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...