces."

That day was October 23, 2002, 21 months after the earthquake hit at the beginning of the 21st century.

Background

On India's Republic Day, January 26, 2001, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale turned the northwestern province of Gujarat, the home of Mahatma Gandhi, into rubble in a few seconds. More than 20,000 lives were lost, more than 68,000 people were injured, and nearly 400,000 people became homeless. This day thus became a black holiday that Indian people would remember forever.

In April, the Tzu Chi Foundation sent an evaluation team to Bhuj, the hardest hit district, with help from CARE France, a charity organization that has been working in India for 50 years. Tzu Chi finally chose Anjar, one of the hardest hit areas, for relief work. Tzu Chi and CARE France signed an agreement in November 2001 to provide relief work at Kotda Village in Anjar. Tzu Chi would provide the money needed to rebuild 227 houses, and CARE and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) would form a construction team to build the houses.

During the construction period, Tzu Chi volunteers in Malaysia and Singapore held many kinds of fundraisers, hoping that earthquake survivors could move into their new homes as soon as possible. The Tzu Chi homes were finished in May 2002, two months before the deadline. The plaque unveiling ceremony was scheduled for July 2002, but because of the confrontation between India and Pakistan and religious unrest inside Gujarat, it didn't take place until half a year later, after the villagers had moved into their houses.

New homes

After the opening ceremony, the volunteers went to visit villagers' homes.

The roads inside the village were so dusty that whenever cars or animals passed by, yellow dust would stir up into the air. The village had been cleaned up and looked the same as other villages. However, upon careful inspection one could see newly built houses and many empty lots where rubble had been cleared away. Some houses also had cement on their walls to mend the X-shaped cracks that were still visible. Everywhere there were signs of the earthquake.

Phillipe Leveque, the executive director of CARE France in charge of the reconstruction, told us that because of the religious and racial diversity in India and in order to respect the villagers' wishes, the new houses were not built in any one style. The houses were rebuilt on the same sites though. Five different organizations provided money for more than 400 houses that CARE wanted to build. Some villagers also chose to receive the relief money to rebuild their own houses. Therefore, not all houses looked the same.

Tzu Chi Great Love houses have yellow walls with brown horizontal stripes; other houses have the same pattern, but different colors. Some villagers rebuilt their homes in such different ways that a newcomer to the village would need someone to explain why the houses looked so different in order to understand.

Vasuben, the hostess of a new Tzu Chi house, stood at the door to welcome us inside.

Tzu Chi Great Love homes are 30 square meters (322 square feet) in area, and each house has one big room and two smaller rooms. The big room is used as a living room or bedroom and the small rooms are used as kitchen and storage room. How the outdoor space is used depends on the owner's needs.

In Vasuben's home, the bedroom had only one big bed and nothing else. In the kitchen, pots and cups were placed neatly on shelves. A large chest was the only item in the other small room. The other houses basically looked the same way inside.

Vasuben has two boys. She told us that she was happy to live in a Great Love home so that her children could have shelter from bad weather.

Vasuben was satisfied just to have a roof over her head. The reconstruction team, on the other hand, wanted to make sure other considerations were addressed as well.

The earthquake highlighted many problems, such as shoddy building practices and inferior earthquake-proofing designs. The inferior construction increased the damage brought about by the earthquake, especially in the villages. Among more than 1,000 damaged villages, hundreds were leveled to the ground.

Since India is located on two continental plates that constantly grind against each other, earthquakes happen quite often in this country. Gujarat has had more than 80 major earthquakes in the past 180 years, so earthquake-proof design has become very important.

The volunteers listened to reports about the reconstruction at an FICCI office. Satish Sinha, project director of the reconstruction, informed us that the reconstruction team put so much emphasis on the use of construction materials and methods that Tzu Chi houses were 30 times stronger than other houses in India. The Gujarat government also insures each house for 10 years. If the houses are damaged by earthquakes or typhoons, the government will fix the houses for free. In addition, since India is a patrilineal society, the FICCI demanded that the houses be jointly owned by the husband and the wife so that the house ownership certificate could protect the women as well.

Vasuben's house had a little vegetable garden; some of the vegetables brought green color to the dry, yellow land. Years of drought have badly affected the harvests and have forced many people to leave for Mumbai (Bombay) to make a living. Vasuben's husband used to be a farmer, but farming couldn't bring in enough money. Now he earns $1,000 rupees (US$21) a month by driving a truck in the city, but that is still barely enough to support the family.

Second phase of assistance

The second phase of assisting the Kotda villagers is the livelihood program, consisting of all sorts of job training programs. CARE France and FICCI have set up job training centers in 125 villages to teach residents cement work, carpentry, plumbing, wiring, and handiwork.

Tzu Chi volunteers went to visit two job-training centers funded by Tzu Chi: a cinder block factory in Gandiham and a cement work center in Sinogar.

In Gandiham, about 20 men and women were learning to produce cinder blocks under the sun. There was a huge cement mixer and three block compressors. The women poured cement and sand into the mixer and then poured the mixture into the compressors, which compressed it into cinder blocks. The cinder blocks were then placed together to be dried.

Each program will last for one year and will train 18 villagers at a time. They run from 8:30 in the morning to 1:30 in the afternoon and each person receives 50 rupees a day. According to the CARE plan, each graduate will receive a certificate and CARE will help them borrow money from the bank to buy smaller mixers and cement compressors to start their own businesses. Ambuja Cement, the company working with this job-training center, promised that it would sell the cinder blocks to other companies.

In Sinogar, around 40 women were learning construction skills such as pulling lines, checking for straight alignment of brick walls, laying bricks, mixing cement, and applying cement onto brick walls. These women learn for four to five hours every afternoon and receive 40 rupees a day.

The training aims at helping women so that they can supplement their family income and raise their status at home.

After observing the job training centers, everyone felt it was good that the villagers were learning skills to support themselves. With his years of experience in business, Tzu Chi volunteer David Liu had some suggestions for the training programs.

He said it was easy to learn a skill, but difficult to set up one's own business because one must face the entire market. A business does not only include production; one should also consider how to market the product. Therefore, if the villagers know nothing about marketing, they will fall into debt once they start their businesses.

Tzu Chi volunteers also brought up a question: If women went out to find work, who would take care of their children?

Leveque replied that in France, a couple shares the responsibility of looking after their children. Laurent Sauveur, another CARE worker, noted that in many countries women face crises when their husbands abandon the families. It is thus important for women to learn skills.

Liu reminded them that men in these Indian villages worked out of town or simply sat under trees enjoying the breeze. In either case, women had to look after the children. He continued, "Therefore, we should consider setting up kindergartens so the women can work without worrying about their children."

After a long discussion, CARE workers said that they would reevaluate the programs.

Because of different cultural backgrounds, Tzu Chi volunteers and CARE workers had different views about the job training programs. Both groups also acted differently towards the villagers.

When we were visiting the villagers, the CARE staff didn't enter the villagers' homes because they felt the homes were private places that shouldn't be entered.

Tzu Chi volunteers, however, felt that visiting villagers' homes could give them blessings and also help them understand the villagers if they had other needs.

Nevertheless, Parvez, our Indian translator, saw our interactions with the villagers and said something that helped to explain further the differences between Tzu Chi volunteers and CARE staff. He said, "I could sense the villagers' happiness when we saw them smile in their homes." Since he had other jobs to do the next day, he said, "I will try to visit you again because I feel good when I'm with you."

Final Conclusion

Confrontation can appear due to differences in religion or in seeking personal benefits. Furthermore, different cultures define common world values like human rights, caring, and respect in different ways. People still need to work hard and use wisdom to resolve these differences.

On our way back to Pujet, we ran into the Indian military returning from the Pakistani border. International mediation might bring some peace to the border, which is good news to people in both countries. However, no matter what predictions are made about this old continent, a major earthquake or another war could still happen at any moment.

Still, the villagers continue with their own pace of life. When we were in Kotda, an 80-year-old woman named Heerabai was weaving dowries for her daughter, other villagers were fixing a damaged temple, children were going to school early in the morning, and men in the village were still relaxing under trees. They still went about their lives while the world outside continued to change.

We stopped in Mumbai before leaving India. Rows of simple tents for homeless people were lined up along a busy street next to a railway. When we walked into an alley, though, what appeared before us was an old but clean residential area. In the evening, tricycle cabbies honked and snaked through streets jammed with people and animals. Street vendors lined up along the streets and in the air was the fragrance of flowers, the aroma of fried foods, and the distinct smell of the poor. The rich and the poor exist in the same space at the same time. India is like a miniature model of the world.

In a hotel room, Tzu Chi and CARE members discussed what they had seen in the last two days. Even as Tzu Chi members were about to board the plane that evening, the two parties were still exchanging views from their respective cultural perceptions, hoping that they could find a way to improve the villagers' lives.

To the Indians, their fortunes and misfortunes in life are destined and can't be changed, so they have to embrace them no matter what. Despite this life view, there are still groups of people who will continue to ponder how to best help the Indians lessen their suffering.

Life is impermanent and the world's conditions are unpredictable. However, when we visited 75-year-old Kuverben, the mother of the Kotda village head, and wished her all the best, she stood up despite her leg problem and thanked us. She also hoped that we would meet again. What the world needs may just be this simple caring and interaction!

Republic of India

Located on the Indian subcontinent in South Asia, India has a total land area of about 1,269,219 square miles and a population of around 1 billion.

India is connected to China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh on its northeast and Pakistan on its northwest. The Bay of Bengal lies to the southeast and the Arabian Sea to the southwest. The major cities are New Delhi (the capital), Mumbai, and Kolkata (Calcutta).

Indian culture is one of the four major cultures on earth (those of Egypt, Greece, China, and India). In ancient times, India was divided into more than 500 small states. In the 12th century, India was conquered and governed by foreign invaders such as Alexander the Great and Turkic Muslims. It was overrun by Mongols in the 15th century and became a British colony in 1857. At the end of the Second World War, the Indian nationalist movement came about. Gandhi's movement of nonviolent civil disobedience inspired Indians to follow him. This eventually led to India's independence in 1947.

India is the founding place of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Janism. Currently, Hinduism is the major religion (80 percent of the population). Other religions include Islam (14 percent), Christianity (2 percent), and Sikhism (2 percent).

India has many languages. There are more than 1,000 dialects and 18 official languages. The most common language is Hindi. The government and the business sector use mainly English, and the illiteracy rate is 50 percent.

India has a social caste system: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (landowners and merchants), Shudras (artisans and servants), and finally the untouchables, the lowest rank in society, whom no one even dares to come in contact with for fear of being contaminated. People belong to their castes for their entire lives.

India has been at war with neighboring Pakistan over Kashmir for years. In the past 50 years, both countries have gone to war three times, such that their border is currently fully armed. Because both countries carry nuclear weapons, their tight confrontations often attract the world's attention. (Source: ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs website)