After a 6 hour drive
yesterday, we arrived at Rishilpi Development Projects, a wonderfully
kept, private compound that is the life work of Enzo and Laura Falcone.
Built in Italian tradition, this compound is a very active place and feels
like a big family. There are rooms for people to stay in
short term, a school, workshops for wheatstraw, baskets,
leather, embroidery, and woodworking, and
a hospital. Rishilpi began with offering untouchables work making leather
handicrafts and some of the workers are handicapped in some way. Many of the
adults who work there today can have their children
educated in the school, but the school is for anyone who needs it. The
hospital is mainly available for prenatal care and also physical therapy for
people with cerebral palsy. Enzo and Laura are great at seeing where there
is a need and helping to make a grim situation better. They have been doing
very well with help from friends in Italy where they are originally from.
The compound now includes a chicken
coop with 5000 chickens. Their goal is to have enough chicken eggs to
sell to fund the needs of the entire compound.
We took the
opportunity to visit one of the villages involved with making baskets and
mats from
palm leaves and grass. This was an extraordinary experience....I think every
kid in
the village ended up following us. We drank dahb and walked around what
seemed like a maze of houses to see each woman working by
her house. We also walked out into the rice fields to
see up close what we'd been seeing along all the roads. There is much
irrigation right now because of the dry season and the water pumps were near
little huts
that someone stayed in to be sure nobody took their water. The palm trees
all have notches in them where the sap is
collected every year. Cow dung is dried for fuel in patties with
handprints on them. Rice is very labor
intensive as it has to be replanted to grow to
maturity. |
