The Tsunami

I want to let everyone know I am safe. My travelling schedule in the south of India got me out of a danger area a few days before Christmas. It is hard to remember right now that Christine and I were ever having a relaxing, fun time on our vacation.

After we spent a week in Kerala we went to Goa for Christmas, which boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The environment was very laid back and mellow, and we would sit around reading all day, on the beach and in beach-side cafes. It was a wonderful, but odd, way of spending Christmas.

On the 26th, we spent our day as normal. There were no indicators that on the other side of India a tsunami hit. I did notice that day while I was swimming that the tide seemed unusually high, but I thought it was a few random waves gone amuck, nothing to be too concerned about. Christine and I wandered in from the beach to the town to go to a restaurant around 6 p.m. and we first saw the coverage about the earthquake and tsunami then. We both freaked out and called our parents right away so they wouldn't be hysterical. Christine's parents had already heard, but it was early in WI and I think I woke my mom and dad both up to tell them that I was ok. Having seen the footage of the waves, I knew my mom would be hysterical if I didn't get ahold of her before she saw the news.

Christine and I went to dinner and then walked back to our hotel on the beach. As we were walking we noticed the tide was pretty high again. We had an early train the next morning and during our time in Palolem we destroyed our room, our stuff was everywhere. So we were going to pack before enjoying the evening. We were psyching each other out with our worries, so I called Rima (our academic advisor, angel on earth) to say if the news had anything about Goa. She said they were saying nothing about the west coast. Christine and I chatted away as we packed, and I had the door to our beachside room open to keep an eye on the water, just in case. A few minutes later, I heard people screaming and looked up to see the beach being swallowed by water. I yelled to Christime, "We need to go now!" and I grabbed by bag, stuffed my wallet, phone, and passport in it, and she and I took off running. It was dark, and there isn't any real path behind our hotel. I had to wade through a trench that was filling with water, and Christine ran into a barbed wire fence that pulverized the skirt she was wearing and caused her to lose a shoe.

When we got into town away from the beach a little, every person in sight was panicking. All the store owners were frantically ripping everything off the front of their stores and locking the doors. All the taxis, Qualis's and rickshaws were rapidly filling with people. Foreigners in just their swimsuits, so with no shoes, were running down the road. Christine saw a family in a car and yelled at them that we would pay them anything they wanted if they would just get us out of there. We hopped into their car and sped away from Palolem, past everyone running. We stopped at one point on a hill to rest and talk to other people about what was going on, and all the semi trucks going by were full of foreigners, along with motorbikes with 4 or 5 people on them, people hanging out of the trunks of cars.

Everyone fled to Margo for the night, we were all trying to figure out what had happened, was it a tsunami wave, an after effect, or just a high tide? Most of the local people laughed at all the foreigners running away from a wave, and maybe looking back on it we ALL did panick a bit. But we had seen the news. We saw how quick it happened and how quick it could get out of control, and none of us felt safe there, and none of us were ashamed we ran out of fear.

The next morning Christine and I got a taxi to go back to Palolem to get our stuff. Everything was there and dry, so the water never made it inside, although it did come right up to our room. We packed and left, it was our plan anyway. All the shops in Palolem were still closed and the beach was deserted. We went back to Margo and bought train tickets to leave, and then set off to find a hotel room. Everything was booked, its peak season. We couldn't find a room we could afford that wasn't absolutely shady for two women to stay alone in the DAYTIME let alone at night. We were both tired and tense, and Christine just lost it. She has always been the one that has been calm and collected, never endingly patient and understanding with all the frustrating situations that we encounter. But that day, she lost it. We had had barely 5 hours of sleep between us, it was after noon and we still hadn't eaten anything, we were crabby, tired and stressed. We finally found a hotel that had rooms, after about 4 or 5 booked/shady ones. Even though it was really pricey for us, they took credit cards and I told Christine I wanted to stop. We were both 5 minutes from having nervous breakdowns. As soon as we got settled into our room, be both broke down in tears.

After wiping them away, we ordered Domino's and then settled down to watch HBO movies in our air-conditioned room. It was a luxury we both needed, to get some rest and try to return to our normal selves. The next day we hopped a train to Mumbai, where we are now.

I think she and I are still feeling the after effects of the stress, and I think the two of us are wearing on each other a bit. It is just so sad to be here right now. In addition to getting BBC and CNN we also get numerous English and Hindi Indian news channels that just show devastating coverage. People weeping over their dead children, sitting in shock in what used to be their homes. What is even more sad is that all these people were poor BEFORE they lost everything they had in the tsunami.

People keep asking how this could happen, how could their be no warning system, how could so many people be dead? There are so many people dead because the population of Asia is so high, as for the warning system, it doesn't surprise me that this would happen. The people who live in India are the ones who take the brunt of it from the developing world. I have read so many stories and seen so many times the way that the U.S. and other developing nations have actively worked against embettering the lives of people here and instead continue to perpetuate their poverty to ensure the West's superiority. And now, when there is a huge disaster the Western world comes to the rescue like some kind of cruel joke. If the countries of this world worked together to embetter the lives of everyone on this planet there would have been far fewer deaths in this tradegy. Yes, it still would have happened and people still would have died. But think of how this tragedy would have been different if, instead of fragile huts they lived in Western style homes. If, instead of corrupt villages governments, they had up-to-date warning systems. What would have happened then?

Kerala Sweet Kerala

So, picture this if you will. An idyllic tropical destination, complete with palm trees and waves crashing on the shore. Perched above the beach is a cliff, with a small tourist town boasting everything a traveller would need (including fast internet access!). This is Varkala in Kerala, and it is where I am currently, on vacation.

My last few days in Jaipur were exceptionally weird. We were supposed to be there for finals, but there weren't really any FINALS. We just made internship presentations and Tim, Christine and I kept ourselves busy while the rest of the group went through de-briefing and talking about going home. It was so odd to say goodbye to them, especially when I have never been the one saying goodbye. I have always been the one to leave people behind. It is so strange to think of not seeing them in Jaipur when I come back, or that we may never ever get to see each other as a group again.

Earlier in the month I was pretty homesick, and I thought that seeing them go while I was staying would be hard for that reason, but it wasn't. I am so happy that I am able to stay here longer, and I really feel like my work is just starting here (which is good, because it is just starting). I hope they are all having a good time traveling in India, that their flights are safe, and that they are not too jet lagged to enjoy Christmas.

Early on the morning of the 16th (yesterday, I can't believe it!) Christine and I headed off on our much needed and anticipated vacation. It started off very unfortunately. We flew from Jaipur to Trivandrum in Kerala, and our flight left at 7 am. Anyone who has ever flown with me knows that I am very anal about getting to the airport in plenty of time, so I was really anxious for everything to go smoothly. Christine had a taxi pick her up at her home, then it got me and we went to the airport, about 13km outside of the city. We were standing in the line to check into our flight when I remembered that I hadn't put my wallet in my bag. I flipped out. It was 6 and our flight left in an hour! I looked at Christine thinking "Do I really need my wallet?" and she looked at me like I was an insane person and thought "Yes, Leslie, you REALLY need your wallet on a two week vacation". Calmly, Christine told me it was not a big deal, that I would just check in and then get a taxi to take me back to my house and back to the airport. She was convinced I would have enough time to catch the flight, and after all what choice did I really have anyway? I ran out of the airport like a madwoman screaming in English and Hindi for a taxi. I couldn't find anyone to help me for five minutes, and then some Jet Airways guys came over and ran to the chai stall to get a taxi driver to rush me there and back.

All I can say is thank God for no speed limits or radar guns. The taxi driver sailed to Raja Park, where I grabbed my wallet off my bed right where I knew it was and rushed me back to the airport. Christine called to say they were ushering people through security, so she said she was going through. I was praying and praying, and yelling at the driver "Bahut jaldi! Meri havaijahaj saat baje hai!" (Thank God for Hindi class!). As we pulled back into the airport (at 6:30) the taxi driver said "I drive very fast today." He sure did. I ran into the airport, standing impatiently in security, and got to the gate just as Christine was giving up all hope. I had my wallet, and we got our plane.

The flights to Kerala were wonderful. The service was incredible and it was relaxing, for the most part. A wonderful break from Indian trains and buses. I sat next to two different American couples, which is quite amazing since I rarely meet American tourists here. Its too far to come for a one or two week vacation, so someone REALLY has to set aside the time to come, whereas someone from Europe only has one flight and a 5 hour time change.

As we were landing in Trivandrum I looked out the window. Water! Palm Trees! Beaches! I was so excited.

Trivandrum was pretty boring, there wasn't much to do there except find a place to plan out some of our itinerary. We left right away this morning for Varkala. We took a rickshaw to the bus station to catch a bus, but the bus was a tad of an ordeal. There was a rickshaw stand, and the head guy (jokingly referred to as the "rickshaw pimp" because he negotiates all the prices for the drivers and the stands work as cooperatives to try to get the highest price possible) kept bugging Christine and I to take a rickshaw to Varkala, 54km away and Rs. 200 each. We wanted to take the bus, Rs. 25 each, but it was really frustrating. I never realized how much Hindi I use everyday until I am in Kerala and can't use it. In Kerala they speak Malayalam, which is not like Hindi at all and actually looks alot like Thai (I have felt like we were in Thailand alot in the past two days). At least in the North I can read the destinations on the buses and know where I am going, but at the bus station neither of us can read anything and no one was being particularly helpful, except one guy. We waited for nearly an hour and a half for the bus to Varkala, and this man kept checking all the buses that pulled into the station to see if it was the one we took. Christine and I just assumed that he worked at the station, but then when our bus came he got on it. So we thought, maybe he is going to Varkala. But then he got off at one of the stops in Trivandrum, and we realized he had waited for an hour with us to make sure we got on the right bus instead of just getting on the earlier ones, since they all had the same stops in Trivandrum.

We have had alot of experiences like that here. While there are men who really make life difficult here for all women (especially foreigners) it also seems like just as many other men want to make sure that we are ok and genuinely want to help us. This is just one example, I have numerous others.

So now, Varkala. Its beautiful, to me at least. I have never really been on a real beach, despite all my travels, and I have never really seen or swam in the ocean either, so its all very extraordinary to me. Wisconsin and Minnesota are landlocked, and have no real beaches. Lakes DO NOT COUNT! Christine tells me the beach is on par with some of the ones she has been to on the east coast, and are not that extraordinary. But you can't convince me of that. Watching the sunset over the ocean while sipping a Pina Colada, I am DEFINITELY on vacation.

I plan to spend all day tomorrow on the beach evening out my farmer's tan and trying to put some color on my white, white legs. It is so great to be able to wear a sleeveless shirt here, let alone the tank tops I brought and my swimsuit. I never in my life thought wearing a swimsuit would be liberating, but here for me it is. Then the day after that, its off to Kollam for more adventures. I got some pretty great emails recently that made me laugh, one of them from my mom about our Christmas tree. I hope you like it.

Subject: Christmas Dreams

I dreamed a dream.

I dreamed a dream of having my Christmas tree in the front window of my apartment.

Unfortunately, the window has a sill that the cats were using as a launching pad INTO the Christmas tree! They would jump on the table, to the window sill, into the tree (I put bells on the tree so we can hear when they are sneaking into it!)

My dream came crashing to the floor this morning at 2:45 am when my tree toppled to the floor in a dramatic flourish! Teddie (my grown-up boy) jumped from the window sill into the tree and his 12 lbs of manhood was enough to topple the tree with a bang! He was thoroughly traumatized and ran from the room and hid for several hours.

Clean-up involved:
-Undecorating the tree
-Picking up all the ornaments from the floor
-Picking up the pieces of the one broken ones
-Picking up all the hooks so no one dies from ingesting one
-Moving the furniture to create a new space for the tree
-Carrying the tree into the corner
-Reorganizing the lights so they aren't all bunched together at the bottom where they were after the tree fell (remember: its 2:45 a.m.)

The redecorating ceremony will commence tonight when I get home from music rehearsal.

I dreamed a dream, and for a brief moment (5 days), it lived.

Current Location: Pushkar

I left Chittor this morning after my first stint with Prayas. The semester is ending soon, so I have to go to Jaipur for finals and then its off to Kerala-Goa-Mumbai for my vacation.

I have spent so much time riding in jeeps with Pallavi to villages recently. Prayas has a driver they hire, so he drives the Prayas jeep around and we bounce along with it. Some of the roads to the villages are RIDICULOUS! They aren't even roads, really. Some have holes and gaps the size of small streams, and the driver just pushes ahead. I have always felt like the most unnecessary car for people to have in the U.S. is a Hummer, but I have never felt like I needed one until now. It would make the drive so much easier and smoother in a massive car like that. I have a feeling that some of the guys I know would love to have a chance to off-road a jeep in these conditions.

We have had some really cool meetings lately, one in particular. It was 6:30 PM but it was already as dark as midnight. All the stars were out and the moon was poking through the trees. Everyone was there when Pallavi and I got there, so we sat down on the ground and someone put candles in front of us so people could see our faces. We were talking to the villages young people about a health education workshop Prayas had held there. At first, Pallavi talked to the men in the village about what their needs were and how the new health policies were being used. Then, the men all left and the women came up to talk to us. They were very shy and nervous, so I thought I would break the ice by trying to talk to them in Hindi. Needless to say after many more giggles, they opened up a bit more. After the meeting was over, Pallavi went over to check some logs and I sat there. I have been wearing a toe-ring since I have been here, which means you are a married woman in India. I heard the girls whispering, trying to figure out if I was married or not. It made me smile.

I have been doing a lot of work at the office too. My Hindi is good enough that I can copy addresses and notes, and read logs, so I have been doing some menial clerical work for them. It has been nice to be in the office more, because then I can chat with Anjali and go out to lunch at the one nice restaurant Chittor has, called Vinayak.

I am looking forward to going back there after the break, but it is also nice to leave for awhile. I needed a break. Currently, Krista and I are in Pushkar. We left Chittor a few days early to catch a little vacation before meeting up with everyone else. Pushkar is a very cute little place. It is one of the holy cities of India, but also very touristy. It is nice to see so many other foreigners around (there are none in Chittor). It also means we are stared at and bothered a little less. Right before coming here we were sitting at the ghats at the edge of the holy lake, and an Indian guy named Maharaja Shiva came and sat next to us. He has a Pushkar Memory book which he gets the tourists to write in. It was really neat to sit there and look through it all at the people he has met over the last year or two (there was one person from Greenfield, WI, if you can believe it).

That's it from Pushkar. Until next time...

Village Dais

Hello all! I hope all is well and that you had a good Thanksgiving, that you are enjoying Christmas shopping and all the joys of the Holiday season. Life is just the same here, so it seems like no time is passing at all (although I am sure everything is crazy and in full swing there). I can hardly believe its December. Time is flying by, but it still sometimes seems very slow.

I love the family I live with in Chittor. They are so sweet and kind. It is a joint family, with a father and mother, their son (Piyush)and his wife (Kavita), and their two kids, Shubhi (6 years) and Kush (1 year). There are also tenants who live upstairs, a young couple (I have gotten to know the wife Sapna really well) with their 3 year old daughter Moorvi. It is a striking contrast between my family in Jaipur, which was basically just Mrs. Singh. It was quiet, calm, and there was always a schedule. Here, it is always insane. There are visitors who come and go, the three kids run around screaming and playing, the T.V. is always on whether anyone is watching it or not. It's also very different to see the way Indians raise their kids differently than those in the U.S. Kavita is always saying that Kush is very naughty, but it seems like they don't discipline him EVER or say no to him EVER. It may also be because he is a boy, boy children in India are often coddled and can do whatever they want. I may also be biased, having seen two of the most adorable girls in the world grow up and the way their amazing parents are guiding them. It astonishes me everytime I visit those two in the U.S., so I may just be spoiled while I watch it here.

Prayas is going well. I have had some amazing experiences, so many I don't think I can name them all right now for lack of time, but hopefully I will post again soon. I have spent most of this week in the office, but last week was spent almost entirely in a Jeep going from village to village doing visits and checkups with our contacts there.

Prayas has alot of rural projects at once, and it seems like Pallavi is in charge of all of them. We have been doing more child sex ratio work, and they are starting a new HIV/AIDS project so in the future maybe I will do some work with that. The most interesting days have been going out with her to meet with Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA's) or dais, who are the midwives in the villages. They have a very important role in rural life, since all women here are expected to have children, and have many children. These dais are responsible for delivering nearly all of the babies, sometimes over generations. Dais are village women, so often they are illiterate and uneducated. They don't have any medical training and can often engage in practices that are dangerous to the mother. Some of those are pushing on the woman's stomach as she goes into labor to aid the baby into the birth canal. This often lead to distress, makes more complications, and can cause a prolapsed uterus in a woman. Dais are also very unhygenic when it comes to births. Cow dung is considered to be a sterilizing agent here, so sometimes a dai will sterilize a razor with cow dung before she cuts the umbilical cord. Dais may also perpetuate superstitions and traditional beliefs in the village about nutrition and health that can be harmful to the mother and baby (like you shouldn't have milk because, you should not eat this because, etc).

Prayas tries to educate and equip these women so that deliveries will be safer and more sterile. They give dais "kits" which include one-time use products like rubber gloves, soap and a sterile blade (to be used once). They may also have contraceptives, iron pills, and other products. Pallavi and I went to a village to check on the dais and see how they use their training. We also examined their kits. One of the kits was in excellent condition. She was clearly using the products Prayas had given her, she barely had any left. Everything was in its original packaging, ready to be used anytime a mother went into labor. The other kit we examined was very bad. All the packages had been opened, so their was no sterile environment. The rubber mat they have for the woman to lay on while delivering was dirty. Her kit was also full to the brim, so who knows if she had been using it or not.

Its hard to teach the "one-time use only" method to people here because it seems like such a waste. Everyone in India uses everything until it cannot possibly be spared anymore. Especially in villages, where things can be so scarce, this a very hard habit to break.

I think that is all for now. My hands are tired from the typing! I will try to write again soon...

Shubhi and Kush

 
 

My New Home

Well, I am safe in Chittor at the moment. Travel from Jaipur went well, although the last night I was in Mrs. Singh's house was an adventure. Ritu had arrived back in the house that day after visiting her family for Diwali, so everyone was back and it was lively once again. She shared Diwali gifts with everyone, including a flower that lights up in a bunch of different colors for me. Conor and I gave her the gifts we had for her. He felt bad because all he had for Ritu was a few votive candles for Diwali, so he talked to me about maybe taking Ritu out for dinner as a Diwali gift. It was a pretty casual conversation, so I kind of took what he was saying very lightly, but I did warn him that Mrs. Singh would freak out if he asked Ritu for dinner. He had been in India since August, and should have known better than to ask an Indian girl for a date, even if it was a friendly gesture, but he asked her anyway and the whole house kinda went crazy. Mrs. Singh pulled the two of them aside and had a stern talking to. Since I was leaving at 6:30 am the next morning, Conor had already moved all of his stuff to my room and I was going to share a room with Ritu for the night. After the "date" fiasco I stayed where I was and Mrs. Singh banished him to the couch far away from Ritu and I.

Once Conor had realized what he had done we had a LONG conversation about women in India. He admittedly said he should have thought more about what he said to Ritu, and I told him all the stuff I wrote about before on the gender thing with him in the house and whatnot. Earlier in the week a group of students (from my program and his) had gone out to dinner, staying out late (until 11:30). I told him the only reason I had been allowed to go was because I told Mrs. Singh, "I am going with Conor, I will come back with Conor." After talking with him, he said, "Things pretty much suck for women everywhere, huh?" To which I replied, "Well, yeah kinda."

The next morning I left for Chittor. I was pretty passive about the whole thing. I wasn't dreading leaving Jaipur, but I wasn't necessarily looking forward to going to Chittor either. Now that I am here, though, I really love it.

Krista and I are both working for the same organization, Prayas. They specialize in Gender and Health issues, but also have a few independent projects on forestry and environment initiatives (Krista's area). She and I were together the first night we were here, which was a blessing. Prayas has a guesthouse, and so she and I were put there. It was definitely a step down from my host family, far more simply with a VERY dirty bathroom. Its hard because everyone is short on details. Everything is very "fly by the seat of your pants" type stuff. Krista and I were under the impression that we would be together for a few days and then she would go to her village, Devgargh. The next morning after we arrived we showed up at the office and found out she was going that day to Devgargh. I wanted to go with her to see where she would be, so the two of us ran back to the guesthouse and packed (me for one night, her forever) and then we went off to Devgargh.

Devgargh is absolutely beautiful. The village people seemed so interesting, and the people who work with Prayas there were very kind. I hope she is having a good time!

As we left Devgargh, Dr. Narendra (the head guy of Prayas) asked me if I wanted to accompany one of the female Prayas workers (Pallavi) to some workshops and meetings in Barmer (in the Thar Desert) and in Gujurat. I jumped at the chance, especially since things in the office can be slow here. SO, that night Pallavi and I jumped on a bus to go to Barmer.

The trip was fairly long, but I had a sleeper seat in the bus. These sleeper buses have a level of seats and then above the seats are sleeper bunks. The ride was fairly comfortable, but it was VERY cozy. I kept thinking about how my mom would HATE it because she is soo claustrophobic. We had to hop another bus to get to Barmer, and that was my first "Indian bus" experience. Most of the buses I have taken (including the sleeper bus) have been tourist buses where you buy a ticket and a seat. The bus to Barmer was a local bus where people just cram inside, on top of one another, and on top of the bus. Luckily, we caught the bus at its origination, so it was not as crowded. There were still no seats, but Pallavi talked us into the cabin, where the driver sits (largely, she said, because I was with her and a foreigner).

The meeting in Barmer was a training on the declining sex ration with members of the village Panchayats (the local government), and was sponsored by numerous other NGO's. The declining sex ratio is in reference to India's general preference for male children. India is the only country in the world where boys outnumber girls, Rajasthan's sex ratio is 933 girls to 1,000 boys, in Barmer it is 886:1,000. Most of the members of the Panchayat were men, although because some seats of representation are reserved for women, there were about 6 or 7 women there. It was all in Hindi, so I didn't understand most of it (although I did understand some of it). It was interesting to me that these men recognize its a problem but don't want to do anything about it and only think its a problem because there will be less women for their sons to marry. Pallavi said they knew "all the right answers to the questions" but were not interested in trying to enact measures for embetterment in their villages. Some of the men even openly mocked the women panchayat members, which I found extremely inappropriate in a gender issue training. It was interesting to speak to members of other NGO's as well and see what was going on with them.

That night, Pallavi and I took off for Ahmedabad. It was a fairly long drive, and she and I were absolutely exhausted from two nights of consist travel with very little sleep. I was very happy because I finally got a shower (with not-too-cold water) and I got to call home. Then we had to rush off to the conference, and I was in such a hurry that I biffed it and fell down a flight of very steep stairs. My feet just slipped out from under me and I slid all the way down on my rear. I tried to catch myself, but in India there are no railings to most staircases so there was nothing I could do. I did not break anything (except a nail), but I was a tad bruised up and am still sore.

The meeting in Gujurat was with women from NGO's all over the Western area of India (Rajasthan, Gujurat, Maharashtra and Goa). Next year the International Womens Health Meeting will be in Delhi, and the NGO's are taking that opportunity to try and nationalize the women's health movement in India. Until now, most states and areas have specific health needs, and its difficult to manage to speak with a national voice with a country as diverse as this. It was interesting to hear about the different health needs from different states, and the impacts that tourism has on women's health (especially in Goa, which has some of the world's most beautiful beaches and is where I am spending Christmas with Christine). There was also a lively discussion about health insurance in the US, in which I could participate and did.

I did not get to see very much of Ahmedabad, but what I saw was exactly what I pictured India to be like. I can't even put my finger on what exact quality it was that I liked, but that is just the way it felt to me. That night, I caught a bus back to Chittor while Pallavi stayed in Ahmedabad to visit with friends. It was my first "travel alone" experience, and was fairly nice. Because it was a night bus, most people were asleep before we left the station, and the seat next to me was empty so I was able to spread out a little. I was also sitting near a family and some women, so I was not bothered at all. One of the drivers from Prayas was supposed to pick me up and take me to the guesthouse, but the bus was early so I had to call them to come get me (thank God for cell phones!). There was a guy there who was bothering me, but it was largely my fault. I should never had said anything to him, but at first when he was asking me questions I thought he was just trying to practice his English (because it was very bad!). After awhile, though, it became clear that he wanted me to be his wife, and so I started yelling at him to leave me alone (in broken Hindi and forceful English) just as the car pulled up. Even though it was a pain, I wasn't scared or felt in danger because he was just talking, but I was relieved when the car showed up.

I also met my host family in Chittor yesterday. I am so happy to leave the guesthouse, largely because I can't really settle in there and the bathroom is way to dirty for me! The family is very nice, and very opposite Mrs. Singh. There is a father and his wife, their son and his wife, and their two adorable kids, a girl around 6 and a boy who is not a year old yet. It is a very vibrant atmosphere, and they all seem so kind. Plus, maybe the daughter-in-law will teach me how to cook. I also love the way the kids call me Didi (older sister). I think I will be moving there today, although I can't be sure about anything.

This was such a long update! I just really wanted to tell you all what was going on with me and everything that is happening. Thanks for all the emails about Thanksgiving, I hope everyone has a good one. Think of me in India, where I most definetly will not have turkey for dinner.

Veer Zaara

Hey all! So, Diwali is crazy! Imagine the 4th of July and Christmas combined, with no snow and extremely dangerous fireworks guaranteed to be illegal in all 50 states. The day was pretty boring. We stayed home and waited for the visitors who came and went, so there was alot of down time and alot of conversation in Hindi I tried in vain to follow. The night was when stuff really happened. As soon as it got dark the city lit up again with fireworks. All night long fireworks, firecrackers and bombs were going off. Sitting in my room it sounded more like I was in Iraq than in India. I even called my mom because I wanted her to hear what was going on all around me. I can just imagine her at her desk at work hearing her daughter in the middle of a celebratory war zone. Needless to say, it was very fun.

I don't know how much I have written about Gaurav Towers. It was an Indian mall here and all of us were always there going to Pizza Hut or McDonald's, getting coffee, going to the bookstore, using the internet or buying toilet paper at the grocery store there. Anyways, Gaurav Towers is no more. It burned to the ground on Diwali. Apparently in the middle of the night there was an electrical short that caused the basement to be scorched, and the structure is so unsound they have to knock the whole thing over and build it back from scratch (if they ever rebuild). Its just so ironic to me and the rest of us. In the middle of India, where there are no safety precautions, where I have watched men pour burning metal into molds barefoot without any safety measures, that this modern building completely representative of Western globalization and consumption habits would burn to the ground. We are all sad, mostly because we lost our hangout! I also never got a picture of it to show all of you back home, so you will just have to imagine it.

Yesterday Christine, Arwen, Conor and I went to see the latest Bollywood movie staring Shah Rukh Khan called Veer Zaara. It sucked. I was so disappointed! Ever since we saw Dhoom in September and saw a preview for this movie we were all so excited for it, but it proceeded to be the most boring beautiful movie I have ever seen. All Hindi films are 3 hours long, and this one should have just been 2 hours at the most. The songs were bad, the plot boring, the female lead was practically a prop (stand here, cry here, embrace him here, run to him there, look beautiful here). BUT the costumes were incredible, and I coveted every piece of the girls jewelry.

The most adventurous part of the movie was standing in line for tickets. In India there are separate women and men's lines for tickets (thank God!). Arwen and I waited for one hour for tickets to the movie, and when the box office finally opened the crowd went absolutely crazy! They had police officers there doing security for the lines, and a woman in a police looking sari with a big stick was beating men away from the women's line. I couldn't help but laugh and smile, it was so absurd! The police never, EVER seem to do anything here, and yet they were working security at the MOVIE THEATER! Oh well.

I have spent most of today running errands, because tomorrow I am off to Chittor! I have to pack now, just wanted to send you all a message before I left. It may be awhile before my next post. Until next time...

Diwali Time

I have mixed feelings about leaving Jaipur. Today was our last day of class, and next Tuesday morning I am leaving to go to Chittorgargh, or Chittor, in Southern Rajasthan to work with a health organization. I am excited, but dread the change. In all of my past travels, this would be about the time I would be going home, so I am really tired. Now, I have to pack all my stuff up and shift hometowns again (although this will be the last move for awhile. This is the internship I will have all of spring). It is especially hard to think about leaving because my host mom, Mrs. Singh, doesn't seem to want me to go. She always has students, usually girls, and gets very attached to them. The other night she came into my room teary-eyed because I was leaving. She is such a sweet woman, and I am sure that I will be making additional trips to Jaipur to visit her.

There have been some interesting changes in the house. For a while it has been just the two of us, and the house has been relatively quiet. But last week a new girl, Rithu, moved into the room adjacent to mine, and then Mrs. Singh's sister in law came to visit from Delhi, and a new American moved in. First, Rithu. She is a undergrad student studying to take her entrance exams into medical school. She is very quiet, and until Conor, the new American showed up, stayed largely in her room studying. Conor showed up over the weekend. He is from Chicago but goes to school in upstate New York. It has been so weird having another American student at the house. For so long I had been used to being the center of attention in the house, and now he is, and not just because he is new. A few family members of Mrs. Singh came to visit the other night, and while we all sat in a room, only the men spoke. They asked Conor all about his family and what he studies, how he likes India, etc. but didn't ask me one question at all. Then when one of the men invited Conor over to his house for Diwali, after which he nodded to me and said, "When I invite him, I invite you too." Maybe I am reading too much into this, but it was the first time I really felt pushed aside and completely ignored because I was a woman.

Diwali is on Friday, and preparations are in full swing. Diwali season can be compared to the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the U.S. The markets have swelled with people buying gifts for Diwali, and it made my last minute souvenir shopping very interesting and much more complicated than it usually is. Also, the marketplaces have lit up, with tinsel canopies and colored lights everywhere. This morning Rithu was decorating the sidewalk with colored powder (kind of like the dust from chalk). I just love the bright colors, and I am so happy I will be with Mrs. Singh to celebrate the holiday.

On the home front, I was informed through an email and the phone that my house has a new kitten.

Hope you all have a good day and week! Till next time.

Our "New" President

Its hard for me to remember where I left off with the blog. The details escape me alot easier and the weeks are all beginning to blur together.

After Agra and the wedding the school week rushed by. Christine and I were trying frantically to arrange our winter break trip to Kerala, Goa and Mumbai. Over Christmas and New Year's is when all the other Indians travel, so you are competing with one billion other people for train tickets and plane seats. We have everything pretty much settled, so all the scrambling was worth it.

Last Friday night a group of us headed out to Jaisalmer to go on a camel safari and explore a little of the Thar desert. It was a long, long train ride with a few bumps along the way, like the jerk-Indian guy who wouldn't turn off the light above my head while I was trying to sleep! One of the girls, Alicia, her host mom works for the Rajashtan tourism department, so our weekend was planned to the hilt and they were trying very hard to make sure that all of our needs were taken care of. It was nice and for the most part was a very enjoyable weekend.

We got back to Jaipur in time to watch the results from the election come in. I have had very interesting reactions to all of it. I have to start by saying that more recently I have definetly become more homesick. I miss home, want to go home, and have been idealizing home and home life. Part of missing home is, naturally, missing America and the people I know there, and what my life is there. I esentially was idealizing America as well. While I was becoming homesick I was largely missing and imagining a country that really doesn't exist. Watching the election woke me up to that. The home that I miss and what our country as a whole represents and stands for are two very different things.

I am here in India learning about development, about how I can do my part to enhance the lives of the poor, of women, of social outcasts, of all those who society and government here has essentially abandoned, forgotten or taken advantage of. Watching our country vote for the marginalization of all that I am working for and learning here has created a huge crisis for me. I suddenly feel with the reelection of Bush that all those things I am working for here should be abandoned, to ensure that this new administration does not marginalize further the poor, women, uneducated and non-white people of our country. It breaks my heart that so many of my friends are now discouraged and disillusioned about their futures (both personal and the country's)and feel like there is nothing they can do about it. All of the students at my school were told that if we came out and voted for Kerry that we had the power to get Bush out of our White House. But it didn't work that way, and I just hope that people my age will still continue to vote and believe that their vote makes a difference.

The headline in one of the Indian papers here on election day said, "Decision Day in the Divided States of America". It can't be more true. In my lifetime at least, I do not think this country has ever been so sharply divided in half. Bush may have gotten 51% of the vote, but the liberal candidates got 49%. Half and Half in my opinion, and I bet the country will continue to be divided in half about what American stands for, where America is going, and who America should fight for for at least the next 4 years.

It makes me sad to think of the great divide. I feel so hopeless about what I know is going to happen and how I feel it will undermine people Bush has already hurt in office. But for better or worse he is the President. My ONLY confidence comes from the belief that God will always take care of me and my family, and that He is in control of this situation.

All Dressed Up

 
 

The Taj

 
 

An Agra Wedding

It has been a long while since I have had the time to stop and write. The past few weeks have been full of traveling and very little school, and now the regular school weeks are starting to begin again.

The last two weeks were 3 day school weeks, and then the long weekends the whole groups spent traveling. First we went to Dharmashala the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Then last weekend a group of us went to see the Taj Mahal and attend an Indian wedding.

Travel is always filled with drama and tension, especially when it is a group traveling together when there is no designated leader or person in charge. Arranging the Dharmashala trip was a pain, we had a few options for transportation and ended up renting two SUV's and two drivers for the trip there and back. Dharmashala is IN the Himalayas. It is largely a Tibetan refugee town, the place they sought out after crossing the Himalayas on foot to escape the Chinese. It was such a great experience, and I think all of us really appreciated the break from school. The drive was LONG (22 hrs). One of the girls said its like driving from Minneapolis to Florida for 3 days of vacation. Once we got into Himachal Pradesh and saw the mountains, the drive was amazing. We just kept getting closer and closer to the mountains, and they kept getting bigger and bigger. It was by far the most beautiful drive of my life, and a great memory.

One of the best aspects of Dharmashala is that a person can feel as though they can be whoever they want and its ok. I literally forgot that I was in India, and had a hard time coming back to the harshness of Jaipur after the relaxation of the mountains. One day Jen and I went on a hike to try to climb up to a scenic overlook. After hiking for 2+hrs we stopped 45 minutes from the top exhausted and decided to turn back, since it was cloudy and we weren't sure we would be able to see anything anyway.

After that experience, I definitely feel as though I should have been born (or live!) closer to the mountains. I just loved being there, and hopefully Christine and I can get back up there before we leave in May. I would like to see more of the mountains, and experience that relaxing environment again.

The turnaround in Jaipur was very quick. We only were here two nights before Christine and I headed off to Agra. She and I headed off on Wednesday night so we could have a full day of sightseeing in Agra, and we were meeting the rest of the group at the Taj Mahal later that day. As we pulled into Agra I was getting nervous. Though it wasn't extremely late (only 9:00) it was dark, in a strange city with a bad reputation, and the two of us were by ourselves. It was one (of the many, many) times I was praying silently to myself that God would watch over us. He did. The tour books said that our hotel could be hard to get to because they don't offer a commission to autorickshaws, but we had no problem. The guy actually offered to take us around all day for a really good price (Rs. 150).

In the morning we went to Agra fort, then on to the Taj itself. The fort was very cool to see. It was once a palace, and was where Shah Jahan spent his last years of life, gazing out across the city to the monument of love he built for his favorite wife. The view from the Fort of the Taj was impressive, probably even more so in the 1600's when there was no smog to cloud the morning sky.

The Taj was a very surreal experience. I didn't really believe I was there most of the time. You can only really see the whole building from a distance, so while you are walking around on it and next to it, you cannot get a full sense of where you are. There was a group of seven of us and we all soaked as much time as we could there. I have already developed the pictures from last weekend, and the Taj is so picturesque that it looks like I am standing in front of a backdrop and not the real thing.

The next day was the day of the wedding. Our Hindi teacher Rajul had been invited to a distant relatives wedding. The groom is an NRI (Non Resident Indian) from South Carolina, and the bride was from Mumbai (Bombay). It was so much fun for all the girls to get ready and go. Most of us are wash and go these days at school, so to put on makeup and do our hair was a treat. Plus, all of the girls wore saris. I had frantically tried to get my sari ready for the wedding at the last minute, running around town getting the choli (blouse) sewn. Each of the girls walked down to Rajul's room one by one and she pinned us in. A sari is basically a long piece of fabric that is bunched and draped on the body in a beautiful way. It takes alot of confidence to wear, especially without safety pins. Non of the American girls were going to take any risks that night. We all got pinned up, and for a while I felt like one strong wind would blow me apart. Eventually I got comfortable. Alot of the girls spent alot of money on their saris. One spent $100! So they had really beautiful, but heavy and thick material. My sari was much cheaper and made of a more flowing fabric, like a sheer scarf. It was alot easier to sit in and alot more comfortable, but I was worried the pins would rip the material all night. All the girls felt like we were getting ready for prom, and Anthony, the lone boy who came with us, said he loved watching us all get ready. I don't think he had witnessed such a huge makeup and hair production before.

Once we were all coiffed we made our way to the "staging" area. Grooms in Indian weddings ride horses through the street to the ceremony, with his family and a small marching band that plays Hindi movie songs walking in front of him. We took part in the walk to the ceremony, and it was the coolest thing ever. First of all, this groom didn't have just one horse, but two horses and a carriage decked out in marigold garlands. I had never seen a groom on a carriage before. I didn't even know that it was an option! Secondly, while we were walking we would see tons of tourists lining the road watching the procession, and it was cool to think we were experiencing an aspect of Indian culture that they were missing out on. It was even odd to see them taking pictures of the group from the outside.

When we got to the hotel (one of the most famous 5 stars in all of Agra), we went inside to watch the garlanding ceremony. The bride and groom put garlands of flowers on each other and then pose for pictures in huge plush chairs, just like a king and queen on a throne. The auspicious time for the wedding was at 1:30 am, so we had a long wait for the actual marriage ceremony to begin. Some of us didn't make it, and Christine and I were the only two from our group to finally see the bride and groom married (at 3 in the morning). Most of the ceremony was stuff that we didn't understand, since it was all in Hindi. They made offerings to a makeshift altar and then walked around the fire seven times. Finally, the groom put a red powder in the part of the brides hair, and they were married.

The coolest thing about this wedding was the interaction between the bride and groom. It was an arranged marriage through the internet, so the couple had been communicating between the computer and phone for about a year. I have read so much literature about Indian brides and how miserable and sad they are on their wedding days, so it was refreshing to see how happy and excited this bride was to be married. The couple interacted very well, and I got a feeling they would be happily married for a long time (and not just because divorce is taboo). It was actually in direct contrast to weddings or marriages that I had attended or heard of in the states, where you just cross your fingers the bride and groom make it through a year of marriage before its over.

Ahh, I am exhausted. There are more tales to tell, but it will have to be another time!

All About the Class

Monday, after the "auto towing" fiasco, I rushed to take a shower and then go off to class. Since nearly all of us went to Udaipur, our teacher delayed our start time till 10:30 and gave us a light day. We took a field trip to the hospital to see a prosthetic fitting clinic. It was really incredible. I wrote a FOR on it, so I will spare you from reading the details twice and attach it at the bottom of the page. I am so happy I brought my laptop here, because computer time is limited with how many people there are. Garland came over to use my computer to type something, and then I went over to her house to visit. She has a very interesting family, very different than my living situation. She has grandparents, parents, children and a daughter-in-law all living under one roof. It is a little more typical of a family situation. The daughter-in-law is named Anu. She is 24 years old and really fun and interesting to talk to. She had an arranged marriage last year, and her living situation is not in the least hostile. She seems to be more traditional than other Indian women I have met, but that may partly be because things have worked out for her. Garland and I were asking her questions about her marriage and wedding, and she was very open. Anu said that, to her, 80% of arranged marriages don't work and it's a 100% gamble. She had only met her husband twice before they were married, and both times it was with numerous family members around to observe and chaperone. She teaches social studies at a local school, and there is a daughter in the house around her age, so I think it helps. Her interpretation of marriage was interesting to me, since everyone in India seems to feel differently about the arranged marriage issue.

Tuesday we had a long day at school, but we had some good news. We are going through a hectic school schedule now, and then we are getting two 5 day weekends to travel, which is wonderful! Our teacher for International Development couldn't come, so at the last minute Rima, our main academic administrator/advisor, brought her father in to speak. I find her whole family fascinating. We all had the opportunity to meet her mother shortly after we came, and we saw her art studio. Rima's mother is a sculptor who has done many commission works in India, and they are impressive, at least to me. One of her projects was a memorial statue that sits in the center of a traffic circle here in Jaipur. She was very interesting to talk to and answered all the questions we asked her about her work and life. Rima's dad, who I know as B. Hooja, spoke to us a little about his perceptions on development. They were a total 180 from what our teacher, Ahuja, believes. One of the comments he said was "We have the technology to go to the moon, but we don't yet have the technology to eradicate poverty." He claims we are putting too many resources in the wrong places.

In the afternoon we had a young lawyer come and speak about the judicial system in India. It was very interesting to us, because we kept pressing him about the law enforcement issues we all had read about in the States, and he kept insisting that it didn't exist. He told us a story that was interesting. He was assigned to a case where a couple from different castes married against their family's wishes. The young bride was taken hostage in her parents home and was not allowed to see her husband. A suit was filed, and it was this lawyer's job to find out what was happening. Before he left to interview the girl, the husband showed him pictures of what she looked like and told stories of things they did together. When the bride's parents showed up with their daughter for the interview, she had veiled her face. The lawyer requested that she remove it, and he saw that it wasn't the girl in the pictures he had seen. He interviewed her anyway, asking questions about her and her husband. She wasn't answering the way the young man said she would, so he knew that it wasn't the wife at all. When he gave his report in court, the judge issued an order that the girl appear in person. This time, the parents produced the real daughter and she told them how she was held against her will by her family, and that she wanted to live with her husband. The judge granted her request. It was an interesting story, and not unlike many other legal cases I had read about before I came.

Today, we had lectures in the morning and then Rajul took us to a women's shelter for abused women and children. They had been running since 1987, which is a long time in India. They have the capacity to hold 30 women, and take female victims of family violence, rape victims, battered women, and mentally impaired women. One of the young women there was just 16 and in the 11th grade. They were really excited when I told them my mom worked in the same type of place, and asked alot of questions about how things work in the U.S.

Jaipur Life

I have been much delayed in getting you my newest posts. I have been so busy here that I have not had any time to stop at a cafe' and write everyone! I feel very unattatched from the world as a whole and it is very hard to get U.S. news here. All the English language papers here are not of a very good quality (that is my opinion) and they are all very biased in what they choose to report (what else is new!).

Last Monday everyone was tired at school because they had all gone on a trip to Pushkar. Only 4 of us stayed in Jaipur, myself included, so it was a pretty low key uneventful day, except that with everyone's stories I wish that I had gone to Pushkar! On the walk home, I think I started having a heat attack because I was dehydrated. I was shaking and felt like I was going to faint, but I was only blocks from home and stuck it out. Garland was with me, and as I was dealing with these feelings a boy on a bike started asking us a bunch of questions we didn't want to answer. Garland asked him how old he was, and he said 15. Then she said, "oh, that's so cute! Your just like a little boy. Little boy." When he didn't understand, I said little boy in hindi, chota larka. Then he got the picture, and he let us be.

Tuesday was school like every other day. Afterwards Christine, Krista and I went to Gaurav to get some coffee and chat a bit. I also helped them with their Hindi a little. We spoke alot about International Development. Our teacher for that class here, Kanta Ahuja, is very opposite everything all of us are used to. She is an economist, not a social activist, and her views on development and progress are all very different than ours. Its facisinating to sit in her class and listen to her arguments because no one else I know believes what she does. It also makes good discussion material for us. I told the two of them that I was convinced the best way to make a difference and really improve people's lives was on the grassroots level, that the ultimate reward was a changed life that would never have happened if all of your work and beliefs get caught up in bureaucratic tape. Christine said the more she is here in India she feels the opposite. She argued that the only way to really improve things in other countries would be the bureaucratic/political way because otherwise the system of European/American/Westernization will continue in development. That the best way is to empower them to do it themselves as their cultures see fit. It is an argument that has turned my head a bit as to why I am here and what I want to do. For so long I have felt the best way to make the world a better place is getting your hands dirty to get there. I DESPISE politics in general, but believe in politicians and policies that better people's lives. If only it was a quicker process...

Thursday is fast becoming "Hindi Movie Day". We went across town to see a Indian movie MADHOSHI. It was one of the worst Hindi movies I have seen. First of all, it was an insane plot. A woman who is a schizophrenic falls in love with one of her delusions and thinks he is a real person. On top of that, there is kissing and sex in this movie. Generally the rule in Bollywood is there are not even frontal hugs on the screen, let alone kissing and sex. It is the same way in Indian society, where some women who have arranged marriages never call their husband by his first name, let alone hug him in the presence of family or in public. It was a pretty shocking movie, and made all of us uncomfortable. I don't think we will be going to that theater again (at least I won't). It was Krista's birthday and I felt so bad that we subjected her to the bad movie on her birthday! She turned 20, and we all were teasing her about what a baby she is, since she is the youngest of our group.

Friday at school we had a special dance lecture. We went to a dance school where they taught us some Rajasthani folk dances and then had some of their students dance for us. It was fun to try to learn all of the intricate hand movements and to try to mimic their steps. When the girls danced for us, they were incredible. The oldest one was only 13 but she was so entertaining and her face was so expressive. They also asked a little 6 year old to perform. She had been a student at the school for 4 years already. She danced while balancing a jar with a lit candle on her head, and then ran around and balanced the jar while she stood on objects, 2 glasses and 2 brass jars. Her poise and balance were astonishing, but I couldn't help but wonder what her life will be like. Will she go to school? What kind of marriage will she have? Will she be happy? It was hard to balance these questions while watching this beautiful 6 year old dance. The whole group (minus Tim-Tim) was going to Udaipur that day so we all went out to dinner and then we had to catch an overnight train. I have never been on a train before, only subways, so I thought it would be fun. We had two compartments that each hold 6 people, and then 2 other spots in another section. We nominated the two boys for those positions. I didn't have too much trouble sleeping, except that it was so cold! It had never been as cold in India as it had on that the train, and I was terribly unprepared. Most of us froze all through the night.

We pulled into Udaipur on Saturday morning. All of us wanted food and a shower, and after being met by our guides with marigold garlands we were off to get clean and eat. Our first stop, after those two small goals were accomplished, was City Palace. Udaipur is famous for its Lake Palace, a palace (now a hotel) that sits in the middle of a lake. It has beautiful hills and has more green trees than Jaipur does. Right before we left I also learned that this is the area where my internship will be, so I was excited to see the area for that reason as well. City palace was beautiful. My favorite part was a courtyard with tons of trees and a beautiful fountain. We went to an art school after that, where artists make miniature paintings with the finest brushwork I have ever seen. They sold some of their pieces to us, and I bought a beautiful one of Shah Jahan (the man who built the Taj Mahal) and the Taj itself. I fell in love with it, and it will probably be my one "nice" thing from India. For dinner we went to this special dinner theater with Indian dancing that was disappointing after seeing the incredible girls the day before. There was only a small group there, so after eating dinner we turned to the Hindi speaking staff and said "The food was good!" (bahut aaccha khaanaa tha) and then the lights went out. We used our cell phones as flashlights until they came back on.

Sunday was kind of exhausting, since we spent so much time in the bus. We saw two temples and then drove way far away to see an old battlefield and a museum. By the time we stopped for lunch it was 3:30. After lunch a group of us went shopping in some of the areas we were at on Saturday. Our train left at 8:50 and we needed to be back at the hotel to leave by 7:15. At about 6:30 my group of four started looking for a rickshaw to take us back to the hotel. After being rejected by quite a few we finally got the full story, there was an auto rickshaw strike. Apparently while we were shopping they started on the strike, so we could get there to shop but we couldn't get back to go home. I have never been so thankful for my cell phone in all my life. I called the other half of our group and we met up to figure out what to do. While I was on the phone to some of the others at the hotel Krista saw a woman in a store front and went over to explain our situation. The woman got her son to call us a taxi, and we finally got to the hotel just in time to leave for the station. I was relieved that the stressful situation was over and that we were on our way home.

Our train pulled into Jaipur at 7:30 Monday morning, and Garland, Kevin and I got an auto home. For a while our auto was playing tag with an auto with Krista and Anthony, but then we pulled ahead and cruised along. After we went through a traffic circle our auto driver suddenly pulled over and stopped. He got out, and we all thought he was waiting for the other auto with our friends to show up. The other auto pulled up and that driver got out. I kinda stuck my head out of the side and saw Krista mouth "What is going on?" Turns out our auto had run out of gas and needed a tow. Since their driver couldn't figure out how to tow us, our auto driver jumped into Krista and Anthony's auto and their driver steered our auto. Our auto driver, in the other auto, drove up to us and stuck his foot in a niche in the auto without gas, and away we went. We actually cruised at a pretty decent speed, but traffic circles posed a problem and sometimes we would slow down until he caught up with us again. It turns out that the autos don't have a horn or brakes either when they don't have gas, so we had some close shaves at one point when we tried to stop in traffic. Kevin, Garland and I started yelling "beep!" to try to let people know we were coming. Eventually we got to a petrol station and got home, but the trip was a tad more eventful than we planned on.

I think that is all for now. If you have time check out this link that my former boss sent me. It is an article about Iraq from the Christian Science Monitor. All for now!

Village Women

 
 

Under a Tree

 
 

So Much to Say!

Last Thursday afternoon instead of having a traditional Hindi class, Rajul took us to her house to cook for us and show us her house and family. Her house is by far the largest and nicest I have been in in India, and the food she cooked was not my favorite by any means, but it was interesting. What I found most interesting were the "gods" that sat on her kitchen counter. I have been trying painstakingly to not divulge myself in anything related to Hindu idol worship because I would consider it a huge conflict of interest in my personal beliefs, but it is SOO DIFFICULT because hinduism permeates so much of hospitality and lifestyle here. My homestay mom gave a little Ganesh idol for my birthday and told me she prayed to him that I would have a good birthday (which was kind). Last Saturday I accidentally ate a sweet that had been a sacrifice for Ganesh, and I have encountered numerous other instances where Hinduism and hospitality collide. With the immense respect that Indians have for religion, I am sure that I could reject their offers on religious grounds, but with the language barrier I don't know whether they would understand that I am rejecting their god, not their hospitality and kindness.

Friday was our first field trip. We drove out of Jaipur for an hour to an NGO that does work with villages. We met the most incredible women there who single handedly built a reservoir that provides water for livestock and crops. One of the most influential books I have read on India was written by my teacher, Gloria Raheja, on rural women, their identities, and folk songs that reflect their spirit and hopes. Friday these women sang as a group for us, a type of call and response form that was truly incredible. During the last song one of the women danced for us, and it was the first time I wish I had a camcorder so I could have recorded it. Luckily I think Arwen got a copy and hopefully I can pass it on to you. The field visit made me really excited for my internship, and really hopeful that I will have a life enriching experience. I think that in villages like the one we saw is where the real culture of India is the most beautiful. It is people living life as they always have done and finding joy in it. One of the remarkable stories the women told us was when a liquor store moved into their village. It was basically a shed, but the men hung out their all the time late into the night when they should have been with their families. In the middle of the night this group of women got together and tipped over the shed. That was the end of the liquor store, and men are now home at a resonable hour. These women knew how to take charge! That night a bunch of us went out to dinner at Niro's. Dinner in India is generally served at 8:30-10, but we decided to meet early, at 7 since some of the group (not me)wanted to go out to a disco(club). When I got back home from the field trip I quickly changed clothes and hopped in a rickshaw to get there on time. When I glanced at my watch as we arrived, I realized that it was 6, not 7. I was an hour early and all on my own as it was getting dark. I calmly tried to figure out where to go, and spent some time in a bookstore and coffee shop till I met my friends. It was a minor crisis in my mind, but noone bothered me (except for street vendors and street kids). Dinner was fun, there is something devious about being out after dark here, like we are breaking the rules.

Yesterday Krista and I spent the day in the old city. We had to go there that morning to pick up our passports from the Foreigners Registration Office. Since we each had year long visas we were required to register here in Jaipur. We went to the office with P.P.(Prem Prakash) from the MSID office here. He is an interesting character, very quiet and shy but always watching over all of the students here. I think his shyness is due to a insecurity about his English, but the few times I have spoken to him he has been very clear and understandable. Anyway, when we went last week to register we had to leave our passports there and pick them up a week later. When you think of a registration office like this, I would picture a place like a courthouse, very official. Instead it was very shady, like a basement. Both Krista and I agreed that we would NEVER have left our passports there if we were alone and didn't know we would get them back. Retrieving them yesterday turned out to be no big deal, and Krista and I explored City Palace, a museum, before we headed out shopping. We hopped a cycle rickshaw to take us to Bapu Bazaar, where there are good clothing stores. Our cycle had other ideas though, and quickly got us lost while trying to take us to a shop where he had a commission. We finally yelled at him to stop and jumped out to get a driver that would take us where we wanted to go. Why does this stuff always happen when I am with Krista? At the end of the shopping excursion I had a couple new salwaar suits, kind of. I bought material for the shirt, pant and scarf suit and they are being tailored as we speak. After spending the day out and about, I was looking forward to a quiet evening, but then Anthony called. He was having people over, and wanted me to come. My hostmom walked me to an auto and I was off, with one small hitch. I had never been to Anthony's house, and it was dark. I had gotten directions, but the driver was persistent that he knew the way, and proceeded to get us lost. Eventually we got there, but I survived another late night India adventure.

Which brings us to, TODAY! I am finally caught up. I spent this morning reading, something I have been doing alot lately. I have made my way through an Amy Carmichael biography, two fiction books, and I am almost through with Hillary Clinton's autobiography, which I bought here. I also wrote postcards and rested. Then I took off with Krista (again!) to Gaurav Towers where I, ta da!, finally have a mobile phone. The MSID office found some secondhand phones for the students to purchase, but they have been working only intermittenly and I figured my parents would rather have me spend and extra $25 and get a nice one that will work well than one that only works sometimes. I can get texts as well as phone calls, so no one has an excuse not to get in touch with me!

I think that is it for now. Hope you enjoy my adventures!

Week 2

Ok, everyone. My little game of catch up is still ensuing, but hopefully my updates will fully be up to date after writing this today.

Last Friday was the last day of the full week of classes. I was so exhausted after all the exploring we had done that week that I just went home and chilled, reading and napping.

Krista and I had made plans for the next day, Saturday, to go shopping in the Old City, which is the part of Jaipur that is walled and is painted pink. The Old City makes Jaipur India's Pink City. Anyway she and I wanted to go shopping while the rest of the group of students went to a Ganesh fair at the temple. It is apparently the time of the year to celebrate Ganesh, so everyday it seems they are doing something special for them. At this fair there are apparently thousands of people, which was only one of the reasons I was less than enthusiastic about going. So Krista, who is from Buffalo, NY and goes to Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and I went shopping. I bought a few things, but I was mostly trying to see what they had. After we finished we headed up M.I.Road to the McDonald's next to Raj Mandir, the movie theater. McDonalds here is very different than in the states. First off, since eating cows is strickly taboo, there are no burgers. Secondly, since most of India is vegetarian (or veg) there are alot of different option than there are for veg people. It was quite an adventure picking out what to eat, and she and I apparently caused a tad of a spectacle. We decided to eat by a window, a bad idea in a mostly touristy area. We had numerous rickshawallas and street children waiting for us when we left, and we had to repeatedly say no to them, until our little crowd abandoned us.

Sunday the whole group of students went sightseeing in the Jaipur area. We spent the day at numerous places: Amber Fort, Jaigarth(the site of the worlds biggest cannon, I can hear your ooh's and ahh's), Jal Mahal (a palace built in a lake), Hawa Mahal(the wind palace), and Jantar Mantar (an astrology park, its the only way to describe it). Of all the places we saw I think Hawa Mahal was the most interesting. It was built when women in India were still under purdah, which is the act of veiling publicly. The wind palace has large lattice windows and screens, so women of the palace could watch what was happening in the street without breaking purdah. It was very interesting, and I am not sure whether it is called wind palace because wind can blow through the crack, or perhaps it was named because the women would speak amongst each other and it sounded like wind. Who knows!

On Monday it was my 22nd birthday. My host mom was very gracious and all 13 students came over to my house after school to celebrate. We had samosas and pokaras (Indian Appetizers/snacks) and after the day was done I had had two birthday cakes. Mrs. Singh is such a sweetheart. That morning she gave me a marigold garland, which is used I think to celebrate a special event. She also gave me a necklace and earrings set, bindis, "birthday bangles", a purse and a pair of sandals. She was also the hit of the party with the other students, and it has prompted everyone to say randomly all week how sweet she is.

Tuesday was a school day, as usual. Because of my birthday Rajul, the hindi teacher, had postponed a field trip in which we were to use our hindi. So, she took us to a local vegetable market where we were supposed to barter in hindi for vegetables we were pretending to buy (the sellers knew our negotiations were fake). When we got to the area, we ran a few errands first as a group, like to the post office. Even with my hindi I couldn't get across that I needed to buy stamps to send a letter overseas to America, so instead I just bought aerograms. Then the whole group of us students went across the street to the market. Just as we were starting our "negotiations" the police showed up and started tearing down the market and yelling at the subziwallahs (veg sellers). Turns out that the sellers just assume occupancy of a vacant lot to set up the market, which is illegal. So they are tearing things down, while Rajul continues to try to teach hindi! A few of the students (me included) were a tad uncomfortable being in such close proximity to a sting operation (I could literally SEE the headlines in the papers). It was just about this time that a group of 15-20 street kids noticed the group of Americans hanging out and decided to go up to us and beg. They were literally infiltrating our ranks, and Rajul started to ask the police for help. None of us students were moving because we hadn't been given permission, so it was such a crazy scene. Finally we were given the aok to move, and we all took off. I headed home to run some errands and debrief after the insanity that we caused.

Wednesday was a long, long, long, school day. Literally 6-7 hours of nonstop lecture. AWFUL!! I had been designated by the group to go to the rail station and pick up a copy of the schedule for everyone to use when we plan our trips out of town. Krista and I had a tough time finding an auto, and so we had to walk farther than anticipated. Once we were out of the train station we had another auto driver who seemed a little shady to us. Krista was lying through her teeth,
"Where are you from?"
"Canada"(not true)
"Why are you going to Raj Mandir?"
"To meet a friend."(not true)
"Canadian or Indian?"
"He's Indian" (not true)
"Do you need a ride back?"
"No, he has a car."(not true)
The entire time this guy talked to us and we were just a tad uncomfortable with that. We really feel like he was just trying to be nice, and we felt bad about being mean. When we talked with the whole group about it the next day, Kevin (from Colorado) said that maybe we were just mean enough to him that he thought he couldn't get away with something with us. I was telling Krista just today too about what my mom always says, to follow your intution. If something fells shady than follow that feeling and don't be nice just because you think you have to. When I got home, around 6:15, Mrs. Singh came in saying I was late and we had to go. She was also talking about how there is no answer on "her" mobile and how we are late. I was so confused, I didn't think we had anything to do. Turns out she had made arrangements to go to a fashion show/beauty pageant that night and I was late! She wanted Garland who lives around the block to come too. She was the "her" who wasn't answering her mobile. In quick action we headed out the door and hailed an auto to take us to the auditorium. Thanks to "Indian time" we weren't late at all, because the show started 40 minutes late. It was a very sweet thing for Mrs. Singh to do, but I was so tired by the time I got home (10 pm) that I just fell into bed and slept the whole night.

I think that is all for now. I am almost caught up with my days! I hope you enjoy these little notes about what is happening here.

My Days

Hey everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last email, but stops at internet cafes have been less than frequent. Hopefully things will settle down a tad soon with my schedule and all. Speaking of schedule, I am starting to have a little bit of a regular time frame of activities. My weekdays are pretty much like this.

7:00- I get up when the power goes out and take my shower from a bucket in the dark. Because of electric conservation everyday different sections of the city endure a scheduled power outage. At home, it is from 7-9 am, and then at school it is from 9-11 am. For 4 hours each day I am without power. It is not a nuisance, but with the ceiling fans not blowing-a must in each room in India-the classroom can get very warm.

7:30- Breakfast. Usually white bread American style with jam or butter. Sometimes I will have an egg or an “omlet sandwich” which I am becoming fond of. I always have chai, the real stuff, not the fake American stuff. I think that while I am here I will drink tons of Indian chai just to make up for the poor quality of any American coffeeshop chai.

8:00-I leave for school with Garland. She goes to the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and her homestay is just a block away from mine. There are so many people on this program who either go to school in Pennsylvania (Penn State, Allegheny College, University of Pittsburgh) or are from the state. Its crazy!

9-10:00-Hindi class. I mostly observe so far. My hindi is far more advanced than any that the class will study up to and the teacher, Rajul, does NOT know what to do with me. It is fun to see everyone learning Hindi, but Rajul moves so fast they are becoming lost and I am starting to be a pseudo teacher/tutor for those who are confused. I don’t mind at all because it is really good practice for me.

10-10:30-Chai break. Raguji, the employed man at the MSID office who isn’t quite a servant or a janitor, but who is a peer employed to make tea and look after the place, serves us all chai in little teacups and we get to socialize.

10:30-12:30-We have one of our core classes during this time: International Development Theory, Cross Cultural Perspectives, or the India Country Analysis. This hour is either very interesting (globalization theory) or very boring (ancient Indian history which I don’t think is very relevant).

12:30-1:30-Lunch. Everyday our host family packs us a lunch for school. I usually get chapattis with some sort of vegetable and a green citrus fruit that I eat like an orange. I don’t know what its name is, but from the outside it looks like a big lime, but it is sweet like an orange and is becoming one of my favorite Indian things to eat.

1:30-2:30-Hindi again.

After 2:30 we are free to pursue what we want. So far this week my excursions have largely been to try to see parts of the city and get aquaitined with the environment. On Wednesday I went to Gaurav Towers, a shopping plaza (like a mall) that has tons of different stuff (McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, grocery store and department store). MSID had shown us Gaurav briefly while it was closed, so it was nice to see it all in action. We were told its quite the "hopping" place at night with the young crowd. It was really nice to go there, but it is slightly far away and I can't go there all the time.

Last Thursday I went to see a Bollywood movie at Raj Mandir. We went to see DHOOM. It was all in Hindi and most of the girls that went don't speak very much Hindi, so I was trying to understand enough to tell them what was going on. If you have never seen a Hindi movie, you should rent one. In and of themselves they are a crazy crazy thing. The dancing, the singing. Plus, there weren't many women there and no other non-Indians, so we got stared at alot by all the men. I was so happy that they have separate sections for men and women in the theater (and separate ticket lines too) so that I wasn't sitting next to some shady Indian man. We got out of the theater to find out that it was raining, and had been for 2 hours. The streets were flooded and everyone found an autorickshaw except for me. So here I was, alone and in the rain. I was negotiating with a rickshaw driver about a ride when a little street girl, covered in mud, started pulling at me begging. Even though he was asking too much, I jumped in the auto trying to escape what seemed like, to me the CRAZIEST situation.

I feel bad because I am always playing catchup with this weblog, but I will update it soon, with all the news about last weekend, and about my birthday (which was Monday for those who might have forgot!). Thanks to everyone for sending me messages telling me you remembered! I appreciate it tons.

These last two sections are papers I have written for school, kind of journal entries. I thought they might be interesting for you to read.

Leslie J. Jorgensen
POR #1
Cross Cultural Perspectives

On Wednesday of this week, a small group of MSIDers, myself, Alicia, Arwen, Jenny, Kevin and Anthony decided we wished to go explore a part of Gaurav Towers. Since there were so many of us be broke off into pairs and determined we would meet later at Coffee Day Café. Kevin and I wandered off to find an auto to take us there, and found a ride for the price we asked (Rs. 40).

Neither of us had ever been to Gaurav Tower, and so we wandered around trying to discover what there was to see. We went in and out of some stores without very much hassle or activity and proceeded to the small grocery store in the basement. We both needed some toiletry items and so we went in together.

The store has many front end employees to bag and ring up purchases, and they are all standing in the front. When Kevin and I came in they just stared at the two of us. I know that it is very unusual to have an Indian woman alone with a man her age, and so they may have been examining our interaction with each other. Personally, since I have found the stares and glares of men in India, especially on my walk home through the Raja Park neighborhood, to be kind of disturbing I felt a bit safer in Kevin’s company than I would have if I had been with one of the girls. Anyway, because of the surplus amount of employees in the store it seemed that there were 20 people who were watching the two of us, stalking our every move with their eyes. I don’t know whether we were the only actual customers in the shop or not, but it seemed that way. It was just a very odd experience to have.

The two of us made our purchases and left to meet the group at the café. We were a little early and the group was a little late, so it gave us time to discuss how weird the grocery store felt. It was especially odd since our new surroundings were so different.

In the café the only customers were our age. There were some young people who were in mixed company and all were wearing Western clothes (no saris or salwaars to be found). They were playing American music and had pop culture magazines to read. And the most obvious difference was no one was staring at the Americans. The entire time I have been in India I have always felt, and known, that my actions and interactions were being monitored by those around me. This was the first time I felt like the pressure was off, no one was judging me or examining me, I felt a bit freer than I have felt in days.

This to me was the ultimate in contradictory experiences. Going from the grocery store where I felt exceptionally scrutinized to the café where no one looked at us (except for the fleeting glance) reminded me of how different it is here in India. At home, no one stares when you come in the door, and if they do they are extremely rude. Here, to stare seems to be the norm, especially when you are a white woman. It can even mean taking your scooter an extra turn around the block to get a second look. The Coffee Day Café gave me a sense of home from the other side of the world, and I really think I needed it.


Leslie J. Jorgensen
International Development
POR #1

I have been in India for two weeks exactly. The maximum length many tourists ever visit a country, and I have learned many things about life here and what it means, for me. This is a summary of some of my realizations.

1. I am capable of stereotyping. On the eve of my birthday here in India I was excited when I came home and my host mom was preparing homemade henna for me to put on my hands. I looked forward to the experience and the beautiful body art that comes from henna work. As we sat down with the bowl of henna, she pulled out some designs and I excitedly looked over them, decided which figures I wanted to adorn my hands. I pointed out what I liked and what she liked, and then decided on a pattern. She said, “Good!” and left the room, leaving me, an inexperienced henna applier to the task of creating the design myself. When she discovered I hadn’t begun my hand art yet, she started me off. This is when I learned that I was guilty of a stereotype. I had thought that all women were experts at henna, that it was something that was taught to all girls while growing up and that all girls were good at it. But, I was wrong. Maybe the henna was too thick, maybe my hand was too small. At any rate, I ended up with a second rate amateur henna job, done by myself, which I know I had to endure for two weeks until it disappeared. Perhaps it is my own fault for stereotyping.

2. I am a pompous American. What’s even worse is that I don’t think that I am a pompous American. I like to believe, and have often told my parents, that I hate America and all it stands for. I go on and on about how I wish that I could live in Europe where things are simpler and better. But yet, now that I am here, I find myself drawn by the comforts of America, like McDonalds. I rarely eat McDonalds at home, and yet I feel like I can be comforted every time I walk under those golden arches in any country. It especially applies here, since India is by far one of the most different cultural experiences of my life. Here I am, believing I am above it all and yet I run to my creature comforts, homesickness quietly numbed by the fries and soda.

Another time I experience this is in coffee shops. I love coffee shops when I am home, frequently staying until they close and midnight or one in the morning. Finding a coffee shop here is like finding a piece of home, a refuge. European/American espresso concoctions can always make me feel better, and I have found in my 1 ½ weeks here that I have searched more for a good coffee shop than I have a really good Indian restaurant. I like to preach ideology, but yet I run from it the moment I see or feel any urge to cling to the culture I know so well.

3. I am not the only white person in India. Sometimes it is very hard to remember this, but often it is not hard to discover the truth in this matter. This weekend, when all the students went to Amber fort, it was weird for me to see other tourists, other white people. I had become so accustomed to being the only one (or ones) around that I must have made a subconscious decision that this type of phenomena didn’t exist here. But yet I’m here. There obviously is an attraction for me to be spending 9 months of my life exploring a different culture, so why am I surprised to find that other white people share my curiosity.

4. I believe that Americans seriously under use the scooter (i.e., moped, vespa, autobike of any kind). My short time here I have seen enormous amounts of people on these little automobiles: 3 adults and 3 children, 2 Adults and 2 boxes, 4 young teenagers. All of these people on one scooter and all while driving in the most insane traffic conditions I believe I have ever seen. In India, it seems that traffic lanes, sides of the road, and traffic signals are all optional. The most important rule of the road is whoever has the loudest horn wins, because the car horn is the only thing that ever seems to dominate the roads.

The Long Awaited Arrival

Hello from India! All is well here with me. I am safe and sound and getting well taken care of.

My journey started last Monday, when I left Madison. My mom, Leah, Dad and Jody saw me off. My firstflight went fine, but landing was a problem. We endedup circling the airport in the air because Dick Cheneywas trying to land to go to some campaign thing. TheAmsterdam flight was also very good, and I got ashower at the airport and met up with the group. Because of the delay in the air I only had a short layover in Minneapolis, so I wasn't able to scout outpeople who may have been in the program. The flightto India was pretty ghetto. The plane was really old, and I was so tired, I just wanted to be there already! I had a window seat next to this Dutch couple, so I was kind of crowded, but it was a clear day and I could see the ground and all the countries we were flying over. I think the first reality check for me about, "Hey you are going to India!" was when we flew over the Pakistan border. It was at night and the border was all lit up and (I assume) guarded. That
may have been the first time that I really thought "What are you doing!"

We landed in Delhi at 10:30ish and went throughcustoms. All my stuff got there fine and it was a pain to lug all of the really heavy bags, but I
managed with help. There were 4 of us on the groupflight, and finding the MSID India sign was a bit tricky because there were so many people and signs at
the airport. When we spotted him we camped out towait for another three girls. One showed up right away and the others were still missing. Anthony (he
is from WI and goes to U of MN like me)and I went back through security to look for them. They were supposedly on the group flight with us, but none of us
ever saw them. There was no trace of them and we were so tired (by this time it was 1:00)that we left the airport to go to the hotel. Turned out they had missed their flight. They came in the next day.

My first roomate was Arwen (Yes, from Lord of the Rings). We got to know each other really well in those first few days. She is from California, but
goes to school in Pennsylvania. Her parents are ex-hippies who gave their children the coolest names(Arwen, Tobias, and Dagan). We got along so well that I have missed rooming withher since we left Delhi.

Orientation was good. It was very general information, and alot of introductions, getting to know you stuff. It seemed really short, because almost as soon as we got there we were off to Jaipur.

On Friday the 10th we left for Jaipur. It was a 5hr drive even though it is only 265km away from Delhi. All the traffic just goes very slowly, which is good
because traffic is INSANE! Everyone is always beeping and trying to pass each other. The lanes on the roads are really more suggestions. Surjit says that you can drive however fast you want and park wherever you want. He calls is freedom, I call it fear. Anyway, the drive went safely. It was so pretty driving
through Rajasthan. All the travel guides talk about how colorful it is, and it is really true. All around were green fields with these colorful spots, women
working wearing their saris. All of them were different colors. Just beautiful.

We spent Friday night in Jaipur at a hotel. The next morning we had a tour of the city by bus and then we met our host families. My family lives in Adarsh
Nagar, near Raja Park (just if you are curious!). I live with an elderly couple, Mr. & Mrs. Singh. I haven't seen much of Mr. Singh, he is very frail and appears like he has Parkinsons, but Mrs. Singh is very kind. I am so happy I brought her a book about Madison because one of the first things that she did was show me all the different books her other host kids had brought her. There is a guy about my age who lives upstairs, his name is Robin (a nickname). I don't know whether he rents from them or what, but he eats meals with us. And another boy, Sujit, comes and
goes as well. Its all very ambigous at this point.

I have my own room with a large bed, which is nice cause I can spread out. I also have alot of storage: a bookself and a wardrobe. There is no shower head in the bathroom so I use buckets (which is an experience).

Thats all I have the time for now. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Well, everyone its getting close. I am currently up to my elbows in packing, trying to figure out how to take 9 months of my life in India on the plane in 100 lbs or less! I keep picking up my bags trying to guess if they are too heavy or not. I called to confirm my flight yesterday and everything is a go. I am leaving at noon from Madison and flying to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Delhi. It will be a long haul, but I am very excited.

Leah, Mom and I went to JCPenney to get portraits done today. Very cute ones of the three of us. I was happy they turned out nicely. We were joking while we were leaving that if I were to go missing while I am gone they will have very recent pictures of me before I left the country to release to the press. That, of course, will not happen but it was a funny thought.

I spent today and will spend tomorrow trying to figure out what I should get my host family for a gift. Something small and easy to pack (since weight is an issue). I did just find this cute little book about Wisconsin at Half Price Books today, so that is something! Oy, I just hope I can get what I want and need in time!

The reality of just how long I am going to be gone is weighing on me now. 9 months has never seemed as long as it does right now. I am not afraid or nervous to go and I know I will be very busy and the time will fly by, and I will be just as reluctant to leave as am I right now to go.