Postcard Highlights

In June and July, I was in India to deliver post­cards that a Guatemalan cof­fee coop­er­a­tive wrote to a Dar­jeel­ing tea coop­er­a­tive. Both com­mu­ni­ties prac­tice fair trade, organic agri­cul­ture and have been heav­ily involved in local polit­i­cal strug­gles. Over the past few days, I’ve been orga­niz­ing and archiv­ing the post­cards that the tea farm­ers wrote in response. Many thanks to Dar­jeel­ing Ladenla Road Pre­rna for all the help in orga­niz­ing the post­card col­lec­tion, and thanks to all the mem­bers of San­jukta Vikas Sanstha who par­tic­i­pated! Here are some of the highlights:

“My name is Lavan Rai. I am a mem­ber of SVS. When I read your story, I felt pain and hap­pi­ness at the same time. You have achieved your inde­pen­dence after a great strug­gle. Like you cul­ti­vate cof­fee there, we cul­ti­vate tea here. We grow other things how­ever, tea is our pri­mary pro­duce which sus­tains us eco­nom­i­cally. I believe and hope that some­day, some year we will meet.”

“Like you all, we too bat­tled against the gov­ern­ment for many years for our rights and many of our broth­ers gave their lives. Later, though we came to an agree­ment with the gov­ern­ment, we could not get ben­e­fits and facil­i­ties as expected. There­fore our fight against the gov­ern­ment is still on, but this time it is not with arms. The strug­gle is with pens because today we have a lot of edu­cated peo­ple in our soci­ety. Hope to meet again through let­ters. Your friend, Sha­banam Chet­tri
July 5, 2008″

“July 3, 2008
Dear friend, a lot of remem­brance to all the friends of Guae­mala. I am very happy to know about your place and your orga­ni­za­tion. It seems your pri­mary pro­duce is cof­fee and bananas. Sim­i­larly, our pri­mary pro­duce is tea leaves. Besides that we also cul­ti­vate gin­ger, tumeric, caridum, oranges, and round chilies. We sell these pro­duce in our local mar­kets. Only tea is being sold in the inter­na­tional mar­ket. In this way, DLR Pre­rna (Dar­jeel­ing Ladenla Road Pre­rna) and TPI (Tea Pro­mot­ers India) have con­tributed a great deal in sell­ing the tea in the inter­na­tional mar­ket. They have con­tributed a lot of their time and efforts to our orga­ni­za­tion. Sec­ondly, fair trade has also helped a lot to our orga­ni­za­tion. It has pro­vided a great encour­age­ment to the peo­ple here to work with more ded­i­ca­tion and zeal. A lot of work has been done by the money that came from fair trade. For exam­ple, the weigh­ing shed for green tea leaves, repair of roads, SVS office, pro­vid­ing a com­puter, build­ing small bridges, com­mu­nity hall, etc. All this work became pos­si­ble by sell­ing our green tea. There­fore we will con­tinue this cul­ti­va­tion in the future with all sin­cer­ity. I hope that we will con­tinue to com­mu­ni­cate with each other through let­ters and know about our orga­ni­za­tions. Your friend, Binita Rai”

“My regards to all the res­i­dents of Guatemala. I was very sad­dened to read about the painful expe­ri­ences you have been through. But now bet­ter days seem to have come. ‘The fruit of labor is sweet.’ We too are strug­gling against a lot of prob­lems here but our prob­lems are noth­ing com­pared to what you have been through. We humans are never sat­is­fied. How long does it take for the plant in the given pic­ture to bear fruit? Do cof­fee plants also get attacked by pests? How much does one plant yield in kilo­grams? To drink cof­fee at home, is it hand pre­pared or do you buy a cof­fee pow­der? I have sev­eral ques­tions like these, all of which can­not be put down here. There­fore I will con­sider myself for­tu­nate if I can con­tinue writ­ing to you. I bid farewell by wish­ing you the very best. Thanks. Lhendup Lep­cha, SVS, Aab­o­tay, Darjeeling”

“July 6, 2008
Dear friend, Miguelina Gomez Velasquez. Regards. My name is Sujata Chet­tri, and like you we too have a women’s orga­ni­za­tion, which is a part of SVS and is known by the name of San­jukta Nari San­gathan orga­ni­za­tion. I am a mem­ber of this orga­ni­za­tion. Through this orga­ni­za­tion we learn how to save money. We attend meet­ings and work­shops. This has ben­e­fited us. All we women par­tic­i­pate in the under­tak­ings of SVS. Though I wished to write more, I must end here. All of us from the women’s orga­ni­za­tion wish you the very best. ”

“My name is Suresh Chet­tri. I run a small school here in our vil­lage where there are no gov­ern­men­tal facil­i­ties. Like yours here too lots of small chil­dren go through immense hard­ships to get good edu­ca­tion. At present, 40 poor chil­dren are seek­ing edu­ca­tion in this school. They are the pil­lars of our soci­ety. My state­ment to all the small chil­dren – study well, lis­ten to your par­ents, obey your teach­ers, because you have to get well edu­cated and need to do a lot for your vil­lage and coun­try.
July 5, 2008″

“July 6, 2008
Dear sis­ter, even at this ten­der age, you work so hard. When I saw you work­ing in the pic­ture, I felt like meet­ing you and shar­ing our joys and sor­rows. Unfor­tu­nately, we can­not meet. But I am like your elder brother, there­fore, I pray to God for your bet­ter future, and best wishes to you and your future. Brother Puran Tamang”