Continued CHAD

The story of CHAD continued...
The Dais- or midwives- were traditionally of the lower caste and specifically, the Barber's wife.
It is fascinating that in multiple cultures barbers evolved into the first surgeons independently. She probably had access to the knives.
At any rate, a Dais passed her trade on to her oldest daughter in law (since her own daughters would be married into other families). In any given village there would also be a "medicine man-" someone to be revered and feared who had supernatural powers and a link to the gods.
CHAD's mission starting in the 50s was to reach these remote villages- there are so many! - and train medical workers to continue birthing in homes, treating in situ. Dais were recruited to come to CHAD hospital and get certification and training- they apparently responded very positively as they received free of charge official tags, uniforms, sterilized kits and instruments, supplies of gloves.
It is amazing that the ancient practice of cutting the cord with a rusty knife and closing the umbilicus with cow dung was eradicated so easily in s. India simply by giving these Dais formal training, respect and dignity. The CHAD program calls them "Pitchews" or PITCHW (part time comm. health worker)
The "medicine men" were another issue. CHAD did not want antagonism or wasted resources so invited the medicine men to be "consultants" with once-monthly reports. Apparently since the 60s these men have come to CHAD once a month to have a conference, have been universally ignored except by drs. required to attend and spend alot of time whooping and hollering and "making nuisance." (nuisance making is a big crime in these parts)
In the last five years the government has mandated that all deliveries take place in a hospital. This is to cut down on rates of infanticide (it is also illegal to tell a couple a baby's sex by ultrasound). Thus, the "pitchews" practice more rarely in homes and instead work in rural hospitals and have ceased passing the practice to daughters in law.
In a quest for better records, CHAD has relied on the magic number 3 and hires one "health date" from each village for every 3 "pitchews," one nurse for every 3 "health dates" and one MD for every nurse.
The "health dates" are young girls who come for statistic training from the villages and wear pink saris. They are easily identifiable. They use GPS (as far as the military will let them) to record every single family member in every single cottage in every single little tribe. And they update monthly.

CODES
We also learned about a program CODES run by CHAD. Average rainfall is 900 mm a year- most farmers grow small crops of peanuts in the plains surrounding Vellore. Codes provides a secondary income for women to supplement their husband's farming as they travel to town daily for supplies. Interestingly, it was made clear to us that the organizers specifically wanted to avoid the fate of urban southern Africa where as women could get jobs in town, the men ceased to farm and sat on their lazy butts. Which is a vivid memory I have of Malawi- the women working constantly with mountains of supplies on their head while the men played on their bikes and sat eating sugarcane.
CODES mandates that the income be a second income if married. The women work by providing daycare for hospital workers children, adult daycare, counseling patients, welding equipment, embroidering and sewing hospital supplies (bedsheets, surgical gowns). And, maintaining the CMC pool of which we've heard the glories over and over (we need to go! its the place for all the foreign students to eat pizza!) We visited their work area and they were so so excited for pictures and made us promise to send them. I bought several wallets and purses they made to sell specifically to visitors.
Lastly, we've heard lately about the high rate of suicide among the elderly in the area. 12-14 per pop. 100,000 per month. The CHAD man informed us that this was due to more women getting jobs and taking husbands away from parents after the parents have divided their land and supplies among their sons. The women dislike that their salary gets dispersed among the whole paternal unit -to other sons and other son's wives, etc...
While it is likely that the elderly are suffering as tradition changes (the more astute are no longer dividing their land when their sons marry)- I don't know about the "evil wife" theory.
Guns are extremely rare and terrifically expensive here (more than a car) so these deaths are almost all hangings.
The adult daycare consists of locally grown food (no tea and cookies) and lots of gossip, as far as we can tell!