Hi everyone,

The blog sites have been unblocked and I am now able to view comments and the blog itself.

Anyway, I'm nearing the end of my work trip. I'm leaving for the Andamans (islands in the Bay of Bengal) for a week. I get back on the 24th and then I'm in Chennai until the 29th. After that, my vacation begins. I leave for Sri Lanka on the 30th to visit my buddy Minari and then I'm off to Calcutta to visit family between the 5th through the 13th of September. After that...Seattle! Rob has already informed me that Michigan plays Notredame the weekend I get back so I can't wait! Nachos and cider...yummy!

This last week-long trip was spent in the middle coastal area of the state. It was good, but I'm beginning to get a little burned out. I'm ready to sit on our comfy couch and relax!

Again, no pictures, because most of them are on my 35 mm.

The weather's been hot, but I've learned to deal with it - I think I'll freeze in the 60 degree weather once I get back...

I may/may not be able to post again so hope the remainder of the summer is great for everyone and I'll be in touch once I get back!

Subarna

So I'm back in Chennai after 11 days of travel. It seemed like a lot longer. We (Michelle [who's a Christian Indian] and I) took an overnight train to Nagercoil, a city next to KanyaKumari. It's really pretty. It's got mountains on one side which keeps it much cooler than stifling Chennai. It's also very green - coconut trees explode from just about every land surface. We visited 23 villages in four districts, KanyaKumari, Tiruneveli, Tuticorin, and Ramnathapuram (all along the coast). - they were all affected by the tsunami in some way, but the level of impact varied. One place I would never think was inhabited by people. It was just a bunch of makeshift (and disentegrating) tents close to the water. Others you could certainly identify as villages. So we saw a good range. We were in a car for hours in a day (the local ActionAid office took us around)...usually the villages were separated from each other by a good 25-30 miles, which on the rural roads was a very bumpy ride. There were times I was sure my internal organs were no longer where they should be.

Ramnathapuram was probably the most destitute overall. It's an island connected by a bridge and it's the part of India that's closest to Sri Lanka. There we went to temple where apparently it is believed that single girls who visit it are said to be married within a year. Michelle is single and her parents are trying in their very Indian way to get her hitched. Well, wouldn't you know, the day that we went was a religious holiday and if single girls visit on this day, they are married within 6 months! I'll have to keep in touch with her to see if that works out...

There's some sort of African virus that is spreading through these areas called chikunguniya. It is waterborne and also spread through mosquitoes. Symptoms are fever, swelling/aching of the joints, and vomiting. Well, so far we've escaped unharmed. There's still time though to contract it b/c I think it's making its way up north :)

I took pictures with my 35 mm so don't have much to download here. You'll just to wait for those. I still can't see these posts. So however you respond, and whether or not you do, I'll only be able to see once I get back to the States.

I'm off next week to Cuddalore (which is about 3 hours from Chennai). There we'll spend about 7 days.

The final leg (if it is approved [b/c it likely is the most expensive]) is the Andaman Islands which we'd also visit for a week. Then I'll be back in Chennai for a week (my final work week) before heading down to Sri Lanka (for fun) and to visit family in Kolkata. After that I'm headed back to Seattle! Rob told me that I'm past my half-way point. In a way, I can't believe that I'm only half-way through. But then it's hard for me to believe that I'll be back in Seattle in a little over a month!

Hope all is well with everyone...

Subarna

So the world's largest democracy has connected blogging in general to the Mumbai blasts (note very heavy sarcasm) and have consequently blocked access to blog sites including blogger . I can't actually view this blog and so am not sure this comment will be posted, but we'll see.

It is downright insane, or as people here like to say "mad."

In other news, it's a small world. After two years, I emailed a friend I had lost touch with who was in my MA South Asia program. Turns out she's in Bangalore which is 40 minutes by plane! She's been working in India for over a year. Even more serendipitously, she had scheduled a day trip to Chennai and we actually met and caught up on two years of life.

Alright, I'm off to scrounge up some dinner. Hope this posts :)

hi all,

this week the country has definitely been preoccupied w/ the events in mumbai. it's on the west coast of the country (i'm on the east) but the news, as you can imagine, hit pretty hard everywhere.

otherwise, things are a mix of frustration and excitement. i'm glad to be here. i'm getting to see everything (good and bad) firsthand. but i'm having to learn to be patient and that things will happen on their own time and not a moment sooner.

we are planning some trips to the southern tip of the country which was hard hit by the tsunami as well as some other areas in between. if all goes as planned we'll start traveling in late july.

this week we spent some time again with the Irulas who i mentioned in my last blog. we went to the partner organization ITWWS who is directly working with them and they have this huge area where they grow tons of herbs and are involved in forest protection, etc. everything's done with an eye towards preserving the environment (which is really important in this rapidly growing country)...the organization also has a bunch of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in which the Irula women band together to make small arts and crafts and also sell their herbal medicines for which they're well known. i also learned that the local ngo/international ngo (ingo) relationship can be quite tense. the ITWWS coordinator was nothing if not charismatic and he was not about to mince words just b/c some staff from one of their donors (actionaid) was present. a very interesting experience.














this (above) is a small wood carving SHG. the women sell their products in touristy areas. i bought a bunch of things, all for about $2. the herb garden is to the right. whatever herb i could think of (and many more i never knew existed) could be found here.

the rest of the week was one in which i read up on some of lit. search materials i need to use to link up to my field visits.

i'm enjoying watching vh1 here which is a mix of contemporary music (whatever is out in the US) combined with 80's bonjovi and really bad early 90s music (read c&c music factory, paula abdul, fresh prince), etc. there's also the more interesting bollywood videos which are great!

i went to Pondy Bazaar, a semi-open air market,
much like ones i've seen in Kolkata (where my family is from). the scene is chaotic at best; combine that with the heat and humidity, it is just surreal. i also heard that this crowd is nothing compared to what its like during the wedding and festival seasons.

alright, will write more soon. that is, if the internet cooperates! :)

hope you're all enjoying your summers...

subarna

i'm ok!!!

thanks for checking up on me :)

we've had some internet issues at the office on top of which i've been out of the office during the days.

i'll write more tonight, but just wanted to let you all know that i am definitely ok.

subarna

Hi all,

First, some pictures from last Thursday's trip of the coastal huts (north of Chennai) built post-tsunami.

Ok, brace yourselves; I've got lots of catching up to do! Friday, two of the staff and I went south of Chennai near a place called Mahabalipuram. Try and say that ten times :) It's less congested than the areas we went to yesterday. Lots of trees and coastline. We visited a village along the beach to check on the progress of a woman who had been disabled pre-tsunami trying to save her child from on-coming traffic. She was hurt pretty badly and her husband left her. Well, her family (mother, father, and sister) really do look after her which is good (and often not the case in these situations) and she's been making steady progress. She good humoredly laughed at me when the other staff mentioned that I don't know Tamil. I told them to tell her I'd try and pick up a few things...We made a visit to another similar village...this time to check on the progress of a little girl. As you can see, AA makes really regular contact with the program coordinators and the program recipients to keep the focus stay on a personal level.


The Irulas

From there we went to two villages of tribal people (Irulas) who are even more marginalized than the general fishing people communities. This was an incredible experience. These people are discriminated against by the general fisher population...the latter prevents them from fishing in all but the backwater areas from where they fish for shrimp and small seafood. They are not allowed to get water from the same pumps -- a little Irula girl was beaten up for doing it last year. They are not really even allowed to live in the same villages (or even in close proximity). This also prevents them from forming solid communities. Until now, they have been scattered b/c too many of them living in one community draws the ire of the general fisher population. They also don't have the means to own land. After the tsunami, they really needed some help and so AA along with a partner org. helped them buy land on which they built houses and their own communities. We saw two villages and they are amazing.

The people are building the houses themselves with direct imput as to how they should look and with what materials they should be built. And you could really see the happiness and pride on everyone's faces as they were showing us around. There are also lessons learned from the Irulas b/c on the whole, the women are much more empowered than in the general fisher population. It was just a great experience.



Back in Chennai

Friday night I went to see the Germany/Argentina match with Michelle, a girl at AA who's been helping me out a lot. That night, I got "Delhi belly". That's the Indian version of Montezuma's revenge. good times! Thankfully it was a 24 hour ordeal and then it was over. My friend, Minari, (left) from Sri Lanka visited between Saturday and Tuesday and we just relaxed, shopped, caught up on each others' lives and hung out. It was wonderful to have her to celebrate with for my birthday -- we went to a lovely hotel restaurant for dinner; I even had presents to open! thanks roomie!

Now I'm back on my own -- this week I'll be at the hotel writing up what I've experienced the week before. The office is closed due to staff being out at a retreat/internal meeting. Hopefully next week I'll be moving to a more permanent residence and then I'll be able to cook, etc.


Whew, I'm sure you're all tired from this read! Hope all your summers are going well - Have a great 4th of July!!

I've been away from the office for the last few days and haven't been able to post as diligently (shocking as that has been for those of you who chastise me for not keeping in touch) as I have been.

I went to the HIV/AIDS awareness workshop on Wed. The participants were volunteers from small villages or poor (urban) communities and were acquring basic knowledge in how to counsel and potential HIV + villagers. Most of it was a refresher for me, but there were interesting questions that the volunteers were raising that were definitely culturally specific.

Yesterday, I went with some of the staff to Thiruvallur, a district to the north of Chennai. (The state in which Chennai is located is divided up into districts). You always picture things in your head, and immediately some of those things were dispelled. The first location we went to was actually an urban fishing community. It was just outside the city limits and is very poor. The women face issues of domestic abuse (stemming from susbtance abuse by their husbands) and lack economic security among other things. We went to the building where this small NGO is working -- I'm not sure I mentioned this, but ActionAid funds local NGOs to implement the actual projects. We (one of the staff who is relatively new to ActionAid and I) started asking the program coordinator some questions in one of the rooms in the back of the first story apartment. As we were about to wrap up, there was a loud bang from the main room next to us, and I could see cement fall to the floor! Part of the ceiling had broken off! Immediately, everyone exited the building. Thankfully, everyone was ok, but there were some disabled people (who are community volunteers) there who could have been seriously hurt. That was certainly an interesting start to the day. We made sure everyone was ok, and then preceded to the next villages -- the first was actually a village of straw huts outside the metro area and is right on the water (Bay of Bengal) -- I'll post pictures. They are on my laptop which I didn't bring to work today...I was just observing, but the purpose of other AA staff going to the site was to see the progress of an orphan child who had been wandering around the village after the tsunami. His parents abandoned him pre-tsunami and he was sort of seen as this outcast in the village. 6 months ago AA and the local NGO enrolled him in some satellite school programs and they were now visiting to see progress. The boy was really cute and the AA staff noted how much he had improved. A sobering yet heartening story for sheltered people like me :)

Last, we went to another village that is a few kilometers away from the beach to visit a family whose daughter has some ailment that prevents her from going to the mainstream schools. I went inside one of the strawhut structures for the first time -- they stay remarkably cool -- the people were really really warm and inviting -- not that I hadn't expected that, but still it was a great experience.

I don't think I can really describe how hot and humid it was. I think all of you know my love for warm (even hot) weather, but this was taking it to a new level. I felt like I was wading through a pool of hot water. Not exactly comfortable when you combine the dusty roads.

All in all though, an incredible experience. I will be leaving soon for another day trip to another district today. It'll be an even more remote area that comprises the marginalized tribal people of the area...

PS. To those of you I had given guilt trips to, I'm glad to see they worked :)

Well I survived the weekend. Like some of my classmates who are abroad, I too wrestled this past weekend with my tv-viewing options. Spiderman or Titanic in Tamil. Its pretty neat what you can pick up just be reading lips...Then of course, there are the Bollywood movies. While there is certainly the "artsy" film scene (indie movies in the US), Bollywood movies are pure pulp and enormously cheesy. And still you can't look away. It's "guilty pleasure" personified. Imagine some song-and-dance soap opera.

As for work today was day two of an ActionAid partner meeting. It was very interesting and I'm realizing that aspects of PM II and Program Eval. actually seeped through and I could apply them in settings other than the Evans School. That's heartening :)

The 2-daymeeting concerned the rights (or lack thereof) of the fisherpeople living along the coasts of India. The tsunami has prompted organizations like ActionAid to mobilize and connect "unorganized workers" to each other so that they can speak to and address policies that impact their lives. This meeting was the first inter-state meeting and it seemed to me to go pretty well. I made some contacts with local NGOs (whom ActionAid funds to do the implementation work) so that I can make some field visits.

The meetings themselves were interesting because there were people who spoke either English, Tamil, Oriya, or Telugu, or some combination of the above! So there was A LOT I didn't get until it was paraphrased into English.

It was also interesting to see how women interacted in a largely male forum and how men reacted to them. Another interesting point and hard statistic; close to 90% of the men in the meeting (which we can take to be a mini-representative group of India- I am not speaking to matters of internal or external validity here) had mustaches. During one of the long lapses in which no English was spoken, I actually did the math. So there you go. Do what you will what that information.

Tomorrow I'll be going to a workshop on HIV/AIDS awareness that an ActionAid partner conducts. That should be interesting...