I'm on a boat.

Today we left the hotel by 9 to get to our boat by noon, it was a long ride. (On the way we stopped at a grocery store and I got mango corn flakes, but that is a different story). Once there we took a transfer boat to our house boat. It is really nice. We spent the day sitting on the deck, talking and watching the scenery of the back warters. When we docked for the night one of the crew members took us for a walk into a village. It was incredible. All the trees and animals and rice patties. I really don';t think I can describe how amazing it was. On the walk we saw water snakes, a giant goat, and a handful of king fishers. At dinner we had huge, no giant- GIANT prawns. I', pretty sure they were almost 12 inches long. And they were yummy.

We spent the rest of the night telling ghost stories and watching Alexander the almost but not quite great and snatcher (our lizards) eat bugs. When we headed to our room first, a half naked man had to turn on our AC. and second there was a huge cockroach in the bathroom. Now, I am not a huge fan of coackroaches, and I'm even less of a fan of showering with them, so I decided to try and catch it. First I used the large bathroom bucket but he found a way out of that, so then I used a notebook cover and a smaller bucket, he managed to squirm out of that too. so finally I put a cereal box under the folder which was under the small bucked ant I put all of that on top of the big bucket. Then I took that entire contraption into the hall , as soon as I walked out with it all the crew members wanted to know what was going on. I said "cockroach!" and they all started laughing then they took the contraption and did who knows what with the cockroach.

Today was definitly one of my favourite days so far. I really enjoyed the people and the crew on my boat, and the who boat ride for that matter (including the almost sunburn on my right arm). It's been a pretty amazing experience.

How do you solve a problem like Maria...

Tonight was our night in the convent. and wow, there were a lot of bugs. I guess it wasn't really that bad, but I could have done without all of the dead spiders...

During the day we went to a wholesale market that was much more organized thatn the last one we visited. It was government operated and cheaper than private owned ones for people to sell produce. Then we went back to the NGO (KIDS) and listened to presentations on fibres and the women who collect them and construct products from them.

Then we went to the church that the KIDS organization was a part of. I found the church to be very interesting because of the Indian influence on the Catholic Church. The statues (Jesus, Mary, ect) were in the "boxes" much like the Hindu Dieties are and they were decorated with strings of flowers and rupees and lots of bright colors. It also appeared that people prayed to them in the same mannar they prayed to the Hindu dieties.

After spending some time there we went on a boat through the backwaters to the "
"gateway of India" or the place where the monsoons all come in and what colombus was looking for. It was pretty cool, to look from the backwaters into the sea, and learn more about that. Tomorrow we take a full day and night backwater cruise.

Mmmm whatcha say. Mmm that you only meant well? well of course you did.

Well, lets see, we left Coimbatore on Saturday to leave for Cochin. We took a train, the trip was about 5 hours. That pretty much took up the entire day. We sat near some people from California that talked to us quite a bit. I also really like our new tour guide he talked to us a lot on the way from the hotel to the train station, about anything we wanted him to. He's nice, and very helpful.

Today we went to an Ayurveda Hospital. We learned about and saw a bunch of different ophthalmology procedures. I noticed that it was actually much cleaner than the hospital I was in the last time I was here. We also went to the factory where they make their medicines, that was more sterile than the OR I was in (though the regulation flip flops were the same...)We spent the morning there, and had lunch and then headed back to our hotel. We just got done eating dinner at the Upstairs Italian Restaurant.

Kochi is the only place on this trip that I have been to before, so that has been really strange. Today we walked down the street that the hotel I stayed at is on, which is the same street as 2 restaurants we ate at, and a coffee shop that made us miss our ferry, at some point I plan on going to look at the wall that I ran the scooter into since that street is right next to our current hotel. Its just been weird. But nice.

Cochin (Kochi) is BEAUTIFUL, more so than I remembered, its much more developed than the places we've been, and cleaner. Almost no beggars, and a few tourists. Its been a nice change actually. The only annoying part is the rickshaw drivers, especially when they stood outside the restaurant waiting for us to come out last night. Other than that its green and pretty and comfortable.

Frustration of the day: Dan, the program director, who is impatient, uncaring, annoying, and unhelpful. and I'll spare you the rest of the rant for tonight, but....really... AND people taking pictures of children in the clinic, lets use our heads people. How would you feel if that was your child, or even you.

I'm really looking forward to going down to see my host mom, Its really unfortunate that we're all having so many problems with Dan, it takes a lot away from the trip, which in turn is taking a lot of people away from India. The times we all enjoy the most are when we are on our own trying to get around and do things, and we aren't being herded and rushed for no reason. I'm trying to be more positive about him, but his blatant lack of caring about anyone is really causing me to lose the sliver of respect I had left for him.

Wow, that was pretty negative, I didn't mean for it to be, I truly am having a good time, that being said, since I hate ending these on negative notes (and since they have to be transformed into a class assignment, I am still enjoying India, and I really have learned a ton, and the people are still like they were last time, welcoming and amazing. I still love it here.

This is the time to be more than a name or a face in the crowd....

Last night the man at the place I always buy water decided that I needed to try banana chips, milk sweets, and jack fruit chips. That's always a fun part of India. Anyway,

Today was our last day at Shanti, so we had to decide how to allocate the $1200 that we had to donate. We chose to give it to a temple cleanup and a scholarship fund for rural children. It was a difficult decision but we also decided that when we get back we're going to try to fund a food project that the government and Shanti Ashram self help women run. We chose the temple because we felt that it would be a difficult project to get funded and that it will benifit quite a few people, who may begin to learn about how important it is to keep the environment clean. We chose the scholarship program because it will allows to send 7 students to college for one year.

Earlier in the day we learned about there Bala Shanti program which a pre-preschool program for rural children that teaches them all sorts of things. We went and visited the school, the children there were so excited and wanted to know everyone's names and majors and home places. I hate feeling like a celebrity. Its what happens whenever we are around children or uneducated people. I just want to tell them that there is nothing more special about me than there is about them. We asked them who wanted to go to university and all of them raised their hands, then we asked who wanted to travel and again almost all of them raised their hands. It was so nice to see. And then of course at the end they wanted pictures. We talked to the teachers which was fun, hearing what they had experienced and how they had changed by being part of this program.

We also had our last session today with Dr. Veno (who I may have mentioned earlier) She is pretty much the most inspirational person I have ever met. I probably said that before, but I feel like I can reinforce that.

Frustration for the day: Dr. Veno tried to arrange a side trip for some of us to get dropped off at a place where a woman makes jewelry (anklets, earrings etc... its where she shops) but Dan decided that we didn't want to buy real jewelery and that we should buy the cheap stuff in Udaipur. If I'm going to buy jewelery I don't mind spending 20 USD on it. I think the stuff we could have gotten here would have been much more valuable and exciting. So, that was really frustrating.

I have learned so much about development in the last week. Shanti Ashram reinforced everything that I thought and taught me much more then I ever could have guessed it could. I want to pick up the organization and put it in every country around the world "developed" or not, we could all use a Shanti Ashram. (Which by the way, Ashram means meeting place, and Shanti means peace).

Its been very refreshing to hear people say that it is important to celebrate different religions and people and to provide for those with little or nothing without any political backing. It seems to be just how it is here. (not for everyone I'm sure).

The internet cafe is about to close, so I'll save most of the quotes for a later post.

I would really like to do an internship with Shanti Ashram...

"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."
M.K. Gandhi

I had a feeling that I could be someone...

"India is a place where a Jet and Bullock cart can travel together and not have an accident." This is how Dr. Ramasamy opened his lecture on children's preventative health today. He talked about the importance of vaccines and education on health in general. Someone asked if he got frustrated by people who didn't want to vaccinate their child because of the suspected health risks. His response was that he did not get frustrated instead you would try to find out what they had problems with and address those issues to try to convince them. He was not only a brilliant man but also a fun speaker. He was the first to open a pediatric clinic in Coimbatore. It was pretty amazing.

The other very inspiring person at Shanti Ashram is the director. She is an amazing person, and very humble about it all. She went to medical school (I believe in India) then to Harvard for public health, and now runs the NGO, and is on an advisory council to the government. She is truly an amazing and kind woman.

After our talks today, we went into a village to see an MMR vaccination clinic in action. It was pretty much exactly what I expected after seeing the hospital last time I was here. Not at all what we would define as sterile, but pretty close to how the British handle things. and 1.2 billion people go to these hospitals/clinics so somehow it works. I just have to get outside of my American box to understand how. Pictures and descriptions later.

After that we were invited to the president of Shanti's house for lunch. They cooked us extra mild, extra indian food that was AMAZING. And the best chai I've had since I have been here.

After lunch there were more presentations and then I came here to blog and work on my assignments.

I've noticed that when we have to have things translated, when its women who do it we get the entire conversation word for word, but when its a man translating they don't do everything, sometimes they skip entire topics. It's kind of frustrating when that happens.

This computer just got really slow so I guess that's enough for tonight. We only have one more day at Shanti and then we'll be leaving Coimbatore on Saturday morning.

On to essays and dinner.

:)

Life is a beautiful thing...

Well. Today. tons of stuff, of course. First we listened to some presentations, and then we headed out to visit the perur temple. Which was the most beautiful one I've seen so far. It was painted and colorful. And there was an elephant, (for those of you keeping track this was elephant encounter #3). Then we went over to see where some of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes are. That was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be more colorful and busy, I guess. It was not, but it was still a cool experience. We all know how much I love his quotes. Pictures of this later, you will see what I mean.

From there we went to speak with the president of a local village. He was a very nice man, who had served three terms. There we got henna done and he gave us each Gandhi's autobiography (I think it was the autobiography, I'll check that later.)

Then we headed back to the Ashram for more presentations, on what they want us to fund. (we have $1200 as a group to split between projects). I'll talk more about this after the rest of the presentations.

The evening was filled with stories from the children who are participating in some of Shanti Ashram's programs, it was truly amazing to hear about the impact it has had on them. Then there was singing and dancing....There is nothing like making a complete fool out of yourself in India, dancing with Indians, to Indian music. Don't worry, there are videos. It was actually pretty cool to be up there dancing with them, and seeing how excited they were that we were dancing. (they also laughed a lot)

Now I'm sitting in an internet cafe listening to the backstreet boys, and trying to remember everything that happened today. Our days are so full its hard for me to keep up with everything I've done.

I wrote this pretty fast so I might have to finish adding things I forgot later but for now, I'm going to go get dinner (probably tomato soup and french fries, its just that kind of night.

Content like a panda bear...

Today we talked a lot about food security. They defined having food security as being able to supply 2100 calories to each person in the household. The poverty level is having an income of less than 24,000 rupees a year for a family of four. Welfare in India is provided in the form of subsidized food (rice can be bought for 1 rupee a kilo instead of 20, there are also subsidies on kerosene, sugar, and some kind of beans) We visited a shop where the subsidized foods can be purchased, they are run by local women's self help groups because when the government ran them there was too much corruption. Both the government and the people prefer them to be run this way. Everybody in India is supposed to have a ration card, their income determines what they can get subsidized. I guess the entire population with a ration card can get subsidized sugar. It was really interesting to learn how welfare worked here compared to the US.

We also learned that Shanti Ashram gives loans to these women to start their own small businesses and chargers 18% interest (which is improvement over the 60% regular banks charge them) and that half of that goes into training for the women at Shanti and the other half goes directly back to the group.

There is a nice educational rant for you all. We also played with the children at the leadership camp at Shanti Ashram, which is always fun, especially when they steal our cameras and we get a bunch of surprise pictures later.

I'm frustrated with quite a few things about the program director, but I'll spare you all that rant for now.

I'm really enjoying India, pretty much every part of it. Everyday is an adventure, even when we are trying to do the simplest things. Its a pretty amazing place.

:)