Lottery!
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Suz, Valla, Ken, Emma, and Paul have been hard at work inventorying everything in our house - each bed, chair, hammer, spoon, drill bit, everything! - and bundling them into packages for our community lottery. I put together a list of 95 more needy families in our community, and spent the past week distributing lottery tickets. Combined with the party invites that also went out, volunteers have been getting a lot of asks for tickets of some kind, although lottery tickets seem to be preferable. It's kind of odd, when I delivered the lottery tickets, people seemed thankful, happy, smiling. They were excited to be in the lottery. These past four months when I informed people that we wanted to build them a house, they reacted a lot more sedately. Maybe a slow head bobble to the side, a "haaaaang" ("ok/yes/maybe/mmph") of acknowledgement. Bizarro.
Anyway, people started gathering at 8:30AM, even though we weren't planning to begin for another half hour. We'd roped off the yard, stationed volunteers around the perimeter, and used scrap lumber to outline a walkway: first stop, the 1/12 scale model of a HODR Half, where you draw your lot number, second stop, Suz's table, where she logs your lot and records your pickup time, and finally, the prize board, where you see what you've won as Rajib announces it game show host-style to the excited crowd.
Men and women naturally formed two lines, something which I should totally expect in this culture, yet which surprised me nonetheless. I guess it's still not natural for me to see this. Promptly at 9AM, we began. Rajib had told me that people were excited about this lottery because everyone would win something. I assured the crowd that because of the random nature of the drawing, you could be last in line and still win the best prize. This seemed to keep people patient, happy, and relatively orderly. I warned that if there was any fighting in line, I would rip up that person's ticket. Only once did I actually need to threaten this; scrambling for something to rip, I tore a page out of my notebook and shredded it to bits, only to realize that it was my original list of families in the lottery. Oops.
Good prizes started going right away. Tea tables, sets of plastic chairs, bed sets complete with mattress pad and mosquito net, power tools. Yet because we've accumulated so much stuff, all of the lots are actually pretty nice. A lot of scrap lumber that can be used in housebuilding! A set of tools! A kunta (digging bar)! More plastic chairs! A cooking set! Lovely, our housekeeper, and Selim, our wood guy, really got into it even though neither of them was actually in the lottery. The both hovered at the exit, eagerly anticipating Rajib's announcement of each prize. When the first of two bicycles was won, Lovely jumped up and down while Selim screamed and clapped his hands. Teenage boys clamored around the winner and vigorously clapped him on the back, like he just scored a Quidditch goal or something. I don't know why I just referenced an imaginary sport.
Finally, only two prizes were left. One was a bicycle. Neither person was present, so we decided to draw for them. The first prize...some housewares and tools! This meant the second bicycle was left. Suddenly, a woman walked up with her ticket. She lifted the veil on her burka and drew the last prize - the bicycle. The crowd erupted in cheers and she lifted both hands in the air and opened her mouth in what was honestly more of a gape than a smile, but maybe that's an excited reaction in this land of haaang-ers and head bobblers. An amazing finishing to a fun event. Even though it's sad to be ending the project, it's nice that we're going out on such a high note.
Suz, Valla, Ken, Emma, and Paul have been hard at work inventorying everything in our house - each bed, chair, hammer, spoon, drill bit, everything! - and bundling them into packages for our community lottery. I put together a list of 95 more needy families in our community, and spent the past week distributing lottery tickets. Combined with the party invites that also went out, volunteers have been getting a lot of asks for tickets of some kind, although lottery tickets seem to be preferable. It's kind of odd, when I delivered the lottery tickets, people seemed thankful, happy, smiling. They were excited to be in the lottery. These past four months when I informed people that we wanted to build them a house, they reacted a lot more sedately. Maybe a slow head bobble to the side, a "haaaaang" ("ok/yes/maybe/mmph") of acknowledgement. Bizarro.
Anyway, people started gathering at 8:30AM, even though we weren't planning to begin for another half hour. We'd roped off the yard, stationed volunteers around the perimeter, and used scrap lumber to outline a walkway: first stop, the 1/12 scale model of a HODR Half, where you draw your lot number, second stop, Suz's table, where she logs your lot and records your pickup time, and finally, the prize board, where you see what you've won as Rajib announces it game show host-style to the excited crowd.
Men and women naturally formed two lines, something which I should totally expect in this culture, yet which surprised me nonetheless. I guess it's still not natural for me to see this. Promptly at 9AM, we began. Rajib had told me that people were excited about this lottery because everyone would win something. I assured the crowd that because of the random nature of the drawing, you could be last in line and still win the best prize. This seemed to keep people patient, happy, and relatively orderly. I warned that if there was any fighting in line, I would rip up that person's ticket. Only once did I actually need to threaten this; scrambling for something to rip, I tore a page out of my notebook and shredded it to bits, only to realize that it was my original list of families in the lottery. Oops.
Good prizes started going right away. Tea tables, sets of plastic chairs, bed sets complete with mattress pad and mosquito net, power tools. Yet because we've accumulated so much stuff, all of the lots are actually pretty nice. A lot of scrap lumber that can be used in housebuilding! A set of tools! A kunta (digging bar)! More plastic chairs! A cooking set! Lovely, our housekeeper, and Selim, our wood guy, really got into it even though neither of them was actually in the lottery. The both hovered at the exit, eagerly anticipating Rajib's announcement of each prize. When the first of two bicycles was won, Lovely jumped up and down while Selim screamed and clapped his hands. Teenage boys clamored around the winner and vigorously clapped him on the back, like he just scored a Quidditch goal or something. I don't know why I just referenced an imaginary sport.
Finally, only two prizes were left. One was a bicycle. Neither person was present, so we decided to draw for them. The first prize...some housewares and tools! This meant the second bicycle was left. Suddenly, a woman walked up with her ticket. She lifted the veil on her burka and drew the last prize - the bicycle. The crowd erupted in cheers and she lifted both hands in the air and opened her mouth in what was honestly more of a gape than a smile, but maybe that's an excited reaction in this land of haaang-ers and head bobblers. An amazing finishing to a fun event. Even though it's sad to be ending the project, it's nice that we're going out on such a high note.
posted by Stefanie at 6:18 PM
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