Going to Goa

So I stumble, bleary eyed, off the bus after only four hours of a fourteen hour ride. It is midnight and drizzling rain. I see a sign for the restroom and head that way only to be yelled at by some guy in a uniform. Aparrently that is not the way to go. So I head to the attached building which is some sort of resturaunt and wander around in a daze for a bit, semi oblivious to the attempts of a person behind the counter to sit me at a table. Finally I find the entrance to the restroom and do my business. Later I go outside and although I would love to eat at the resturaunt I do not know if we are stopping for long enough so instead i buy some snacks from a nearby stand an wait, with Dimitar and Aoi, to herded back onto the bus. We slowly realize that the purpose of the stop was to eat at the resturaunt but by that time it is too late we have to be content with our measley snacks. As I notice the stares of my fellow Indian travelers (something I have gotten used to) I am struck by how wierd they must think we are. Having almost no frame of reference for how I should act or behave in this totally foriegn culture I realize that I have gradually just given up trying to act in a culturally "normal" way. I suddenly have a possible picture of myself through thier eyes. I am wearing a dirty t shirt and shorts( most Indian men do not wear shorts), I am eating snacks when I should be eating a meal, and I have not shaven in a few days. I must look like this crazed dirty giant of a forienger to these small polite and clean middleclass Indians who are going to Goa for the Independence Day weekend.

This is only the beginning of the scariest and most painfull of busrides. I still have ten hours to go and they are mostly spent frantically gripping the armrest next to me so I don't go flying off of my seat. We booked the bus last minute so we sat in the back where we feel every bump. Like any bus there are two isles going down the right and left sides of the bus making rows of four seats. The back row is the exception as it has five seats with one directly in the middle of the bus. I foolishly choose this one so that I will have leg room. As a result every time the bus slams on the brakes, and this does happen quite often, I don't have a seat in front of me to brace agains so unless I am holding onto the armrest I will go flying into the aisle.

The roads in India are already narrow and treacherous but during the monsoon season they get worse. We go up and down what seems like an endless mountain pass filled with the most brutal switch backs which the driver takes at full speed causing the passengers to get thrown, first to the left, then to the right, every ten or fifteen seconds. Needless to say I get hardly any sleep and by the time we arrive in Margao I am a broken mess. Towards the end of the trip I seemed to have developed nausea and a fever so when I get off the bus all I want to do is find a place to lie down. But nobody has eaten, aside from snacks, since lunchtime the day before so we go get some food then find our way to the railway station so we can book our return ticket to Panvel and then travel to Vasco De Gama which is on the coast and where we will meet some friends. We find out that, in the words of the ticket agent, we have, "No chance" of booking a ticket and so have to again ride in a bus to get home. However we are able to book a ticket to Vasco and wait for about an hour for the train to come. We board our train and ride for another hour before getting to the coast and our final destination. Luckily the hotel we are staying at is only a few blocks from the railway station and it is sooo much luxury. I promptly lay down and pass out for a few hours.

The next day I am feeling much better and we are able to go a beach which is very nice even though it is cloudy. We get to swim in the ocean for a bit which is nice except for the few peices of floating garbage that we have to share it with. Aferward we go to a resturaunt with a view of the beach and just relax for a few hours before heading back to the hotel. I wish that we could spend more time in Goa, it is a very beatiful state with many old buildings left over from when it was a Portugese colony. Vasco is a very nice city as far as Indian cities go and we were pretty much the only foriegners around. Goa is a very small state but I think a person could spend months here just discovering different places.

Today is our last day here and we leave by bus at 5:00 pm hopefully reaching Panvel by 7:00 am and then taking the bus to Pen where we will start work at 10:00. This time at least we have a sleeper car and I am equipped with sleeping pills so hopefully the return journey will not be so bad.

How the time flies

I can't believe that it has already been a week since I last posted and a month since I've been in India. One of the interns that we came with is already done with her program and is leaving us. I am realizing that in a week we will have hit the halfway mark for the program.

My mom asked me to talk a little more about my daily life here so I'll give it a go. After a fairly lackluster begginning the monsoon has finally taken off with much gusto and this morning found me and the other three interns walking in the rain waiting for someone to come along and give us a ride to the village of Paud where we can catch a bus or jeep to Pune. We flagged one down after a bit and were able to get out of the rain but as it was a covered "goods carrier"/ truck and not a jeep we had to croutch down awkwardly on the bumpy ride to Paud. Once there a bus picked us up and we crammed in with about a hundred other people. We sat in the back near a group of people who seemed to be starting thier daily commute. Without even trying we were the funniest people on the bus. The intern that was leaving had all her stuff with here and so took up quite a bit of space and this was quite a novelty to the other riders. You could tell they were talking and laughing about us for pretty much the whole trip. It was funny and I really wish I knew what people here thought of us. We must be a pretty strange sight. I was sitting next to a boy who went to school in Pune to study engineering and he actually spoke pretty good english so we had a broken conversation for a bit. When we get to Pune we usually head straight for the renown German Bakery which serves western food and has an internet cafe, two unheard of luxuries at Sadhana. I really enjoy the food there but it is always the same, we have chowpatty(which is a tortilla like flatbread), rice, some sort of soup, and bhaji(cooked vegetables) so it is nice to have something different.

As for the internship it things are finally beginning to take shape. It seems as though my main role with Sadhana village is to research and document thier community development efforts mostly with regard to the womens SHG's but also with thier supportive education program. This is "program evaluation" and it is a first for me. It is a little wierd that people who have been running this NGO for fifteen years would want the opinions and suggestions of a foriegner who has little proffessional experience in this area. But I suppose that having an outside perspective is always valuable and the Metyatai (one of the housemothers) made the point that they get so involved and busy in the day to day running of the program that they may loose sight of the bigger picture. In that sense I guess that I can see how my thoughts on thier programs might be helpful and I am excited for the opportunity to help in any way that I can. Also I am beginning to see what a great experience this will be in terms of helping me find a job when I get back to the states.

In other news I have decided to try and push my flight back so that I can do more traveling around India and even hopefully venture into Nepal. I think that the McCall reunion is going on right now, or will be soon, and that I am missing it for the third year in a row which gives me real heavy boots. I also found out today that Tim and Mindy are having a baby boy which is very exciting. Congrats guys!I saw the pictures on facebook, very cool. Well, I hope that everyone is having a nice summer and look forward to getting back and seeing you all.

Some Pictures!

Well, I have finally been able to borrow someone's camera and get some pictures uploaded. I have a video camera that takes stills but it is hard to transfer to the computer. Kind of a hastle but here are some pictures from the trip to Mumbai, Sadhana village and surrounding areas, and the hike that we went on yesterday on our day off. The hike was so beautiful and took us up into the nearby hills to a Hindu temple. We stayed there for a while and then continued on up the hill for another half hour before we made it to the top. The hill we were on extends out into Kolvan valley and we were able to see the countryside in all directions for miles. The pictures really don't do it justice but it was quite amazing to finally be able to get up into those hills. I've been wanting to go up there since I came to Sadhana.

The past week has been good, and I finally feel as though I am getting adjusted to the way of life here. The days are starting to flow by in a somewhat predictable manner. It is very strange to me that I have only been here for three weeks. Time is strange here, in the present it always seems as though we are not really doing much and that time is crawling by but when I look back it seems that the three weeks passed in the blink of an eye and yet were filled with so much activity. On Monday of this week we were able to go to the city to do some research at a library which was very helpful in giving us a better background in development, microcredit and womens self help groups. The next day we were able to visit with five of the women in the group and interview them in thier homes. It was very enlightening to see how these different women live and hear about some of the struggles they face. Two of the women were comparitively well off and had the support of thier husbands but the other three were very poor and one got the sense that the only reason that they were able to participate in the group was because thier husband was either absent or in an alchohlic haze. Despite this, all of the women were very happy to talk to us and had a very positive attitude. The main benefit that the women got from being involved in this group was financial security and hope for the future that. One woman in particular was so proud that her daughter was going to be one of the few girls in the village that was continuing her education by attending a school for hotel managment. There are four such girls in the village and it is a very big deal that they are able to go to this school both in what it will do for thier future but also for the example that it will give to other young children in the area.

Mumbai Part 2

We left Pune at around midnight a few days ago thinking that the we could sleep on the bus and arrive sometime early in the morning and avoid paying for a room. It took two hours instead of the four that we were told so we came into mumbai in the dead of night. That early in the morning Mumbai was a deserted desolate wasteland. For a city of about fourteen million people I was very suprised to find that, aside from our taxi, there was almost no one up and about. More than half of the people that live in Mubai reside in the slums or simply have no home at all. The only company that we had on our drive from the bus station to our hostel were people sleeping on the ground.

Despite my initial feeling about the city the next morning I woke to a very busy vibrant city with lots to do. We got up and hit the town. I had forgotten to bring a copy of my passport, which you need to stay in any of the hostels here, and so had to deal with the annoying business of trying to get a copy faxed from the office here in Mumbai which took a few hours. Afterward we walked around a bit and saw the Gate of India which was pretty cool then headed to a very famous Haji Ali Dargah Mosque which was quite interesting. It was built in the 19th century for the Muslim saint Ali Dargah and is located on an island in the bay that is connected to a bridge. I haven't ever really had any exposure to Muslim culture and it was a very good experience.

Like most things since I've been here it was a very hectic and chaotic trip. Despite the chaos however travel here is amazingly cheap and we were able to see a lot of the city simply by taking a taxi where ever we wanted to go which you could never do in the states. It has been a fun weekend trip but it will be good to get back to Sadhana. Tommorrow I will be teaching again at the informal weekend school and I am excited for that. I also had a chance to pick up some really good books about India while I was in Mumbai which I hope will help give me a better framework for the things I am seeing and experiencing.

Well thats all for now, I miss you all and hope all is well.

Pune and then Mumbai

Well thank you to everyone who wrote comments it is nice to hear from you all. To answer Tim and Mindy's question, the economy is growing very rapidly. Last time I looked India's GDP was growing at a rate of about 11-12% per year compared to the US which grows around 3% per year. It is a complicated situation however because there is a fair amount of income inequality with mostly rich people living in the urban areas benefiting from the growth. The gap between the rich and the poor is continually getting wider and wider. That being said however the poor are being made better off by the improving economy but at a much slower rate.

I am finally getting accustomed to life here in India although it is hard being in such a rural area so far away from any sort of large city. Things move at a different pace and it is sometimes very frustrating. Out daily routine consists of morning chai at 730 then breakfast at 830. After such a taxing morning we usually take a break till around 1000 and then do some sort of activity. Lately we have simply been visiting and learning about the nearby banks, schools, and hospital trying to get a feel for the communities surrounding our village. Then we have lunch at 130 followed by another break till three. Sometimes we will have another outing and sometimes we won't. For most people the day slows down to a crawl after lunch and never really picks back up. Despite this I am getting am learning a lot about how people live and work in this area. One particullarly unique experience was when being able to work in the rice fields of a nearby farm for a few hours. It is suprisingly easy work. Befor the monsoon starts the rice is planted and allowed to grow to about a foot tall. It is then pulled out and replanted to increase the yield. And when I say easy I guess I should be honest and say that I don't know if I could have done it for more that a few hours. It wasn't very physically demanding but it was very hard on the back. After planting the family invited us back to thier house for dinner. This familly had about eight acres of land which is more than most people (the average in this area is one or two acres) but still they lived in abject poverty. They had no power or running water, which sadly is the norm in the area. I have heard the phrase "subsistence farming" many times but I had never really had a deep understanding of what this meant until recently.

Me and two other interns are heading to Mumbai tonight and have a four hour trip ahead of us and I'm already pretty exhausted, can't seems to really get my thoughts out in any real coherent manner so I will try writing again tommorrow after I've had some rest. Thanks again for all the comments, I miss all of you and can't wait to see everyone again. Very bummed that I am going to miss the reunion as well. Oh well, hopefully I can read about it in everyone else's blog.

Mumbai, Malvali, Sadhana and finally Pune

I have been in India for almost a week and it has been surreal. Spent the better part of the morning riding to the nearest large city called Pune in a jeep crammed with nineteen other people. That's right, nineteen, I counted. That's sixteen Indians, one Japanese girl, and three Americans. Needless, to say it has been an adventure trying to adjust to how things are done here but I think I'm doing all right although a little homesick. Traveling here by road is pure maddness. The dividing lines are mere suggestions that are rarely taken, and then only as a last resort to avoid head on collision.

For those of you who do not know what it is exactly that I am doing here, I commiserate because I am still a little unclear myself. Officially I am an intern working with grassroots community development. I am staying in a longterm care facility for the mentally disabled, called "special friends" in India, in a village called Sadhana. This facility, aside from taking care of the disabled, has become involved in various other projects in the surrounding villages. These include education, healthcare, financial education, and a womens self help group. Yesterday we, the other three interns and I, went around and visited representatives for all of these different projects and we are all still trying to feel out where and how we will get involved. I myself am thinking of getting involved with the womens group in whatever capacity that I am able. I am realizing that my invovlement will be fairly limited as the language barrier is significant. Most people speak Maharati and little English, with a few exceptions. Despite this I am very excited to learn more about how this womens group works. From what I have understood so far they started meeting a few years back at the encouragement of the women that run the facility where I stay. They have recieved must resistance from the men in the village but have pushed forward. In thier group they are able to apply for small loans and recieve education on how to spend the money they receive. They have very little political power as of now despite one of the women in the group being part of the village council.

This country is beautiful and full of contradictions and I feel very lucky to have come here. On my second day here, first full day, we drove from Malvali to Sadhana where I am staying now. As we took a scenic route out to this rural village many things stood out to me; a women beating wet clothes on a rock to clean them, men and women ankle deep in muddy water re-planting rice in the fields, horned buffalo with skin wrapped tightly around ribs, piles of refuse next to beautiful greenery, hilltop mansions next to straw huts, and the list goes on and on. We spent the next week or so getting used to life in rural India and I found it very relaxing, almost as if I were on vacation. We would go for walks, drink chai tea and chat, and attend the activities with the special friends who were very excited to meet us and learn where we were from. Suprisingly some of the best english speaker are special friends. I think this is becuase it is fairly expensive for them to stay at this facility as it is fairly unique in India. As a result I think many of them come from fairly well off families.

Overall, my time here has been very stressfull, exciting and at times very sad. Arriving today in Pune was my first time in the streets of a large city and I was immediately singled out by the beggars. Children gathered around us touching our feet and then kissing thier hands asking for money. One particular boy followed us for quite a while and if we stopped for too long he would sit on the ground and wrap his arms and legs around my leg to keep me from going. I wanted nothing else but to give this boy some money but they tell us that most of these children are employed by adults who treat them very cruelly and by giving them money we are supporting what is essentially a very immoral industry.

Well thats all for now, I have lots of people to write and only limited time. I very much enjoy hearing from others and if anyone would like to give me a call my cell number here is 9323626891 just keep in mind that I am about thirteen hours ahead of most of you. And I also very much enjoy getting comments from family and friends.

The Beginning

Well folks, (This is the gender nuetral politically correct term to use when talking to an audience of different sexes. In Alaska we always started off our tours with this phrase and it just keeps popping up whenever I want to write a narrative.) it seems as though my adventure has officially begun. I arrived in Chicago this afternoon from Jacksonville, IL where I had been spending the last week and a half with my brother, sister in-law, and niece. It was a long but comfortable train ride. My Hostel is right in the middle of dowtown near Lake Michigan and right now it is about eighty five degrees and the Tastes of Chicago is going on all week (a similar festival to the Bite of Seattle). There are free concerts all week and on the third there is even a Independence Day Eve firworks display so even though I will be leaving for India in the afternoon on the Fourth of July I will still get to see some fireworks.

Overall, I am very excited to be here for the next few days and Chicago is quickly becoming one of my new favorite cities. Right now I am in the Chicago Public Library, which is only a block away from my hostel and it is by far the most expansive and amazing library that I have ever been to. I think I could spend all day just wandering around looking through different books and admiring the architecture. Well thats all for today I am pretty exhausted and I still want to walk around a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to make another post tommorrow.