Finally Current!

Kal bahut garam tha. Yesterday was very hot. I don't know if I can really tell when the temperature goes from just normal Rajasthan hot to extra Rajasthan hot, but my host mother didn't bother getting dressed yesterday because it was going to be so hot. It was 44 C, which I think is around 111 F. I spent most of the day in a village about thirty minutes outside of Jodhpur called Kherda. Maybe it was the heat, but I was pretty crabby for a lot of it. We weighed about 20 children all under 3. All of them were pretty lively. A lot of mothers here put eyeliner on their children. It's kind of cute, but it just gets really smudged so they look kind of raggedy. It's a look, I guess. The deeper into the village we got, the more picturesque it became. Happy goats strolled, cows relaxed majestically under big trees near thatched huts. I forgot my camera, unfortunately.

Last night Anitaji made Indian chow mein. It was delicious, just like everything she makes. She even made the noodles herself. Chow mein was followed by various yogurt/chutney smothered fried things, mango shakes, and syrup soaked donut holes. I really need to learn the real names of things; they always tell me, but hindi is hard for me to remember. We also had a Rajasthani special--take a chapati, pour ghee, chili powder, dried coriander, and salt on top, mix up the spices and ghee into a paste, and then dip more chapati in it! As my host father said, "It's instant vegetable!" I think we maybe have different ideas of what vegetables are. It was tasty, though.

Ajh bahut garam hoga. Today is going to be hot. Time to brace myself and head out into the heat.

Should Have Been Posted 10 June 2009

Today was my fifth day of work, and to celebrate my supervisor instructed the other two Indian interns to show me around Jodhpur! This was also after no one had bothered to show up to the police station/office until around 11 am. First Apana (my coworker) and I scooted back to her house, I met her (entire extended) family and enjoyed a cold coffee shake, her brother drove us back to the police station/office, picked up Sonu (my other coworker), and then dropped us off at Jodhpur's palace. Most of the palace is used as a five star hotel, and it costs a minimum of about $75 just to go inside. The Maharaja Suite room costs $10,000 a night. There were pictures of it in the little museum that we got to go into for about 30 Rs. Surprisingly, it was only built around the turn of the last century. It had all natural air conditioning and a completely underground swimming pool!

I'm settling into a nice little rhythm. I wake up to bed tea around 7:15, putter about journaling, hindi studying, bucket showering, and sun screening until 9. My room has to be completely tidy every morning so that Deva can easily clean everything. I don't know if I've ever lived in such an allergen free environment. At 9 Anitaji serves me a new sort of spicy porridge concoction (today was the first repeat--utbam, or something) with a milky shake. I approve my lunch, say yes to pickle, and fill up my water bottles. A fellow intern picks me up for work, and then I follow my coworkers blindly for a couple hours trying desperately to decipher their hindi. Sometimes we're in a village, sometimes we're in a police station. I rarely know what is happening. I try not to focus on that, though. For a little while I tried really hard to form Hindi sentences to ask the village women so that I could contribute, but I just learned that the village women only speak Marwari, so there goes that. Mostly I grill my coworkers for details on Indian life, village and city both, sporadically name objects in Hindi, and ask simple hindi questions that I generally can't understand the answers to. I get done around 3 pm, 4 pm at the latest, and nap until 6 or 7. I either stare at the ceiling or try to make up some little errand for myself until dinner at 9. After dinner I watch Hindi soap operas with my host family and then I fall asleep again around midnight. I like the work to nap ratio so far.

Shreena's 3 year old cousin, named Ishu?, came over today and he is darling. He demands toffees loudly in hindi and then yells, "dehko! dehko! (look)" while he copies everyone's standing positions. The first time he saw me, on Monday I think, he got really excited and said, "there's a barbie doll coming!" and now he calls me his barbie doll. Maybe that's why I like him so much.

Every day i am charmed anew by the roaming animals. Cows are everywhere, goats sometimes wander through, a donkey or two snack by the roadside, and bored looking camels drag even more bored looking drivers and wagons through the city.

I have only two pairs of pants. I think my project for the week/weekend will be to fix that. I really hope I find an internet cafe and get this posted soon.

Should Have Been Posted 7 June 2009

So far I have survived my first two days at work, and I am now enjoying the Sunday holiday. Meera Sansthan, as far as I can tell, is an exciting organization doing many very beneficial things for the women in the Jodhpur district. Unfortunately, my inability to speak hindi might keep me from doing anything too exciting for them. Most of my coworkers and supervisors speak English, but only when I ask them questions; most of the time they speak amongst themselves in hindi and I just tag along. I think they are just shy about their English ability. I wish they would remember, though, that my hindi is so much more basic than their English! Also, most of the work that Meera Sansthan does is with people from the villages who speak absolutely no English. Therefore, until I can speak hindi, I can't really contribute to any of the direct work of the organization. I'm trying to pick the language up, but I'm not sure how fast I can expect that to go. Instead I am going to focus on just soaking up the Indian culture I am going to be exposed to. Any work that I will be doing for this organization is going to have to be in revising and writing English documents for them, but I'm not sure they even need that. We'll see how this goes.

My host mother continues to prepare delicious and inventive vegetarian meals. Last night we had chapati with an exclusively Rajasthani pickle, veg. Biryani, a little fried snack pocket, mixed chaat (fried chapati covered in yogurt and chutney), and then a syrup soaked donut hole for dessert. I think my host mother wants me to gain 5 kgs before I leave. In fact, she said that, so she definitely wants me to gain 5 kgs. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, it's hard to say no to the numerous sweets, pineapple shakes, watermelon juices, cups of chai, and fried Indian delicacies offered to me throughout the day. But I also don't want diabetes. Hopefully after my novelty wears off they will stop offering?

The weather is hot, the food is spicy, and I constantly fight the urge to nap. I've been on three scooter rides, driven into oncoming traffic too many times to count, and narrowly missed walking straight into a cow. Life is good!

Should Have Been Posted Friday, June 5

Somehow by some sort of crazy good luck I have ended up in India for the summer. With Notre Dame funding I have enrolled with the Foundation for Sustainable Development for a summer internship. FSD is an organization that coordinates volunteers to come to different countries around the world and volunteer in local grassroots NGOs.

I arrived a week ago on 30 May along with 6 other summer interns. We spent this past week adjusting to the time difference (12.5 hours ahead of PST), getting oriented in Jodhpur, discovering new Indian foods, learning a little Hindi, and trying to prepare ourselves to join the Indian workforce.

Jodhpur is still a very traditional city. Walking the streets, almost all of the women still dress in saris or salwar kameez suits. Rajasthani women enjoy wearing bright colors with loud patterns in creative combinations. My favorite right now is acid green with violent magenta. In most other settings it would probably hurt your eyes, but the desert backdrop needs those refreshing bursts of color!

Because Jodhpur is still so traditional, FSD has advised that we dress in Indian salwar kameez suits, or long pants with a loose tunic with a matching scarf. We have done a little shopping but I still feel like I look awfully mismatched. It wasn't so bad when all the interns traveled together and we all looked a little off, but now that I am about to start working, I'm getting self conscious again. Hopefully people will be too distracted by my hair to notice my clothes? Apparently only school girls wear bangs. Oh well.

Last night we all transitioned to our host families. I think it was supposed to happen around 6:30, but I ended up being the last one dropped off and I didn't arrive until around 9. My family is so nice! I feel terrible that I cannot remember their names 100%. I think it is Sushil (the dad), Anita (the mom), Shreena (daugher), Srhinuj (son), and Dedeji (grandma). They are Jain and strict vegetarians. I missed dinner with everyone, but Anitaji and I ate together last night and we had mungdal (lentil soup), chapati, onion, fresh vegetables, and amrus, which is mashed mango mixed with dood (milk) and sugar. I am trying hard to learn Hindi, but it is hard when the native speakers laugh at you. My skin will harden yet.

I woke up early for my "bed tea", which was brought to my room by Deva the servant. He looks about eleven, is from the village (which village? I don't know), and speaks only Rajasthani and Hindi. So we will probably not communicate much beyond facial expression for a few weeks. That is good practice for me too. I am trying to get mentally prepared for my first day at my NGO, Meera Sansthan, which I think means "My Organization". I'm not really sure what the NGO does (no website) or what I will be doing there. I probably won't know for a couple more weeks. I'm ready to show up and start observing and enjoy the numerous chai breaks FSD has told me to expect. They phrased it like, "you'll probably have to stop and enjoy the chai". I was like, bummer--frequent hot drink breaks are only one of my favorite things!

I'm definitely still in the honeymoon phase of culture shock (It goes Predeparture, Honeymoon, Adjustment, Being Happy, and then Reentry. Actually the fourth one is something else but I can't remember. Mainly the third one is where you get angsty). I love the food, the beautiful colors, the pace of life, the emphasis on family, the wandering cows, and all the mustaches. I am nervous that the pace of life might start to drive me crazy, though, and that the language barrier will start to get extremely frustrating. I just need to remember that Mai Hindi sikh rahi hu (I am learning Hindi), and they are also learning English.

If you want to get in touch with me, I will have internet at work, so emails/facebook/skype/@tweets, whatever, will all reach me. I do not have internet at home, though, so I might be a little slow responding, but I still would love to hear from you! I'm trying to figure out how to register my new Indian cell phone with Indian twitter so that I can be really plugged in again. Everyone has a cell phone here--I'm surprised twitter isn't bigger. We'll see how it goes.

That's it for now! Mujhe work jana chahiye! (I should go to work)