Sandra

Sandra is my sweet, kind, innocent roommate here in Uganda. From the moment I arrived in our village, Sandra has been teaching me everything I need to know about Ugandan culture. Like I said in my previous post, without Sandra, I would be totally lost.
Sandra grew up in complete poverty. When she was very young, her father took her from her mother and left her with her grandmother in a village while he took off to live in South Africa. While living with her grandmother in a village, she suffered greatly and even has the scars to prove it. She was expected to cook, clean, and fetch water, like many other village kids. If she burned the food or took too long carrying the 40lb jerrycan of water, she would receive a severe beating. After 10 years of living in the village under the "care" of her grandmother, her mom received word that her daughter still lived here in Uganda and not with her father in South Africa. Her mom literally had to lie and steal Sandra away from her grandmother.
From then on, her mother worked day and night to provide a stable life for Sandra. She was lucky enough to attend University in Kampala, but her mother could not find enough money to help her finish.
Every night, the two of us stay up late, talking about the differences between our worlds. She so longs to understand mine, and I hers. Sandra has taught me so much without even realizing it. She takes joy in the simplest things, like eating pizza, looking into a full length mirror.Although she has been a motherly figure for me here in Uganda, she has been an inspiration. She is always full of life and is ever curious. Without even trying, Sandra has really taught me to appreciate what I have. The first day here, we took a short walk to Lake Victoria from our house. On the way, we passed by tons of kids, many of whom I took pictures of. When we got home, we were looking through our photos. I pointed to one kid and laughed because this adorable little boy was wearing a shirt with a hole so big his whole stomach was hanging out! Sandra said in return "So many kids wear dirty, ripped shirts like that.. wouldn't it be nice if someone could give them a new shirt?" The next day, we marched down together and gave that little boy one of my tshirts.

African time

In the one month I have been in Uganda, I have learned so much about the culture, American culture, and about myself. There have been many times that I was so frustrated by the way things work here, but these were countered by instances that made me love Uganda more. 

It is said here that everyone runs on "African time" meaning that nothing and nobody runs on a strict schedule. For the first few weeks, I truly enjoyed working on African time, waking up late, taking naps in the afternoon, and never being in a hurry to do anything. After about the third week, I realized how frustrated I was by this whole "African time" mindset. I came to Uganda to work hard everyday in hopes to make an actual difference in the community, not to sit back and enjoy the scenery everyday.

Another thing I have become acutely aware of is the difference between American work ethic and Ugandan work ethic. The people I work with at SOVHEN are very brilliant and inspiring, but they don't have the drive and determination that I see in many Americans. For example, they have developed a way to create sanitary pads out of banana plants and have even developed a business plan to circulate their product. The idea is genius, yet there are thousands of unfinished pads sitting in the warehouse without plans to do anything with them. Also, many people here are perfectly content to work 2 or 3 hours a day, while I am stuck going stir crazy because I don't have enough work to do.

 It has taken a lot of wasted days for me to realize that I need to take matters into my own hands, instead of relying on others, if I really want to make a difference. One of my colleagues and myself have identified a serious problem in our village in that many people don't have latrenes and must resort to open deification. This can cause major health complications because it is not sanitary and also pollutes the nearby Lake Victoria, the peoples main water source. We have begun to research and identify possible solutions for this problem and I have high hopes that we will be able to make progress before I leave. 

Although there have been very many times that I have been frustrated by work here, I truly am enjoying my time in Uganda! The people here are very warm, welcoming, and kind. I live in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I walk down a dirt path for 5 minutes and find myself on the banks of Lake Victoria.  I eat fruits and veggies that have never been touched by a chemical and com from my front yard. Life is complicated, but life is also good. 

HIV outreach

A few weeks ago, my organization decided to go out into the field and conduct HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. At around 1 in the afternoon, we arrived at a nearby village to find about 40 people waiting in line to be tested. The majority of the people there were women, which isn't too surprising considering that culturally, many men don't really care if they have HIV or if they spread it. We immediately began to set up our makeshift clinic under a tree, which consisted of a few benches and the testing supplies, and began testing. 

I was considering taking part in the HIV testing until I saw how the other nurses were doing it. To begin with, the whole process was completely disorganized.  The people were in no particular order and were getting very frustrated that the process wasn't going faster. To compensate, our nurses decided to take multiple people's blood at one time... Without gloves. Quite frankly, it was terrifying to watch my coworkers do their work. They would take blood from a patients arm, (again, without gloves......), set the syringe  down on the table without a cap, and then move onto the next patient. Finally, they would put some drops of blood on the test strip, but 9 times out of 10 they couldn't remember whose blood it was. I was so nervous about the situation I decided to remain recording the data on another bench. 

Although the outreach was a little scary, I would like to think that it was worthwhile. At the end of our 8 hour day, we had tested 65 patients for HIV and found 8 to be positive, or 8%. This is a little higher than the national average of people with HIV, which is 7%. 

Unfortunately, after all that work, we were not able to supply those who were HIV positive with the Antiretroviral therapy (ARV) drugs. There are certain organizations, who with the Ugandan government, supply these ARVs to public hospitals for free. Our clinic is private, and thus we don't have access to these drugs, which creates big problems in our community. Historically, villages that lie close to Lake Victoria have higher rates of HIV/AIDS, which holds true to our village. Because we don't have these drugs, we have to refer our patients to alternate hospitals that are about 8 miles away. Most of our patients don't have the means to get to this hospital and thus are forced to suffer with their disease. 

(personal) Mission: Complete

Other than teaching and building loving relationships with kids and my international family, the main thing I wanted to do on coming to Thailand was work in the rice farms. I was to live in a rural rice farming community in Northeast Thailand and it was a perfect opportunity. Well I get here, and for 2 months am surrounded by rice paddies. I run through them, I walk through them, we drive by them daily. And for 2 months, I begged and pestered and annoyed Lam to take me to the farm and let me try. She would laugh and nod her head, "Yes yes, next week."
Next week.
Next week.
It was worse than waiting for Christmas.

But finally...now in my last week here, while feeling very nostalgic yesterday with the thought of leaving my new home, with 2 days to spare...
"Hannah, we go to farm, here are clothes."

WOOOOHOOOO

I was giddy. I was so excited. So Lam took Will and I, along with some kids in the village and our friends to take pictures, to the farm (might I add, it was like 20 meters away...still can't understand why it took this long to get out there).

We started by pulling the "seedling stalks" out of one section of the farm. It was basically just like weeding...but way more awesome because it's food.
After we had gathered enough, we headed over to the other section of the farm to plant them again, so they could grow more. While we were slugging through the calf deep swampy farm, hot as always, a couple Plaboo Village boys who accompanied us were swimming and jumping in the water. Well I hadn't gotten to swim all summer, so....
Absolutely best decision I've made since coming here was to jump into the rice farm water. Very refreshing.
After I splashed around with the kids for a few minutes, we proceeded to plant the seedlings in rows, 3 stalks at once, and push down with our thumb about an inch into the water/soil/muck so that it would expand and grow. There were little grains of rice on the end of each stalk, I think we were planting sticky rice (which is da best).
I didn't want to go back, but three other Americans who are volunteering at the university about an hour away were visiting Farmer Community School and I don't think they were expecting to be put to work. Everyone enjoyed it though, and I now know that my plan B in life can be to move to Thailand and be a farmer...teach English on the side.

Payday!

Payday

I must say, there's nothing more rewarding then reaping the benefits of your  hard labour. For me surprisingly, payday came earlier than I was expecting.

Since our Assembly Members Workshop meeting, the interns, Lydia, Emily and I have discussed with our Director Amofa ways to continue promoting our project during our last weeks in Ghana. The discussion was brought up after I expressed the concern of sustainability with our project since all of us had started to grow worry in our final days before conducting the meeting, about rather or not the Assembly Members would actually go out and inspect the centers once the workshop had ended. Because we did not want to be just a "one hit wonder" as my Director called it, we brainstormed a solution to keep the duty of inspecting Day Care Centres relevant in the minds of the Assembly Members through follow up calls. During these phone calls, we offered to schedule a date and time to accompany each Assembly Member on their first Day Care Centre inspection as a way to help them get a feel of how to do it properly. I was amazed at the turn out of all of those who were actually interested in carrying out their duties, and who have scheduled an appointment with us to go out and do an inspection. As of today, we have  scheduled to accompany a total of 17 assembly members (out of the 19 who attended the meeting) on their first inspection. So far we have already accompanied 7 of the 17 members who are scheduled, meaning that I will be extremely busy up until my final days in Ghana.  However, it is rewarding to see that out of the seven that we have already went on  in the last week, many of them have continued on with their duties after their first inspection. Because they have continued their work, a total of 16 Day Care Centres have been inspected in just one week! 

On that note, I am so proud of the work that my team and I have done. Honestly, I did not expect to get so much accomplished, let alone get every single Assembly Member who attended the workshop on board. I have to say, that it is most rewarding to see these Assembly Members out in their community not only committing to their duties, but actually loving what it is that they are doing,  doing it exceptionally well. Because of this,I like to think that before, I could only state that I knew why it was important for Assembly Members to  do inspections, but after being able to actually witness them go out and do the inspections, and seeing the relationships that they have with those in their communities, I truly understand why it is important that THEY are the ones who go out to inspect. I strongly believe that the Assembly Members are the key ingredient to making this project sustainable. In addition, I am also able to sense how happy they are to have our proposed bye-law as a guide to help them enforce the rules and regulations that Day Cares must abide by as not having proper regulations to follow was one of the key reason for the lack of inspections being done. 

Speaking of Bye-Law, we have taken the first step in getting it passed! It would be wonderful to see it passed before We leave, but of course that is a very high hope. However, I am really looking forward to the day "when" it will be passed, but until then I will speak it into existence!

Regardless, seeing the assembly members pursue their duties with enthusiasm during my last days in Ghana has certainly been rewarding. As you can see, the fruitage to my labour has come  early as I did not expect such a fast turn around, but boy oh boy it is ripe:)

- happy and proud Araba!

Payday 

Life is a C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-I-O-N!

Life is a celebration, 

and you my friend, are invited!

Since I've been in Ghana, I've  realized that the cycle of life is just one big party broken into segments. We as humans absolutely LOVE celebrating life, and to show how much we love to celebrate it, we throw a "Party" every chance we get. This Life Cycle of festivities usually occurs before birth in the United States with a baby shower. But here in Ghana, the party happens when the baby is already a few weeks old, when he/she receives a name in the glory of God.

While a baby shower is all about giving gifts to the mother, a naming ceremony is all about the baby. A man or woman of God holds the baby up and praises The Lord for blessing the parents with the child. He or she then asks for His grace in the child's life and offers the child as a servant to God. The parents stand in front humbly and say "Amen", while the baby wails from being rocked around so much. After this has taken place, the baby is given a Christian name aside from the day-of-the-week name that he/she was born on, then the ceremony is over. At the end, no gifts are bestowed upon the mother, rather, the parents are expected to give food to their guests before they depart. 

Speaking of giving gifts to guests... This was the topic of the sermon the priest gave when I attended church last weekend with my entire host family (immediate and extended) and some of my American sisters. The priest explained that if you are hosting a guest, you should give that person a gift , referencing Biblical incidents to backup his statement. He even went as far as to explain the procedures for hosting guest in Ghana. Here he explained,  that when a guest is present one must first offer them a chair. This is true as I have never been invited in to someone's home or work place without being forced to take a seat. In addition to the offering of a chair, you must also provide your guest with something to drink as well as something to eat if the occasion is right. In Ghana,  if someone does not "at ome " you, or invite you to join them in eating their food, it is considered extremely rude.

After the priest gave this sermon, it was time to give to the church, for the second time. I had become a little worried when it came time for my row to give, since EVERYONE as the priest stressed must put at least five Cedis in to the collection box or else be dealt with by a higher power.  This semi frightened me since I knew that everyone was watching my sisters and I, and we all had already given everything we had during the first round of collections. Once our turn had passed and we had gave nothing,  some of the brothers in the church took the box away to count the money. After counting the money and it coming up short, the priest pestered the church and those with a guilty consciences came up to place their tithes in the box. This lasted for about twenty minutes before he went on to speak  in Fante.

 At first, the fact that he decided to speak in Fante  confused me since the whole sermon had been given in English. However, after a while  I begin to pick up on some of the words to conclude what he was saying like "Americans" , "stingy" and "small small." As people in the church begin to laugh and look at us, I knew that he was talking about how my sisters and I did not give enough. Although we were very embarrassed, all we could do was laugh along with those who were laughing at us.

When the priest reverted back to speaking in English,  he looked at my sisters and I who were sitting in the front row being video tapped and stated the obvious. "I have spoken in Fante so that you would not know what I was saying, but all I said was, we welcome you to be here with us." The church bursted out into laughter again. 

I later found out that my assumptions were correct. Actually, what had said was that Americans are stingy and that we should offer "plenty" to the donation box as we have "plenty" more to give. This seemed a little hypocritical to me, as he had just gave a sermon on the importance of giving to ones guest (a theme in Ghana), not necessarily ones guest giving to you. Anyways, my sisters and I found it very humorous so there were no hard feelings taken. The sermon concluded with the singing of Happy Birthday to my host Grandmother Mary and her twin sister Martha who had just turned 70 years old. After the singing, The priest sprinkled us all with holy water and sent us on our way.

After church, we changed in to our party dresses because it was time to CELEBRATE!  My entire family had been in preparation for the gathering of Mother Mary and Martha's 70th birthday for months, and the  last few days  leading up to the party were extremely hectic. I must say I felt so bad for my Auntie Matilda (my host mom) who had not slept in days because their was so much food to be cooked. On the Day of the party, my sisters and I laced up in our matching party dress and walked into paradise. The set up of the party reminded me of a wedding reception and their was at least 250+ people in attendance. To entertain the guest there was a live performance by my American sisters and I! My cousin thought that it would be funny to include us in the program as a way to entertain everyone. Lets just say that they were extremely entertained by our off key singing and off beat dancing. This was definitely the day I felt most at home, being surrounded by my Ghanaian friends and family all under one roof.

Speaking of all under one roof,

On Friday of last week , I attended the wake of a person in my neighborhood. Of course I did not know the person personally, but neither did most of the Ghanaians who were gathered with me under the roof top. In Ghana, it is common for more strangers than family members to attend a funeral as everyone is always invited to such an extravaganza, the more people who attend your funeral, the more you are thought to have been loved during you lifetime. Minutes before the wake began,  there was a worship team marching, drumming and dancing up our street to indicate that a wake was about to take place. Behind these marchers was a long line of children and adults who had joined them along the way. Our neighbor Emmanuel suggested that we should attend and so we all followed behind until we reached the house of the deceased. When we arrived, everyone was singing and dancing and simply having a grand time. As we moved through the line, we were invited in to the home of the deceased to view the body. The women was dressed in a white gown that reminded me of wedding dress and covered in Gold and jewels. I had heard a few times  before that in Ghana it is important that you take good care of the dead so that they do not come back to hunt you. This explains all the many caskets in the shape of Limousines, Money signs and flowers for sale on the street. We did not stay until the end of the wake as Emmanuel warned us that it could last all night, but I really had a good time dancing and singing with the others in attendance...weird, I know, but it is all apart of life!

-see you soon, 

Araba

My first (and probably only) Indian dance performance

I finished off my last blog stating I was headed to a Bollywood dance class that night. Well, for the last several weeks my life has partially centered around Indian Classical dances instead. Deep within the mazes of the Hyderabadi streets lies a beautiful home that has become a place of happiness for me. These classes take place during the weekend and sometimes during the week. Getting to know the teacher I found she holds a Ph.D in dance and filled me in greatly over just how symbolic many of these dances are for the Hindu religion as well as the culture. Every movement I learned came to mean something, including my finger positions. Basically, the class consists of body movements, facial expressions and sign language. Fast-forward three weeks and I've just performed in my first Indian dance show on stage! I guess this was a larger performance than I thought it would be and my group and I made the paper the next day. I went ahead and attached the photos. The girls I danced with were relatively young, but I had an absolute ball with them. They had me giggling at so many moments of class with weird facial expressions we'd exchange or times we messed up. I often felt as though I was a young girl again. 

          With the rainy season having settled itself in comfortably, the mosquitos have come in overwhelming swarms. I haven't really needed my mosquito net yet, but now, along with mosquito coils, I couldn't be more grateful for the thing. Since I last posted I've also made two field visits for several days to more of the tribal areas and Aranya's Permaculture farm. We planted a little over 30 mango trees with rain pouring all around us. Following the principles of Permaculture, we insert the small plant into the ground and then go on to pruning the trees and bushes around the forest (moringa trees and leucaena leucocephala) and surround the little tree with this foliage. These plants will go on to decompose and increase microbial activity that acts as both a mulch and fertilizer. Plants such as the curry leaf tree are planted nearby and is also a natural pesticide that prevents any harmful pests from destroying the plant. Again, this practice absolutely astonishes me in how simple-seeming Permaculture is, but then how incredibly effective the results are. I had a wonderful time escaping the city for a while and being surrounded by monkeys, chai tea and the forest. I could've gone without the mosquitos of course though.

          I leave in two weeks, but already I'm really so grateful to be here and to have had this opportunity in the first place. Every once in a while I find a voice in my head merely stating, 'I'm in India,' which kind of slaps me in the face in a really kind way. I don't have a cell phone and I love it for the time being. I also have limited access to chocolate so at times making the journey to obtain a chocolate ice-cream cone is not only so worth it, but also a major highlight of my day. When going for dinner I'm often greeted by neighborhood friend who is this little girl with Princess Leia style hair buns. All she says to me is "Hi aka!" (sister) and goes along on her bike. I call her my friend because someone asked her one time, 'why don't you ever say anything to me?' and she responded in Telugu that we know each other and are good friends. Besides the fact that we have never done anything more than smile and greet each other, I'll gladly take it. These are the small things that make me happy which leads me to share that I recently read in Paulo Coehlo's Like the Flowing River the following excerpt that really hit home...wherever "home" is:

         

          'A man asked my friend Jaime Cohen: 'What is the human being's funniest characteristic?'

          Cohen said: 'Our contradictoriness. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.''

         

          Philosopher Daniela over here, but I like how this reminds me to be where I am, appreciate it and just go with it. One last thing, if you have not tried a custard apple, put it on your bucket list NOW! It is heaven encapsulated within a fruit.

week 8 in Morocco

Morocco has had a lot of recent controversy on rape; particularly after the suicide that occurred last year when a sixteen year old girl killed herself after being forced to marry her rapist. Moroccan law states that a rapist can escape prosecution if he marries his victim. Virginity before marriage is sacred in Arab culture, and if a girl engages in pre-marital relations or is raped, she loses face in society and her status as a marriageable candidate is seriously downgraded.  Because my placement lobbies against the government for many different issues, one of them the legal marriage age (the Moroccan government is considering lowering the marriage age from 18 to 16) they took us to the courthouse to observe a case today.

Two medical students raped two seventeen-year-old girls, after the girls got into their car past midnight a few days ago. This was not their first accusation of rape, officials said. Furthermore, the students bribed the judge to let them walk free. The girls were scheduled to show up in court today. We waited for three hours and the procedures were running late, so we ended up leaving. It was still interesting to hear people’s perspectives and many adamant stances on a girl’s honor and the importance of preserving it at any cost.

Because it is summer and also Ramadan, temperatures are high and so are tempers. Fights, screaming arguments and sometimes even flying fists are common as people, thirsty, hungry and forbidden from smoking wait anxiously for sunset prayer. However, today was really hot and my Canadian co-intern and I decided to buy some ice cream to soothe our throats. As to not invite dirty stares, the only courteous and reasonable thing to do was to buy it and look for a safe place to hide and enjoy our frosty treats. We snuck into a driveway and began to devour our much-anticipated dessert. A few minutes into our ice cream, a man walked by in order to enter his home. We hastily tried to hide the ice cream behind our backs (like guilty children with their hands in the cookie jar) but of course, it was too late. He asked us where we were from and profusely welcomed us to Morocco. He assured us that it was no problem that we were eating and even invited us to take a seat and make ourselves comfortable. He was very kind, and I think that he beautifully embodied the image of a humble Muslim; even in a time of discomfort because of fasting, he still graciously represented Moroccan hospitality to a T.

These past two months in Morocco have been very interesting; I've learned so much in that amount of time, but at the same time I was trying to adjust to a different lifestyle. But, this is my eighth week and I feel like I am finally assimilating into the culture. Last night I was able to interview a Berber activist through Skype, and his answers were extremely interesting. He shared what motivated him to fight for the rights of Berber people in Morocco and how many times he had been arrested. It is very inspiring to see a group of indigenous people who have had their basic rights suppressed for so long, come together and take a stance for their heritage and their country. I am looking forward to these last four weeks in Morocco and continuing to gather information from sources for my capstone project. 

More family time & shopping excursions

The remaining friends I knew and had invested time have depart and I realize that the shared elements of this trip: the water cooler we clung to (as if the only clean source of water), the hikes around the local mountains, and the locations where a large portion of our service occurred such as: 711 (the local elementary school), the office, and parts of the more rural mountainous regions, all trigger the longing I feel for my fellow volunteers, my new friends. These locations, aside from holding amazing memories, almost reflect my favorite part of the people who I worked with; they’re dynamic. Full of life and constantly changing these places remind me of my newfound relationships, constantly growing and changing and as a result of this; I try to ascertain these amazing individuals intervention during this experience, at this stage of my life.

Every encounter is an opportunity to learn so what I will attempt to acquire from these individuals is a greater understanding of myself. Now I explore Peru to reminisce on the moments I miss most, the ones in local café’s divulging our deepest struggles, the brief moments on the roof where the only conversation we have is about getting to another place, and the brief glimpses of Mars in the late nights. I rationalize my remaining time as potential to invest in my host family and few remaining friends. I think of my project and the service I originally came here with the intentions of doing and try to redirect my aims on making them into a representation of the worthwhile time I’ve had.

This week I continued my trend of cooking Wednesday-night dinners and having frequent movie nights with my family. I decided to make them some soup that was cream based with dumplings, chicken, carrots, and my favorite part: queso. For the second course I made an avocado salad and some sauté beef cutlets. My family was blindingly grateful as usual except this trip to the market I bought my mother a flower arrangement as I have dedicated this final week to showing them how appreciative I am for their accommodations. The tears that welled in her eyes as she embraced me in the market with a thank you were somehow incredibly sad and also the indicator I needed. Her tears let me know that her extra accommodations, and my extra effort wasn’t just appreciated out of her being paid, but there was some emotional basis to this experience. I realized that no matter how far I go, or how long it will be till the next time I see her I will always have another mother in Peru.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of my week was handing out a brand-new pair of toms to every student in the local elementary school, 711. At this school I was able to look at the faces of all the kids, some with less than quality footwear and ask them how they like the shoes, how they fit, and if they were going to wear them again. All the kids were too eager to tell me how happy they were for new shoes but even more blunt with telling me if it was not the right fit. Physically putting on the shoes to the kids’ feet filled me with a sense of accomplishment, or maybe the smell of young feet had me a little out of it. Although my project does aim to improve a group within the community, the women, this project brought me great joy because I saw the difference as I left a classroom of kids with all new shoes.

My weekend continued with an exciting excursion to Pisaq, the best cost/quality shopping region, with my homestay brother Nick. Later on that Sunday we drove up as a family to Pumawanka, the local organic fish farm. Not only was it beautiful but also I was able to catch a medium size trout with my bare hands! After getting the rest of the fish with a net and a help of one of the workers my mom showed me how to properly clean the fish. Instead of just frying it the way she normally does she adopted some of my culinary skills by dipping it in an egg batter I made with the chicken I friend the week before. This small change in her cooking process made me really happy because it was something I shared with her that she actually liked and employed using. Cooking together has become these great moments of bonding for us. As we approached the near completion of making dinner I thought this meal was too perfect to have without the right drink, of course I mean wine. Slipping out unnoticed for 20 minutes I shopped around the local stores for a quality wine to pare with the trout, avocado, rice, and tomatoes salad we prepared. Dinner ended in a slightly inebriated success as we have designated Sundays and Mondays as our days to experiment (alongside the family) the various types of alcoholic beverages Peru has to offer. I’m dreading the goodbyes but looking foreword to seeing my family in the states and sharing all that I learned with the people I love.

With much love and confusion

Mateo

Our Sunset Tradition, Global Scholars Style!

We have fallen in love with the landscape of Pamohi village. There is a stone wall that stretches into the green rice field behind the school; it's the perfect place to watch the sun set in between the mountains of Guwahati. We have made a tradition out of it, we sit almost everyday from 5:30 to 6:15 and watch the sunsets, which never dissapoint.

A Glimpse of India

India is full of colors and beauty, contrasted with the monochrome of the city scene. Here are some pictures of the city.

  

Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame?

One thing we were not expecting and were totally unprepared for was our minor celebrity status. Because this are of India is so secluded, foreigners— especially tall blonde girls— are very uncommon. It has become normal for us to be followed by a group of people taking pictures of us when we go into town. So we started playing this game where we take pictures of people taking pictures of us… At one point during Ambubachi Mela, Suman and Aditya had to act as body guards while we hid and ran from the news trucks. We hope you find this as hilarious as we do. People are always surprised when I break out my camera and start snapping pictures of them… some pretend like they’re taking a picture of something next to us… some just keep taking pictures with no shame. Either way it’s turned in to a pretty amusing little game.

All Dressed Up!

Today Parijat hosted the first men from Assam to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, and we got to dress up in the traditional Karbi tribe dress. It is similar to a saree, but is three pieces instead of two: a blouse and a skirt (chador) over a petticoat with a mekhela wrapped around the waist and thrown over one shoulder. The women had to teach us how to assemble it, then we got decorative bindi and our hair done by Delumoni. The careful pleats are folded over the petticoat and are basically all that holds up the chador.As Uttam says “it is not like an umbrella… it is like a parallel structure" and is very difficult to walk in, especially with long legs. So we waddled around until we figured out how to take slow, long strides instead of short fast ones. We both had apparently embarrassing moments when we were taking pictures and our skirts came un-pleated, revealing our petticoats! Luckily, one of the teachers came running out and pulled us into a classroom to reassemble us before anyone saw. We also got to interview Mr. Saikia and Mr. Deka to ask them all about Everest which was exciting for us and went really well.

Ki Khobor?!

That means "What's up?!" in Assamese! 

So it’s our last week at Parijat Academy, and the feeling is bitter-sweet. We’ve had such an amazing time here and we are nowhere near ready to leave our new home, but we have new and exciting adventures ahead of us. We leave Parijat Academy July 28^th and will be traveling about India until our flight out of New Delhi August 7^th. We are going to Varanasi, Goa, Mumbai, Agra, Jaipur and Delhi. We’re eager to travel and get to see other parts of India, but Assam has become our home, and will always be our favorite part of India. Our last week means tons of cramming. We want to make sure we get all the information and material necessary to make our Capstone Project everything we are planning for. It’s sad to leave, because we are really starting to feel 100% comfortable here. We’ve made friends in the city, we've made friends in the village, we've become friends with the family at one of the corner stores in Garchuck, and we’ve become friends with some of the local rickshaw drivers who take us places! Basically, we don’t want to leave all our new friends and family. We’ve gotten so used to the routine here. We have a group of about 10 kids who come to our art class every day, and we’ve gotten so close with them! Whenever we are late for class, they come running up to our house and yell “Ma’am, teaching today?!” It’s so cute, they are so eager to learn from us! But we find comfort in the fact that we know we will be back in Assam and at Parijat in the near future, as we’ve fallen so in love with it we promised everyone here we’d come back within the next few years.

Lately, we’ve been getting out of Parijat more and exploring the area around us. Recently, a friend of ours took us into the forest to meet some elephants that his friend owns. Seeing as elephants are my favorite animal EVER, it was seriously a dream come true. We went out and bought INR 1200 worth of bananas (more than 20 U.S dollars worth) for the 3 elephants, and carried them almost 2 miles down the road and into the forest. We fed them, pet them and played with them for almost two hours, and it was such an awesome experience. We also found this great Shiva temple right down the road, also in the forest. LeeAnne and I went one day with our local friend Suman, and it was beautiful. It’s a small temple, with no actual structure or building. Just some bamboo bridges over a river, some incense burning, and lots of offerings to Lord Shiva. The caretaker of the temple, Sunkor, taught us how to make offerings and pray to Lord Shiva which was great. We sat with about 8 of the other men who were at the temple and had a fantastic conversation with them. They didn’t speak English, so we had to have Suman translate for us. The men asked us why we were in Assam, how we liked it, and questions like that. They were really funny, and said they have never met anyone who looks like us or speaks like us, and that they have only seen it on television! They thanked us for coming to the temple and taking the time to sit with them. We asked them all questions about their families, occupations, and about some of the local tribes like Karbi and Boro. It was an excellent interview, and we’ll definitely include more detail about it in our final project.

Our Capstone and our Volunteer Resource are coming along beautifully. We decided our resource is going to be basically a step-by-step how to for incoming Parijat volunteers, containing advice and all kinds of information they might find helpful. Things like the language, how the school works, and the family dynamics, their role here at Parijat as well as Assam, even things like “How to do your laundry” and where to go to purchase different things. When we arrived in Parijat, we didn’t have any guidance to help us transition into how things are done here, so it was difficult. We hope that future volunteers will read this resource either before coming to Parijat or as soon as they get here, to make it super easy for them to get into the groove of things. It also includes lesson plans and projects we set up that we hope they will continue.

This will be a short blog post, since we’re super busy wrapping up our work here and packing. As always, check out our personal Tumblr blog because we update that almost every day. You can find the link in my previous blog posts. But before I forget, I have a hilarious story! So since we’ve been here, we’ve been learning some Assamese. We both know a decent amount, but for the longest time we felt insecure speaking the language because our pronunciation was terrible. Apparently, people here love the way foreigners speak Assamese! Uttam told us this at first, but we didn’t believe him. Until one day, we were talking with a few friends we’ve made here and they were trying to get us to talk in Assamese with them. So I gave in and said “Lahe lahe, moi Oxomiya xixi aasu” which means “Slowly, I am learning Assamese.” They all got such a kick out of it! When we asked why, they said it sounded so cute, like a baby talking, one of them even said it sounded “sweeter than sugar.” This gave us more confidence to speak Assamese, so now we do our best to try and use the little we know whenever possible! It’s great to learn the local language a little, and the people here really appreciate it.

I’ll post again before we leave for our travels, with some photos and one last update. But in the meantime, enjoy these photos of LeeAnne and I in traditional Indian Saris! Cheers!