The Last Week of Work

During the last week of work, I was all set to write detailed updates every night, and really take advantage of my last week in India to reflect on my work and how it related to SE, and how I could use what I've learned in these last six weeks in the future.  What ended up happening was that my team and I pretty much stayed up until 3am every night trying to finish our final report and presentation.  Turns out, we had a lot of work to do before our project could be presented to the good folks at PremaVidya.  Our report had many different sections, and many of them ended up being pretty long.  Our final project looked quite different from the project we were initially given.  The goals stated in our final project were:

•  To establish a framework that assesses the learning process in PremaVidya-Project 1947 intervention.
• To provide a method for determining factors which improve and impact learning in PV schools.

The framework and method we developed came from a lot of trial and error on our part.  My team had first surmised that we could simply create another survey to get at this information.  We would develop different questions that would hopefully lead to a better understanding of the efficacy of PV interventions.  We went to a couple of 10th standard classrooms, and distributed the survey. After receiving the results from the surveys, we saw that many of the answers were very similar, and almost too idealistic all across the board.  Even after a revised survey was distributed, we received similar answers.  Students in India are culturally conditioned to give answers authority figures want to hear, and will almost never give criticisms.  With this in mind, we realized the surveys were probably not going to work, so we had to change directions.  We developed a framework for a focus group, that PV could use to find the factors within their program that impact learning in students.  Once these factors are found, the quality of PV interventions can be more easily assessed as the organization scales to 500+ schools in the coming year.

Now, not only did we have to write a final report, but we had to put together a presentation (with PowerPoint visual), that a concise version of what was in our report.  Now, I've made a lot of bad PowerPoint presentations in my day, so in order to make a good PowerPoint, we watched this lovely YouTube video, courtesy of Prof. Moledina, and then we (actually, mostly Parisa) put together a good PowerPoint using the guidelines given to us in this short instructional video.

PremaVidya Team Presentation

Judging by the smiles, they liked us! (Hopefully)

Judging by these photos, and by Prof. Moledina's feedback later that afternoon, our presentation went well.  We were late (of course) in starting, and Parisa and I were quite nervous, but everyone seemed very warm and open to what we had to say.  We were even able to answer some tough questions pretty eloquently.  We were all able to speak, we all spoke knowledgeably (woohoo!).  We left the presentation feeling very good, although we still had to finish writing our final report that afternoon.  After our presentation, Akeela and Pretha took us to buy sweets for the entire office, and then they gave us lunch, which was absolutely delicious.  It was food from Andhra Pradesh, a state just a little bit north-east of Karnataka.  It was spicy and delicious, the perfect last lunch!

PremaVidya Presentation Crowd!

PremaVidya GSE Team: Me, Parisa, Navee, Maddy

It was quite a sad and emotional last day.  There were a lot of tears, from everyone.  We exchanged emails, and addresses, and promised to write and keep in touch.  We had invited everyone from the office to the GSE Celebration Dinner on Saturday night, we had a great many office friends attending, so we were all very excited.  Akeela and Pretha took us shopping after work in an area that was just as good as Commercial Street, but much cheaper. We also promised Darsana profusely that we would have the final report ready for her on Saturday before the party.  Unfortunately we weren't able to fulfill that final promise because Maddy had gone to the hospital via ambulance on Friday night.  She was later on diagnosed with not one, but two kidney stones.  I've got to tell you, even in the midst of immense pain, that girl had a smile on her face.  You've got to admire her gumption, that girl is one tough cookie.

Bhavani and Me (in full saree and jewelry)

On Saturday, I couldn't wait for the day to pass so I could get dressed and go to the party!  Many of the girls in our group were going to be wearing sarees, so we actually had to get all wrapped up relatively early around 4pm, because none of us really knew how to tie them ourselves, so we had to hunt down the maids before we left.  They were so nice, and helped us all out, which was a big deal, because tying a saree is a pretty intense process, even if you have help.  I also broke down a couple of days earlier, and bought all this lovely jewelry to go with my saree.  I'm talking armfuls of bangles, giant earrings, and a tikka, which is a piece of jewelry that pins into the part of your hair, and has a nice big jewel at the end.  It looks very nice with a saree.  Many of our office friends were able to make it to the party, which was absolutely amazing!  I was so happy to see them all.  It meant so much to us that they were able to come.  We had a lovely evening eating, drinking, and socializing with everyone in the GSE program, as well as members of all the different organizations we worked with, and many of our friends and supporters in Bangalore, and in the rest of India.  We even had some Wooster alumni coming in to attend this party!

GSE, Friends, and Supporters

So there you have it, my last week in the GSE program.  I can't believe how much I've learned, and how much I've discovered about myself.  Social Entrepreneurship is so much more than a "good idea", and it actually takes a lot of people to make an idea work.  Even if you are a allstar, jack-of-all-trades, super solo entrepreneur, you need to have a network of people to support you.  People put the "social" in social entrepreneurship, whether they are your client base, your team members, or your greater network of partners and investors.  I also learned that I really like being part of the support team.  Seriously, you tell me your entrepreneurial idea, and I will do my best to make you that you have whatever materials you need, and that you get to talk to the right people in order to support you and your endeavors.  I have also

Team PremaVidya Representives :-)

gotten to know so many absolutely AMAZING people in the past six weeks, it's unbelievable!  I cannot quite articulate how much I am going to miss everyone once I am back in the U.S.  (On a side note, I am actually back in the States, and am writing this post in hindsight, and let me tell you, I miss everyone terribly).  So the point being, if you've got something that needs to be done, I'm your girl, and I'm not afraid to learn new skills, and try something I've never done before.  In fact, I welcome all of the new experiences.  Bring it on.

Reflections about Work Culture

Hi guys.  I know this is a long time in coming, and once again I have failed to write posts in a consistent manner, and once again, I will attribute this failure to "lack of time," at which you will roll your eyes at me, sigh, and continue reading (at least, I know some of you will).  I wanted to talk more about the work culture at PremaVidya, and just office culture in general.  The atmosphere and culture of any workspace I feel is an important part of any job.  It can help make a job the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD, or it can make a job REALLY REALLY STINK (*I'm trying to keep this all family friendly).  I had a long talk with Prof. Moledina earlier that last week about my future, and we agreed that the people and the work culture of an organization is deeply important for me.  I never really figured out how much having a supportive community and network meant to me until recently.  I grew up with a very close knit family, the community where I grew up was caring and close, and the community I found at Wooster played an extremely important role in my overall extremely positive experience in college. 

The short six weeks I spent with PremaVidya, and the absolutely amazing and wonderful people I met there pretty much sealed the deal for me.  I know that now, when I'm looking for a job, I will not only have to look for a job, but I will have to look for people and colleagues that I would like to work with as well.  In fact, for me, that may be even more important than finding the "right job".  I know that the project I was assigned at PremaVidya was the sort of thing I never thought I would end up doing, but I learned so much, and had so much fun, the work became enjoyable because I felt supported by the people around me.  This support system included my awesome GSE team (Navee, Parisa, Maddy), our GSE adviser Cathy and the rest of the GSE/Wooster staff (Prof. Moledina, Laura, Prof. McConnell), and everyone at PremaVidya.  I realized how lucky I was when the entire organization held a Pooja (it was interfaith, i was SO pumped!) to support and send good thoughts and messages to Mr. Naresh, the director, who was undergoing treatment for leukemia.  A few days later we found out that he was in remission, which totally confirmed my belief in the power of Positive Thinking.  We had other Poojas later in order to send more good thoughts his way.  When you think about it, how many times do you hear about a workplace that will literally take the morning off just to pray for the health of, and send good thoughts (not to mention blessed bananas) to one of their own?  It warms my heart.  In the future, not matter what I'm doing, whether it be something related to SE, or maybe its the waitress job I'll probably be getting until I find something in my field, as long as the people are great, I think I will be happy.

A rainbow of colorful sarees were worn!  Everyone looks so pretty!

Here we are with the men of the office!

Now, just to shed some light on why I loved working with PremaVidya: we legitimately have lots of fun!  Every afternoon pretty much, we turn on the Bollywood, and several of the office members sing along (which, I would too if I knew the words).  Also, when Darsana found out that Maddy and I had purchased sarees, we decided we would have a "Saree Day" at work, where all the women in the office would dress up.  Interestingly, our Saree Day also happened to fall on the Pooja for Mr. Naresh, which meant that we attracted a lot of attention when we first sat down in the prayer hall.  After the Pooja and after we had lunch we also spent about an hour on the roof taking "snaps" (in American English: pictures).  I felt like I was at Prom again, we took so many different shots.  As you can see from these select photos, we all look amazing.  I can honestly say that while I've been in India, I have not seen a saree that I have not liked.  Additionally, if you don't like any of these sarees you see here, never fear, there is a saree out their for you.  They come in all colors and patterns imaginable.  Shopping for sarees (and fabrics in general) is actually quite overwhelming because you have so many choices.

Quality Team Birthday Bash

Other fun things that happen in our office: birthdays.  Birthdays are super fun in India!  For one thing, if it's your birthday, you much bring in sweets for everyone in the office.  When we brought sweets in for our last day, we had about to buy about 75 sweets, because our office is so large.  We have two office locations, with lots of people working in both places.  So, basically, everyone gets lots of sweets on people's birthday.  On the 4th of July, we had two office birthdays (plus American Independence Day of course).  One of the birthdays was a Quality Team b-day, so naturally we had a department party!  In India, or at least in this case, the birthday boy/girl feeds each of the guests a piece of cake, and each guest feeds the birthday boy/girl a piece of cake.  Then the birthday boy/girl gets cake smeared on his/her face.  It's great, AND you're taking snaps of this the whole time!  OH, and just an FYI, all us interns are wearing our Western clothes at the bequest of our other office members.  They told us they were bored with our Indian clothes, and wanted to see us in our real clothes.  So, we wore our Western shirts and jeans, but let me tell you, it is so much hotter in those clothes than it is in Indian suits.  It is well worth your time to purchase and wear Indian clothes when spending an extended amount of time in country.  You'll just be so much more comfortable, trust me!

Well, that's my post on office/work culture.  I did some reflecting, and shared some fun stories.  I think that was pretty much how I wanted to structure my posts from now on.  I also believe I actually managed to connect this post to SE in a roundabout way.  If this tells me anything, it's that I don't want to be a solo entrepreneur, I want to be a part of a team, a community of people, I want to have some company on this journey.

My Project

One of the integral parts of my even being in India in the first place is the completion of an entrepreneurial project and internship with a social venture organization.  As you all know, I'm working with an organization named PremaVidya, which is a sub-project of the much broader Swami Vivekenanda Youth Movement (SVYM).  Actually, to be even more specific, I am working on another project under PremaVidya called Project 1947.  Project 1947 makes the videos that are distributed to government schools.  The videos correspond with the state curriculum, and are designed to help more students pass the SSLC exam at the end of 10th standard.  In India, this SSLC certificate is extremely important.  It often becomes one's sole identification paper, as not all Indians have a birth certificate.  Without an SSLC certificate, one can't apply for a passport or driver's license, and it becomes extremely hard to find a job.  Many students in government schools drop out before they reach 10th standard, so you can see why this is an important issue to address.  Without the SSLC certificate, these children, who mostly come from impoverished backgrounds to begin with, will probably not be able to escape from a life of poverty.

Actually, the whole GSE class had the wonderful opportunity to meet with PremaVidya's founder, Mr. Naresh Bala, via a Skype interview back in March before we left for India.  We had this meeting before anyone knew which organization they had been assigned to, so everyone was anxiously waiting to meet the man who would potentially be our new boss in India.  It was a very productive and informative meeting.  I learned a lot about the organization from this conversation, and when I found out I was placed at PremaVidya, I was really excited, although I was also intrigued by the Hippocampus Learning Centres, another organization GSE students would be working with.

When we arrived in Bangalore, our first task was to find out where PremaVidya (PV) was located.  Now, I hadn't even been in Bangalore for 24 hours yet, so I was basically walking around in a jet-lagged daze as Parisa asked all the random people on the street how to get to J.P. Nagar, the neighborhood in which PV is located.  Professor Moledina had warned us that it was far away, and if we couldn't find it by 12:30pm, we should turn around and go home.  Well, we found the office by 11:30, and discovered that we only needed to take one bus (G4) south to get to where we needed to go (for more fun bus-related adventures, you can browse back through my older posts).

So when we started work on Monday, we were given a PV orientation.  Mr. Naresh was not well, we were told he was having thyroid problems, so he unfortunately couldn't be there to meet us, but we did have a really interesting orientation.  We talked to members of the Human Resources department, and members of the Field Team.  We even got to visit some PV schools that first day!  We saw two different implementation models of PV intervention.  One was the TASSS model.  The SSS stands for Student Support Services, and the TA is of course, a Teaching Assistant.  In this model, the videos are administered by a TA in a Bangalore school.  Throughout the video, there are questions about the content.  The TA pauses the video, and students answer the question (this technique is called question-pause-answer).  We also saw the iSSS model, which meant that students sit in small groups around several different portable DVD players, and running the videos themselves.  There's an adult monitor in the class to collect doubt slips (student questions), that will be reviewed and answered by a teacher later that day.  One of the goals of Project 1947 is to empower children to take control of their own learning, and to take the fear and authority out of the classroom.  Often, children will be too afraid of the teacher to ask questions when they don't understand something, and therefore they do not learn the material.

Anyway, we spent about a week learning about the video production, and working with the Tech team to create some mock videos of our own.  I put it up the video Navee and I made on a post a while back.  You all should check it out.  Anyway, after that week, we were transferred upstairs to work with the Quality Team.  The Quality Team is an eight person department that gathers and reports on all types of data from all of the 200-something schools with PV intervention.  At this time, we had discovered that Mr. Naresh had been diagnosed with Leukemia.  This was an incredible shock to the organization, and it was definitely apparent that the morale of the office was much lower than it probably normally was.  Suman, who basically does a whole lot of stuff for PV became our big boss, but our immediate supervisor, and the person we answer to is Darsana, the head of the Quality Team.  Darsana is really great, not to mention she's one of the sweetest people I have ever met.  She does however, have extremely high expectations for our group.  We balked at the list of items Darsana wanted us to accomplish.  We were given the broad task of finding out how to retain the quality of intervention, as PV scales rapidly.  Wow.  How do you even begin to tackle a question like that?
 

We count on or daily tea breaks

Us balking at our "to do" list

We have an idea!!

Answer:  It literally took us days (I may argue weeks) to figure how we were going approach this question.  We decided that we simply couldn't address this big of a question in only six weeks.  We could definitely try to pick out a piece of the puzzle and solve that one piece.  Good.  Well, we changed our "puzzle piece" about a million times before finally coming up with the current project we're working on.  Basically, our project entails how to "establish a framework to assess the learning process occurring in PremaVidya video programs.  Our ultimate goal is to develop a methodology that will determine the factors that improve and impact learning" (this quote was taken from the text of the draft of our final report).  We've been doing a lot of research on focus groups, because we think this may be one of the better ways to collect good, nuanced qualitative data that can be used to determine whether PremaVidya intervention improves and impacts learning.  We've run into many difficulties, roadblocks, and setback with this project, but our hope is, at the end of this space, to be able to give PremaVidya a truly useful document that they can incorporate into their scaling process.

To close with a random side note:  if you love PICTURES check out the GSE flickr  and see all sorts of different photos of the GSE and Lilly team out and about! 

Everything Else Remembered

Alright, here it goes.  I'm going to rehash all of the interesting cultural things I've done in India so far.  However, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of depth about each of these activities because I realized that the name of my blog has something to do with becoming a "globally engaged social entrepreneur," and I realized I've written very little about my experiences with SE, although they have been numerous, and at times nuanced.  It is really fun to talk about all the little escapades that happen to me on the street (like the time a cow pooped in the road, and I was unfortunate enough to be in the splash zone), but one of the reasons I took the GSE course is for my own self exploration, and to try to figure out how SE relates to my goals and passions in life, and I've seldom spoken about that in this forum, so hopefully this week, I can begin that part.  Actually, I'm going to again be a bit lazy and just give you the link to a blog post I wrote for the official class blog.  I wrote about my experiences attending CSIM sessions every Thursday, and if you're wondering what the heck CSIM is, then you'd better read my article here.

Alright, so I've had the great privilege of having a four day break midway through my internship.  I actually discovered that I was really in need of a mental break from work.  We have had so much to think about at PV that my brain felt as if it was leaking out of my ears, and taking my ability to function as a competent intellectual human being with it.  So anyway, on Friday morning about two weeks ago, I had to get up at 5:30am to get ready for the driver who would pick me up and take me to Mysore at 6am.  However, because of a miscommunication we were actually picked up at 7am.  No biggie, these things happen (especially in India).  We ate breakfast at a kamat (roadside cafe), where breakfast was served on banana leaves, and everything was delicious!  There were also a lot of monkeys running around outside the kamat pavilion, which was cool, and they were so cute!  However,  I'll write more about those monkeys later, because I had some pretty interesting interactions with those little creatures.

We were visiting several SVYM organizations in the rural Mysore area.  Just to remind you all, the organization I'm working for, PremaVidya (PV), is another project underneath the very broad SVYM movement.  We visited the Brahmagiri tribal school, which was an absolute delight.  For the elementary school, they had open classrooms, which looked a lot like the gazebos you would put in your garden or in a park.  All the little gazebos are connected by little sidewalks and when you walk by you can see what each classroom is doing.  We got to talk to some of the 4th standard children, and they were so excited and adorable!  They were in an English lesson, and some of the young boys read to me from their book.  Again, I cannot express how adorable and eager to learn these children were.  It is so refreshing to see this passion for learning that often dwindles in the United States.

As you can see, we were able to walk around the outsides of the building, and still see everything that was going on in the classroom.  If I remember correctly, both of these classes were 1st standard, since they did not have desks, just mats.  The children get to sit at big kid desks when they graduate to 4th standard I believe. 

2nd Standard Getting ready for Lunch

At this school, they have a mix of children from several different formerly forest dwelling tribes.  Based on the SVYM website (I didn't have the foresight to write all these down at the time), the tribes are called Jenukuruba, Kadukuruba, Yerava, Paniya and Bunde Soliga.  One of them (I can't remember which, but it's either the Jenukuruba or the Kadukuruba) are traditionally honey collectors.  Children come either for just the school day, or are boarders at the school.  The school has two hostels (girls and boys) at either end of the campus.  The hostels are very summer-camp-esque with rows of bunk beds for the children to sleep in and lockers to keep their things.  After visiting the younger children, we got a tour of the high school.  It was pretty cool.  All the hallways are open-air so you essentially walk on a covered boardwalk to get to other classes.  I was also very impressed with the science and computer facilities this school had.  We were able to see the biology lab, with shelves upon shelves of jars, which were filled with all sorts of animals and organs (some supposedly from humans) floating in formaldehyde.  How appetizing.  It was a very interesting experience, and the school was nice enough to give us lunch!

Snakes and frogs!!

Navee checking out the microscope

I've been getting quite good at eating with my hands here.  As one Indian person commented, "Americans have a stiff fork, Indians have a flexi-fork!"  And he wiggled around his fingers.  Yes sir, you do indeed, and how easy the dish washing must be afterwards without all those 
utensils!  They have a pretty good thing going on over here.  Eating with you hands: awesome; eating with a fork: awkward, and you know what?  Not once have I spilled food on myself since I've started eating with my hands.  This is a regular occurrence when I eat with utensils.  I'm just saying...

After leaving the school, we visited the Saragur and Kenchanahalli hospitals.  The Kenchanahalli hospital is a very small (10 beds or so) hospital that focuses on Ayurveda medicine.  Ayurveda medicine is traditional Indian medicine that focuses holistically on the health of the mind, body, and spirit.  It tries not to treat symptoms, but rather causes of disease (or imbalances in the body).  It was very cool.  The Saragur hospital is a much bigger hospital (about 90 beds), and uses mostly Western style of medicine, but does have a small Ayurveda practice.  Both hospitals serve mostly tribal people, who can receive this medical treatment for free or at dramatically reduced cost.

Continuing on...the next day, after staying in another SVYM hostel, we toured the city of Mysore in the morning.  Mysore is a city to the south of Bangalore, and is famous for their silks, and sweets.  Mysore is also home to one of the most beautiful palaces I have ever seen.  Apparently it was so beautiful that the king who commissioned it cut of the hands of the men who made it so no other person would be able to replicate it.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside of the palace, so I only have a few pictures of the outside.  One of the cool things about public museums/landmarks/tourist spots in India is that you often must take your shoes off to enter.  It was the same with the Mysore palace.  India does not seem to have a "no shoes no service" practice like the United States.  I could waltz down the road, barefoot, walk into a temple (after washing them off of course) or a palace, heck I could even stop into a cafe, and nobody would say anything.

St. Philomena's Catholic Church

Mysore Palace

Gate to Mysore Palace

So, as you can see here in the picture on the left, there is a very tall man in a blue shirt walking up to the palace gates.  This is my friend Matt, and he simply towers above everyone here, which has its advantages, let me tell you.  I wanted to share a funny little story, because it's a story that I've heard of, but had never actually experienced until I was in Mysore.  When we were in the garden of the palace, a group of people asked if we could take a picture.  It was a large family, and we assumed they wanted one of us to take a picture of them.  In actuality however, they wanted us in the picture as well.  Since then, I've been approached by others asking if I could pose for a picture, and sometimes I catch random people (mostly men, surprise surprise) snapping pictures of my friends and I fairly blatantly from their camera phones.  I finally feel like I know what celebrities must feel like with all of those paparazzi sitting around and taking pictures of them all day long.  However, I will never in my life fully understand why anyone on earth would every want a picture of me....

Ok, I'm going to completely change the subject here and talk about public restrooms.  That's right, you heard correctly.  Public restrooms.  Now, in India, like in Europe, you are expected to pay a small fee (3 rupees or so) to use the public restrooms.  In India, public restrooms consist of several stall of squatty potties (or squat toilets).  I'm actually a big fan of the squatty potty, but I won't go into the reasons now.  If you feel strongly that you need me to explain my opinion in more detail, then you are more than welcome to ask me at another time.  Also, there may be a sink, but it may or may not work, and it probably won't have soap.  So, I bet you're wondering why I'm bothering to even write about this.  Well the truth is, public toilet usage in India is controversial because it promotes gender discrimination.  That's right, it promotes gender discrimination because men can just pee outside almost anywhere they want, and that this definitely not an option for women.  Basically, men can pee for free, and women have to pay money.  There are also more public toilets in general for men than their are for women.  Therefore, a group of women and NGOs in Mumbai have started a "Free the Pee" campaign, which you can learn more about here.  So my personal little story related to this actually skips ahead a couple days when we were returning to Bangalore from Ooty.  We had arrived at the Mysore bus station, and were given literally only 5 minutes to jump off the bus, use the facilities, and get back on before the bus roars away.  So my traveling companions and I run off the bus, do our business, and as we're exiting the bathroom a man (hopefully the bathroom attendant) comes running up to us, demanding money.  Now, we don't really want to pay because this bathroom was icky, and we notice our bus starting to pull away, so Kasie just yells, "run," and we literally, all four of us run away from the guy, leap on our bus and pull the curtain on the window shut so he can't see us.  Now, I didn't know about the "Free to Pee" movement until later that night, so I was feeling a bit guilty about running from the potty patrol, but now I feel a bit like I was doing my part to protest gender discrimination.


Ooty, Tamil Nadu:
After Mysore, four of us, Kasie, Maddy, Navee, and I took a bus to Ooty, which is a little city in the mountains of the state of Tamil Nadu.  Now, in India, the languages people speak change with the state (imagine if the US were like that!), so we were leaving Karnataka, where the main language is Kannada, and going to Tamil Nadu, where the main language is Tamil.  Fortunately, Navee speaks Tamil, so we were really excited about that.  Anyway, we get on our nice, AC Volvo bus (friendly tip:  if you're going to travel across India, GET A TRAVEL AGENT, cause they know what's up), and start on our way.  We're about 45 minutes out when the bus pulls over, and the lady who collects the tickets gets down and inspects the bus.  Everything seems fine, so she gets on and we rumble away.  Five minutes later we come to a screeching halt and the bus turns around and heads in the other direction.  We drive down the road a few minutes when the bus screeches to stop again, turns around, and goes back up the road.  We continue this pattern a few more times, and we finally find out that the ticket-collector-lady had dropped her cell phone outside, and we were looking for it.  Long story short, phone gets found, and we head to a rest stop, where the bus won't restart, so we wait for over an hour.  Fun times.  We get back on the bus (yay!) drive for 15 minutes, turn around again, and come back to the same rest stop where we find the bus is in fact, quite broken, but fortunately, there's another bus waiting for us to take us to Ooty.

At this time, we were about two hours behind schedule, and we still had to drive through a thickly forested mountain.  We actually drove through a tiger reserve on our way to Ooty as well, which was awesome!  We didn't see an tigers, because it was day time, but we did see peacocks, white-spotted deer, and elephants!!!  Also, we figured that about half the people on the bus must have been from the same extended family because they were all singing and talking quite loudly with each other and walking up and down the bus for the entire bus ride.  After driving over a mountain, which if you get motion sickness, would have been EXTREMELY uncomfortable, we finally arrive in Ooty.  Yay!

Overlooking a tea plantation and surrounding countryside

 First off, Ooty is incredibly beautiful, as you can see from these pictures.  It was also much chillier than I would have imagined.  I was alright in a light fleece, having grown up in chilly ol' Vermont, but lots of people there were all bundled up in thick wool sweaters and ski masks (no joke).  Unfortunately, because it was so cool, there was a lot of fog, so it was hard to see some of the sights, but I did buy 1500 grams of tea.  Booyah.  I'm so excited about that purchase, because it'll be like taking a little piece of India back home with me!

Tea Plantation

Monkeys!! And a goat.

Ok, let's talk about monkeys.  I spent a great while cooing over them because they are just so super cute, especially the babies.  However, I also realized that they are evil, like Satan reincarnate.  They'll steal your things if you are not careful.  We had bought masala corn (which is bomb!  America, get on that), and we were walking to the car when Kasie screams, and when I turn around I see a little monkey running away with her corn.  I also see another monkey edging up to me, eying my corn, so I try to scare him away.  He's not having it though and charges back at me, his eyes burning with crazy rage and probably desire for my corn.  Since I wasn't really interested in throwing down with a monkey (who, let's face it, would probably win), I just scooted my little butt back into the car, where I (and my masala corn) would be safe from their tiny clutches.





Temples:

Navee at the Big Bull temple

Navee, Kasie, and Maddy at a Palace in Bangalore

One of the activities I do in my spare time in Bangalore, is to tour the various temples located all over the city.  I spent an entire Saturday a few weeks ago just visiting temples.  They are all very cool.  I got to see the Iskon temple (where they worship Krishna), which was amazing.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed pictures, so that's a bummer.  I also went to the Shiva temple, which was an experience, a Ganesha temple, which was closed :( and a variety of other more general temples.  I even got to participate in some of the worship rituals.  I also got three different bhindis for attending the temples.  

Shiva in da house!

This is Shiva.  He's pretty cool.  He's one of the three main Hindu deities (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva).  He's the destroyer, which sounds really scary, but isn't because Shiva is a wise sage, and yogi who sees everything that's going on in the world.  He can destroy your fears, lusts, and all the bad stuff for you.  That's as much detail as I feel I want to go into because Hinduism is extremely complex.  It would take me way too long to explain all about Shiva.  So I won't.  I'll let you do your own reading about it.

 Alright, I think I'm done for now.  I'm pretty sure I caught everyone up (albeit vaguely) on all of my "extra-curricular" activities I do in my down time.  Actually, usually in my down time I sleep, but that's not fun to write about.  So, now that I've finished with all those little activities, I want to focus my blog more on SE, and my exploration of SE, and what it means to be a globally engaged social entrepreneur.  I mean, that's the whole point of why I'm in India in the first place.  I hope to make the blog posts just as interesting as the cultural ones have been (at least, I hope they're interesting), and don't worry, enough crazy fun stuff happens during my work day that I'm sure you'll continue to be entertained, or at least interested enough to continue reading.  Also, don't forget to check out the GSE class blog!  You'll find a lot of really awesome musings about SE written by my classmates!

Finally, a New Post! (Part 1)

First of all, let me apologize most profoundly for neglecting my blog for the last two weeks.  Some of my excuses are reasonable, most are not.  I've been quite busy the last few weeks at PremaVidya (PV) trying to hash out exactly what sort of project we will be working on.  The PV staff is so enthusiastic and optimistic that the second week we went into work they plopped down a lengthy list of some very broad and ambitious jobs for us to work on.  Basically, we have been busy narrowing and fine tuning just a little piece of these broad issues to work on for the next three weeks.  Additionally, in lieu of writing in this blog, I have been writing some blog posts for the official Wooster GSE blog, which can be found on the side bar of this blog.  If you just want to read an article I wrote about my initial impressions about PV, just click here, but I highly encourage you to check out the rest of the blog, because many of my classmates have constructed some very thought-provoking, reflective, and well-written posts.  Their writings are certainly much more profound than what I have written about.

Alright, what has happened to me since I last posted about my film debut?  Quite a bit actually.  Way back two weeks ago I actually had to take a couple days off from work because I had to go register at the Foreigner's Regional Registration Office (FRRO).  All foreigners holding any visa that is for longer than a few months are required to register with the Indian government.  If we don't register within 14 days of our arrival in India, and we try to leave the country, we can be detained, fined, and jailed for 5 years before finally being deported.  I'm still trying to work out why they would want to keep you in jail for a few years if they are just going to deport you afterward.  Anyway, I arrive at the FRRO office with three other GSE students.  At the FRRO they have gates set up at the entrance of the building in order to bottleneck the group of people coming or going.  There is only space for one person to squeeze through at a time.  There is also a guy with a big gun at the gate.  Not a warm and friendly welcome to be sure.  He actually tried to stop Navee from entering the building because she looks Indian; now Navee won't stand for that sort of thing so she totally sassed-out the guy with the gun by basically saying "back off, I'm Malaysian.  I need to go register."  Guy-with-the-big-gun just stared; he didn't know what to do with Navee, and she waltzes right in.  When we get in we have to get a token (actually just a slip of paper with a number on it) by showing the man at the desk a bunch of documents in the exact right order.  They would call your number and send you upstairs.  I was number 145, it was 10:30 and the counter was at number 100.  Not too bad.  We wait.  At 1:30pm the men at the front desk leave for lunch, and we still haven't been called yet.  So we leave to get juice (lime, it's the best!), and when we step out on the street we see a group of people coming down the street, drumming and dancing.  Excited, Maddy, Sam and I step closer to the curb to see this parade, and Navee chuckles and shakes her head.  The drummers pass, and they are followed by a large white van, and inside the van is a dead man shrouded in nice smelling flowers.  Navee knew exactly what was happening and she just laughed at our astounded and shocked looks.  This was not the sort of parade I had expected to see, it was actually the first time I had seen a dead body.  Just our luck to stumble across a funeral procession after spending all morning in the most joyless building on the face of the planet, and we still had to go back for another afternoon of sitting. 

After the lunch break we sat for another couple of hours and were FINALLY called upstairs where....we sat again and waited for our token number to be called AGAIN.  When our token numbers are called, we have our documents checked over by a person at the (appropriately titled) "scrutiny" desk.  Actually, I believe I had to visit four different "scrutiny" desks during the registration process, and throughout those four desks someone decided to give each one of us a hard time about something.  For example, all four of us who were there had the EXACT SAME document stating where were were staying in Bangalore for our stay.  Three of us go through that desk relatively easily.  When it's Maddy's turn they hold her up because they need proof that the woman who gave us those documents actually exists.  I feel sort of bad for those people behind the desks because giving me a hard time is probably the only form of entertainment they have during the day.  I know if I worked in a place like that, I would be cranky all the time.  So at the end of the day (5:30pm) I get through to the final desk...and they tell me to come back the next day at 10am.  The next day is very similar.  I go, wait for a bit, and finally get the piece of official paper that will allow me to leave the country in July.  I will say, the ONE cool thing about the FRRO is that there's a wide array of people from all over the world, so if you are a person who enjoys recreational people watching (like myself), this is the place to be.  Off the top of my head I saw people from Spain, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Democratic Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and New Zealand.  There were countless others, but these were only from the passports I was able to snag a glimpse of as people sat around and waited. Fortunately, this second round only took half a day, so I was able to make it back to PV in the afternoon to meet the Quality team, whom I will be working with for the rest of my time here (more about the Quality team later, because they are awesome).

So, I will be stopping this post for now.  I still have a lot of things to share, as well as pictures to include, so never fear, I'll be back!  I have to take a break from this post because a) I want to break it up into manageable pieces for your convenience, and b) I have some homework that I desperately need to do, and that unfortunately takes precedence over my personal blog :-(

Musings, and my film career premier!

So, this is the world premier of the short film, "Tourism in Vermont" created by Navee and myself.  It features both our voices, reading original scripts, and animated PowerPoint slides.  I'm pretty proud of it, although it is not winning any Oscars anytime soon.  Yes, it is a little cheesy (actually, it's quite cheesy), but the whole point of this project is to really understand the amount of work and effort it takes to develop these videos to be distributed en mass to government schools throughout the state (of Karnataka, not Vermont, actually this video will never be distributed to any school for academic use).  It's a lot of pressure, and everything must comply to the government mandated curriculum.  It also took us a good three days to create a five minute "okay" video.  Project 1947 produces videos that are approximately 20 minutes in length, four times as long and the one Navee and I made!  We actually did the majority of the editing and syncing while we were working at home due to the bandh (transportation strike).  The strike only lasted for a day, and now everything is back to normal I think, except we are a day behind in our work, and since we don't have a set project yet, we are all getting a little bit nervous.  Alright, I had hoped that I could be more reflective today.  I even planned to recap for you all the seminar I went to this evening, but I'm just too tired.  I'm running around all day, and I'm just exhausted.  Tomorrow I will spend my time running necessary errands and applying for jobs.  Cheers to you all!  I'll have something better soon, I promise!!  If you have any questions, do not hesitate to leave them in the comments section of this post!  I love answering questions (and comments)!

Good Morning Bangalore!!

Wow.  I wish I could have blogged about this sooner, but there was this jet lag, and the fact that our days here have been absolutely packed with stuff that I've neither had the time, energy, nor willpower to sit down and write something comprehensive and interesting about my time spent here.  So, it only seems fair to start ALL the way from the beginning...

Monday, May 21st:

 I got up early, and my parents drove me to the Royall Tyler Theatre on the UVM campus where I boarded a Megabus that would take me all the way to Manhattan!  I was excited to be starting my journey to India!  The plan was to arrive in NYC at around 4:15 pm, and then take New York's excellent public transportation system to JFK international airport.

Vermont Landscape (near Quichee?)

So, as I was on the Megabus, I thought it would be nice to take some pictures of the lovely Vermont landscape that I love so dearly.  I knew it would be a big contrast to the urban areas of Bangalore I would be living in for the next few weeks.  At this point, I think the bus is in the South Eastern part of the state near Quichee or thereabouts...

More Vermont Landscapes (Quichee, I think)

I'm sorry the photos are a bit blurry, but it's pretty difficult to take a really good picture with an "ok" camera from the tinted window of a moving bus.  After leaving Vermont, we had a couple stops in Massachusetts, and then we changed buses in Hartford, I'm not really sure why, but I believe their was an issue with the first bus.  I didn't really mind all that much because the second bus we got on had WAY better seats.

Anyway, the bus arrived at the stop in Manhattan about an hour late, probably due to to extremely awful New York rush hour traffic.  An hour late?  Wouldn't I miss my flight?  Nope.  My flight wasn't leaving until 11pm that night.  I could have gone to see a Broadway show and still probably arrived in plenty of time to check my bag, go through security, and have a cup of coffee.  After a fun and stimulation ride on the subway (I actually think subways and trains to be one of the coolest things on the planet), I arrived at JFK, checked in with no problems, and boarded my plane.  I booked a flight with Emirates, which was a really nice airline.  I was very impressed with the in-flight entertainment especially.  I was served vegetarian airplane food, that wasn't bad, by an Australian Scarlett Johansson lookalike, and I alternated between eating, sleeping, and watching movies during the 13 hours flight.

Tuesday, May 22nd:

I didn't have much of a Tuesday.  I arrived in Dubai at 8pm local time, took a shower (for free!!), found a sleeping chair in a random part of the airport and claimed it as my own.  I spent the hours of 11pm-5am at this particular spot, dozing off and on, and waking up for the mad 2am rush hour.  People watching in the Dubai International Airport is great!  You get such a diverse array of people from all over the world!

Wednesday, May 23rd:

The Dubai International Airport

I walked around the Dubai airport, taking in all the swanky shops (Gucci, Dior, etc), and taking pictures of in the indoor fountains and gardens.  I read a little bit, but mostly I was just biding my time, and waiting for my flight to depart at 11:45am for Bangalore.  I must admit, I thought I would be able to post something from Dubai, but the "free" wifi was not working well, and I could not for the life of me find an outlet with which to plug in my dying computer, so unfortunately, no posts :-(

West End of the Airport

East End of the Airport

For some reason, this picture here on the left was taken inside the airport.  It's an odd blend of North America coniferous trees and a tropical palm tree scene.  Go figure.






When I arrived in Bangalore that evening I was jolted smartly awake when one of the immigration officials pointed out that I didn't have the proper address of the place I was staying.  Uh oh.  I had only written down the instructions I was supposed to take to the taxi driver, and those directions were only arbitrarily descriptive (ie: Langford Town, by the Hockey Stadium).  He called Mathyoo Residency, where I would be staying, and finally got the proper address, but by then I was close to tears.  I think it was the almost 48 hours of straight travel that I had undergone.  To top it off, the taxi driver got lost on the way there.  I felt bad because I was absolutely no help at all.  We kept having to to stop, and then he would get out and walk completely around the corner, out of eyesight, to ask somebody for directions.  Let me tell you something about driving in India.  First of all, you drive on the left side, just like in the UK (colonial influence of course), secondly, the rule is, if you see an empty space, drive in it; if you don't see an empty space, make one, and drive in it.  It was an almost harrowing experience, there were so many cars, trucks, and buses all trying to squeeze into the three(?) lanes of traffic on the highway.  The the motorcyclists, bicycles, and auto-rickshaws would squeeze in between the cars, trucks, and buses.  To top it off, pedestrians would be walking nonchalantly along the side of the road, sometimes in between the cars that were all jammed together.  It was quite an adventure.  I don't personally think I could ever drive there, ever, and I applaud those souls who do.  It's really like being in a video game, you have to weave in and out and between things, and you have to make sure that nobody else hits you.

I finally do however, get to Mathyoo Residency, where everyone from GSE was waiting for me!  By that time I was tired and ready to go to bed, but I ate a lovely dinner and unpacked my suitcase (in my very nice room I may add).

Thursday, May 24th:

Up and about already.  Our first task was to find the NGO where we would be working.  Parisa, Navee and I had the address, and then we had to figure out how to get there.  I had been in India less than twenty-four hours, and was quite glad when Parisa, who had been there for a few days already took the lead in searching for buses.  Riding a bus in India is pretty exciting.  Since were really didn't know which bus to take, we would just ask the driver before we got on.  If it was going in our direction, we got on it and away we went!  In India, you board the bus first, and then a person comes, and you buy your ticket from them.  The price of the ticket is dependent upon how far you are traveling.  Also, in Bangalore, the buses are segregated: women in the front, men in the back.  Since we were all women, my workmates and I could sit together on the bus, and it was easy to communicate when we were going to get on and off.  In one of the groups, there was only one girl, and she had to sit by herself in the front of the bus, while the rest of her group held back.  That was interesting to see because it was something I hadn't even thought about until she had said it.

OK.  So we ended up finding our NGO before noon!  Prof. Moledina had told us the night before that Premavidya was very far away from where we were staying, and had said that if we hadn't found it by 12:30, then we should think about heading over to our rendezvous place for the afternoon.  Haha!  Not only did we find it before noon, but we only need to take one bus!

Later this afternoon, I had my first taste of fresh lime soda, a popular drink in India.  I think I know why it's popular: it's freaking delicious.  It is light, refreshing, and you can get it sweet or salty.  We all had sweet sodas, but sometime I would like to try it salty.  I also accidentally drank unfiltered water.  Oops.  When I studied abroad in Morocco, we were able to drink the water in Rabat, so I didn't even think when the waiter filled our glasses with water.  I just drank it.  I took some preventative Pepto bismal, and so far, I've been fine (knock on wood).  After lunch, we went to Sattva, one of the organizations that one of our GSE groups will be working with.  Sattva is a media and consulting organization that basically helps other organizations solve their problems.  After leaving Sattva, Samantha, Navee, and I took a rickshaw to 100 Foot Road where we were supposed to meet everyone at a North India vegetarian restaurant.  Fun Fact:  South Indian food is rice based, while North India food is bread based, and is probably what most Americans are familiar with.  Anyway, we got lost and walked up and down 100 foot road for over an hour.  Our issue was that nobody we asked knew where the restaurant was, and in India, nobody wants to admit they do not know where something is, so they'll make something up.  That's why it is important to ask AT LEAST THREE people for directions before heading anywhere.  Regardless, we made it, and had a lovely dinner with SO MUCH FOOD!

Friday, May 25th:

We visited two very different social venture organizations today.  We visited the Association for People with Disability (APD).  APD is a purely non-profit organization that works with people with physical disabilities.  They provide vocational training and job placement for young adults, run an integrated school for children with disability and for able children.  They also provide physical therapy, and a wheelchair and prosthetic center.  It was all on a beautiful little campus that's kept up by their horticulture training program.  Unfortunately, school was out of session, and we did not get to see all the children, which would have been fun.

Secondly, in the afternoon, we went to visit Selco, a for-profit organization with a social mission.  Selco in part works to dispel three common myths:

1) Poor people cannot afford sustainable technologies;
2) Poor people cannot maintain sustainable technologies;
3) Social ventures cannot be run as commercial entities.

It was a very cool organization!  It was a pity that my jet lag kicked in halfway through their presentation.  I could barely keep my eyes open.

That night, a few of us stayed in to cook dinner.  Even in India where the exchange rate is about 50 rupees to the US dollar, eating in restaurants gets pretty expensive.  Even 50 rupee rickshaw rides add up eventually.  Therefore, we stayed in and cooked Tabbouleh, which was easy, and a nice break from spicy Indian food.  As you can see from the pictures below, our living conditions are extremely nice.  The fans cool  you off very nicely, and we have two balconies that allow a lovely cross breeze through the entire suite.  

Enjoying the morning paper before breakfast

Sam and My bed!

Our own bathroom, television, and balcony (behind the blue curtain)

The dining room

The living room

Grocery shopping!

Sam and Laura hard at work cooking our dinner

Abby and her (frozen) watermelon

Saturday and Sunday, May 26th and 27th:

Basically, on Saturday, I went shopping for some Indian clothing.  I got two full Punjabi suits, in a variety of colors, and another shirt to go with the pants and dupata (scarf) that were lent to me before I came to India.  Today, I've been pretty much writing this blog post and bumming around.  I'll readily admit it, I am a little bit culture shocked and really need some space to hang around and get centered.  Alright, I know that was a laundry list things in this post, and next post I hope will be a little more detailed and reflective.

Uh, let's try that one more time...

Okay, so apparently our online auction kick-off event did not go so well.  We did not have very many people show up at all (including myself, and I feel super-duper-ultra guilty, but I had to be in an opera workshop performance at the EXACT same time, which I had known about all semester).  We even had FREE MOCKTAILS. 

Never fear!!  The wonderful thing about being social entrepreneurs is that we bounce right back in the face of minor setbacks.  We have decided to revamp the advertising campaign and will re-host our "kick off" event on Wednesday during the dinner rush so we get the attention of more students.  I just checked the silent auction website, and we do have a few bids, which is a great start, but we need MORE!! :-D

*Status update:  I just received word from one of my GSE teammates that the auction has currently raised $420!!!  YAY!!!  That's super cool, but keep in mind that there are 12 students on this trip, and we each need to raise approximately $4,000 apiece (also, any donation that YOU make to the GSE team will be matched by a grant from the college up to $750, this includes items purchased through the silent auction).

I know that readership of this blog is very small, and I know I promised in the last post that my future posts were not going to be so focused on fundraising, but I cannot predict the future (to my great disappointment), so I did not foresee this little snafu, but fortunately, it was only a little hiccup, and we seem to be making steady progress towards our goal.

Once again, the GSE online silent auction can be found here.  We have some really wonderful times including:

• a gift basket from SoMar Wine Cellars
• a gift basket from Spoon Market and Deli
• a gourmet breakfast for four at the Mirabelle Bed and Breakfast
• a night at the Black Squirrel Inn
• a "Date Night" basket
• fun activities with Professors and/or Staff around the College of Wooster campus

 I hope everyone takes the time to bid on the many wonderful items we have listed in the auction, and don't forget to looks for the GSE booth at the Wooster Jam this Friday and Saturday (April 20th-21st)!

Group Fundraising Round 2!!

Alright, so last Saturday, GSE Team 2012 sold Mocktails at the South Asian Students dinner.  We made almost $200, not a bad start for our first crack at the fundraising thing.  This Saturday, we're starting our second round of fundraising.  At 7:30pm tonight, our online-line silent auction will be up and running until midnight on Thursday, April 19th.  We are starting out this event with a little kick-off reception (with FREE mocktails).  We've been so fortunate to have seen so much support from the college and greater Wooster community.  We have many really excellent donated items available in the auction.  We're auctioning a massage, a basket from Spoon Market and Deli, SoMar Wine Cellars, and other local establishments in the Wooster community.  We've also got some wonderful donations from professors and staff members who have offered to take students fishing, dine with them, wear matching t-shirts, etc.

The link to the GSE 2012 online silent auction is http://www.32auctions.com/GSE:2012

If you are so inclined (and I highly recommend it) you should take 20 minutes to peruse the wonderful items we have to offer.  I just want to thank everyone in advance for their support in advance!!!  I will be updating you soon on the outcome of this fundraiser.

On another note, I don't want to make this blog just about fundraising, because 1) it's boring, and 2) it's annoying.  Therefore, although I do not have time at the moment to go more in depth on the topics and projects that we are working on in class, I will quite soon.  I'm sure that you all would find topics on livelihoods and their importance in the Indian context far more exciting and intellectually stimulating that never-ending updates on our fundraisers (we'll be running a booth at the Wooster Jam NEXT Saturday in case you're interested).

Bye for now!!  I actually have many non-GSE related appointments and events to attend today (shocking I know).