It is Saturday and the floodwaters continue to recede. However in Varanasi, there has been 24 hours of almost uninterrupted heavy rain. This adds a new dimension both to preparing the meals for distribution and in getting the meals to the affected village areas. Today, Sai Maa Vishnu Shakti Trust and Asmita are returning to the impoverished communities around Ghasiyra Ghat, where, even though the floods have receded, the brown muddy water is still more than waist-high in the tumbledown houses.
Volunteers work throughout the morning to prepare the food and keep the fire protected from the torrential rain, and to ensure that the food packets are hot and dry when delivered. The large bags filled with approximately 250 precious meals are balanced on the motorcycles as we prepare to leave for Ghasiyra Ghat. The volume and nature of goods carried by motorcycle in Varanasi often challenges both logic and imagination.
However, before getting half way to Ghasiyra Ghat, one of the motorbikes stalls in the deep waters now covering all access roads to this Ghat. It cannot be restarted. Father Sunil and Mohan Das try to find a rickshaw that can carry the stranded bag of food parcels. All the auto-rickshaw drivers are unwilling to enter the flooded areas choked by water until eventually, they find a bicycle rickshaw willing to attempt the journey. We transfer the food and continue on through even deeper waters.
However, before getting half way to Ghasiyra Ghat, one of the motorbikes stalls in the deep waters now covering all access roads to this Ghat. It cannot be restarted. Father Sunil and Mohan Das try to find a rickshaw that can carry the stranded bag of food parcels. All the auto-rickshaw drivers are unwilling to enter the flooded areas choked by water until eventually, they find a bicycle rickshaw willing to attempt the journey. We transfer the food and continue on through even deeper waters.
It is now dark, as the stormy weather brings early darkness. This does not stop the communities eagerly coming to greet us with smiles and the words ‘Namaste’, the children waving their arms to say hello. The first community we visit is still entirely isolated from their homes. The walls around their community have been high enough to hold back the Varuna from the one small area where they have congregated for the past week and here the remaining members of this community stay.
The rain drenching the city has turned the access to their community area into thick mud. As we make our way through the mud, we sink into it with each step, our shoes then held by the consistency of the mud. The black mud splatters on our clothes, up our legs and on all we are carrying. We support each other in the darkness and think about the community living in this unhealthy situation. However, as is the repeated experience, there is only gratitude and humility from these people as they crowd around us in the darkness, each person receiving enough meals for their families.
Although late, we move to the next community in this area and the rickshaw meets us at this location. When the people hear us coming, many women, children and a few men move towards the distribution point. Local volunteers have notified the community leaders that the food will be delivered late. Although crowded and chaotic, there is order and gratitude here too, with each receiving their food packets and returning to their family to eat the meal on this monsoon night in Varanasi.
The rain drenching the city has turned the access to their community area into thick mud. As we make our way through the mud, we sink into it with each step, our shoes then held by the consistency of the mud. The black mud splatters on our clothes, up our legs and on all we are carrying. We support each other in the darkness and think about the community living in this unhealthy situation. However, as is the repeated experience, there is only gratitude and humility from these people as they crowd around us in the darkness, each person receiving enough meals for their families.
Although late, we move to the next community in this area and the rickshaw meets us at this location. When the people hear us coming, many women, children and a few men move towards the distribution point. Local volunteers have notified the community leaders that the food will be delivered late. Although crowded and chaotic, there is order and gratitude here too, with each receiving their food packets and returning to their family to eat the meal on this monsoon night in Varanasi.
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