The Meaning Behind the Waterfall

July 22nd, 2012

During my fifth day in India, in a small town called Trinelvelli, I was fortunate enough to be taken by my host family to a waterfall. Located eight hours away from my homestay was a waterfall surrounded by rocks, trees, and birds chirping.

On the way there!

On the way there, the kids from Trinity school were singing and playing games. One of the games we played was called numbers. The rules were quite simple. As soon as someone picked a number, one could not repeat that number or its multiple. For example, Augustine, one of the  children, picked the number five. This meant that the first person would say one, the next person would say two, the third person would say three, etc. When getting to the number five or one of its multiples, the person was not allowed to say anything, and then the following person would say the next number.

The Yellow Bus

Upon arrival, it seemed that Indians were mesmerized by our yellow bus that held ten volunteers from all over the world and fifteen little Indian boys. They seemed intrigued as to what we were doing there, and they seemed curious as to how we were going to react.

The Walk Up to the Waterfall

We then started our 5-kilometer walk up to the waterfall on this beautiful day in July.

Something shocked us all when we got there. It seemed that the Indians had separated the waterfall in two parts. In India, women are not allowed bathing in the same section as the men. Furthermore, they are not allowed to wear bathing suits; therefore, they must be fully dressed when swimming. Following this custom, we all entered the section of the waterfall that we were permitted to go into with our clothes.

Women Bathing in the Waterfall

Although I followed this custom, I have to say that I don’t agree with it. I think that by separating two parts of a waterfall for men and women only display the different inequalities between these two sexes that continue to exist in our world today. Being in 2012, I would think that every country has at least tried to make significant changes to promote equality, yet India proved me wrong.

Something else shocked me. The waterfall was not only separated in two, but it was also separated unequally. Men had a section that took about four-fifths of the waterfall, while women had the left over one-fifth. In my perspective, this showed me that India thought that women didn’t deserve anything else but that one-fifth, and that men played a much bigger part in society.

The Waterfall

This thought angered me. In today’s society, women are much more involved then they used to be. Women can now practice more “masculine” jobs, such as engineering or construction. Women are no longer forced to stay at home and take care of their children, as this was the case in the 1950s. Although men and women are two different types of genders, they should be placed on the same pedestrial.

The Little Section that Women Were Allowed In

When I realized how shocked I was, I started to wonder how I could change this. I soon realized that I could not change the views of all Indians, but that I could change what the kids at Trinity School thought about women. I went to India as a primary goal of constructing part of a school, and this surprised the kids at Trinity because they had never seen a women making concrete by hand, digging the foundations of fences, and laying bricks before. As time went by, I am proud to say that, after a month, the people whom I worked with and the different Indians that surrounded me during my stay had come to accept the fact that women can do just as much as men can. This is when I realized that I had done more than build a section of a school; I had also promoted equality between men and women.

Working Hard on the Construction Site

Construction Workers