People

At the end of the three-day conference for CEOs of NGOS that give loans to self help groups there was this cultural presentation thing. Despite the persistent demands by MC and me for the performance of TIN ADMI (which actually translates into “three man” in my grammatically incorrect chipmunky hindi) all the men refused to dance. The next morning, one of the older NGO employees explained that the reason why the men weren’t dancing was because they believed dancing and singing are activities for the women. He recognized that this was stupid, but argued that change takes time. How can people go around to villages preaching the gospel of female empowerment and gender equity but be completely unwilling to change their own conceptions of gender even when they KNOW they’re outdated. “Change takes time” is an excuse for the people you’re trying to change… not for the change agents.

Places

Goodbye Delhi to Chicago on April 29th.
Hello Delhi to London on April 29th.
And London to Budapest on May 5th.
And Hungary to Slovakia to Czech Republic to Austria to Romania to Bulgaria
And Bulgaria to Athens on June 1st.
And Athens to London to Washington DC on June 10th.

Did you know? With the exception of three people*, everyone reading this blog is meeting up with me in Europe at some point. A clear indication that the people I know are cool (and that I really need more friends).

*particularly creepy but yet admirably diligent stalkers who managed to somehow discover this address notwithstanding

Places

An average day at the CECOEDECON office.

Our heroine, Sarah Press, has efficiently and attractively finished all her work for the day and is seeking something else to do. She spots Tushar, her sort of supervisor, slowly typing up some names from a notebook into a word document.
Sarah: I can type that up for you
Tushar: Actually, that would be great. I’ll read the names out loud for you
Sarah: No, that’s ok, I can just type them from the sheet. You can work on something else.
Tushar: No no, I’ll read them and you type them.
Sarah: Well, since they’re Indian names, I won’t know how to spell them. It’ll really be easier if I just look at the sheet.
Tushar: No, that’s ok. I’ll read them out loud to you and spell them out loud to you as well.
Sarah: I really think it would be faster if I just typed it myself.
Tushar: Is it ok with you if I read the names out loud?Sarah: …fine

Things

In Devli, I am conducting a survey of women from communities involuntarily resettled from a government dam project to see what kind of income generation activities should be initiated in that area. My partner for the study bought me some grapes after dumping water on them. Grapes haunt the nightmares of saavy travelers such as myself, and I was 98.2% sure that I was guaranteed to get violently ill. Do not worry, says my sage guide, the water was filtered- it came from the Bislapur Dam. Later that night when we got to our site, I pulled out my water bottle to brush my teeth. No no, says my wise friend, you don’t need to use bottled water to brush here. Our sinks use Bislapur water as well. It was all kind of funny. I came to help the rural villagers forced to move because of the wicked mcevil government dam project. But everywhere I look the Bislapur dam is making my life easier, tastier, and healthier. Perhaps its not so bad.

In the bathroom later that night…
I hate India. I hate Jaipur. I hate Cecoedecon. I hate the Bislapur Water Supply Project. I hate Devli. I hate life. I HATE grapes.

People

During my week in Devli, I lived next door to a family. They called the little girl Choto, which means little, because she is small and cute. The showed me how to make chai and taught me a Rajasthani dance. They bought me bangles and made me not-too-spicy chicken because I’m an American non-veg. They showed me their slate mine where they employ 150 workers and pay the women 50 rupees a day to move the rocks on their heads in the sun. I visited their family palace where they have a ten year old child servant who can’t read or write and doesn’t go to school that they don’t pay. We watched Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Things

The powers that be (aka the crazy head of the microfinance department at cecoedecon) aren’t letting me to go the field to do the survey for my self-help group impact assessment until tomorrow. I am sulky. I have absolutely nothing to do. I am going to passive-aggressively retaliate by writing about my past few weeks for the next two hours.

Things

...more elephants

People, Places, and Things

Thursday night we drank rum and ate sweets for erin's 21st birthday/last night with Triptiji and Mamiji celebration. We hugged, we kissed, we talked about how it sucked that things shook out the way they did and we didn't spend as much time together as we should have. It was cute all around, and the next morning they left for Bombay, which means we didn't have the chance to fuck things up.

As a sidenote, I hate the smugness people get when they hear the city called Bombay instead of Mumbai. Bombay is what the Indians call it damnit. And they should know.

Friday night was Erin's surprise party. I've had a substantial amount of surprise party energy in reserve ever since I missed Kristin's 21st due to this silly country, so I went all out. A bunch of "here i bought you this coke for your birthday!" diversions, combined with her sitting alone at our house all day trying to work on a paper while I dashed around Old City trying to find the perfect piece of blue pottery, threw her off track and made her feel generally unloved and miserable. The one-two punch of SURPRISE! dinner followed by everyone creeping away at the end into the hotel room I had rented and decorated earlier that day with everything she loved for SURPRISE! number two kicked ass. And the delicious eggfree cake shaped like a guitar made her vegan musically gifted heart melt.


Many cigarettes, joints with the 34 year old israeli jewelers and glasses of white mischief vodka and appy fizz later, we woke up at the hotel rooms andwent to the Elephant Festival in Old City. And yeah, ok, it was somewhat of a tourist trap. And yeah, alright, so they played games like tourist tug of war (10 goris vs one elephant...guess who won?) and elephant polo. The elephants themselves were still gorgeous.


We hopped on a rickshaw and ended up on the rooftop of our friend's house for a potluck dinner of everything american that is amazing.

Spaghetti with homemade sauce...frosted flakes and fruit loops with milk...ice cream...peanut butter with three different flavors of jelly. Oh my god. So delicious.

I found a kid to scare...


...til he started to scare back.


Outside were Holi bonfires.


And the scrambling kids lighting them.


Many cigarettes, joints with the 34 year old israeli jewelers and glasses of white mischief vodka and appy fizz later, we woke up at the hotel rooms at 8am on Sunday morning to play with colors in honor of the second day of Holi. We roamed Raja Park, shooting teenagers with water guns containing our paint+ water mixture, knocking over the paint buckets of kids who tried to mess with us, and otherwise having one of hte most ridiculous times of my life.

We played until we looked like this:


And our hands looked like this:


All and all it was the best weekend I've had in India.