"Not completely dead, just mostly dead!"

This will perhaps be my last entry from India itself. Here is the list of events/facts/occurences I have neglected to fill you in on.

1. Freda arrived safe and sound and having a trio to travel is great
2. We have visited ancient hindu temples from 500AD carved into rock caves in Badami, Karnataka.
3. We have traversed via foot and bicycle the ancient hindu temple town of Hampi, amidst the boulders of "The Flintstones".
4. We have suffered through a ridiculous series of events on an over night train ride to Hyderabad.
5. We have seen a 17m high Buddha statue on an island in a lake
6. We have visited the zoo and almost been peed on by a rhinocerous (sp?)
7. We have arrived in Delhi in time for Anna to relapse with three day fever and poop spree to be saved once again by her trusty Cipro. (Graham also got a tinge)
8. We depart tomorrow for Agra and the Taj Mahal, then two days in Jaipur before sending Freda on a plane home.
THEN. . . .


Graham and I come home the next day. It is true, your infamous world traveler is exhausted and terribly home sick (and out of money). We have decided a Nepal and Tibet trip is for a later date and that it is time to move forward with our American lives.

I plan on updating this latter portion with pictures and a rounder explanation when I get home. The internet connections have been difficult to find so it's gotten pretty spotty.

That's all for now!

Anna

Hello from Mysore, Karnataka

Graham and I are now in the state just north of Kerala, named Karnataka. The terrain has changed slightly to be less tropical, although the weather continues to be delightfully cool.
Leaving Rajakkad was a trick. The day before we were to leave Mohanan's mother died. He was ever the host and invited us to his home for the funeral cremation, but I insisted that he just be with his family. We learned that when someone dies they anoint the body with oils and spices and then create a funeral pyre, in which it is tradition for the son to light the mother's pyre. Mohanan is the youngest of seven children, but the only son so this was his job. He later explained to us that for the whole next year his family will not be celebrating any festivals, but will instead wear black on those days. For the 16 days following her death, they will not smoke, drink or eat any fish or meat. On the eighth day they build a thatched enclosure in their yard and the whole extended family, plus the local holy person, gathers for a ritual and service of some sort and then they eat together. It was neat to learn about, but we are sad for Mohanan's loss.

Back to Karnataka, we are in a town three hours southwest of Bangalore, called Mysore. It's a fabulous, small, spread out city that has a young feel to it and is full of universities. More exciting, though, is the large temple on the top of a hill over-looking the town, which we climbed up to yesterday. We were even allowed all the way into the temple, which was interesting. I confess, though, that I could not tell you why I saw any of what I saw-I'll have to look into it. We also visited the 3 square block fruit and vegetable market and were delightfully overwhelmed by all of the colors. It was a fabulous market experience and made us both want to cook. I have many great pictures which I will consider posting when I'm back in the States, but I have no way of doing that now since I relinquished my computer to HPWDS before leaving (they were excited to say the least). Today we are intending to see the main Maharaja Palace in the center of town. If you can picture the Sultan's Palace in Disney's Alladin then you have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Totally fairytale-esque and entirely exciting!

That's all for now. Tonight we travel back to Bangalore to pick up my sister Freda at Midnight. Then we plan to continue journeying north. Our next stop will be Hampi, which has been described to us as "the Flinstones meet India". It's a town/archeological site of ancient temple ruins set amidst a boulder-strewn landscape. We are looking forward to exploring it.

Send me some email, I would love to hear from you all. Summer is wrapping up, the bridge fell, etc. Update us!
love,
Anna

My Birthday!

I spent my 26th birthday training the HPWDS in data capture procedures, IRB protocol and ILS facilitation. I loved it. Leigh and planned for three days of work after Alleppey. In true India fashion, this did not happen. On Monday before we left the house we got a call from Mohanan and his mother is in a coma in the hospital about to die and Jincy (other main staff person) had her grandmother's cousin die. So, it was a no go. Mohanan managed to come the next two days, but he is stressed out, needless to say. His mother is 76 years old and the brain damage from a stroke has been to intense for her to survive, so his family is waiting. Our thoughts have been with him. Additionally, our neighbor Komala is in the hospital due to Diabetes complications and so Graham has not met her, we've had to cook for ourselves and Leigh and to leave without saying goodbye. We left and all hell broke loose. Despite this poor news, things have gone smoothly and I am finished with work directly related to HPWDS. Yesterday Leigh and dropped off all of our documents and showed them everything and handed over the reins. Ahhhhhh, it felt great to hand over the responsibility.
Leigh left this morning on a bus headed north since she flied home Aug 15th. Graham and I will also start heading north to arrive in Bangalore to pick up Freda on the 15th. First, I must finish my schoolwork related to this internship. Then we plan on seeing Munnar and going to Mysore before Bangalore.
I will have some more photos the next time I blog, but then the rest of the trip I will only be able to talk for you because I have gifted my laptop to HPWDS and will be leaving it here with them. They could hardly believe it when we told them yesterday, it felt good to make them so happy. But, alas, I will not be able to load pictures. It just means you will have to come over and suffer India stories when we get back. TTFN!

The staff brought me a cake for my birthday and sang and clapped. It was festive.

Backwaters Bliss

This is a houseboat, the traditional way to see the backwaters. You can rent them for days at a time and have someone cook for you etc. There are over 200 houseboats to choose from. They are beautiful, but expensive, and they are large enough that you cannot navigate some of the smaller more peaceful channels with them. We opted to take canoes instead.

We walked to the public jetty to get a boat across and go into town for snacks. This is Leigh, Katrina and I on the edge of the waters. To get there you walk along the rock retaining wall the whole way, past many people's homes. It's a lovely walk and you get to see true bits of India-little huts that have Cartoon Network on TV in them. :)
These are the canoes we took out on the waters. We managed to navigate into a small canal that was so wonderful and beautiful. It was peaceful and was like walking down a small neighborhood street because it was lined with homes and people out doing laundry or feeding their goats and cows. I don't have pictures because taking my digital camera in a tippy boat didn't seem prudent. Lo and Behold I couldn't have been more correct. The bottoms of the canoes are completely curved, there is no flat part. One minute Graham and Leigh were paddling along just fine and the next Katrina and I here SPLASH! and their boat had ejected them into the water - just a quick tip and dump and then righted itself. The natives on the shore laughed and laughed, but then three rescue boats and about six men came out and managed to empty their canoe of water and picked them up and placed them back in their boat again. It was hilarious!
The sunset over the backwaters. I think it speaks for itself.

Bamboo Stix Resort

After meeting Graham in Kochin, we traveled an hour and a half by train south to Allaphuza (Alleppey), which is the main starting point for the famed backwaters tours of Kerala. There is an extensive system of back waters which host many villages and homesteads and which are delightfully serene and scenic. This is the 'resort' we stayed at. It was still under construction, but we found it through a connection of a friend and we were hosted there for FREE. It was fabulous.
We're such an old married couple!

Actually, we're so pleased to be together again, 8 weeks was too long for us.
Graham and Manu. Manu is the Indian man who is building the resort. He spent three years in Singapore and eight in Australia before some investors there convinced him to go back home and begin developping (commercial). He was a gracious host and one of the most laid back people I've met. Graham enjoyed an early morning chat with him.
One evening we wanted to watch a movie, so we arranged a "showing" of Pan's Labyrinth, India-style. We're under an open enclosure, with back waters surrounding us and palm trees. A Computer is sitting on top of the cooler and everyone at the resort sat on two benches - like in a movie theater?

Graham Arrived!

Graham traveled brilliantly across the world to come be with me. The evening he arrived he wanted to go out on the town so we headed across the bay to Kochin Fort where the spice trade of India started in the 1500s with the arrival of one Vasco da Gama. It is a very touristy area, so we found a place offering traditional Kerala dancing in a condensed version which was meant to teach about the dance. I really enjoyed it. Poor Graham-man slept through a lot of it, but I got some neat pictures of the traditional costumes and movements. The green guy in the middle is for the dance called Kathakali, which means 'story play'. He is the epic character, usually godly in nature, such as Krishna, and plays a central role in these dances. Originally these dances would last all night long, but luckily this one was 1/2 hour.


Jet Lag hit this boy and when he laid down on this rough hewn wooden bench he exclaimed, "Ahhh, this feels so good, nice and comfy!" Yea right. :)

One LOUD town

Our neighbor Komala and her neice Ambily continue to take care of us. Komala just simply cooks for us now. She keeps asking us if we cook. In fact, she asked if we had servants that cook for us, trying to figure out why it is that we are so miserable at making food here. I don't think she understands that we honestly cannot even ID half of the vegetables at the market.
Anyhow, everday now she wants to come and modify my Sari and dress me up in it. I haven't been dressed by someone else since I was four, but Komala is taking great joy from it so I just stand there and take it.
This particular evening, I refused to get into a Sari, so she settled for putting a bindi on me. Bindis are worn by everyone here in a variety of locations and colors. They are considered a thing of beauty and I was complimented profusely by the neighbors once they had adorned me. They explained that the traditionally bindi between the eyes is symbolizing ones self. Then there is sometimes a horizontal line just above that which symbolizies God. If a woman or man also have a vertical line right at their hairline on the forehead this means that he/she is married. Lastly, a mark at the base of your neck in front means that you have children. So Leigh just had a single Bindi, but I was also marked at my forehead because I am married.
Since we keep getting put into the Indian mold. We suggested that Ambily try on some Western clothing. She looked great! She said it felt uncomfortable and we discussed that it would be impossible to wear in Rajakkad because of all the men and cat calls etc. THEN, Komala imitates a man walking with an umbrella, we think this is funny. Except that it turns out she is imitating Leigh and I and saying that we walk like men and it is funny. She also thinks it is amusing all of the attention that we attract in town.
We hit upon the subject of Feminism with Ambily because Leigh was reading some feminist theology. We have both decided we feel really bad for Ambily becasue she knows enough about the world outside of Rajakkad to know what she could be and what she is missing. But, she also knows what her life will be. She is 26, and as of yet unmarried because her family cannot afford a dowry. She is hoping to be able to marry in just two years, but they are not sure. Hopefully she will be able to marry, and then she will have a domestic life and bear 1-3 children and serve her husband. She will no longer work as a financial worker as she does now. She will not have much opportunity to ideas like "feminism". She has a lot of spunk and an independent mind and we can tell she is fairly unhappy where she is, but there are not a lot of options outside of what she has.

Then, this morning we start working when suddenly there is ear-splitting music and a sound system. Turns out there is a protest not only coming up our street, but stopping at the entrance to our building! There are three policemen at the bottom of our stairs and there is no way we are going to get out of the building. For the next three hours Leigh and I resort to wearing ear plugs because the event is so loud. There is chanting and there is yelling into a microphone. Then there is a very long speech by some man, in which people sit down and become quite subdued. He goes on and on. We have no idea what he was saying. We went down our hall to the Spice Board office which shares our building and asked what it was about. They said it was the communist party protesting the treatment of tea plantation workers. Sort of ironic since that is the population that HPWDS serves and we know all about their difficulties and conditions. Whey the protest was in front of our building is still very unclear.

Success professionally! Hooray!

Me, goofing off in front of our Program model card storming board. We spent two full days explaining how to think of a program (inputs, intervention, outputs and impact) and then how the impacts are not known for sure and therefore must be evaluated. The kind of data you will get and use, and most importantly, HOW do you have an evaluation, construct a survey and specifically, what the heck is an ILS diary, why is it special, how does work, and why do we actually want one. Phew! It was a start with the basics sort of event, but it worked like a charm. We finally feel like we have the staff on board and that they understand what this is all about. We insisted that we have certain staff members and other stakeholders (like the president of the board) present for the training so that it will no longer be just Mohanan who knows about this and sits on things with no action. I'm hopeful that by educating the whole organization progress will actually be made.

This was our marathon day of editing. Leigh and I have completed a 50 page ILS diary which is tailored to the evaluation and programmatic needs of HPWDS. It has many pages with indicators and evaluative aspects and it has almost an equal number of pages which are learning elements meant to enhance HPWDS's programs and help the SelfHelp Group Members plan for their future. It's an exciting document and something we're proud of. It was a little nerve wracking to bring it to the customer and have them go through it with a critical eye. It took 6 hours, page by page, of discussion, explanation and critique. BUT, I am so happy to say that the changes are pretty minor and that they really liked and understood the diary. In fact, I don't think I can emphasize enough how happy this makes me. It feels great. We have three days next week left working in the office (leigh has to leave Aug. 9th, because she flies home the 15th) and we will be spending these days doing additional training with the staff on how to facilitate the diary with the women out in the field, how to capture the data from the diary on an evaluation basis and use the data for their organization and to do it in a participatory and ethical manner. Then we have to go through some of the computer instruction so that the files we leave with them will make sense. Phew! It's just going so well. All of our critical thinking, and gnashing of teeth at the beach, when we didn't know how to explain ourselves or what we were doing paid off. It is admittedly not the ideal way to construct a diary, but it is better than not having one at all. Ideally we would have 6 months to work with the staff, see the field, develop survey items and consult on issues, and use an artist to get the pictures tailored to the region, BUT that just wasn't the situation.

On our day of diary editing, Mohanan had TV station guy come and do some filming. So potentially Leigh and I will be airing on Malayalam TV news. It was weird to have him there, but I hope that it will be beneficial for HPWDS. They are the only ones in this area directly addressing the needs of the tea plantation workers and are doing so in a really participatory and new fashion. So maybe the press is a good thing.

Out of the Sand and into the Mold!

Leigh and I have left the beaches and are currently back in Rajakkad working furiously with HPWDS to finish our work.
We stopped in Ernakulam/Kochi on our way back “home”, and spend an unanticipated extra day there. The computer power available is shockingly poor and so the simple task of “just printing the diary” and going to Rajakkad, became a 6 hour ordeal that did not end all that happily. The computers here could not handle the file size of the powerpoint with the whole ILS diary on it. The printer rejected the idea of graphics and made weird whining noises and the staff made get out noises. They informed us our printing project was tying up their single main computer and would be please just accept that it could not be printed. Except, this IS THE PROJECT! The diary is what we came here to do, it’s what we finished on the beach, it’s our baby, and without it printed, well . . . let’s just not think that way. Long story short; we used Leigh’s computer to convert files, my computer to save things separately, and their computer to open earlier drafted diary pages and print them in a readable, but incorrect format. Oofta. I’ll admit, I was not a pretty sight in the hotel that night, it kind of undid me. Everything seemed backwards, nothing was efficient, nothing was built with the future in mind and, most importantly, I felt like I did not have control over anything! The stress of India had built up, and I was a sticky puddle on the floor.
I have recovered some measure of sanity (whatever was there previously, we shall not debate this subject). Since arriving back in Rajakkad I have been kept busy battling a full mold invasion and acting as professional trainer to HPWDS staff.
When we opened the door to our concrete apartment the mold practically took human form and waved. I’ve never seen anything like it. Most surfaces were covered with a white fuzz, certain items had changed color entirely; a massive inspection was launched. The whole evening we spent quarantining items, treating those that were treatable, and giving a good mopping to those with more common cases.
The following day was, I think, the first truly “successful” day at the office. It was a thrill to train and present information you’ve tailored for someone and find out that they thought it was relevant and that you communicated it clearly. In fact over lunch, one of the employees actually told me, “You have very good English, your pronunciation is very clear, very understandable”. It took me a minute to understand what he was getting at, I thought it odd that a Malayalum speaker should compliment me on my native language skills, but then I understood. It was such a successful day, hooray!
Now, Leigh and I are in uber crunch mode trying to prioritize the minimum amount of training for proper implementation of ILS into an organization’s programs. We have spent an hour discussing it and planning the rest of our days (until Aug. 8th), and have worked ourselves into a perfect frenzy. I can’t say if it will all work or not, but we’ll simply have to do what we can. In some ways I think it’s funny that we continue, despite all previous experience up until this point, to furiously plan, plan, plan. We have a schedule. We have set expectations about how the next few days will happen. There’s a voice in my quietly saying, “Ehem, aren’t you in India?” But, hey, American future orientation, planning and my own control freakishness are hard to shake. What can I say?

In the evenings we have spent dinner with our neighbor Komala. Do you remember her? The older, somewhat bossy, but ultimately motherly woman that lives across the hall with her niece? Well, she came over and I showed her the fancy sari that I bought for the first formal I have at home. I need her to make the proper undergarments for me—turns out she is a tailor. She wrapped me up properly in the sari and I’m nearly certain I have little hope of repeating any similar action in the United States. The amount of fabric involved in a single sari is incredible! It’s at about a yard wide and probably a dozen yards long. How women learn to tie one by themselves without the aid of an entourage is well beyond me. Komala has also been cooking with us in the evening, so we learn to cook Indian food and get a good meal. We bring the ingredients and she supplies the kitchen tools and know-how. It’s a good arrangement, although a bit more time-consuming than Leigh and I and our American ways would prefer given the amount of work we still have left. It’s an example of the domestic economy that is never accounted for, period, but especially in developing countries. It take soooo long to have safe water, grow food, find food, cook food, wash clothing, wring clothing, dry clothing in the rain, fight the mold, bathe with any sort of frequency, clean the bathroom, kill the roaches/millipedes/meal worms/ants etc. the list could be endless. All the simple daily tasks that we do without thinking, take an enormous amount of time and effort. It sounds trite, but I will be so appreciative of all the “modern conveniences” we take for granted on a daily basis.

Lastly, while we were trying to work on Sunday (our day off), our door bell kept ringing crazily. The kids of the neighborhood were coming in groups to our door so they could meet us and giggle. It was adorable, if not distracting. Some of the kids were so shy they could just peek at us from under the stairs. It’s so funny being such an attraction, the giggling we inspire is really quite spectacular.