4 months {(In)dia}

JULY 3RD

2010-12-18T02:17:00.001-08:00

Big news. BIIIG news.

Okay, so I've been threatened by my sisters have promised to write the story.

I'm going to jump to the punch line and work backward.

I am ENGAGED to a boy named Joseph William Wade!!!

Please watch!

2010-08-10T04:10:00.000-07:00

This is a project our team helped write a grant for. WE NEED HELP!

1. Please donate $1
2. Please spread the word!

Shoes!

2010-08-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

I love these shoes! Amber started by being the queen of buying, buying 8 pair. I bought 4 and justified it in my head saying I'll probably give at least 1 pair away. Then I went and replaced all my sandals later for $3 each so definitely ended up buying more than 8 pairs of shoes by the end of the trip...I'm queen of rationalization so, I left two broken pairs of sandals and my three year old gymshoes behind to justify the purchases.

The Golden Temple-Amritsar

2010-08-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

Dharamshala = love

2010-08-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

The photo taking phenomenon

2010-08-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

Frequently while traveling I look up and see situations like these. A group of 1-3 guys taking pictures of me or who I'm with on their phones. Although a little weird, it makes me a lot more justified to take pictures of them ("them" = people I see in India, I pretty much never want to take pictures of people that take pictures of me).

Ghandi's home and the place where he was killed in Delhi

2010-08-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Mata Temple- Amritsar

2010-08-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

this is a temple of fertility. It's located in the middle of Amritsar and is set up like a maze. You walk past a lot of fallic looking sculptures and then a room of mirrors, past a few hundred statues, and then through a womb looking stream and into the main hall.

Amber, Natalie, and I have a competition to first with triplets (if you get it then you get to have all of the three matching blankets we bought). I felt like I connected the most with the temple. Come on triplets!

Night Market

2010-08-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

DC reunions

2010-08-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

We met up with 11 DC-ers in Delhi as we all overlapped one night before Amber, Natalie, and I headed north. It was fun to catch up for a few hours even if it was 2am.

Wagha Border

2010-08-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

This was in Amritsar. We have VIP treatment. it was awesome. I'll definitely get some better pictures up later once I get some of natalies photos.

The Bahai Lotus Temple and Agra Fort

2010-08-04T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'll write about this shortly

Taj Mahal

2010-08-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

I went on a tour to the Taj Mahal by myself. Besides it being a 20 hour tour in the end, I had a good time and made some new friends.

We went to Agra fort first where it was raining profusely. Things then dried up a bit, we went to lunch and a tacky touristy shop, then to the Taj Mahal. The cost of one foreigners ticket vs 1 local ticket was out of control. A local ticket is 20 rupees (50 cents) a foreigners price is 750 rupees ($20). Not cool.

The sites were worth it.

One of my new friends told me there was a huge Yanni concert there a few years ago. Here is a clip:

After the Taj Mahal or the tribute to love, we went on to the Lord Krishna's birthplace. Which was really interesting. We were stuck at a train crossing for 3 hours so that made it less exciting for me and since we were so late, we only had 15 minutes before the temple closed. We therefore RAN from one place to the next following our tourguide. Hinduism is a religion that I don't understand as much but the temple was really beautiful, pretty clean, and festive.

Lord Krishna was born and then on his birth night his father carried him in a dream to a land that is about 50 km away to be raised there. He is blue and created a mountain with his little finger.

Salwar Suits

2010-08-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

Just another shot of us looking awesome. I'll throw in some pictures from my latest jaunt next.

My blog lag

2010-07-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

I've been horrible at blogging lately. But, I'm going to wash my hands of the past week with a link to Ambers blog. She explains things really well, I mean, she got her masters at harvard afterall. So, go here to get some more fun in India stories. I'll do better and update soon.

http://yikesanj.blogspot.com/

Rockin the Stache

2010-07-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago in an auto home, marie, mandy, and natalie were discussing the mustache phenomenon here. Natalie threw out that an estimated 80% of guys have a 'stache. Mandy refuted her claim and was adamant about only about 20%. So, they did a random sampling and for the rest of the ride home had one count mustaches and one count shaved to get a percentage.

Turns out that 72% of men over 18 have mustaches.

I love it.

The man on the side of the road who always has business trimming peoples mustaches without any overhead of a shop rent, will probably stay busy and continue to make pure profits in the time to come.

Incredible India

2010-07-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

That is the slogan of the country I'm in right now. Sometimes I feel a part of it, and other times I think I'm being rejected by it on all fronts. I am back to sleeping in my good old non AC and very little natural air circulation room. I started last night and am back in tonight. It was warm last night and I couldn't stop thinking about inception, and feeling sick, so I didn't sleep very well last night and tonight the power has been spotty which means, when ours goes out, the warm air in my room sits still and the generator next door kicks in. Every time it does I try to convince myself it is soothing, it's really just loud jagged noise, including a sporadic clamoring-pots and pans hitting together-sounds for added gusto. Anyway, that on top of the mosquito bites and potentially bed-bug bites, a mouse that we found inside yesterday, and me not feeling super awesome is going to make for a very un-restful sleep.

July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Kerala

2010-07-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

I had an amazing time in Kerala a week and a half ago. It's the only democratically elected communist state. I am pretty sure it's where the jungle book was set.

Locked out

2010-07-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

Our front door is locked by a big padlock we keep with a metal clasp. It’s rare that everyone is out of the house with random sicknesses and people working on projects from home but a few nights ago we did all leave together. We went down our crowded and always wet with something street and grabbed some dinner. I had another errand to run so when I came back to the apartment everyone else was standing outside the door in the dark. They told me that we are locked out. I didn’t get it until they explained that the lock by the doorknob shut. I went downstairs to our landlord and of course, they didn’t have a key. All of our doors and windows are barred and we do have a back door with a key hangng about 15 feet away on a string.
So, here is what happened.

Balloon Week

2010-07-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've slacked on the blog lately. I'm going to do better. Starting now. With this post.

I've deemed this week Balloon week. There are generally types of people that stop us at auto ricksha’s:

1. Beggars. That’s still tough.
2. Drag queens who curse you if you don’t give them money, I maybe yelled at one a few weeks ago but that is a different story.
3. People who sell things. They tend to sell either plastic airplanes, over-sized umbrellas, or balloons. I have a goal this week to buy every balloon that is offered to me this week.

Prajwala

2010-07-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

We are meeting with Sunitha Krishnan in a few minutes. I'm really excited!

June 30, 2010

2010-06-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

While getting ready for the day this morning, we heard this loud loud instrument playing outside somewhere. Having heard a similar instrument in a band last week from 1-4am for a wedding procession in full acoustics, I dismissed it as another wedding procession until Mandy told us to look out our front window. This teenage boy was standing there with his oboe-type instrument, blasting his music at our door with his ornamented cow companion. I'm assuming he is some holy man who goes door to door for money. I got a few photos and video of him so all you readers can get a taste of what we saw this morning as we gazed down from our window.

No big deal

2010-06-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

Alice

2010-06-27T05:18:00.001-07:00

Alice is a jolly woman who is a great cook. Taylor definitely hid the curry powder from her to try to deter the 2 heaping scoops that she frequently would add into everything she made, but generally she does a great job with the curry and rice we eat every night. Generally it all tastes the same, but it's really good.

In south India, they use a lot of curry leaves, cumin, cardamon, sesame, salt, garlic ginger paste, and cinnamon and cloves to make curry. All in one pot. It is very flavorful. that's for sure. I really like it. My favorite are curries with Dahl (lentils). There are also green mangoes that they put into some of the curries.

Alice was married off at age 17 to her uncle (then 54 years old) because he was a drinker and her mom wanted her to help motivate him to change. It worked! He did change and they had two kids and sadly he died of a heart attack about five years ago. Alice is probably now about 50 years old. She calls everyone "sister" and is full of smiles.

June 27, 2010

2010-06-27T05:13:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I went to Monda market with Alice, our friend who cooks dinner for us. As she was bargaining for potatoes I was standing by taking in the scene. The woman standing directly to my left had a big cloth grocery bag. She bought her cucumber and threw it into the bag. Then there was an immediate SQUACK! I looked into the bag over her shoulder and saw a little live chicken sitting on, in and around all of the veges. she closed up the bag, put her arms through the straps and went on her merry way. Crock pot? I am so close to becoming vegetarian.

This was at the same market. It's a shop of powdered chalks.

Some photo updates

2010-06-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

Look who showed up! Natalie came in safe and sound friday morning at 3am. I waited patiently for her until 5:15 am when she finally came out, baggless. Nonetheless, they delivered her bags and were very thorough with their customer service. She didn't know her address or my phone number (it was in her checked bag), so that tacked on at least an hour to the process but they were really great afterward. We really blend in here.

Marie and Kiira bought a bunch of cakes for us from our local bakery, they were pretty to behold and almost tasty. A little soggy but about a expected after having eaten many an asian cake in my day.

The Charminar in old city. I love that building.

Sagar Hussain. It can be really pretty although while driving by at dusk I recommend bringing a handkerchief to breathe through to avoid the smell. I did see windsurfers in there and we are pretty sure it would be the most intense windsurfing experience because of the risk of falling into the acid water and probably having your skin melt off. That being said, it can be romantic. The Buddha statue in the middle is the largest Buddha statue in the world carved from a single rock.

I love hyderabad! We watched the world cup heart breaker game (well part of it) from midnight to 3am at Jane's house and although it is tragic the US is out, I hope Ghana goes far.

We said goodbye to five members of our team who are going off for two weeks to a rural village in eastern india to do research for SKS microfinance. It's going to be an amazing experience for them. They may get published on their website as well! If it happens I'll definitely put up the link.

Chennai--In Marie's words

2010-06-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to Chennai. We decided to take the twelve dollar and twelve hr bus ride. It sounded like a great idea. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

We left for the bus Friday night with plenty of time to spare. It also happened to start raining pretty hard while we were waiting for our shuttle to take us to the station. By the time our shuttle came, the rain was coming down in sheets and the streets were little festering rivers. We ran to our shuttle, with vague hopes of staying dry before we sat for twelve hours. Needless to say it didn't work and we got soaked. The shuttle it’s self was a cozy little green rusty van meant for twelve people. There were in fact more than twenty, us being six in the trunk space. We also happened to be the only women. So there we were driving away in a sketchy van full of men.

We got to the station without trouble and boarded our super ghetto, non A/C bus. The windows leaked and we continued the entire night to get soaked. We kept stopping for our fellow passengers to take smoke and pee breaks. I mean all the time. We’d been on the bus for two hours and hadn’t even left Hyderabad. Kristen asked about the stop and the bus driver told her that we were all waiting for the gentlemen off the bus. They got back on right after she went back to her seat. I think they got the hint, but then promptly started smoking next to the no smoking sign! It was ridiculous and nauseating. I could deal with wet, the smoking and peeing but then the worst film I have ever seen was started at 11 pm. Who wants to watch a crappy film starting at 11?! Well someone did because the volume was uncomfortably loud, as in my earplugs only softened the deafening noise. I eventually fell asleep on and off for the remainder of our stormy night. A fight broke out in the middle of the night. Apparently our driver was going to leave a few men taking an extra long pee break.

The next morning I woke up around seven, very grateful we were getting off at eight. Eight o’clock rolled around and we were still in what looked like never ending rural territory. It was never ending because Chennai was still 175 km away. They started another equally awesome and audible movie at eight. Who does that? We had one bathroom break for women, yes they do specify, around ten (and a million for men before that). Thank goodness!

We finally arrived in a city that looked the same as Hyderabad regretting our decision to leave home. I got off the bus first and was mobbed by a bunch of cab drivers. It was a glorious welcome, I stood on the almost bottom step of the bus with a lot of arm reaching for me and lost it a bit. . . I was yelling something to the effect of don’t touch me or talk to me. The first part worked, but the second not so much. You are such an easy target being white and blonde here. After fifteen minutes of negotiating a price to our hotel and trying to be robbed by small children of everything I own we got in these delightfully untrustable men’s auto. They wanted to stop everywhere except our hotel. They tried to milk us for money left and right. After two separate gas stops our auto decided to “stop working”. Please we’re not stupid. The other driver wanted us six to climb in the other auto there was no way we were fitting. He generously offered a stop next to him. I informed him I would not sit anywhere in his auto if my life depended upon it. I hailed two different autos for us and we left after a huge argument and not paying them. He picked the wrong group of very self-empowered girls to mess with that morning. We’d had it with Indian men and they were icing on the cake. So we got our way and drove peaceably to our hotel. We checked into the VGP Golden Beach Resort. It was probably pretty cool at some point in time but was now pretty ghetto fabulous. The best way to describe it is a white trash small town version of an Indian attempt at Disney Land and old Las Vegas. Since it’s not tourist season anymore (Summer is over) we only saw one other guest.

We put our stuff down and went to the beach. It was the most intense beach I have ever gone to. The waves destroyed us. They knocked us over like bowling pins. The undertow was really strong. The security guard warned us either we had 30 minutes to stay or in 30 the tides would weaken. Neither piece of information was correct. I neglected to put sunscreen on my back and consequently turned about as red as I’ve been before. The lines of my make shift swimsuit are really crisp. We went to dinner at a lovely restaurant that was infested by mosquitoes. I have 30 bites on my feet alone. That’s actually why I’m awake at 3:30 am writing this. I couldn’t sleep because my back hurts, but mostly my feet are so itchy.

The next morning we had our continental breakfast especially prepared for us. We had the huge dining hall to ourselves. Breakfast was okay. I’m just grateful they had toast. Otherwise I would have skipped the meal all together. Starving is better than eating rice sometimes.

We spent the morning at the beach again. I learned from the day before and lather myself first in SPF 70 and then in SPF 30. About an hour in I did the same thing. I still managed to get my legs and arms pink. I don’t know how because when I went to shower off I had to scrape a layer of white crap (sunscreen) off of my skin. I didn’t get it all off the first time even.

We tried for an hour to go 25 km back to Chennai to catch a movie before we loaded the bus. First we went in the opposite direction to a cinema that was sold out. We were starving and decided to go in anyway. We had to buy our stupid little ticked to go in. You can’t do cash at food courts, you have to have a card with money on it first, then you pay only one cashier for the entire thing. It’s stupid and really bureaucratic, thus being a widespread established Indian tradition. We ate an interesting lunch and decided to leave. They wouldn’t refund us initially. It took a lot of pulling teeth to get our money back off of those stupid cards. After that whole ordeal we spent a long time trying to find the cinema, which was located on the main road, but our auto driver wouldn’t listen to us and asked seriously 25 people how to get there. The only option was Robin Hood. In desperation, we took it. We had to peace out early to get to our bus on time. Unfortunately, two of our group had left a little earlier to get airtime for her phone. So in our time crunch we had to find the only other white people in a huge mall. It only took ten ish minutes thankfully. It’s harder than you think, by the ay. We left and arrived at the bus with enough time to find a toilet and buy a roll for dinner. It was a true Sykes vacation food wise.

This bus was a lot more comforting upon arrival. It was slightly nicer, we weren’t the only women, and there was a child. It came and boarded on time. We were feeling really pretty good. We only made one unnecessary stop, which I nipped in the bud. I didn’t want to roll in four hours late again. No crappy movies were in sight, that all changed when ten pm came to. Whoever is in charge of the movie selection should die. He, and yes I can honestly say it was a man, picked a horror film. Why? That was all I could ask. Like the first set of films, I tried to avoid watching. After we fell asleep it started raining. I got sprayed through my closed window for a better portion of the night. It was the most painful bus ride ever. My back hated me. My feet were fine because they were too swollen to have any sort of feeling. We took the long way home and arrived at noon again. So each time our 12 hours turned into 16. We just can’t win.

-----------------------------=-=-=-=-=-----------------------------------------
Despite Marie's satire, it was a fun trip.

Our Projects

2010-06-18T04:36:00.001-07:00

I know it seems like all fun and games over here in Hyderabad, but I promise we've been working really hard.

Here is a rundown of the projects we are working on:

1. Prajwala Video Screenings at Local Universities

Problem: Sex trafficking is a huge problem throughout the world—and especially in Southeast Asia. A “culture of silence” surrounds this problem, making it difficult for people to become aware of its prevalence and ways to fight it.

Short-term Objectives: Students at local universities will become aware of the problem of sex trafficking and commit to do something to fight it.

Long-term Objectives: The “culture of silence” regarding sex trafficking will be broken. Everyone in India will know about this problem and how to fight it.

Project Summary: We plan to host screening events at the local universities in Hyderabad to show and discuss Prajwala's award-winning video Amika. This project will involve planning the event, coordinating screening times with the universities, advertising, and hosting on the actual event. We would also like to use surveys to get feedback from the universities.

Partner Organzation: Prajwala is based in Hyderabad and fights sex trafficking throughout Andra Pradesh. They work to prevent, rescue, and rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking. This is the first time HELP has partnered with them.

2. Prajwala Public Awareness Campaign Kits

Problem: Sex trafficking

Short-term Objectives: Prajwala will be able to use public awareness campaign kits to raise awareness about sex trafficking both locally and globally.

Long-term Objectives: The “culture of silence” regarding sex trafficking will be broken. Everyone in India and throughout the world will know about this problem and how to fight it.

Project Summary: We plan to create public awareness campaign kits that Prajwala can use to raise awareness about sex trafficking both locally and globally. Kits will include quality information sheets, posters, flyers, brochures, petitions, and powerpoint presentations that Prajwala can use to raise awareness. Many people ask them for ways they can get involved but they have no deliverable to send to them. Ideally people will be able to start a club or group.

3. Village Profiles

Problem: Many children are suffering from child labor. The MV foundation is the forerunner for combating child labor but they don't have very many profiles of the villages they impact. They need data from the key stake holders to document their impact as an organization.

Short term objectives: write village profile reports with full days of interviews with the government officials of the village, parents, children, children employeers, and teachers.

Long term objectives: increase awareness and have some important data for the MV foundation to use in their presentations and to further their studies.

Partnering organization: The MV foundation (see post below)

4. Bridge School English Classes

Problem: The kids are generally doing a great job in the MV foundation's bridge schools (18 month boarding school) but could always use some variety and improved english.

Short term objectives: Give the kids a chance to learn with actions and songs to improve their english and help them continue getting excited about learning.

Long term objective: Contribute to the MV foundations structure and schools, specifically in helping them get excited about english.

5. Hysterectomy Awareness Campaign

Problem: In some rural villages in India there are traveling doctors who pocket money for surgeries. For common stomach illnesses and aches they will recommend women get hysterectomies. In some areas it's estimated that 1/10 women have undergone this surgery. Thus causing health problems for the rest of their lives as well as inter-marital problems. Women currently trust these illegitimate doctors.

Short term objectives: We will host a training meeting for 6-7 other grass root NGOs in how to increase awareness about these doctors and then give them kits and commit them to spreading awareness to their villages they work in.

Long term objectives: When these other NGOs are on board, they will be able to reach about 5,000 other women and people. With the major push to be to get a second opinion before they undergo surgery.

Partnering Organization: CARPED. They have successfully brought the issue to light and have been able to mobilize 700 women in their jurisdiction who have undergone this surgery.

6. 1/4 acre homesteads

Problem: Villagers aren't getting balanced diets and are frequently not able to make ends meet and get enough nutritional food to their children. Many do not have much land to grow things on and don't know how to farm in small spaces.

Short term objectives: Put in a model 1/4 acre garden in the land for the future community center that CARPED has bought.

Long term objectives: Create a way for them to buy their own gardens, provide trainings and nutrition classes within the trainings.

Partnering organization: CARPED

7. Vermin Compost

Problem: there isn't much composting done in the villages. Waste is thrown at the roadside.

Short term objectives: train and teach villagers through a model community center compost pile.

Long term objectives: Sell the vermi compost for pretty good money

Partnering organization: CARPED

8. Beehives

Problem: The women with hysterectomies are too weak to do much hard labor for income generation

Short term objective: start with one beehive at the community center for training and offer a subsidized fee for women to buy and start their own beehive

Long term objective: Allow a lot of the women who have undergone these surgeries to work together and become a major provider of honey to Hyderabad

9. MFI's

Problem: poor people do not have access to short term capital to jump start small business ventures.

Short term solution: A few members of our team will do a variety of projects with different MFI's including analysis, research, and field studies.

Long term objectives: Help a few MFI's continue to improve their programs.

Partnering organizations: Trident, SKS

10. Grant writing

Problem: Some of these NGOs are not raising much money to support their programs

Partnering organizations: The rescue foundation and CARPED

11. Career Workshop

Problem: many people have a hard time selling themselves and finding work

Objectives: help people find jobs through a series of weekly classes and curriculum

Partnering organization: The LDS church

Possible?

2010-06-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Low sodium salt. Why didn't I think of this?

Downstairs Tailor

2010-06-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm having the woman downstairs make a dress for me. When I was asking about some options and trying to describe what I wanted, even with photos, she handed me a stack of pictures for "inspiration." She said I could choose from those designs and then she'll make it for me. I gingerly agreed and went on my merry way home to sit and look through the stack. There are some that are so amazing that I can not refrain from sharing them with the world.

Which should I order? It's such a hard decision. We may just have the whole team get matching ones for unity's sake. I also may just have these be my wardrobe for life. I'm pretty sure these are the most versatile outfits and would fit in at a disco, church, for laying out at the beach, for business meetings, and while playing sports.

Here is a glimpse into my life

2010-06-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

Our House

2010-06-13T10:32:00.001-07:00

the A/C room

Bathroom

Sign of our street

The MV Foundation

2010-06-13T10:04:00.001-07:00

MV foundation. Of the children who reach school in India, 58% complete primary education, the others drop out. Estimates of child laborers in India vary from 8.4 million (national sample survey ’04) to 12.67 million (census 2001) in the 2001 census in India the total population of children from 5-14 year old was 253 million. 87 of those children did not attend school. Although it has dropped from 50% in 1991, there is room for improvement in the child labor laws.

The MV foundation is at the forefront in the fight against child labor and has really impressive results. We have been meeting with them on and off and are going to start some internships with them this week doing advocacy work and helping them prepare for an august meeting where 16 different NGOs from around the world are being flown to Hyderabad to meet with the MV foundation and learn their best practices. In one district back in 1996 there were about 40,000 laborers. Now, there are 5-7,000.
MVF has found a really innovative way to fight child labor. They work structurally in a top down approach through advocacy to the government and making no excuses for child labor. They also work on the ground going door-to-door, village-to-village. They provide schooling for children and they have enough best practices research and backing to have a replicable model.

How it works: a village volunteer will go door to door and ask about the children and find out if they go to school or if they work. They then have multiple community meetings to get people sensitized to facts such as, in an average month, a working child will work 28 days, a working mother will work 21 days and a working father will work something like 4 days. Ironically, the father makes twice as much as the wife and four times as much as the child.

As they help parents realize how important it is to educate both their sons AND daughters to fight the cycle of poverty, mentalities change and they are able to send their kids to a free “bridge” school.

These schools are usually 18 months and are an intensive learning experience boarding school for these kids so that when they “graduate” they are able to go into their own age group’s classrooms.

Throughout the years, almost 50,000 children have been put through bridge course camps and over 400,000 working children have been mainstreamed directly into formal schools.
They are really impressive.

here is a picture Caroline took on the way

Mumbai and the rescue foundation

2010-06-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Last week Matt from the office was here visiting and Mandy came from the states. We left Taylor and Mandy behind and went to Mumbai and to the Rescue Foundation. They are really amazing. We spent two to three days with the organization. They The Rescue Foundation is an anti-sex trafficking organization located in Mumbai. They are a really impressive organization that rescues girls from brothels and repatriates them. The organization is really interested in us working with them but our ability to work with them might be limited by the distance (and 18 hour train ride). How we might contribute:
• Social Venture competition
• Fundraising and grants
• Carpentry
• Helping with a laundry business
• Documentary

The pictures with all those girls in it are 46 girls that were just rescued on May 10th. You would have no idea that a month ago they were being brainwashed, drugged, and forced into prostitution. It breaks my heart but also gives me a lot of hope knowing there are organizations like this around.

Some of the photos show their Bolsar home. A german man donated 50 acres of land and other european organizations have worked with the solar panel, a bio diesel plant, a cattle farm, and a big compost pile that they are going to work on.

If you want more information on the organization, go to their website or watch one of the many documentaries they are featured in:
1. The day my God died
2. Brothels to Brides
3. She created
...there are more but I forgot their titles right now.

Their executive director is this very inspiring and humble. She loves all the girls as if they were daughters and goes to each brothel bust and asks the girls to come with her. The rescue foundation rescues about 1000 girls a year.

We are going to a conference about sex trafficking tomorrow and are really excited about it.

We took a train with a TON of people on it. Luckily they had an all women's cart. They also left all the doors open so it was breezy.

While we were driving (EVERYTHING is two hours away), a little boy came up to our window and this is what he wanted to sell us.

Mumbai is a much more developed city than Hyderabad. It was really fun to see it. we also stayed with some other foreigners. The Lees were so hospitable with great food and she even made cookies, so I am forever sold on their family.

May 26, 2010

2010-05-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

We were able to go to the golconda fort and the seven tombs on Saturday. The fort was built in the late 1500's and finished around 1600 to protect the Sultanate from Moghul invaders. It has this really amazing architecture with these tricks where you can clap from the bottom "hidden" entrance and the clap can be heard hundreds of feet away in the Kings quarters.
Their guards had to one handedly pick up this 200 lb brick. I was really close.

There are queens quarters as well, one main queen and 365 concubines. We had a debate on if that was okay or not and conceded that I guess if you are hooked up everyday and only have to work one day a year, that you might be better off being one of the concubines than not.

there was a diamond trade within the fort with one of the biggest worlds diamonds, the Koohinor Diamond coming from this fort area. There is also a huge tunnel/ escape route

The girls (and guys) were really popular

We then went to the Qutb Shahi dynasty tombs, or the 7 tombs. They are the rulers from around 1518-1600. The first Sultan Sultan Quli Qutb Shah was killed by his second born son who murdered him while he was saying his prayers. He then went on to blind his older brother and assumed the throne. He was remembered as being "cruel." shocking. The next ruler, Subhan Quli Qutb Shah took the throne when he was 7 years old and died that same year.
The technically third ruler was the first sultans other son Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah Wali, who ran away when the younger son went ballistic and murdered their father and blinded their other brother. He came back and was a more kind person and cared about the people he served over.
The last ruler, Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, sounds like he was the most benevolent.

It was a lot of fun. We have also talked to a bunch of organizations. Here are some potential projects we are looking into doing some work on.

* Prajwala we are looking into doing some project (s) together with their organization. We aren't sure exactly what yet but are potentially looking at coming up with a packet for people abroad who want to get involved with the organization. If you search on TED, you'll also find a really powerful lecture by the founder.
* CARPED we are looking at a few projects with CARPED. They are in the planning stages of building a community science center in a rural area called Kowdipally to cater to the tribal people. There is a high drop out rate in students and the classroom is very boring, so they want to try to get funding and make it a great location for people to come, make learning fun, and maybe provide some skills trainings. We are looking at potentially writing a grant with Architecture for Humanity.
* We are also going tomorrow morning to a the village that CARPED works in to potentially narrow down a project that we want to put on tipping bucket through engineers without borders. Either a water purification system, a fuel brickettes out of organic wastes, or a solar powered lantern system in the village. We'll keep you posted.
* We are working on the garden here, are planning to put a community garden on CARPED's land, and are hoping to come up with a social business with urban gardens in people's homes.
* Student Social entrepreneurship club. We are looking into trying to start a social entrepreneurship network of students here in Hyderabad.
* Beggars: we are looking into getting some small snack and a paper with contact information for places they can go to get off the street when we are approached by beggars.
* We are going to work with AISEC, a student group that does a lot of different projects starting june 1.
* We are planning to meet with The Rescue foundation next week and the MV foundation on Thursday. They also work with rescued trafficked victims.

India is such an interesting place. I really like it more and more everyday. It’s so grungy and can be abrasive, but there is something magical about this place as well. It’s hard to explain.

May 21, 2010

2010-05-21T09:56:00.001-07:00

Today we took a bus to Kowdipally, about 1hr 45 min outside of Hyderabad to check out a village where one of our partnering NGOs works. The photos say much more than I can so here they are.

May 18, 2010

2010-05-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

This is a view from our balcony

The past few days have been good. Saturday was technically my graduation in the US of A I've been skeptical of them actually giving me a diploma but I checked online last night at it's official. I am a graduate. Instead of hearing Michelle Obama speak on the mall, we celebrated by going to a catholic wedding reception we were invited to. Once again, the plush velvet chairs and the bride and groom sitting on them while there were thousands of photos is a common theme. I could not get over how beautiful the bride looked. They really got clothing down here. I love the forehead jewelry with both the chains that go down the part of your hair and the bindi's. The different saris are so ornate, they are so pretty.

We made some friends there. One of these boys asked for my phone number.

We also got to go behind the scenes to see how they make some of the roti we ate.

Sunday we all slept a lot. I think I slept for 11 hours, which for those of you who know me, know that is unheard of. Between the jet lag, heat, and lack of sleep previous to those nights, we all needed it. During church on Sunday there was a freak rainstorm that lasted for 20 minutes, had strong winds, and flooded the streets with a couple feet of water in certain parts.

Sadly, it knocked out our power so from 6pm until 9am the next day we had no electricity. That means no fans. So, we closed our eyes and tossed and turned in rooms of between 95-99 degrees all night long. There was also a generator outside taunting us with this loud droning noise all night, giving our neighbors electricity and leaving us in our black hole of molten lava.

Yesterday we had a few other meetings that were really good. I think that by the end of the week we should have some good projects started. One of the organizations we are going to do a lot of work with is CARPED. They do some really great work.

We went and found a man to copy some of our keys. By hand.

Last night we played volleyball with a bunch of guys from the neighborhood and church and it was a ton of fun.

This morning we woke up at 5:30am and went to our neighborhood yoga in the park. We put our mats down next to about 30 other people and had a private coach critiquing every move, with some positive reinforcement but it was really fun. Lots of ants. They probably spent about half of the time doing meditation, which is a good way to start the day, but I'm not good at it. My mind is constantly wandering. I want to go back so hopefully I'll improve as time goes on. Oh and yes, there was about 30 seconds of trite laughter incorporated into our practice. I LOVED that part.

Today we are going to buy an AC unit!! We also are going to check out a homeless shelter around here and write a report for CARPED as well as try to meet with a sex trafficking NGO and register at the embassy. It should be a good day. We are leaving early to go help cook dinner and eat at Bharti's house.

May 15, 2010

2010-05-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

Our beds. A little height restrictive, but fairly comfortable.

The past few days have had some high highs. Mostly record high times and temps. We’ve got to wake up around 4-5am two days in a row as well as high temperatures of around 45 degrees Celsius again. That is 113 degrees people. 113. That’s not even acknowledging our friend, mr. humidity. I’m pretty sure the weatherman would agree that it feels like 150 degrees outside. Regrettably, outside weather comes inside. We moved into our place Thursday and got some of our furniture delivered. I found a room, brought in my air cooler (basically a glorified air humidifier), opened my window and fell asleep. I then began the most uncomfortable night sleep in the history of mankind. I was a sweating mess, tossing and turning all. Night. Long. At four a.m. I took this photo:

and couldn’t wait until 5am so we could wake up and take the train for a meeting. We left at 5am and got home at 6:30pm. We had a 2.5 hour train ride out to Kijara (?) it’s about 75km east of Hyderabad.

In kijara we met with this guy who was really nice but took 4 hours to eventually explain that he wants a lot of money from us to support his staff. It was a total waste of time except that he explained some nuances with working in India, mostly discouraging comments, but realistic as well. So, we were really anxious to leave by the time our looong meeting adjourned. We got out at 1pm after being fed again. I was really agitated and when our host sent out for ice cream after I told him we needed to be home in an hour 3 times. Then I kind of loved the ice cream. It was butterscotch and tasted like it had crushed up werthers originals inside. So naturally, I was full of conflicted emotions at that point. We left around 1:15 and didn’t get on our 2:40 train til 3:45. There was a monkey and it’s baby on the train tracks and lots of beggars, who kept breaking my heart each time I saw them. We finally boarded and paid extra for A/C again and the sleeper cart. It is completely worth the extra money for AC and I took a solid powernap during the travels.
Today we also woke up at 4am to pick up two of our volunteers. Kiira and Marie. They are really cool girls so it’s going to be a lot of fun for the next month setting the program up with them.

May 12, 2010

2010-05-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we did a bunch of boring moving type things and then went to a half sari ceremony! I believe it's a Hindu rite of passage for girls when they reach 11 years old. It's a big deal for them to own and wear their first sari. There is a more intricate full sari but I don't really know what that means yet. We were invited to go and the girl looked beautiful, the henna, the ornate jewelry, the blessings of all these plates of food, the tent on the roof, the food afterward, all were really beautiful and vibrant.

The girl sat on a crown like chair of red plush velvet as family members came up to her and sprinkled rose water and/or rice on her head. They also posed for pictures giving her plates of mango or a lot of other Hyderabadi foods.

The celebration was on a roof terrace overlooking a lot of other rooftops in the city with a makeshift tent and a very picturesque waterfall backdrop sheet. I kind of failed at the whole rose water sprinkle but they welcomed the picture taking which was really fun for me. I wish I had my nice camera for some of these, but here they are.

May 12, 2010

2010-05-11T22:30:00.002-07:00

Well, it was really poor form getting all starry eyed so early in the game. My little director friend keeps calling and showing up at meetings uninvited. I may have to DTR him soon and explain that I actually am not here to be the next bollywood star but in fact am here to do development work. We had one awesome meeting and two not so awesome meetings yesterday as well as got a apartment/house! The not so awesome meetings were funny. One was with this rural Franciscan school. They cater to slum kids and want help with English classes and their curriculum development. They brought us an Indian bouquet that had glitter all over the flowers, insisted on buying us coke (because we are American) and wouldn’t drink til we did, brought us Indian cookies and tried to mouth feed us, and kept trying to convince us that we needed to go out to eat. Part way through our forever long meeting, the guy turned to will to tell him how handsome he is. He then went to comment about his height and went on to exclaim, “you have a perfect BMI! You are like an Indian hero!” It was really, really amazing.

The other not-so-great meeting was with this dude who is friends with a guy from church who mistakenly thought we are out here on a crusade. He spoke with such zeal about being saved and how he wanted to use Jesus to cure all poverty and how he donates clothes to the poor and helps pastors in rural areas…for about 30 minutes. I sat squirming in my chair until I had to nicely tell him that we aren’t interested in partnering but if we have questions about India or can’t find some slums that we will definitely call.

The awesome meeting was with this organization that does development with engineering. They have technology for bio fuel—converting organic waste (you can insert whatever word you would like in there) into fuel, cutting costs to 1/3 for basic cooking fuel needs, a solar lantern program that can light a whole village, and a reverse osmosis water filtration technology that will clean up 500 liters of water a day. We are definitely working with them and are going to try to get on the tipping bucket to fund one of these projects in one of the outlying villages.

We also got our house. We didn’t get the most awesome deal but it’s in a great location and safe so we are happy with it. We move in tomorrow.

May 11, 2010

2010-05-11T22:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was very productive. We got up and Taylor went to get us a map around 10am. Will and I stayed back and made calls. He went through our list of potential partners and it was good. We then went to go check email and to eat lunch. Email took 20 years to get going because we had to once again sign our lives away with photocopy ids, phone numbers, and addresses. I'm not putting my real information but it's still annoying. We went to the paradise restaurant again and got the family chicken meal with had chicken piryani (a Hyderabad special) and butter chicken and a little bit of tandoori chicken. It was good but I think I’m going to go vegetarian this summer. There were a lot of bones with the chicken that I wasn’t a fan of. We sat and ate in an alleyway. Taylor sat on the ground and will and I all just munched on the yummy food. We looked over and there was a small fire in some sticks close by to where we were eating so the boys went and poured their half full water bottles on it to try and help the Indian guards who were running with trashcans of water. With the very equal contribution, the fire was put out and smoky the bear can sleep easy another night. We then went and met with CARPED with Subash. We talked to him for 2.5 hours. He is awesome. They are doing so many projects that would be fun to help them with. We could set up our volunteers with internships with them. They did a lot of work with hysterectomy awareness because there were tons of women who were getting them from sketchy doctors for reasons like abdominal pain or menstrual cramps. We talked about their other projects and they do really good work. He wants to open a science center. He is also doing a social venture competition, is willing to work with us on projects that we come up with, and is very connected with other ngos.

On our way back in our riksha while Will was mesmerized by a photo of a shirtless guy with guns and fire, we got a call from Isaiah who was waiting for us with his friend Christopher. We made them wait for a while but met with them at the church. Christopher works for 104 organization who does a bunch of health work. He works with Daniel arso who is a really big deal in development here. They work with schools in slums and do a ton of work with the "rag pickers." He wants us to do a lot of work with the people in the slums. He also had another movie director friend who came to the meeting and who may want me to be in one of his Telegu movies. I gave him my contact info. They had a few business ideas with about 1000 percent returns. So if anyone is looking for an investment opportunity, let me know. :)

It was record breakingly hot yesterday. As in, 44 degrees celcius. The hottest day in 25 years. I'm so glad I am here to experience it...

May 10, 2010

2010-05-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

We walked outside yesterday at 10am and were hit with a wave of heat. There were around 5 beggars that asked us for stuff. I’m going to buy a bag of nuts or something to give out. I don't know how to deal with that population. I don't want to perpetuate a slumdog millionare-esque business, but I also am here to work with these people and the begging population definitely counts as a very vulnerable population. Ideas are welcomed.

We ate at paradise a restaurant which was awesome food. It was seriously delicious; except they didn’t give us utensils and so we had to eat it by hand. I failed. We then came back and got ready for church and headed over. Right when I sat down the tiredness hit. I have never in my life struggled with staying awake during church as much as I did yesterday. It was funny. There are a lot of adorable kids at church and a lot of people with names I have a hard time remembering. There are a lot of church people around. 4 branches in the city to be exact and way more guys than girls. I guess first and last names are interchangeable so I'm not really sure who is related to who and I hear that wives will frequently keep their last name and maybe give their children a whole different last name that is different than both parents.

Here is a video of driving around in a Riksha, take note of how many people we almost hit.

After church we went to dinner and it was really good. I finally have an excuse to eat on the floor and with my hands.

I've arrived.

2010-05-08T01:41:00.000-07:00

So, yes. I am here. I'm pretty excited to be here! There is something magical about going to a new place. I just love it.

So, after 24 hours of travel I landed at 4:55am in Hyderabad and made it safely to meet taylor at the Secunderabad YMCA hostel. Honestly, some things are as expected, lots of honking, riksha's, motorcycles and cars, lots of small shops everywhere, and a lot of people. I haven't seen any other caucasions and am sweating a lot, but today is pretty overcast so it's not too bad. My cab driver told me it was supposed to get to 44 degrees centigrade... Hopefully that doesn't happen for a while. We have been riding around on the back of two ward members scooters all day and found an amazing house that would be perfect, but I'm not sure if it's going to work out. They are hesitant about renting it to us for only four months. I took a "powernap" when I got in and taylor had to knock three different times to wake me up, so I'm guessing I am a bit tired.

I have no idea how to navigate through this city, it's really confusing. It's a little overwhelming but adrenaline is numbing my exhaustion as my mind is in overdrive with all the stimulation of a new place.

The women all dress in traditional sari's and these really beautiful fabrics. I need to get some because I'm going to stick out even more than normal without. We've had some great food and so far every person I've talked to has been really warm and helpful. I'm crossing my fingers that the pattern continues.

We drove into the YMCA at 7am and there was a rollerskating club out front just rollerskating slowly around this cement basketball field area. That's when I felt the most at home :).

We went to the church building which is beautiful. It's two stories, new, and there are four branches that meet in it. I think the ward is expecting a lot from us, which is a little tricky considering we are supposed to be an unaffiliated, but they are doing soo much to help us. Turns out we may have committed to speak at youth conference next week. I guess it's better than last year in uganda being in the political parade and procession with the mayor.

Testing

2010-03-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

We are recruiting right now for this summer. Let me know if you want more information!