In case you were wondering...yes, monkeys do ride bikes in India.
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Agra/Taj Mahal
Saw the Taj Mahal on Sunday. No big deal. It's more amazing and beautiful than you could ever imagine. Pictures do not do it justice. I'm not much of a tour bus/guide person, but I'm actually really happy we decided to go that route for our day trip to Agra (the city where the Taj Mahal is). It was really nice just to be driven from site to site and avoid the hassle of navigating around on our own. I guess you could say that's part of the experience, but "easy" or " hassle-free" are not words I generally use that often here so it was nice to have a day when I could actually say them. However, I couldn't understand half the things our tour guide was saying (although apparently he was speaking English). Luckily, there was a nice Indian couple who retranslated what our guide was saying from "English" to English so we actually knew what was going on.
Indian rest stops vs. American rest stops...American rest stops have McDonald's. Indian rest stops have McDonald's and elephants!
A couple friends I made at Akbar's Tomb.
Nap time
We missed the orange memo...
THE TAJ MAHAL!!!
Yes I did.
Snake charmer outside the restaurant we had lunch at.
Inside Agra Fort
Not really sure what we were looking at down there...(Agra Fort)
One of many. Not sure what causes this to happen.
Gandhi Memorial Museum
A couple weeks ago Lauren and I went to the Gandhi Memorial Museum. They have a photo exhibit of his life from birth to death which is pretty interesting but also very confusing since I'm not a Gandhi expert and the photo captions don't provide much context.
Some of the captions were pretty entertaining...
"Mahatma Gandhi in pleasant mood."
They also have the bloody clothes he was wearing when he was killed, one of the bullets that killed him and a ton of his old possessions (an old razor, a pumice stone, sandals, bowls he ate out of "til the end", etc.). After we came home from the museum we were very inspired to watch the movie "Gandhi". We've yet to finish it...
Week 2
Below is an update on week 2 in Delhi. Enjoy!
At the beginning of this week we met with our supervisor to finalize the plan for our internship. The majority of our work will be focused on working with the girls youth group. We plan to have three sections in the course we're teaching them, health, rights and how to conduct surveys. In the health section we plan to cover the different body systems and how they work, puberty and menstruation, how pregnancy happens, nutrition and hygiene. For the rights section we will teach them about their rights as human beings and young women as well as the various government schemes related to health. In the survey section we plan on teaching them how to conduct surveys and then assigning them to go out in their communities to do a short health assessment of a couple health facilities as well as households. In addition to the girls group we will also be continuing some of the community health worker training from last summer. Some of the topics they expressed that they wanted to learn more about were diseases that affect pregnant women, childhood illnesses and STDs. We have a lot of Google searches ahead of us...
We had our first meeting with the girls group on Wednesday and it went really well. The meeting was just an introduction meeting to meet each other and explain what we were going to do throughout the course and why they were chosen. We have 11 girls, ages 13 and 14. They are some of the brighter girls in the slum area and are all either in 8th or 9th standard (grade). They do know a very small amount of English but we have a translator to help us communicate and properly convey the material in Hindi. For this first session, we did an introduction activity where we grouped them in pairs and had them ask their partner three questions. Once they were finished they introduced their partner to the class and told us the questions they asked and the corresponding answers. It was funny to hear the questions/answers 13-14 year old girls come up with. After that we had them draw pictures of what they wanted to be when they "grew up". We told them they had 5 minutes to draw their pictures and they looked at us like we were crazy. We were crazy because we ended up giving them 30 minutes instead and some girls still hadn't finished. We have some future flight attendants, bank managers, doctors, fashion designers, teachers and painters in our classroom. The last thing we did was have them write down at least one question they had about health. I was both surprised and impressed by some of the questions they had. Most of the girls wrote down more than one. Below are a few of the questions:
1. Why is their pain during the menstrual cycle?
2. What is diabetes?
3. Sometimes my cycle is irregular; is that a matter of concern?
4. Why are boys considered 'good' and girls 'bad'?
5. What should we eat to stay healthy?
6. What is anemia and how can one become anemic?
It was really good to see some of the questions they had because now we know that what we were teaching them is something they're interested in and want to know more about. We will continue to have our sessions with them M-F from 2-3:30pm and in a couple weeks we will start our other training with the health workers in the mornings for a longer time frame.
Fortunately, it's not ALL work here in India and I have some time for sightseeing and fun things as well. On Saturday we went to a 4th of July Party hosted by the U.S. Embassy. It was fun to meet some other Americans and hear about what they're doing in India. I'm not sure where the beef came from but they had hamburgers, fries and apple pie and the party was held in a baseball field. I almost forgot where I was it was so AMERICAN.
Today (Sunday) we went to one of Delhi's most famous sites, the Red Fort. I won't bore you with the details of what it is and the history behind it. If you really want to know, Wikipedia will do a much better job than I can. We picked the perfect day to go since there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was able to directly beat down upon us. It was only 97 degrees today so it was that bad...Surprisingly, there were more Indian tourists than foreign tourists there, but maybe that's because everyone else knows never to come here in the summer. A lot of them asked me to take their picture with my camera, which was amusing. I may start charging people for my services.
At the beginning of this week we met with our supervisor to finalize the plan for our internship. The majority of our work will be focused on working with the girls youth group. We plan to have three sections in the course we're teaching them, health, rights and how to conduct surveys. In the health section we plan to cover the different body systems and how they work, puberty and menstruation, how pregnancy happens, nutrition and hygiene. For the rights section we will teach them about their rights as human beings and young women as well as the various government schemes related to health. In the survey section we plan on teaching them how to conduct surveys and then assigning them to go out in their communities to do a short health assessment of a couple health facilities as well as households. In addition to the girls group we will also be continuing some of the community health worker training from last summer. Some of the topics they expressed that they wanted to learn more about were diseases that affect pregnant women, childhood illnesses and STDs. We have a lot of Google searches ahead of us...
We had our first meeting with the girls group on Wednesday and it went really well. The meeting was just an introduction meeting to meet each other and explain what we were going to do throughout the course and why they were chosen. We have 11 girls, ages 13 and 14. They are some of the brighter girls in the slum area and are all either in 8th or 9th standard (grade). They do know a very small amount of English but we have a translator to help us communicate and properly convey the material in Hindi. For this first session, we did an introduction activity where we grouped them in pairs and had them ask their partner three questions. Once they were finished they introduced their partner to the class and told us the questions they asked and the corresponding answers. It was funny to hear the questions/answers 13-14 year old girls come up with. After that we had them draw pictures of what they wanted to be when they "grew up". We told them they had 5 minutes to draw their pictures and they looked at us like we were crazy. We were crazy because we ended up giving them 30 minutes instead and some girls still hadn't finished. We have some future flight attendants, bank managers, doctors, fashion designers, teachers and painters in our classroom. The last thing we did was have them write down at least one question they had about health. I was both surprised and impressed by some of the questions they had. Most of the girls wrote down more than one. Below are a few of the questions:
1. Why is their pain during the menstrual cycle?
2. What is diabetes?
3. Sometimes my cycle is irregular; is that a matter of concern?
4. Why are boys considered 'good' and girls 'bad'?
5. What should we eat to stay healthy?
6. What is anemia and how can one become anemic?
It was really good to see some of the questions they had because now we know that what we were teaching them is something they're interested in and want to know more about. We will continue to have our sessions with them M-F from 2-3:30pm and in a couple weeks we will start our other training with the health workers in the mornings for a longer time frame.
Fortunately, it's not ALL work here in India and I have some time for sightseeing and fun things as well. On Saturday we went to a 4th of July Party hosted by the U.S. Embassy. It was fun to meet some other Americans and hear about what they're doing in India. I'm not sure where the beef came from but they had hamburgers, fries and apple pie and the party was held in a baseball field. I almost forgot where I was it was so AMERICAN.
Today (Sunday) we went to one of Delhi's most famous sites, the Red Fort. I won't bore you with the details of what it is and the history behind it. If you really want to know, Wikipedia will do a much better job than I can. We picked the perfect day to go since there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was able to directly beat down upon us. It was only 97 degrees today so it was that bad...Surprisingly, there were more Indian tourists than foreign tourists there, but maybe that's because everyone else knows never to come here in the summer. A lot of them asked me to take their picture with my camera, which was amusing. I may start charging people for my services.
Cows/trash. Enough said.
My ride to work/everywhere else everyday
The girls Lena teaches/Lauren and I helped teach the first week drawing the human body
Lauren, Lena and I at the 4th of July Party
Red Fort
Shade time at the Red Fort. Really smart idea.
Random couple at the Red Fort who asked me to take their photo...
Week 1
Hi Everyone,
It's been a week since I've been in India now so I figured I'd fill you in on what I've been up to so far...
Lodging
The guest house we're staying in is actually really nice. It's located in a nicer suburb in southern Delhi and we are within walking distance from a bunch of restaurants, coffee shops, markets, etc. The guest house is basically a three bedroom, three bathroom apartment and no one else is staying here right now so we have the whole place to ourselves. We have a toilet, a shower, AC, cable TV, wireless internet, a washing machine and filtered water (here, these are luxuries, especially compared to where we are working all day).
Weather
I would pretty much describe the weather as as close to unbearable as you can get. Basically the minute you step outside you instantly start sweating. Despite the heat, I've actually started wearing a tank top under my shirt to soak up all the sweat. We're literally drenched in sweat every day we come home. It's really attractive. I've actually given up on wearing sunscreen because I sweat it all off within about 10 minutes and I'm never dry to be able to reapply it.
Slums
Everyday we take an auto rickshaw (a three wheel car that's made for three people to sit in the back, but usually they're carrying 10) into the area of slums we are working in. It's about a 15-20 minute ride, sometimes 45 when the driver pretends he knows where you want to go and then you soon realize he doesn't. The areas we're working in are some of the worse conditions I have ever seen in all my travels to developing countries, and the sad part is these are some of the better off slums in Delhi. On our rickshaw rides we've seen many other slums where people are literally just living under tents they've made with sticks and blankets, these people at least have buildings to live in.
The sanitation conditions in the area we're working are extremely poor. Keens were probably the best purchase I've ever made. They have dirt roads and there is garbage EVERYWHERE, all over the road, in the open sewer that runs down the road and in front of all the homes, there are even mini trash mountains that wild pigs hang out in. Besides the trash, there is also a lot of feces all over the road, mostly because there are a bunch of cows that just wander around. I have never seen so many flies in my life. I know many of you on this email have been to developing countries and have experienced the annoying amount of flies in some places, but I guarantee you, you haven't seen anything like this. There are certain areas where I literally don't open my mouth. Some of the main health issues that people are facing in these areas are diarrhea and malaria which aren't surprising considering the intense heat and the appalling water sanitation conditions. My water bottle is probably one of the most important things I brought with me and I've learned very quickly how to conserve the water in it.
What am I doing here?
We're still working on a final plan/schedule but basically we'll be conducting some health assessment surveys, organizing a female youth group and teaching them about the government schemes in place as well as some basic health information, and training community health workers.
Gender Resource Center (GRC)
Most of our time this week has been spent working with the area GRC. GRC's have been established by the government as a place for the below poverty population to receive information on and access to health care, education, vocational training, etc. The GRC we work at in Jasola Village has primary education classes for children who have either had to drop out of school or are unable to attend for some other reason, tailoring and cutting as well as beautician courses for women to learn skills and be able to boost their families income, and informational meetings on certain health issues affecting the population. There are also "health camps" or "clinic days" where doctors from certain specialties (ob-gyn, nutritionists, etc.) come either once a month or bi-monthly to offer treatment and care to anyone who may need it. On Thursday they held a gyno clinic where they turned the table we eat lunch at into an examination table and put up a small partition to create some "privacy". The doctor was there for about 2 hours and saw around 45 patients.
It's been a week since I've been in India now so I figured I'd fill you in on what I've been up to so far...
Lodging
The guest house we're staying in is actually really nice. It's located in a nicer suburb in southern Delhi and we are within walking distance from a bunch of restaurants, coffee shops, markets, etc. The guest house is basically a three bedroom, three bathroom apartment and no one else is staying here right now so we have the whole place to ourselves. We have a toilet, a shower, AC, cable TV, wireless internet, a washing machine and filtered water (here, these are luxuries, especially compared to where we are working all day).
Weather
I would pretty much describe the weather as as close to unbearable as you can get. Basically the minute you step outside you instantly start sweating. Despite the heat, I've actually started wearing a tank top under my shirt to soak up all the sweat. We're literally drenched in sweat every day we come home. It's really attractive. I've actually given up on wearing sunscreen because I sweat it all off within about 10 minutes and I'm never dry to be able to reapply it.
Slums
Everyday we take an auto rickshaw (a three wheel car that's made for three people to sit in the back, but usually they're carrying 10) into the area of slums we are working in. It's about a 15-20 minute ride, sometimes 45 when the driver pretends he knows where you want to go and then you soon realize he doesn't. The areas we're working in are some of the worse conditions I have ever seen in all my travels to developing countries, and the sad part is these are some of the better off slums in Delhi. On our rickshaw rides we've seen many other slums where people are literally just living under tents they've made with sticks and blankets, these people at least have buildings to live in.
The sanitation conditions in the area we're working are extremely poor. Keens were probably the best purchase I've ever made. They have dirt roads and there is garbage EVERYWHERE, all over the road, in the open sewer that runs down the road and in front of all the homes, there are even mini trash mountains that wild pigs hang out in. Besides the trash, there is also a lot of feces all over the road, mostly because there are a bunch of cows that just wander around. I have never seen so many flies in my life. I know many of you on this email have been to developing countries and have experienced the annoying amount of flies in some places, but I guarantee you, you haven't seen anything like this. There are certain areas where I literally don't open my mouth. Some of the main health issues that people are facing in these areas are diarrhea and malaria which aren't surprising considering the intense heat and the appalling water sanitation conditions. My water bottle is probably one of the most important things I brought with me and I've learned very quickly how to conserve the water in it.
What am I doing here?
We're still working on a final plan/schedule but basically we'll be conducting some health assessment surveys, organizing a female youth group and teaching them about the government schemes in place as well as some basic health information, and training community health workers.
Gender Resource Center (GRC)
Most of our time this week has been spent working with the area GRC. GRC's have been established by the government as a place for the below poverty population to receive information on and access to health care, education, vocational training, etc. The GRC we work at in Jasola Village has primary education classes for children who have either had to drop out of school or are unable to attend for some other reason, tailoring and cutting as well as beautician courses for women to learn skills and be able to boost their families income, and informational meetings on certain health issues affecting the population. There are also "health camps" or "clinic days" where doctors from certain specialties (ob-gyn, nutritionists, etc.) come either once a month or bi-monthly to offer treatment and care to anyone who may need it. On Thursday they held a gyno clinic where they turned the table we eat lunch at into an examination table and put up a small partition to create some "privacy". The doctor was there for about 2 hours and saw around 45 patients.
Women's Self Help Group learning about ways to prevent and treat diarrhea
Traditional bridal wear
The most adorable children in the world
Lena, Lauren and I at the community Health Camp
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