Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas everyone-- to the poor and to the rich, to the vulnerable and to the powerful, to the sick and to the healthy.

Pavarotti & Bono- Ave Maria:


This version of Ave Maria is so beautiful, and so true. A special Christmas wish this year for the families of the 17,400 Afghanis, 894,531 Iraqis, and 5,554 US military personnel who have had their lives taken from them since 2001 because of decisions made by the powerful of our world.

Jesus is a Liberal Democrat

Just in case you're in the middle of finals, and need a little humor...courtesy of the Colbert Report.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

It's funny, because as a former Catholic school girl who was forced to read large portions of the Bible, it is shocking to me how some "conservatives" are all gung-ho anti-gay, anti-condoms, anti-abortion, but please God, don't give our tax money to those evil poor people!! Have they even read the Bible?! How often are condoms mentioned in the Bible compared to sharing wealth with the poor and providing for them?

OK...back to the paper writing for me...

Statistics Can Be Fun!

I know, I know....you hear the word "statistics" and your eyes immediately glaze over. But its not all boring! Statistics can be used to model incredible things-- really, they're only as boring as the thing they're modeling. In this case, Hans Rosling demonstrates an incredibly interesting model of the health and wealth status of the world's countries from the early 1800s to today-- and shows how parts of the world are converging like never before. Check it out! 

What's in a Word?

 This interesting article lists 20 words which are virtually untranslatable into the English language. As I learn more and more advanced Spanish I've realized just how many words there are that don't have an exact translation to anything in English. Its fascinating how by giving something its own unique word, there is a whole concrete concept which is created for speakers of that language that those speaking other languages do not possess. For example, the Japanese word wabi-sabi meaning: "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay". A beautiful concept that is summed up by one word in Japanese, but takes a sentence or more in English to express.

Other words are clearly developed to fit something that is culturally significant, such as the Pascuense (from Easter Island) notion of tingo: "the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them". If I had to guess, I'd say this act is fairly common on Easter Island, or at least common enough to warrant its own word. But not so much in English-speaking countries (I have to admit I don't really get it....wouldn't someone notice if their friend happened to have more than half of the things they own?)

Other words capture universal human emotion, but in a way which we cannot in the English language.  The Portuguese word saudade expresses "the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost".

I think my favorite may have the be the German word torschlusspanik-- meaning "the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages". I may still be young, but I'm already starting to feel a little torschlusspanik. Plus its fun to say.

Language shapes the way people experience the world and the way they have the opportunity to express themselves. I often wish I had the European experience of being able to grow up learning many different languages (and also to solidify learning with nearby travels the way Europeans can). Just one more reason to make sure American kids are getting the chance to learn foreign languages at a young age!

An Intersection between Psychology and Development

This super-interesting video is based on Jeremy Rifkin's book The Empathetic Civilization. The basic argument is that humans are hardwired to experience empathy, and that this emotion has evolved to include more and more "others"-- and that there is no reason we can't continue expanding our concept of those who deserve empathy to all of humanity, and beyond. Plus, the animation is really awesome.





(From a Peace of Conflict)

I'm baaaaack!

After an extended absence in the world of bloggers (seven months goes by quite quickly—yikes!) I’m prepared to make my (triumphant?) return to this blog. Graduate school for International Development Studies in Washington D.C. isn’t quite as interesting as world travel, so I’ll forgive my readers if some of you decide to no longer follow me. However, despite my hectic schedule of graduate school classes and searching for internships, I do still have an interesting thought or two that crosses my mind that I’d like to share with you here. So if you will allow me, I’ll make my return by sharing with you all this amazing video on The Girl Effect. This video made me cry the first time I watched it-- mostly with the feeling "if only it were that simple". It's clearly not this simple. But it's still a great video.




One of the latest trends in international development is focusing on girls and women as the vehicle of change in society. Not only are girls 50% of the population, they often are the most marginalized and also tend to be the ones who pass on values and a healthy upbringing to their children. That is, when they have more power to keep their kids healthy and in school, it benefits all of society. Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn talked about this and many other issues related to gender and development in their recent (amazing) book called  Half the Sky.

Home Sweet Home

Sorry I haven't updated recently, the last two weeks or so in India were just mass chaos trying to get everything we needed to complete finished before we left. But I succeeded in finishing all of the projects! James and I built two bookshelves from scratch, painted them, catalogued over 1,000 books for the library, made library cards for all of the students at St. Mary's and teachers, and arranged all of the books in the library space they gave us. So now St. Mary's has a real, workable library, complete with a laptop (I donated my old Villanova one), scanner, and barcodes on the books. The headmistress says she will give the kids a "reading period" every day to take out a book and read it, and all of the 7th graders and up can borrow books whenever they'd like. I am such a huge book-nerd and I think that this is awesome-- kids who had probably never in their lives read a book for fun will now get to take one out every week if they want! Yayyy.

Besides this project I also wrote a health play for the elementary school kids and had one of my Indian friends translate it to Tamil. Then some of the boys we were living with acted out the play, and afterwords all of the kids practiced washing their hands with the hand-soap the program got for them. I bought 10 big bottles of soap, so hopefully it will last them a while. We also bought and organized a much needed first-aid kit for the elementary school.

The last day in India came all too soon. There was a bit of a flurry of activity at the end when we thought our flight might actually be canceled because of the volcanic ash over Europe (bizarre!) but it turned out James and my flight was ok because our layover was in Dubai, not Europe. Our friend and co-intern Sarah was flying British Airways and her flight was actually delayed/canceled until May 1.

It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone at SAMSSS and the schools where we worked. I feel like even though I was there only two months that I have known all of them much longer. Especially the four boys who lived at SAMSSS-- I started calling them my "thambys" (younger brothers in Tamil) and I was their "akka" (older sister). We gave each other parting gifts and we exchange emails every day, but still it feels kind of heart-breaking to be so far away from people I care about so much. Its hard to think of them sleeping on the floor, eating rice every day, and sweating without air-conditioner in the 100 + degree heat of India while I am living up life here in America. If only life were fair for everyone.



But I know that somehow, someway I will see them all again-- my goal is to have enough money someday to buy them all plane tickets to come visit us here when they finish school.

And that pretty much sums up India-- I'm sure I will write more as I continue to adjust to life in America. For right now, its time to move to Washington, D.C.!

Vacation

This past weekend all of the interns here had a little break for the Easter vacation, so we went on an adventure! Our first stop was Mumbai (Bombay) the site of the recent Slumdog Millionare movie. I wasn’t expecting it to be like this, but it actually does somewhat represent the way the city is portrayed in the movie. There are huge modern malls that rival any mall in America (in fact we saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D there) right next to shantytown slums where people dressed in rags are practically starving to death. We ate a meal in the Taj Hotel (one of the most famous hotels in the world—but at $800 a night we definitely were not going to be checking in!—and saw the Gates of India.


One night we saw that there was an artsy documentary on poor rural farmers being shown nearby so we showed up for that. It turns out there was a famous Bollywood director there (I never would have known!) and a bunch of elite well-educated Mumbai-ites. The film talked about how hard life was for rural people and how debt is causing them to commit suicide in record numbers. James and I kind of just looked at each other as the rich Indians around us gasped in shock throughout the movie expressed how moved and surprised they were during the discussion afterwards. Could these people really not know what is going on right outside of their doors? Literally a few hours on all sides of Mumbai there are rural people living this way—and people who lived in India their whole lives did not realize until they saw this movie? After spending just a little over a month in rural Tamil Nadu it seemed that us Americans were way more informed about the rural poor of India than some people who had grown up in Mumbai. It was a crazy experience and left me with a sour feeling. It made me think of Americans and how a lot of us do not understand poverty in our own country as well.

Overall Mumbai was not my favorite, because the stark contrast between the rich and the poor just made me feel too guilty to actually have clothes on my back and food in my stomach.



Next we headed to Goa, which is a stretch of about 2 ½ hours of just gorgeousss beaches, as far as the eye can see. The whole place does not feel like India at all, it has a more laid-back, less-chaotic, almost Latin American feel to it. The random Indian cows hanging out on the beach definitely helped us remember where we were though. We rented a beach hut on the beach for $8 a day and kicked back and enjoyed ourselves for a while. It might have been the first time since arriving in India that I actually felt completely and utterly relaxed. $2 Daquiris in a beach hut next to softly rolling waves will do that to you. It was a terrific retreat from the frenetic and overwhelming chaos that is the rest of India.

Twelve Shining Stars

This week I’ve been doing something especially near and dear to my heart. Ever since I started working in developing countries, women’s issues have caught my interest. The way women are treated in some countries is appalling, and India is a pretty bad offender on this particular issue. The literacy rate for men in this area is around 76%, while girls have a literacy rate of only 52%. As has recently made the news lately, there is a huge problem in India, China, and other countries with “missing girls”—girls who are aborted before they are born or not given the food and health care they need in early childhood, causing them to die. In these populations there are significantly more males than females, and this can lead to many societal problems. Obviously women and girls are not valued as much in societies such as these, and often they are practically sold to a husband at a young age or are treated as a household servant. This has led me to a desire to work with women in India, to build self-confidence, teach them to stand up for themselves, and to further their education as a whole. Here in Vikrivandi I’ve found the perfect opportunity to do this.


At St. Mary’s, a local catholic school where James and I are teaching, we met a great group of girls. All of the kids are wonderful of course, but we found the 9th grade girls to be particularly eager to learn both about English and about life beyond rural India. An idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a while seemed like a perfect fit for these young fifteen year olds who will have to overcome so much in life—a “women’s club” just for them, for them to inspire and teach each other and also to have a strong group to turn to in times of adversity. Women in India who want to have a career of their own or a life of their own in any way are shunned and outcast from society, and girls have to struggle to defend their right to stay in school and have an education. The girls in this class have already made it to 9th grade and have high hopes for their futures.

After discussing the idea with the headmistress at the school, I convened the girls for a few hours after school last week. They were all very excited to be getting special attention, and all twelve of them stayed after school to participate in the group. They named themselves “The 12 Star Club” because there are twelve of them and they are beautiful like stars. Along with snacks and games, we talked about the challenges for women in India, what being a girl here is like for them, and what they envision for their future. Four of the girls were Christian, one is a Muslim, and the other seven are Hindu, so we had a wide range of religious backgrounds, making it even more interesting.

I was surprised to hear that despite all I know about the challenges women face in this country that the girls all had a pretty optimistic view about their country and their future in it. All of them aspire to attend college, and all besides one feel that if they earn high enough grades they will be able to achieve this goal. The one who is not going to continue to college was a Muslim girl named Nabe, who’s family tells her she will continue to 10th grade and then drop out to get a job and get married (at age 17). This seems to be the tradition for Muslims in the community, but otherwise the girls had no thoughts of marriage quite yet.
The group acknowledged that at times they are treated as the household servants, having to do all of the cooking, cleaning, etc for the family. They also are not allowed to do a lot of things boys can do: stay out late, go places unaccompanied, or drink alcohol (even when they’re adults). Their biggest gripe seemed to be that they want to wear pants like westerners but their parents would never allow them to do that. The common practice in India of requiring dowries from girls’ parents in marriage is also a big issue for them. The 12 Stars Club believes that this practice is wrong because it causes a lot of problems among the girl and her new husband and his family. The girl goes to live with the man and his family and if they felt that her dowry was not sufficient often she is beaten or not treated well in her new home. The girls in the group felt very strongly that the practice of having dowries is wrong and outdated, and they all say that they would not marry someone who demands a dowry. I also found out that having “love marriages” is slowly becoming more accepted here. About half or more of marriages, however, are still arranged by the families involved. Overall, the girls think that they have a better quality of life than their mothers before them, and have better opportunities in life. I left the group meeting feeling pretty optimistic about how women are becoming more valued members of society.

We also watched some movies, had snacks, and played a few fun games. The club has to take a break for now because they have final exams, but after their exams are finished we plan to continue the group, and even after I leave here hopefully they will continue having meetings of the 12 Stars Club. These girls are amazingly talented, intelligent, and outgoing and the hope is that the group will only strengthen them and give them more confidence. Although I don’t know all of the challenges they will face, or how their lives will ultimately play out, I do know one thing—I wouldn’t bet against these girls.


Princey, Nancy, Dhevi, Elai, Rany, Sangee, Sowme, Nabe, Hari, Mercy, Selvi, and Jaya

Stepping Into the Future

Sorry I haven’t written in so long. Time is flying by here so quickly, it is almost impossible to believe I ever thought I might be bored at night in rural India.
Not this past weekend but the weekend before James and I took a three-day trip to Bangalore, the “IT City” of India. If you’ve ever read Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat”, you will recognize that Bangalore (actually now Bengaluru) is the up-and-coming city he talks about extensively as an example of the world being “flattened” by technology.

Bangalore is quite a sight to behold. I haven’t gotten a chance to travel too much here in India so I’m not sure how it compares to other big cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, but man oh man is Bangalore different from rural south-east India. Stepping off the five hour train from Chennai into Bangalore was like stepping into a different country in some ways. Sure there were stray cows here and there on the city sidewalks, and sure there were lots of urban poor. But instead of grass-roofed huts they have enormous IT buildings, and instead of roadside “tandoor” shops selling street food they have McDonalds and KFC (albeit with “veggie burgers” instead of the usual fare). Bangalore looks like a growing place, a city on the move, really on the rise. A new metro system is going in, and new luxury malls are starting to appear in the nicer section of town. Outside the city in the aptly named suburban area of “Electronics City” familiar companies such as Siemens, IBM, Goldman Sachs, and GE have their sprawling corporate offices, side by side with Indian companies such as Infosys and the Bank of India. We had a great time exploring the city, meeting up with some foreigners at last (no foreigners except us out here at CR, which is why we cause such a fuss everywhere we go) and enjoying some non-south Indian food for once.

After living for a month in rural India, where we literally drive over harvests that are laid out on the road, where seeing oxen teams pulling carts on the National Highway is a daily occurrence, and where many villages don’t have electricity let alone internet, seeing a different side of India was very interesting. Bangalore is also a mix of people—although it is in the Indian state of Karnataka, there are people from all over India who have migrated there for work, including the people from neighboring Tamil Nadu (where I’ve been living) who originally came to the city to work under the British rulers. This diversity is apparent from even a walk into a movie store—there are sections with movies in English, Hindi, Tamil, Teluga, Hindi, and more. Over the years they’ve developed a very cosmopolitan and diverse city with Indians from many different backgrounds all living together, speaking different languages, and becoming the entrepreneurs and leaders of their country’s future.


It’s inspiring and amazing to see. If India continues growing at the rate it has been and is successful in modernizing and educating its citizens, this could be what the majority of Indian cities look like 50 years from now. 50 years from now these poor rural farmers who pick their rice by hand and walk around the dusty Indian roads in rags and without shoes could be living in a nice house in the suburbs of a developed city. It almost sounds ridiculous given just how poor most people here are, but it is a future that could yet become a reality. India is rising. I can’t wait to come back for another visit in 50 years and see the difference.


Bangalore


Rural India

March 4

The Library at St. Mary’s has been a success so far. We had the 7th and 9th standard (grade) take out books already. Unfortunately there are not enough easy books for all three standards (7th, 8th, 9th) to take out books at the same time. With 59 kids in 7th standard alone, there just aren’t enough to go around. But the kids who do have books out so far seem really excited about the prospect of having a book all to themselves for a few days, and I’ve noticed that they’ve been carrying them around with them everywhere they go.



There was a horrible incident at St. Mary’s that we heard about from Father Felix the other day—a girl in 6th standard, who has known heart problems, was beaten by her teacher until she fainted. Beating of kids by teachers with a thick wooden stick is common practice here in rural India, and I’m sure most kids get a whack almost every day. But I was really shocked to hear about a girl being beaten until she fainted, and probably just for talking in class or forgetting her homework. It seems so abusive by our standards.

Not to diminish how horrible that was, but I do almost kind of understand why they use that kind of “easy” punishment so much. Especially in elementary schools like Periathachoor where we work in the afternoons, there are just too many kids in each class. If the teacher didn’t have access to corporal punishment it is nearly impossible to keep a class of 60 + young kids (most of whom are complete hooligans because they are neglected or abused at home) in line well enough for them to learn something. It is a sad fact but also just a reality of overpopulation and the government not having enough money for enough teachers. The system really needs to improve or India will never bring its 55% literacy rate up, especially among the rural populations.

March 3

Sometimes life in India is so overwhelming—all the people, animals, vehicles, everything. I’d say all the developing countries I’ve been to so far have been much more lively and “bustley” than the U.S., but India is just so much more of everything, it is like stimulus overload. There are so many people here! And everything is in motion all of the time.

Living at SAMSSS (with a priest and 5 boys he cares for, and a cook, and a bunch of other random people) is hectic. There is always someone coming or going, and always someone who wants to chat or show you something. Being foreigners, Sarah, James, and I are constant objects of curiosity. Pretty much whenever I am outside of my or James’ room doing anything, like reading, or typing on my computer, or writing a lesson plan, I have people standing over my shoulder, trying to say hello and start a conversation in broken English, or staring at me expectantly. It is so hard to just get a quiet moment to myself, mostly because I never want to say no or stop hanging out with these wonderful people who are always around. And even when everything is quiet, say around midnight, there are usually 3 or 4 people sleeping on the floor right outside Sarah and my room—they’re everywhere!

Seenu in particular has captured my heart. He is the 9 year old little boy I wrote about previously. He speaks a fair bit of English (usually just single words, but you can figure out what he means) and somewhere along the way someone must have tried to teach him “its”. So now, instead of saying “It’s sleeping” he has abbreviated it to “S-Sleeping” or “s-going?” or “sa-cat”. It is so adorable that we don’t even correct him, we say “Yep, that’s right Seenu, we’re s- going for now, but we’ll be back later”. It’s really bad, I guess at some point we’re going to have to start correcting him if he is ever going to learn English, but for now it’s just about the cutest thing ever.



Poor Seenu usually sleeps on the floor, but Sarah put him to bed the other night on a cot in the living room. He must have slept fitfully and sometime during the night or early morning he managed to fling himself out of the bed onto the concrete floor. They found him in the morning curled up under the kitchen table. His leg really hurt where he fell off the cot so Father Felix took him to the hospital. There they gave him two shots (no one seems to be really sure for what?) and sent him home with a bunch of medicine. Father Felix was away for the night and Seenu ate with us interns. Afterwards he pulls out a brown bag of medicine given to him by the doctor. Inside are 4 different pills, and Seenu claims that he is supposed to take them all that night. There is no label or anything to indicate what they are, and this is a 50-some pound kid we’re talking about. We were all concerned and called Father Felix to make sure that was right he was supposed to be taking these pills, and he confirmed. The Indian medical system is crazy! Apparently they just hand stuff out to make people feel like they’ve received some sort of treatment—two shots and 4 different pills just for a bruised leg. Goodness. The kid should have just taken some Tylenol! And then poor Seenu had a stomach ache and diarrhea the next day, no wonder.




Another crazy thing happened yesterday. I came home from working at the after-school program in the evening, around 6:30, to hear Father Felix talking about a cow in the well. Turns out that one of the cows we have here at SAMSSS (there are about 4 or 5 that live behind the house and whose milk we have every day) fell into a well! They had to lift her out with rope and a crane, but luckily the poor thing was ok. She was pregnant and maybe lost the baby because she probably has some cracked ribs, but the thing that can kill a cow is a broken leg and her legs seem to be ok. Always something going on here at SAMSSS.

On a very positive note, the one library I’ve been working on at Periathachoor is up and running! So far the kids love it and have been great at taking good care of their books and returning them safe and sound and on-time. The library I’m working on at St. Mary’s will be operational starting tomorrow morning, so that is also a huge success in a place where even the simplest tasks inexplicably take hours, days, or weeks longer than planned.

February 25

The past week has been a complete blur. We are busy from morning to night with the kids in two separate schools. They keep me on my toes! I’ll try to give a small summary of how the days go:

In the morning I go to St. Mary’s, a school that is right down the road from the place I’m living. James and I teach English to kids who are in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Each day we have two classes. At first we were going to teach separate classes, but when we realized that the classes are huge (7th standard has 56 kids in one class!) we thought it would be better to teach two to a class and be able to split them up frequently. Language learning is basically impossible in such a big group. No wonder they still don’t have a great grasp on English. The biggest problem with English in India is their pronunciation. They will know the material and which words to use but what comes out of their mouths is unrecognizable. I really wonder if there is a “Indian English” dialect almost, which only other Indians can understand. Either way, the kids want to learn American English so that some day they can get what is considered a “good job” with the government or in a city working at a call center. So we’re working on pronunciation a lot, and conversation and speaking exercises. Today we brought music and the lyrics to the song into class and the kids really enjoyed that. Their enthusiasm for being around us and learning from us is unbelievable. After class they come up to us saying, “Great class!” “We really enjoyed that” “Thank you for teaching us” and “When will you be back? Please don’t forget us”. With kids acting like this, how could teaching not be rewarding?! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so appreciated in my life. You can tell it means so much to them to have people from "the outside world" care about them.

After lunch the three of us interns here head over by motorcycle and motor-scooter to Periacachoor, the school for dalits (untouchables) in a small village about half an hour away. The school has cows grazing in front of it and miles of rice fields behind it. It is very basic, without even a restroom facility for the kids to use. Nuns and a few teachers hired by the program work there, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen teachers more dedicated to their students, they are just terrific. At Periacachoor our tasks are a little bit more unstructured—Mondays and Thursdays I help with the “library” (really a few shelves of books in a classroom) and letting the kids take out one book each time. I’m also working on finding good computer software for them to use on the 8 computers that Communities Rising donated to the school. It’s a problem because they don’t speak English well enough to really use American software. And then of course I spend time playing with the kids and reading to them and helping them practice their English. It is extremely fun but those hours out in the 90 + degree Indian heat are just exhausting. By the time we get back around 7 pm I am completely wiped out.



I’m not a person who particularly likes children really, but some of the kids I’ve met here have just completely stolen my heart and won me over. Their lives are so difficult compared to what I’m used to. They walk miles to school, go barefoot most of the day, and as I’ve seen personally, their education is much less than ideal. Most of them probably also help their parents in the field or have many household chores after school. The girls will marry at a young age and always be subservient to their husbands. Their prospects for a brighter future are dim, to say the least. Yet the joy and love the kids have and are willing to share with us is truly special.

I’m learning so much from them and at the end of the day, despite the exhaustion, I fall asleep feeling really fulfilled.

February 22

Saturday Sarah, Fr. Felix, James, and I traveled to Pondicherry to meet with Matt, the in-country director of Communities Rising. He is a few years older than us, and he has been involved in India for a while. Right now he is teaching English at a school in Pondi and his younger brother Danny is going to school for the semester at the high school. They showed us around the town, and took us to get some supplies we needed (like toilet paper—they don’t have any toilet paper within half an hour of where we’re living because the people here don’t use it).

Pondi lies along the Bay of Bengal on the east coast of India. We walked to the shoreline and saw a famous Gandhi statue, did a little shopping, and visited two Hindu temples. At one temple dedicated to the god Ganesh, depicted as an elephant, they had an elephant standing outside the temple who would put her trunk on your head to bless you if you gave her a coin or a banana to eat. The temples were ornate and decorated with all of the gods on the outside and had many real gold and silver statues and chariots inside.



After our adventuring through the town we went to see Danny’s “School Day” celebration where the kids perform different acts and talents for the parents. Many kids did dances to songs, there was some asian fusion dance, yoga performance, and a play in Tamil (the local language). Danny played the drums with two other kids, it was really impressive. We ended up having dinner with some of Father Felix’s priest friends and then drove back to Vickrivandy after midnight. It was quite a day!

Sunday there is an out-of-school program for the kids at the small school so we went and played with them, watched Sarah give her art class, and figured out some projects that need to be worked on. I brought out my camera for the first time and the pictures that follow are the result—the kids love the camera!

February 19

The first morning in India I woke up around 8 when Mary, the cook, came into the room looking for my roommate, Sarah. She had left early this morning along with Father Felix and the boys who live here for a wedding in a nearby town, so James and I were the only ones at breakfast. Mary made us what appear to be rice cakes, and an orange spicey sauce along with a chutney sauce. It was delicious, but I think will take some getting used to for breakfast. I couldn’t help missing my morning Kashi just a little bit. The spices here are going to be killer until I get more used to them.

After breakfast James and I decided to go out back to visit the cows and then we walked toward the little town nearby named Vikravandy. It was a small dusty street crowded with motorcycles, bikes, and big buses coming through, all blaring their horns at the people trying to walk down the street as well as the occasional goat, cow, or dog who ran across the road. Chaos would be too mild a word. We don’t have any Rupees yet, and there was no ATM or bank in town, so we just browsed the market stalls and open-air pharmacies set up alongside the road.

The local people wear a colorful dress, the women in saris that have beautiful colors and patterns integrated into the fabric, and many complete the ensemble with flowers in the hair and long braids. The men wear long pants and a button down shirt or a type of wrap-around skirt that I haven’t learned the name for yet. The clothes serve them well in the near 90 degree heat (and this is the mild, winter season!) It’s not appropriate for women to wear shorts here, so I plan on getting a few saris or long skirts as soon as possible! For the most part we garnered curious stares from the locals, occasionally an enthusiastic “hi!” from a group of young boys, or an “I’m hungry” gesture in hopes of a handout. Eventually the chaos and novelty of everything was combining with the jet-lag to make our heads spin, so we returned to the compound.

When the others returned from the wedding I was introduced to little Sinou (pronounced “sinew”) a 9 year-old orphan who lives here at the compound with Father Felix. This little boy is absolutely adorable. He is full of energy and life, but has also been taught really good manners and is the sweetest little kid. We spent a lot of time this afternoon playing with the paint program on my laptop, and the play-doh that I brought has given him hours and hours of entertainment. The stuff he comes up with to do with the play-doh is incredibly inventive and creative. The thing that is most amazing to me about a lot of the kids I’ve met in third world countries is how they can take the simplest thing, maybe something we wouldn’t even think of as a toy, and enjoy it so thoroughly and completely.

We had a big lunch of sambar, tortillas, rice, vegetables, and various sauces. I had a crash course in how to eat with my fingers like Indians do. It actually requires a lot of technique and skill to be able to put the rice into a ball-like shape and then scoop it into your mouth with the back of the thumb. And it is counter-intuitive because my whole life I’ve been taught NOT to play with food and not to use my fingers. But I think once I get the technique down it will be fun, and the food is really good, if a bit spicy.

After a long afternoon nap we went into the town of Villapurum for phones and local SIM cards. Father Felix has been great helping us to get adjusted and making sure we have everything we need. Everyone we’ve met has been so friendly—this afternoon we met Nelson. He is a 17 year old boy orphan who also lives with Father Felix. We played a few rounds of Slaps (Egyptian Rat Tail) and Rummy. After our trip to town we met Agne, a local boy who goes to school with Nelson and came all the way over here to meet us. He wanted to chat and learn about us, even though their English isn’t the best.

So far being in India is completely different than anything I’ve done in my life, and although its overwhelming and there are plenty of minor inconveniences along the way, I’m really looking forward to spending two more months here.

Pictures will come soon!

India!

February 16 came really quickly—I am recovered from all South American illnesses, rested, and eager to head to the next and possibly most interesting part of my journey, to India. I’ve never been to Asia before, and so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was a 23 hour flight (well, 14 hours to Dubai, 5 hour layover, then about 4 hours to Chennai) and India is 10 ½ hours ahead of Eastern Time. We were flying out of JFK so James and I decided to get a hotel room in the city the night before and try to stay up as long as possible, making it easier to sleep during the first 14 hour segment of the trip. So we watched Villanova lose to UConn at a bar in NYC, went to a hookah place (we figured drinking the night before a long flight was probably not a good idea), and then went to the gym of the hotel at about 2 AM for a pre-flight workout. It was a bizarre but very cool interesting, especially after it started lightly snowing outside, reminding us of the 80 + degree weather we were about to enter into.

I took a cat-nap around 3 am and by 6 we were completely packed and ready to head to the airport. Everything went smoothly, even with carrying the 3 huge computer boxes we were bringing for the school here in India. We flew Emirates Airline, which was terrific and very luxurious compared to American airlines (and cheaper!) They served us food off of an in-flight menu, all the free wine we could ever hope for, and had tons of on-demand movies and even episodes of Friends to choose from on your own personal screen. We flew over the oil fields of Iraq on our way into Dubai, and when flying into the city we could see the new “world’s tallest tower” that was just recently completed in the modern and wealthy city of Dubai. Flying in was a breathtaking sight.



A five-hour layover and 4-hour flight later, we were de-boarding in Chennai India, which is a fairly large city along the south-east part of India. Our final destination of Vikravandy lay about 2 ½ hours to the south. Father Felix, the priest who we are staying with for these 2 months, and Sarah, another intern at the project, came to meet us, along with the driver named Bangladesh. Two women from the village who just wanted to see an airport for the first time also were there to greet us. Everyone seems very friendly and welcoming so far, and I’m curious to learn more about Father Felix and the work that he does here with his organization called SAMMMS.

The compound where we are staying lies right off the highway, in a fairly poor area of India. I’m sharing a room with Sarah and we also have a bathroom with a western-style toilet (no hole in the ground, yay!) and hot water (sometimes, when the heater decides to work). It is very simple accommodations, but I think it will be an authentic experience. A woman who works for Father Felix cooks three meals a day for everyone who lives here, all in southern-India style over an open fire behind the kitchen. For some reason I haven’t quite figured out she also sleeps in the kitchen on a blanket at night. The program has a few cows and a baby calf who live in the garden area behind the house.

So far, being jet-lagged and tired I am completely overwhelmed by everything, but I hope in the next few days to settle in to this way of life, and I’ll be updating soon!

Ecuador 2

After the lovely and somewhat chilly stay in Banos, it was time to head a little bit further into the Amazon, to a small town on the outskirts of the rainforest called Puyo.

The hotel was a charming lodge-type place with a big swimming pool (very rare for Ecuador) and a volleyball net. We had a little wooden room with a small deck where a hammock hung in the corner. Exotic birds make weird noises from the trees and the fauna was distinctly jungle-esque. It was very ideal for a jungle get-away. Unfortunately, not a few hours into our stay James got a phone call from his mother mentioning the Haitian earthquake (this was January 12th). Suddenly our lives were turned upside-down. We had limited internet access and a TV which played CNN en Espanol. Unfortunately, Ecuador suffers from power outages because they lack sufficient plants to channel the power sources. This meant that once a day at least the power systematically was turned off in every section of town. Wherever the TV was broadcasting from was turned off, so we could turn the TV on but not get any signal.

We frantically scoured the internet for news about the earthquake, trying to determine how bad it was (James works in Haiti, and I am involved with an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince). We canceled our plans for a jungle –tour the next day, knowing that James would have to be around to help out as soon as he could get in contact with his boss and co-workers in Haiti.

Suddenly our power went off as well, along with the rest of the section of Puyo. Now we were in the complete pitch black (it was around 8 pm by this point) with nothing but cell phone light to see by. Fortunately I had packed a head-light (think the groundhog from Winnie the Pooh) because we’re used to being stranded in the dark at random times. With us still frantically trying to get news of Haiti, this was very bad timing. With this small head light we managed to get out onto the main roads and hail a cab. We thought maybe the lights would be on in another part of town or at least a restaurant with candlelight so we could eat some dinner, seeing as how it was almost 9 pm. No such luck, everything was basically closed and the lights were out everywhere. The town looked very creepy and surreal in the dark. A small town store which had a generator for the refrigerated foods was the only place open. We took a small dinner of Pringles, Gatorade, and apples back to our little hammock deck area at the lodge and ate by candelight, listening to the dark sounds of the jungle around us. We had no idea when the power was going to come back on, so we just hoped for the best.




The next morning we decided since we weren’t going to do the jungle tour we would at least do a short hike at a place called the “Monkey Trail” close to the lodge. We were hoping to maybe see some monkeys hanging from trees or hear the howlers as we walked. When we arrived, however, we saw a house and a few monkeys scattered around outside. A man wished us a hearty welcome and asked if we were going to be afraid of the monkeys, to which I stammered, “Uh, I guess not…” unsure of what he really meant. As soon as we walked in the gate, these monkeys came over to us and started crawling up our legs, pulling my hair and grabbing at my sunglasses. I felt like I was a mother coming home to my little toddlers after being away for a while, the way they tugged at your clothes for attention and wanted to climb all over you! They were so human-like it was amazing. My sunglasses, I guess being shiny, warranted significant attention and had to be yanked away more than once.



We realized that we had ended up at a non-profit sanctuary for animals who had been kept as pets. All of the monkeys and other animals had been rescued from homes in the city where they were illegally kept, in the hopes of teaching them to live on their own and eventually re-releasing them into the Amazon. They had over 50 monkeys, some weird kind of armadillo-esque creatures, boa constrictors, turtles, and birds. And among all of these animals a few dogs hung out as well, seemingly unphased by the mixing of creatures. We talked with the animal-keepers a while and then one of them took us on a little walk through the jungle (I had a monkey who had “adopted” me as her mother on my shoulders the whole time). Our guide pointed out plants that could be used as food, sources of water from roots in the jungle, and plants used for different medicinal and cultural ceremonies by the Amazonian tribes. It was a fascinating tour, made complete by the clamor of monkeys who had followed us on our walk and now jumped from limb to limb above our heads, occasionally crashing along the underbrush as well. It was definitely an experience.



Finally, smelling like monkeys and all, we said goodbye to Puyo so we could return to Quito, ready to be in communication with the outside world again and specifically hoping to contact our friends in Haiti to make sure they were allright.
Note: As it turned out, the children at the orphanage are all OK, they lost the two-room shack they shared but are all alive. Soon we are hoping to have a conduit to send them the money raised from selling the Christmas cards they made. Our friends Yves and Godson are alive, although homeless and scared. 5 people from James’ work were killed, and countless other family members of staff. The other Americans he befriended while in Haiti were evacuated and are now home.

Ecuador I

I realize that in the 11 days I've been in Ecuador I haven't gotten a chance to post anything about this beautiful and amazing country. It's really a shame because I've gotten a chance to see a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, I've also spent the last 4 days in a hotel room quite ill and 4 hours last Thursday in a hospital in Quito. However, I'll try to back-track a little bit and fill you guys in on what has been going on:

Quito 1/7-1/9

It's amazing after how being in developing countries for so long coming to Quito could feel like living in the lap of luxury, but it did! It is also just a really beautiful city—flying in over the mist covered mountain peaks was our first experience here, and it only got better. The city itself is enormous, and it feels almost like a city in the U.S. There are many small shops, parks, and inter-city buses everywhere, much different from the rural areas of developing countries. It also has a thriving tourist industry so for the first time in a month we actually saw other gringos. Our first night there we were craving a little bit of culture and so went to see the Quito Chamber Orchestra. They were fantastic, and it was quite an experience.
I hung out in the park for a little bit the second day, and saw a man speaking out about the politics of Ecuador who was drawing a bit of a crowd. It wasn’t an angry mob or anything, in fact they were laughing and joking around quite a lot, just sounding off about some opinions. I was sitting about 50 feet away enjoying the sun and relaxing when a big National Police motorcycle with two men decked out in camo and boots and bazooka-looking rifles drove straight across the grass toward the crowd. At first I was really worried that a violent breakup of the crowd or arrests were going to happen because these national policemen were not fooling around—they had black masks to cover their faces, the guns, and walkie-talkies with which they were obviously communicating with someone at headquarters. Thankfully, they just surrounding the crowd to kind of evaluate what was going on, hung around for about 20 minutes, and then took off again. They definitely took note that we (tourists) were within eyeshot, and I wonder if that didn’t have something to do with their mellow reaction.



Banos 1/9-1/12

Saturday we headed out for Banos, a little town well known for its hot springs that attract Ecuadorian and extranjero tourists alike. Banos is located in the middle of a valley right next to an active volcano that threatens to erupt at anytime (which we didn’t know til we were already there), and has erupted I think twice in the past ten years. You can hear the volcano at night roaring and erupting bits of lava. It was so loud that at first I thought it was the sound of an approaching thunder storm.
We took a bus from Quito to Banos, an easy 3 hour trip—made even easier by the fact that in Ecuador, because it is really a “developing” versus “non-developed” country (aka richer), they actually have real greyhound-esque buses instead of the charming Chicken Buses of Guatemala and Nicaragua.

The main draw of this town was the hot springs and the cheap massages, and we fully enjoyed both of these attractions. In the hot springs actually we were practically the only gringos who went swimming in the hot mineral water, everyone else were Ecuadorian tourists or people from the town. Probably the stench of the mineral water and the fact that its swum in by probably over 300 people a day with no chlorine in the water to speak of scared all the other, more sensible, gringos away. But we chalked it up to a cultural experience.



We hiked, rented a go-kart to tour the town and surrounding roads, and generally relaxed and enjoyed for a few days, before heading down towards the Amazon. More to come soon.

Hell on Earth in Haiti

On Tuesday January 12th at 4:53 pm life was changed forever for many Haitians. When I had visited the country last summer, the only real way to describe it was "hell". The streets stank, the houses were crumbling, everyone looked miserable and poor. The country was desperate, you could feel it in the air, and see it in people's eyes. It was a scary place to be. Out of all of my travels to developing countries, I'd never seen anything so shocking or heartbreaking as Haiti.

And now, more than 100,000 Haitians were just killed in a blink of an eye, and many more, maybe twice that number, will die in the coming weeks and months of disease and lack of food, water, and medical care. Haiti is a country where 55% of people earn less than $1 a day, and 80% less than $2 a day. The misery is only compounded by this latest tragedy.



We fear that all or most of the orphans who we laughed and played with only a few months ago are dead. They lived on the side of a hill in a house that was barely standing before the earthquake. At best, they are now parentless, homeless, and without food. We're trying our best to get in contact, but with communication lines down and chaos everywhere it might be weeks or months before we know. Its really unspeakable and heartbreaking. I don't even know what else to say. These kids were happy, playful, and caring, just like all kids. The only difference is that they had the bad fortune to be born into a country like Haiti.



If you would like to make a charitable contribution please consider donating to the Red Cross, a lot of people could really use your support right now, even if its only a few dollars. There are many people whose lives are hanging in the balance.

Hell on Earth in Haiti

Nicaragua Wrap-Up

My time here in Nicaragua has flown by—I can’t believe it’s been a month. All in all it was a great experience spending Christmas time here and learning about the historical and political factors that make Nicaragua what it is. I know I’m a huge dork but I’m actually writing a paper about the Sandinista Revolution and aftermath, and how a socialist state functions (or doesn’t). With Hugo Chavez getting a little bit out of control in Venezuela and the new ALBA treaty, etc., Nicaragua could actually make it onto the American radar very soon.


The last few Nica days after the coffee finca were spent up in Esteli, the northern highlands. Esteli was incredibly important during the Contra war, because the CIA-led contra forces would sneak into Nicaragua from its northern border with Honduras right near Esteli, so this town was especially hard hit and lost a lot of its citizens during the war. As a result, the population is extremely pro-Sandinista. Murals, parks, and statues all over the town remember the victims of the war. Particularly touching is a small park for the children who lost their lives during the war due to terror attacks on schools or land mines. We stayed at a great hotel with an awesome balcony that overlooked the whole town and the mountains in the distance. It was a great place to relax, drink some of the good coffee produced in the nearby hills, and soak up all of the passion for politics this country has before heading out for good.



Although I’m excited to continue my year’s journey I’m especially sad to say goodbye to Nicaragua, and it will always have a special place in my memory. I don’t think anyone can visit here and help but be touched by the plight of these people—how many times they have been taken advantage of and exploited. First by the colonizers, then the U.S. occupation forces, then the dictators, then the Sandinistas. When are the people ever going to have the power to control their own country? The few years of the Sandinista revolution might have been the only time in the country’s history that the people in power actually had the good of the population in mind. Now it is all about power and control of resources once again, and once again it will be the numerous poor of Nicaragua who suffer the most.



On to Ecuador!!

Coffee Finca

James and I decided to spend a few days after the New Years up in the northern highlands of Nicaragua, learning about how much of the yummy coffee consumed at Starbucks and elsewhere in the U.S. really gets its start.



The finca we visited near Matagalpa has been an active coffee plantation since the late 1800’s when a German immigrant founded it. Today his descendents still own and operate the plantation, selling the coffee in Germany as well as at Whole Foods in the U.S. Like so much of Nicaragua’s exports, the Nicaraguan themselves do not control the resources, they simply work the land for the people who do call the shots. During a tour of the 500 acre plantation we saw thousands upon thousands of the bright red coffee fruit (called “cherries”), whose inner seed becomes the coffee bean. This particular farm grows high quality Arabica beans. Workers pick the ripe fruits, and put them in a bag on their backs.



They carry around this heavy sack, which when full weighs 100 lbs, all day and get paid about $3 per bag—which equals about $6-9 per day, for back-breaking labor carried out during the dry season, when Nicaragua is boiling hot. All together they employ about 250 people year-round, and up to 500 during the harvesting. Their incentive to continue this labor is not the measly pay, but the free housing for them and their families (in little huts for the permanent workers, a hostel like barrack for the seasonal workers) provided by the plantation, which keeps them on the plantation generation after generation, cut off from any big towns or cities where other employment might be available. This kind of dependency on the plantation has been widely practiced in Central America and elsewhere to keep the workers tied to the land.



The coffee processing system is fairly interesting—the workers bring in big sacks of coffee “cherries”, and then a machine takes the red outside shell off of them. The beans then fall into long cement “pilas” where the next layer, a filmy slimy layer is soaked in water for around 16 hours before the beans are moved through a channel, the water is drained away, and the coffee beans are laid out in the sun to dry. The drying can take between a week and two, depending on the amount of sunlight and good weather. After the beans dry the final “hull” shell is removed, and the coffee beans then look much like you see them in a whole bean form, except that they are a very light brown color before roasting. As in almost all of Nicaragua, the beans are shipped abroad for roasting and for final sale of the product in cafes and stores. For this particular finca, 85% of the beans go to America, 10% to Europe, and only 5% remains in-country to sell at the finca itself. The rest of the country cannot even afford to buy the coffee that they grow on their own land. It is very ironic to see Nicaraguans drinking this disgusting Nestle “instant coffee mix”, a bitter mix of coffee flavor and hot water, while their wonderful Arabica beans are exported.



We had a fun time at the finca, hiking deep into the forest, seeing toucans, snakes, and other wildlife while howler monkeys howled at us from above. We rode horses out through the working areas of the plantation and enjoyed some R & R near the finca’s pond. It was a really great experience to see the humble beginnings of this wonderful thing called coffee which I have enjoyed at least every morning since the beginning of college exams and term papers drove me to the coffee pot.

Maria

I’ve gone a few times for a Spanish refresher at one of the only language schools in town. They also run a program for about 25 low-income kids to keep them off the streets and help with schoolwork, etc. It’s been a nice experience, and you definitely know you’re learning a language when you can understand the rapid and slurred speech of an 8 year old as he cavorts around.

My teacher here, Maria, has taught me many things about life and struggle (almost synonymous terms here) in Nicaragua. She has a rough and slangy way of speaking, like many Nicas. She dresses casually and always looks a little rumpled, yet has a quiet confidence and assertiveness lacking in women from less modern countries (like Guatemala). Maria is the type of person who looks you in the eye and really tries to press you to explain all of your opinions and thoughts.
Maria’s main concern is for her children, and making enough money to support them and give them a better life than the one she had. She is 28 years old and has had 3 children so far (the oldest, Melanie, 9 years old), all of whom live with her extended family (12 other people) in one house. Maria doesn’t make a lot of money, I’d say probably $10-12 a day, and her husband was laid off from his factory job and doesn’t seem too motivated to find a new one. Although her income is low and she shares a house, she takes pride in the fact that she herself makes money to feed and clothe her children, and if her husband wants drinking money he has to ask her first.

Life has made her somewhat rough and unenthusiastic, and when telling me about her daily routine she doesn’t change composure or get angry when speaking about how her brother’s wives don’t help with the cooking so the burden of cooking for everyone in the family falls on her and her mother’s shoulders, because of course the unemployed men in the family won’t step up and help out around the house when their wives are working. Or how her husband does not help with the children, and she considers him too irresponsible to even be left alone with them. She explained with detachment how the water has been shut off to her house the past few days by the municipality and she’s been getting up at 1 AM every morning just to check if she can get a little water for the day’s washings, drinking, or cooking. When I reply “Well that’s awful, why would it be turned off in your area but not in other areas of the city?” She simply shakes her head and simply says, “A saber” (“Who knows”) resignedly. Its as if years of turmoil and hardship have made her put her head down, immune to the trials and tribulations of life, simply walking forward day to day, doing whatever it takes to survive, ignoring the injustices and injuries.



When this attitude really struck me the most was one day when she came back from the bathroom after a break, and asked me if I could keep a secret. She whipped a pregnancy test out of her purse and asked if I thought it was positive. After staring at the thing for a few seconds trying to figure it out (of course they make pregnancy tests intended for the less educated of the third world the MOST complicated and hard to read things ever) I looked up, unsure from the blank look on her face if me saying “Yep, it’s definitely positive” was going to be good or bad news. She just stared ahead, again with the blank expression. “Oh… ok. Another baby I don’t want… Another kid I have to feed.” For a second she looked distressed, and I didn’t really know what to say. The impoverished mother of three in Nicaragua (where legal abortions aren’t an option) having another baby is very different and has a whole different set of challenges than unwanted pregnancies of young girls in the U.S.

For a few minutes she sat there with her head down, me trying desperately to cheer her up. Then she looked up, and much to my surprise we continued with the lesson. From that moment on, although she still hasn’t told her family, she somehow has reconciled with this latest trial. The only other thing I ever heard about the baby on the way was when she seemed somewhat excited about having gotten a really cheap maternity dress at the market. I honestly don’t know how she, and many women like her, find the strength and determination to keep moving forward and take everything in stride.