our first adventures on our own

It's been a week now since our global corps program ended in Hubli. 3 of us-- me, Dana and Abby have been travelling around southern india in the meantime. Our first stop was Kerala, the most south western state, and also the most developed. Kerala was SO beautiful. It's very, very humid and rainy there, so everything is just the most vibrant green color. We went to a mountain town called Munnar, which was nestled in the tea plantations up in the mountains. It was so beautiful up there, the air was so crisp and at night we actually needed sweatshirts! it was so nice not to be continually sweating. The tea up there was also SUPER delcious. We went to a national park to see endangered mountain goats and do a little hiking. The scenery was just so beautiful. The hills and mountains went on for miles and miles. W e also went on a houseboat through the backwaters, which was amazing. It too, was extremely beautiful and very relaxing. We just sat on the deck watching ricepaddies and houses go by.

Now we're in metropolitan Hydrabad, which is in the state of Andra Pradesh. Today we went to an enormous Buddah statue in the middle of a lake, we also went to a beautiful temple made out of all white marble on the top of a hill overlooking the lake and

party pictures

dana, abby and me

me and renuka

roomies and the girls who tied our saris!

Bengaluru

Hello friends, I know it’s been sometime since my last post. So, let me fill you in. The Global Corps portion of our program ended (thank goodness….let me tell you it’s been a long, long road, especially because we were in hubli for two and a half weeks straight, there was no weekend travel like our internship/service learning portion of the trip). Our project presentation went really well and I was so proud of my group for pulling it all together. It was a crazy last two days, I don’t think any of us slept more than 5 hours trying to work on our final presentation and packet.

Two nights ago we had our huge goodbye party. It was so fun! All the Indian students and American students came. It was at a nice hotel in town by the pool, complete with DJ and Indian buffet. All the girls got dressed up in saris. Saris are serious business, let me tell you. All the Indian girls came over and helped us get our saris on. I have to tell you, I felt like a princess in it. It was a little difficult to walk, so clearly a man invented it, so it would be hard for women to get away. They played all of our favorite American and Bollywood songs and we GOT DOWN.

The next day we got on a plane to Bangalore. We’re here for one more night and then tomorrow about half the students are leaving for America. But of course I’m not. I’m traveling for about 3 weeks after with two girls, Dana and Abby. We are going to have an AMAZING time. Here’s the itinerary:
From Bangalore we’re taking a 15 hour bus (woof) to Kerala (a southern state), where we’ll be stopping in Thiravandum, to see temples and things. Then we’ll get picked up by our driver who’s going to take us to a backwater bamboo boat, that we’ll float on for about 24 hrs. Then driver comes back and sweeps us off to a mountain village, where we’ll stay at tea houses and endangered goat farm. (random right?) Then we go to Cochin for a last day of sightseeing. THEN we take a flight to Hyderabad to eat some birayani and see lots of Mughal ruins. Then we take an obscenely long bus to Mumbai, to stay with our friend Renuka. THEN we’ll go to Varanasi, the holiest city on the Ganges river. THEN we’ll take a train to Jaipur. THEN we’ll go to Delhi for a few days. Fly to Bangalore, fly to Frankfurt, Germany. We extended our layover in Frankfurt for 5 days, so that we’ll have time to explore beautiful Chermany and be around white people. We’re training it up to Kolne, and apparently our train ride will be beautiful! It follows the river and goes through all the mountains with all sorts of castles. All this, and then finally we fly back to Boston. Then I’m in Boston for 48 hours and then I fly home! To beautiful California!!!! J
I’m gonna be exhausted.

TWIST!

This song is all the rage here in India...
It's from some Bollywood movie called Love Aaj Kal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgmeL_xuB0I

more research!

Today I had a meeting with Mari, a Deshpande Fellow who works at RAPID. The other day I accidently had lunch with the director of RAPID, and I told her how I wanted to do the same research I had done in the Domincan here in India. RAPID runs a small microcredit program and she said that she would gladly allow me to interview their clients! I am SO excited that I get to continue my research here...because originally I thought that I wouldn't have any time!!! :)

So, sunday, I'm gonna go out to a village outside of Dharwad and have a whirlwind day of interviews. The goal is 20 women... yeah... i know, crazy right? But I'm gonna bring a whole team of people with me (because I don't speak Kannada) and hopefully we'll be able to get it all done. We're also going to split the questions into questions we can ask the whole group and then questions that we can ask individuals, that way we can squeeze more people in. It's actually going to happen!!! :)

I was a little concerned because I just decided that I wanted to do my research a few days ago, and luckily everything is falling into place before we leave!

Ode to Cafe Coffee Day

Café Coffee Day, oh Café Coffee Day. CCD is a wonderful haven of non-Hubli-ness right in the middle of downtown Hubli. The air conditioning is set to 60 degrees, the music is loud, sometimes american and top 40 bollywood hits. The food is pretty tasty and the beverages are phenomenal! Everyone gets the coffee creations and I always get a strawberry milkshake, or a sizzling brownie. Everyone inside is happy, people of the opposite sex are actually sitting by each other, and we don’t really get stared at as much. Everything is just better at Café Coffee Day.

Tonight we went after a long, long day of schlepping around Hubli finding out about water waste and whatever our global corps project is about. I sat with my two favorite girls, Rosie and Allegra, my roomies and my partners in crime. We had a much needed laugh fest, as Rosie is superb at quoting the movie "The Other Sister". That made a long day much brigher.
I also found out that I'm going to be able to do my research here in Hubli! A great organization called RAPID does interest free loans to women in the area, so they're going to let me interview their borrowers! Victory for Danielle on all fronts!

hey MTV, welcome to my crib

I decided to write a post about our guesthouse here, just to give you a peek into the daily life of a northeastern student living in (poopy) hubli

the bathroom, ah the bathroom. basically a closet with tiles, with a shower head, toilet and sink all jammed in. see that bucket? thats actually the shower that we have to fill up because the shower head is so old and dirty that the stream is one trickle. so bucket bathe we shall.

this is our room, b-2 baby, where the party's always at. that's rosie, one of my roommates. the other is allegra (aka leggy-b), we all love each other and get along a little TOO well. we laugh and laugh all night before we go to bed. my bed's the one in the middle. i wish it could zoom in on how tiny and potentially lice filled my pillow is (don't worry i sprayed it with lice killer 1st)and also the sheets on my bed that probably belonged to an 11 year old girl before they found a home on my bed. but I'm greeted by the sunrise each morning through the window and my bed is almost directly underneath the ceiling fan (SCORE!)

here's rosie, master plumber. see, funny thing happened, our toilet bowl disconnected from the tank up top, and every time you flushed the toilet, it was like the water show in front of the bellagio in vegas. we had to flush, run out of the bathroom and shut the door to avoid the spray. one night, rosie got creative and wrapped rags around the toilet pipe. problem solved.

Renuka, girl wonder!

Tonight Renuka, a girl in my Global Corps group showed us around Dharwad, the town right next to Hubli.
Abby and I ventured onto the bus, and got plenty of stares, however we met a nice man who told us the (wrong) stop to get off of. We had to walk for awhile to finally find Renuka, and the bus stop we were supposed to get off at. The first stop on our adventure was eating pani puri. It’s a snack food, that’s basically a crispy cracker bowl, that they fill with this cold soup. The crispy bowl is bite sized too, so you put the whole thing in your mouth and then bite. It was… interesting. The only bad thing was the liquid was cold, which made me feel like… I probably shouldn’t be eating it. It was pretty good, but after about 3 or 4 we had enough. Then Renuka took us to the main street, where it seemed like everyone in the town was out and about. We wandered in and out of shops and stopped at different stands to look at everything that was being sold. Renuka was so cute, she bought us SO many sweets, and fruits, and then, at the end she bought us cake! And she refused to let us pay for anything. She was so, so, kind. She also took us to her temple, where she worships Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, and showed us her university. This weekend we’re going to have a “slumber” at her house, and hang out and watch Bollywood movies.

Renuka is originally from Mumbai, and she’s going to be at home when we go visit Mumbai, so we’ll have someone else to show us around! She’s a very sweet girl, and was so excited to hang out with us. She loves American culture and was asking us so many questions. Her parents marriage story was really cool to, it goes a little something like this:

Both her parents grew up in Mumbai, and her mom and dad went to the same college together. Her dad because a sailor, and so her mom’s crush increased even more. They were friends and liked to hang out, but then, he left for a few months on a sailing assignment. During this time, it was arranged for her to meet a potential match for marriage. Her mom was dreading the day that this guy was going to come over. She opened the door and it was her sailor crush! Her parents had arranged with his parents for the two of them to get married. Apparently her grandparents were really progressive because her mom and her dad are not only from different states but different castes.

It was a cool story to hear, and we’re going to meet her parents this weekend, so I’m excited to hear more about it. Hearing everyone’s marriage story is really fascinating to me, because it’s either a story about arranged marriage, or some epic love marriage tale.

Gooaaaa

This weekend we went to Goa, which is on the southwest coast. Goa was settled by the Portugese back in the 1400 and 1500’s. Goa is so different than Delhi, Mumbai and where we’ve been in Hubli. The architecture is very colonial European, and kind of looks like Cape Town did. There were foreigners EVERYWHERE. It was weird to not be the only white people around. We stayed at a beautiful hotel, complete with soft beds, beautiful WORKING showers and toilets and a rooftop pool. We spent more time in the hotel than in Goa because we all needed a break from our guesthouse here in Goa. While where we live here in Hubli is nice, it’s nicer to have electricity and running water, not to mention american breakfast in bed.

Around Goa we explored the old town, which was filled with old churches from the Portugese back in the day. We also lounged around by the pool and enjoyed the beautiful Goa sun. For as long as we’ve been in hot, sunny India, we are pale. Later we went to this crazy discotec in town, where there was a bunch of foreigners, strobe lights and techno music. We all had a good time showing off our bollywood moves. The next day we went to the beach and spent the whole day there shopping and eating fish curry rice (goan cuisine.) We lounged around the hotel some more and just enjoyed each other’s company.

Halloween was definitely lack luster. Our hotel had a night club in the basement that was having a Halloween party, but when we looked in, it was all Indian teenagers. Woof.

Today was our first day of the global corps training. So, the first part of our program (which was having internships at a non profit and then evaluating their programs) is over for all the other groups but ours is still going. Our project is to create pictoral flipbooks about general health and nutrition for women in a certain village outside of Hubli. Our funds are also paying for 10 demonstration gardens in the community that will teach people how to grow their own vegetables. Many of the farmers that work with BAIF are cash crop farmers, and must buy their own fruits and vegetables, which are more expensive at the market. This is one of the reasons why they don’t get enough vitamins and minerals. Our funds are also going to buy model fruits and vegetables (they’re basically plastic toys) that the community health guides will take around as visual aids to the women they teach in the villages.

There’s been trouble getting our flipcharts printed because we’ve had to get them translated into Kannada and that has taken a lot longer than we originally anticipated. Then, we need to take the digital form of the flip chart to the printer and get it printer. I know we can do it, but with this second program starting up, it just seems like a lot to try and juggle.

We’re all pretty much adjusted to life in India: the traffic, the nose, all the staring, the spitting and urinating in the streets, the heat, the smog, and the line cutting.. I’ve really turned a corner with Indian food too. I didn’t dislike it, and I thought it sounded good, but now I know what everything is on the menu and I crave it. Even when we were in Goa I didn’t want a break from Indian food and kept eating it. I’ve got my salwar kameez on and my head wobble is getting pretty good. Next step: Indian boyfriend? Eh...maybe there’s some experiences I can live without…

Roomies! Allegra, Rosie and I, eating out in Goa!

beautiful old goa

the church where st. francis' body is buried