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Published: April 23rd 2008
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Things are going along quite nicely here in Jaipur. Yesterday marked our two month anniversary of being at this practicum. Yesterday we also got back from a 5 day field visit to the remote district of Shahabad. It’s in Rajasthan near the border of Madhya Pradesh and it was about a 12 hour bus ride. That’s pretty long considering that the distance was just over 400 kilometers. Some of the roads are in poor condition and they are generally very narrow.
The reason that we embarked on this long journey was to do research for our current project. We are studying Bal Panchayats. These are basically government like structures for kids under 18. They are like clubs or forums where children learn about child rights and discuss any issues that they might have. They meet monthly and talk about problems and try to think of ways to solve them. Such problems might relate to education, health or whatever the kids take issue with. If an issue is too big, it is forwarded to the local Village Development Committee. The meetings include fun things too like music and games. In Shahabad the Bal Panchayats are mostly under a year
Up the mountain to the Savitri Temple
If you look closely, you can see the monkeys lining the path. It was pretty intimidating old so we were sent to assess their operation. We had a set of guidelines to work with and tried to see how closely they were being followed. We found many positive things like gender equality and lots of enthusiasm. I really enjoyed interacting with the kids and was greatly impressed with the progressive nature of this initiative. I think our report will turn out well.
Shahabad itself was quite nice. It is situated in a valley surrounded by small mountains. It is very deserty so everything was brown. The people we were with kept calling it a forest region, but the trees were very sparse and small, very different from the forests that I’m used to. There is a 14th century Mughal Fort that runs along the side of a long deep canyon. It was really cool and ‘untouched’, unfortunately though we went on one of the hottest days and I’m pretty sure I got a minor case of heat stroke. That same day we visited a “waterfall” - it was bone dry. It was very high up though so I imagine that during the rainy season it is pretty spectacular. We saw vultures flying around which
Silly boys in Pushkar
These boys insisted that we take their picture, and refused to do anything else but wrestle in front of the camera. emphasized the desert feeling. Apparently we may have been in lion territory, or ‘loin’ as the guys called it, but we didn’t see any and no one seemed to be too worried. They did however carry around sticks in case of vicious monkeys or snakes.
The water situation in this region is very sensitive. We did not have access to very much water so we didn’t wash our hair for the entire 5 days! It was just like treeplanting haha. Luckily we were able to rinse our selves off with a quick bucket shower because the days got pretty sweaty. We were lucky though, in some of the close by villages, women have to walk 2 kilometers to get water, and then carry it back in pots on top of their heads. We saw many women along the road doing exactly that, it was very impressive and made me think about how much I take for granted.
At the field office there is a Non Formal girl’s school and residence so after we finished working for the day we had some people to keep ourselves busy with. They were all pretty young, all different ages but
under 15 I think. They were quite taken with us and would drag us into their classroom after dinner. It was fun, we taught them some games like Stella Ella Olla, the human knot, and some clapping games. It was challenging to teach them the rules because none spoke english and our Hindi is elementary at best. It was great though when the rules were finally understood and we could tell they were all having fun. They also wanted us to sing and dance constantly, so we taught them a line dance and the hokey pokey, doing the body parts in Hindi. It was a big hit, and so we all did it over and over again, and wrote out the lyrics in their notebooks. I was glad they were there because it made the experience that much better. They were so sweet, and eager to learn from us - some of them were very bright.
So we returned yesterday and the journey was certainly an experience to say the least. We went to the bus stand at 6 am but it never showed up so we had to wait till 7. We were travelling with a man
from the organization and his family, I was glad about that. Because the first bus didn’t show up there was extra people and the 7 o’clock bus became very very crowded. I was standing in the aisle at for awhile at first but as usual, people pressured someone in a seat to move and let me sit down. Its very nice when that happens but I always feel a little guilty about the special treatment. So I was sitting in the aisle seat and the man standing beside me had quite the pot belly. My head and the pot belly were level with eachother and the aisle too was crowded, so it kept being pushed into my face. Every time we went over a bump, which was constantly, my face would bounce into the pot belly. I had to just laugh to myself about it because those buses really aren’t the places to be uptight about personal space issues. The man didn’t seem to mind that my face was intruding on his belly’s personal bubble either, he just closed his eyes and tried to sleep. This only lasted about half an hour till I was moved into a seat beside
Jenna. I was glad.
The bus ride felt like forever and finally when I thought that I wouldn’t be able to hold in my pee any longer, we arrived in Kota and got off the bus. Here we had a huge delicious thali lunch for under a dollar. We were expecting to get on a nice air conditioned bus for the last leg but we were rudely mistaken. After lunch we got on another bus that was almost as bad but at least we got the front seat. Everything was going as well as it could until all of a sudden the driver, who clearly missed his turn, took the sharpest left turn at a speed way beyond turning speed and I was certain that the bus would flip over on its side. It didn’t flip. Instead it careened off the road and flew into the forest where we were stopped very suddenly by a bunch of trees. The front bus window smashed and all the babies started crying. It was weird but the driver was perfectly calm during the whole thing. Calm when he foolishly decided that he could still make the turn and calm when he
landed the bus full of people into the forest. Thankfully no one was hurt. After that everyone on the road piled into the buses that went by (already full of people) and made them even more packed. The final 8 hours of the ride was on a bus packed packed packed with people and as hot as ever. But we made it back, alive and unharmed, and then we bought cold pop immediately when we stepped off the bus. It was delicious.
Now we are back in Jaipur for 4 days before we leave for Delhi where we will board a flight to Turkey so that I can renew my Indian visa that expires in 6 days. I’m sure I will have plenty more adventures to write about when we return.
I love you all and I miss the reasonable temperatures of home. And the widespread access to refrigeration. And pizza.
Love Kendra
PS. I can't seem to upload the pics from Shahabad, so the pics are of my trip to Pushkar
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