India keeps getting better. I feel more at home and well adjusted to my new environment more and more each day. I feel so lucky to be around people that are so lovely and full of life. The staffs here at CIRHEP have been nothing less than great. Any little thing we need or suggest they make happen right away. We can really tell that they want us to have a wonderful experience while here and I feel like that is the case. Even though the internship is nothing like I expected, I feel like I am learning more this way by living next to the culture and overseeing how things work and don’t work here in a totally different way. Setting our own schedule turned out to be quite nice as well :)
I have begun my case study though. I am interviewing women in the Johnsivani self-help group. They make sambar powder and sell it in the local organic shop as well as transport it to a nearby market city. The women are in the lowest caste in India (Dalit) and of the questions I ask them about their caste, you can tell their hardships right away. They are not allowed into village temples, drink the tea or coffee in town (which by the way, is a big deal), and other castes in the village don’t acknowledge them when they speak. It is a bit unreal to me that this system is still intact and that the societies work on such a social status basis. I have learned a lot with the interviews, but only to an extent. So much is getting lost is translation that I am receiving such simple answers back with not many details. The women will talk for minutes and I will get one sentence in return. I try to inquire and ask follow up questions but it doesn’t get me much farther. It doesn’t help that my translator is in charge of the self-help groups, so I think I may be getting some biased answers as well. My next group is a garland making self-help group. They are in the most backwards caste. I picked two groups that are in two different castes to be able to do some comparisons.
Some other projects that Erin and I have been working on are the recycling program and vermi-compost. We have set up the recycling bins and made signs (which by the way took many hours of labor power to bicycle to and from town to print and laminate). We also have a power point to show to the staff of why recycling is so important. The vermi-compost is as well completed! Mason-man came a couple weeks ago to build the structure. It looks good and hopefully in the next couple days we will start it up and put worms in it. I have also set up a paypal account for them. This will allow them to put a donation button on their website for money to be donated directly to their bank account. We have also been forced to dance against our will. Ha. Some Japanese students were here last week and at the end of their stay, it was "culture day". So Malar dragged us back to the chicken farm to learn a traditional Indian dance in 1 hour. Later that night, I felt like I was eight years old again playing dress-up and throwing on any jewelry or hair clips you could find. It was a bittersweet experience (the dance being terrible but also being so much fun and not being able to stop laughing). We got it on video, so the evidence is there.
We have been super busy in between our various projects also trying to get our vacation planned out. We are excited beyond belief and we have all of our train tickets already booked! Here is a little synopsis: We leave Nilakottai on 31st where we will take a train to Chennai. Erin and I are attending a one-week spiritual retreat at Oneness University where we will learn about deeksha or the “oneness blessing”. On April 8th we will head down to Pondicherry and Auroville where we will lounge by the beach and then on April 11th we head back to Chennai where we will leave some of our stuff with a friend and on April 12th we hop on our 40 hour train all the way up to Darjeeling! It is up in the northeast. We will be nestled in the mountains and away from the heat. Tea gardens and trekking are top priority while there. We will stay there until April 22nd when we will catch another train and bus over to Rishikesh in the northwest that lies along the Ganges River and said to be one of the yoga capitals. We are planning for a whitewater-rafting trip while there as well. On April 27th we take a long bus ride up to Manali (where Erin’s friend is volunteering) to be in the Himalayans. We plan to stay there until May 7th where we will take another bus down to Delhi (the capital) and stay there for a few nights. I am most excited about attending the Laughter Club of Delhi, which involves simple yogic breathing techniques combined with uproarious laughter. Small groups hold these meetings in various parks early in the morning. Our final destination is in Agra. We decided we wanted to go out with a bang having our last stop at the Taj Mahal. Our train from Agra to Chennai leaves May 14th and we will be heading home and arriving on May 18th.
Besides Erin crashing and almost killing me on a moped ride along with the bed bugs that visit us each night, everything is wonderful here : ) (you know I couldn’t leave it out) We have started baking a good bit too. We have perfected bread (after our first fail of trying to bake it in the solar cooker) and our newest loves are our whole-wheat oatmeal raisin banana peanut butter cashew flaxseed cookies. On the food note, food here is beyond amazing. Coconut chutney and Idli are my weakness. They have recently been making a pumpkin and lentil sauté that is delicious! Mutu (our adorable little cook) has been giving us cooking lessons so hopefully I will continue to enjoy these things when I get back. Tomorrow we head to Chennai with a busload of farmers to visit an NGO and receive training on organic farming while enjoying all organic food :) Love to you all back home.
