First off, I will talk about the few days preceding Goa- our five day spring break to celebrate the festival of Holi. As I mentioned earlier, we had the salon lady over to our house making us girls all pretty again before heading out to spend days in bathing suits. She threaded our eyebrows for Rs 10 (about 20 cents) and did it so quick I was amazed. I was really timid of it at first, and of course went last, but think that is the best way to go about shaping eyebrows. OK I will remember there are men reading this too but, important women in my life- I do think threading is the way to go.
The few days we had before Goa were our OH MY GOSH AFTER WE COME BACK FROM GOA WE ARE MOVING days. I’m not sure how better to express it but, I was actually getting nostalgic about India and not really wanting my time here to end. I began to feel it was going too fast and maybe that was my time when “everything clicked” and I was starting to understand the groove of this place and how to fit in…but then I realized, calm down you have two more months and a vacation to go!!
In those days I collected some pictures of Raja Park, our afternoon hangout neighborhood.
Here’s my favorite Rs 6 (12 cents) samosa shop (um can you imagine if this giant vat of oil spilled?), a paneer kulcha (the best sandwich of all time, think of a panini with spicy crumbled cheese) and a camel outside my favorite music/movie store. Can you believe how much of my life here revolves around food and pop culture? I decided to stock up on movies since I honestly had no idea what my internship would be like and they have helped pass the time. I bought Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (my two favorites), and old school movies Pakeezah, Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (which we learned a song from in Hindi class so I can sing a part to you) and Parasmani. I can’t get over how much I love these movies. You have to have a ton of patience though, the average movie is 3.5 hours long, but the dance sequences and the language/poetry is just amazing. I think it’s a good way to hear Hindi too and get the gist of the pronounciation. Ironic I can’t spell that.So then GOA. Oh wow. It was amazing. We decided to fly there since we had limited time and honestly, wanted to see what traveling on a plane was like. Well let me say that SpiceJet is my new favorite domestic carrier. First off, once we got through check-in us ladies were greeted with roses and a “Happy International Woman’s Day” from the female staff. I had heard about this holiday- March 8, without much thought- but then after reading a paper, women in India took a lot of pride with it. There were also some sorry statistics released like, 45% of women in India are married before the age of 18. It will be really easy when this is all over to leave and be what I would call “a normal woman” again, but I can’t really begin to forget what little say women get in households. Our last night together with Niveta- my host mom- really hit the subject home when she complained about how Pankej would always go out to parties and families were never invited. She was always at home teaching and playing with the kids when she never really left the house- only to go shopping for things someone needed. Another time I realized how different it is for women here was when we watched a video from a wedding and one of the last scenes was when the bride was filmed sitting and crying since the wedding was official, and she was now to live in her husbands house. I’ve never seen tears like that and to know how normal it was - was really hard to swallow. When I think of marriages and crying it’s because we’re happy but sad to know that they’re moving on and out. Yet, in this case, it’s really unlikely to see your side (if you’re the wife) for years after marriage. Niveta has not been back to see her family for 13 years who live in Udaipur. As much song and dance that Indian weddings are, there is much grief for the bride’s side. So as much as I would like an Indian wedding, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that my parents aren’t picking out my husband and that I expect to have a lot of say in my marriage. This all has made me think a lot about marriage and had a really profound affect on me.
Onto lighter things, like flying, our flight was pretty short and we stopped in Gujarat- so I can say I went there. It was fascinating to us how attractive the flight attendants were as well. Now, you could think that I was bias but even when we got a new crew in Ahmdebad, they were sharp looking too. Apparently flight attendant jobs are highly sought after and looks are a huge factor in getting the job or not- according to someone’s host dad. I really can’t imagine a pseudo public sector job where that is legally a criteria back home.
Once in Goa and on the airport tarmac (they don’t bring you to a gate, you just walk off the plane), the humidity hit us like a ton of bricks. You could also smell ocean air which was just amazing. After reaching our adorable hotel called the Jolly Jolly Lester (???) we headed to get some food and were amazed to find something called beans on toast- essentially baked beans on toast- which are added to the list of my new favorite foods. They also had baskin robbins black currant ice cream (mom is was really good!) and another friend ordered shark curry. Afterwards we headed down to Vagator Beach (5 min from our hotel) to see the sunset and swim!
T
he next few days went a lot like that. So much eating (rediscovering my love for Indian chow mein) getting my long lost fix of vitamin k and playing in waves. We visited Anjuna, Mandrem, Arambol, Calangute and Spaghetti Beach (made famous for its sheer amount of Italian visitors). I’m going to say the trip to Goa was a much loved “beach holiday” and not a lot else. We were there for Holi, which honestly consisted of people smearing you with different colored powders. It was nice to be on the beach for it since you could then wash it off but my suit got “Holied” and won’t be with me any more.We befriended a taxi driver, someone from Jaipur who lived near our bookstore, a Brit originally from Delhi and the best Italian chef who’s restaurant we went to and who sat with us through our dinner telling us of how he’s been in India for 30 years after following his Master Osho (who’s really famous?) and not wanting to go back to Italy. He was some leader of a socialist movement back in the 60s and came here to find that “you can’t change society, you have to let society change you.” I’m still trying to digest that quote but his food was incredible and the gnocchi and chocolate gelato were well worth the $7 we paid each. Mmmm!
Another thing about Goa, like Pushkar and Rishkesh, was the amount of things “handicrafts” that are sold by poor Indians in TONS to foreign tourists. Things with weed references, marble pieces for smoking, tee shirts with what I would consider inappropriate or tasteless slang on them, and then the “Indian things” like beachy clothes that are all flowy, bags with patchwork and silver jewelry (which you know is catered to tourists since Indians love and are the best craftsmen with gold). It seems so ridiculous to me and can get so exhausting. To all the hippies out there that are creating this meaningless demand for things that are “trippy” and all about “love,” it looks really stupid. I don’t know why it bothered me so much, but it just has really gotten to me. If you want to save the world, buy things from thrift stores and share old clothes. It seems crazy to me that this really crappy quality stuff has somehow meant “hippy” or “Indian” back home. Also, there are so many poor Indians who want to make a living by selling you really crappy stuff that has nothing to do with India. Awufhgkrtg. And now I know that I’ve bought those bags and headbands before but maybe I’ll be a more knowledgeable consumer when I get back home…
Some day in there I was attacked by the sun-me just being careless about not wearing enough sunscreen and playing in the water too much that I got sun poisoning. It wasn’t very fun and knocked the living daylights out of me. I’ve never felt that weak in my life and might teach me a think or two about reapplying sunscreen and staying in shade. Lesson learned. With that and an overwhelming distaste for getting that sick at my internship site, I decided to change organizations that I would spend the second half with. I have been in general having my share of upset stomachs and had little interest in being dropped off in three days in rural India feeling weak and with only one other English speaking person. So I switched my site from the one in Laporia to the Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society (CECOEDECON), which is just a few km out from Jaipur and nearer to people and things I know. At that point I kept worrying if I was chickening out from an amazing rural experience, but now I know I made the right choice.
After returning from Goa on Thursday, I was set out to start my internship that Saturday. Alex and I then headed out (missing Brandt who was stomach sick- an ever so familiar occurrence) to our site to meet our supervisors and hear more about our projects. But, you know India works on it’s own time and I’m getting used to it. Basically for our first day, I was to unpack my things because I was to live on site and read the annual report (which took about 20 minutes). So for our first day, I napped and ate lunch. At the end of the day I was then told that I would be living at the directors house starting Monday, which had much better accommodations if I was interested. UM YES and I made a proxy decision for Brandt as well since our rooms were nice but the campus had nothing and there were no markets nearby- the office is in the Industrial Area off a highway. I couldn’t be happier.
Monday we moved in after another rather slow day of reading more about what CECOEDECON was working on. Here is where I highlight my newfound sense of “going with the flow” and higher standards for constituting something as awkward. We were told to bring all of our things to reception where we would be meeting a car that would take us to our new house. In our tiny little taxi, we were dropped off in front of a gorgeous three story house about 10 minutes away from where we used to live, and literally just dropped off. Not having a clue what to do, we rang the doorbell to a smiley 60ish year old man who brought up us this side staircase of marble to our “apartment.” Where he then left us and scurried back downstairs. So standing in a huge living room with a TV, an exercise bike, which led to two rooms with their own bathrooms and a kitchen, we were left dumbfounded. Brandt and I would be living there until the end of April (Alex wanted to stay with her old family) and were rather unsure what to do next. So we headed out the side staircase again to at least find someone who could lay some ground rules, and we met our new host mother who was like, where are you going, are you going out?? “Um no we were trying to find you!!”
Over some chai, we found out that we were living in the CEO of the organization’s house and his wife was the director of the field offices. !!!!!! The wife is very nice, her name is Manjubala (Manju) and our host dad is Joshiji. They have two daughters who are in England studying somewhere important (I completely forgot) but they all were meeting up in Delhi yesterday where they were off to a week family vacation in Bangkok. So currently, Brandt and I are practicing our Hindi A LOT with our driver, cheery servant Kailash, Joshiji’s sister and mother. The food is incredible and they actually really want me to cook with them. My dreams realized!!
The internship finally picked up and I have a really incredible assignment after about a week of working out the details. I am placed under the Natural Resource Management Unit, which focuses on rural development and sustainable land use projects throughout the state of drought-prone Rajasthan. I had voiced some interest in their 2005 Food Assurance Project, which evaluate food security and implemented certain initiatives in a very poor district (Baran) in the southeast portion of the state bordering Madhya Pradesh. This project involved establishing “vigilante” groups to monitor the corrupt Public Distribution System (government food assistance program), train “Social Activists” who would share with others the right to food and organic farming techniques and establish seed banks in 50 villages. For my project, they decided it would be a good idea to do a formal follow up on how successful the seed banks are specifically. Here are my outlined objectives:
1) To study indigenous techniques of seed selection, processing and storage methods; 2) to assess the impact on institution building, socioeconomic status and environmental changes; 3) to study record keeping, recovery of seeds and other norms for the management of seed bank and 4) to study perception of farmers on sustainability of seed banks.
For this, they have arranged me to visit the Shabad region of the Baran district for 5 days – March 30 to April 4- to interview people from 10 villages relating to these objectives. They’re hoping to get an assessment of 10 seed banks, 6 which are going really strong and 4 which aren’t. I am going to be provided with a translator and will be able to stay at CECODECON’s office that they have out there and apparently they’re excited to have me. I can’t believe how this all worked out and that I will get to see rural India in a really amazing way!
Everyone at the office is great and I’ve done some pretty random things in my first week. First, we had a day off because the goddess of small pox was being honored, and it just so happened that one of CECOEDECON’s office’s was right next to the temple where her shrine was. We were invited by staff to go and check out the festival and walk up to the temple if interested and like anything else here, we said yes not knowing quite what to expect. Here are some pictures. To make our way up to the temple, we had to shove through some crowds, and of course me being the only girl, Brandt and the two amazing staff had to be my bodyguards so I wasn’t touched- which happened anyways but they were a great help. Basically it was a giant festival with magicians, people selling things from machetes to giving real tattoos and food. Past that, we made our way to the stairs where at the top was this tiny little shrine you were supposed to walk around and throw in prasad (offering). The biggest moment of fear cam when, since you are separated by gender when entering the temple area, when they wanted to separate me and Brandt from our staff. They obviously must not have cared if Brandt was a boy but since he was a foreigner it didn’t matter, but yelling at Indian police telling them our staff was with us was quite an experience. Govind could come but we had to leave Vikas. It was rather epic really, all for the goddess of smallpox, but at least I will be protected for a year.
The next day we were invited to the Annual General Meeting of a Self Help Group Federation located in the Jaipur district. A SHG is the tool used in microfinance that generate income through the distribution of small loans for small businesses or even seed banks. There we listened to the presentation of the Annual Report, watched the women elect new officers and handed out awards to women who either started new SHGs or deserved some kind of recognition. We were honored as guests to light the welcoming lamp and even handed out the awards- casserole dishes. It was an amazing experience to meet some of these women, and the president, here, even was brought to Washington DC to meet president Clinton!
Another great happening is a family that Brandt and I met who own the building with the cyber café we use now. Our new neighborhood is really friendly with fewer cars, more scooters and smaller/crooked streets. They invited Brandt to sit with them since he finished before I did one afternoon and now we’re all buddies. His name is VS Rathore and his two sons and their wives and four grandchildren live about a block away from the shop. They are incredibly nice and showed us old family pictures and had us over for drinks and snacks. The grandkids, our age, our really into practicing Hindi with us and love talking about movies and music. I think I actually like this living arrangement and neighborhood more than my last one! It’s been amazing so far and Mr. Rathore even said he would introduce me to his neighbor and friend who works in the Ministry of Agriculture. WOAH!
Other fun things:
I got an internship for the summer with Growing Power as their marketing intern in Chicago. I’m really excited to come back from all my studies on food security in India to work on it back closer to where I grew up! It is unpaid but I worked with my favorite faculty member Dr. Ransom to apply for a fellowship which adds academic work to the internship itself in order to get a salary. I turned that in on the 17th so I hope to hear back soon. In other school related news, I also was awarded a Weinstein Summer Grant to study some organic farming methods and biopiracy awareness building at an organization in Dehra Dun called Navdanya. I still plan to come home though on May 25th after some travel to my guess, Bombay and the Ellora and Ajanta caves.
St. Patty’s Day: Try explaining why to wear green for no real reason and partying. Voted impossible and Brandt, Anna, Magy, Caroline and I went to dinner.
My first heafty dose of homesicknesses: Pizza Hut. It was such an upscale place- quite bizarre it made me think of home actually- and I don’t even really like pizza too much but there were brownies and top 40 US hits playing including Coldplay!! The pizza I got was called the Country Special with paneer, corn, green pepper, tomato and onion…so delicious you have to try it! We were waited on by a super attentive server and we got our food in less than 10 minutes waiting- I think a first the entire time I’ve been here. It was also in a really up and coming mall which reminded of my middle school days hanging out in Stratford. People in jeans, a coffee stand and an adidas store, it was too much for me for a little bit but talking to Grandma, Aunt Mar and my mom made me realize the whole thing was quite funny and that I need to keep having an incredible time.
Anna driving a rickshaw with her rickshaw-wallah (she uses him to get to and from work everyday and has now become our trusted driver) and Brandt with a parade of socks on our roof.
