One afternoon as monsoon clouds swept in from the east, from the Bay of Bengal, a number of us bicycled ten miles or so south to Kumal village that was about to be moved to another site. We bicycled along a deeply rutted path that paralleled the river until we came to a group of kids playing on the bank of the river and down in the river were several of the Kumal's large, dugout canoes, piloted by young boys not more than six or seven years old, deftly plying the canoes in and out of the swift current.
Like the Mushar people theKumal are extremely poor, poorer than one can imagine. Their village is a far, far cry from anything resembling a European village.
The Kumal women told us about a "revolving loan fund" they had created which was based on everyone in the village putting aside money they saved by quitting smoking and drinking (rice beer primarily). The women were concerned about the high levels of alcoholism in the village among the men, they said, and felt that instead of spending money on alcohol it could benefit the village in other ways. The loan fund required each person to contribute, each week, the rupees that would have been spent on beer and cigarettes into the “loan fund” and it would then be saved for future money-making or money-saving projects. The purpose was to eventually have enough money saved to create a local bank with the capacity to grant low interests loans to village members. The loans would be granted to proposed projects that could benefit the community and help the community emerge from it's debilitating poverty. A woman had been trained to administer the “bank”.
The women had intially agreed to stop smoking and put their cigarette money into the loan fund to make the men jealous enough, because they had money to spend and the men didn't, to put their beer and cigarette money into the loan fund. They succeeded and the men began making "installments" into the fund. One proposed use of the money was to buy a few long-haired goats, like Angoras, and breed them. The women would use the "wool" (hair, actually) from the goats for weaving scarves and the goats would also provide milk and an occasional meat supply for the village. For the moment, as of the week we visited, the loan fund was a successful but still a novelty. The women feared that the novelty would wear off all too soon and the men, and some of the women, would become dissatisfied and go back to drinking and smoking.
One afternoon as monsoon clouds swept in from the east, from the Bay of Bengal, a number of us bicycled ten miles or so south to Kumal village that was about to be moved to another site. We bicycled along a deeply rutted path that paralleled the river until we came to a group of kids playing on the bank of the river and down in the river were several of the Kumal's large, dugout canoes, piloted by young boys not more than six or seven years old, deftly plying the canoes in and out of the swift current.
Like the Mushar people theKumal are extremely poor, poorer than one can imagine. Their village is a far, far cry from anything resembling a European village.
The Kumal women told us about a "revolving loan fund" they had created which was based on everyone in the village putting aside money they saved by quitting smoking and drinking (rice beer primarily). The women were concerned about the high levels of alcoholism in the village among the men, they said, and felt that instead of spending money on alcohol it could benefit the village in other ways. The loan fund required each person to contribute, each week, the rupees that would have been spent on beer and cigarettes into the “loan fund” and it would then be saved for future money-making or money-saving projects. The purpose was to eventually have enough money saved to create a local bank with the capacity to grant low interests loans to village members. The loans would be granted to proposed projects that could benefit the community and help the community emerge from it's debilitating poverty. A woman had been trained to administer the “bank”.
The women had intially agreed to stop smoking and put their cigarette money into the loan fund to make the men jealous enough, because they had money to spend and the men didn't, to put their beer and cigarette money into the loan fund. They succeeded and the men began making "installments" into the fund. One proposed use of the money was to buy a few long-haired goats, like Angoras, and breed them. The women would use the "wool" (hair, actually) from the goats for weaving scarves and the goats would also provide milk and an occasional meat supply for the village. For the moment, as of the week we visited, the loan fund was a successful but still a novelty. The women feared that the novelty would wear off all too soon and the men, and some of the women, would become dissatisfied and go back to drinking and smoking.
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