Last post on India

Hi everyone,
I'm making no promises that this blog will continue to be updated because there is just too much going on here! Every day is full of Hindi classes, lectures on agriculture, religion, or economics, exploring & shopping with friends, and time with my host family. My program travels a lot, too- we've visited several places in India (rural villages, slums, Ranthambore National Park, schools set up by NGOs) and I am never alone long enough to be able to process my thoughts and revelations into anything that I would want to post on this blog.

That being said, here's a quick update on my life right now. Today the director of the Prime Minister's office, Devinder P.S. Sandhu, came to Jaipur to give us a lecture! This guy spends 4-5 hours a day with the PRIME MINISTER of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh. The lecture itself was kind of an elementary introduction to India and development that wasn't particularly useful- he began with a powerpoint slide about Star Wars and Hindu gods (?!) and tried to relate it to how India is so accepting of diversity. Ha. He also talked about India's parliament and his philosophy for development, using an elephant analogy for slow and steady progress, ugh. Nothing revolutionary, but it was still exciting to meet one of the most important men in India.

I'm leaving Jaipur tomorrow with my friends to visit Pushkar, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage city. We've booked a hotel by the Brahma temple and will stay there for the weekend, exploring the ghats, the temples and the big bazaar. We'll try not to get ripped off by the ridiculous priests that try to take $1000 rupees in exchange for "blessing your family."

Next week, my program will be traveling to Bikaner and Jodhpur to visit a few NGOs, I'm not sure yet what we are doing. Once we get back, we'll have a major Hindi exam and then leave for our 1 week mini-internships with several NGOs that the program picked out. I'll be going to a small village outside of Varanasi with 3 other girls to intern with an NGO called Kiran, a center for "education and rehabilitation of children and youngsters with different abilities." You can look up the organization at kiranvillage.org.

I chose Kiran because my Independent Study Project will also be focusing on children- I'm hoping to study an organization that works with Delhi's street children called the Salaam Baalak Trust. http://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/inside.asp But everything is still in the beginning stages of planning, so nothing is certain yet!

I'm leading a synthesis discussion of this week's readings and excursions tomorrow, so I should go prepare- oh and just as I'm typing this my host mom is calling me for dinner! It's 9:52 pm, this dinner time is pretty typical. We are having dal, chapati, this egg dish thing, a cabbage potato dish, and a stewed spicy cucumber dish that is actually much better than it sounds. My mom is an amazing cook.

Much love,
Molly