Living the Life!

---

I have had these moments over and over for the past day where I ask myself, “Is this really my life!?” Orissa is pretty much my paradise so far and I’m so happy to be here!

Like I mentioned before, the office is based on a campus outside a city on the coast of the Bay of Bengal and at the foothills of some pretty great mountains, but the campus is by no means a small space. It is actually really expansive and covered in palm trees and other Aspen-like trees, grass, and tons of other wild fauna. I went for a run this morning here and in 30 minutes I still could keep going on one end of the campus without hitting the end! It’s a beautiful spot with clear blue skies, peaceful, quiet walkways, and butterflies floating all through the grass…and the occasional scorpion! The main office is about a ten minute walk from my building down a dirt path surrounded in palm trees and cute little houses.

I have two nice neighbors in my building and all of the employees, volunteers, and interns in this part of campus eat at the “mess” just next door to my building. Yes, it is dining hall food, but it is Indian dining hall food which translates into pretty darn good! Tonight we had this fried banana dish and paneer and/or mutton and of course the normal rice and naan. In general I have pretty much decided that naan is the perfect food and I can’t really get enough of it, so I’m really happy with the dining hall choices! We can get breakfast, lunch, and dinner there and morning tea before breakfast if we want too, and yes tea means delicious Indian chai 😊

I’m also really, really happy with my work here. I am indeed working on the Peer Water Exchange project like I thought and working to convert a lot of the paper documents of the organization into online files for the public to easily see and the organization to easily keep track of and organize. In addition I have started working frantically on an award application for a water award. Both projects are giving me so much insight into yet another aspect of the development world and the people I’m working with are truly incredible! The head of Peer Water Exchange is one of the most inspirational and motivated people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with and all day he is sending me tidbits to show me how much the project has the ability to change the world of water implementation! I’m really excited to be working with him and also all of the Indians that are doing so much great work in rural development here! The organization helps over 200,000 people in villages all over Orissa and there model is very well planned and executed. Another awesome perk of the job is that each day at 11 and 4 a man comes around and brings cups of chai to all of the employees! Gosh, if we got that kind of treatment in the US, I think we’d all be happier at the office! I’ve also met some really cool interns and volunteers from Australia, Canada, and Korea that I’ve been hanging out with a bit outside of our work.

This evening an amazing thing happened. After dinner I was leaving to go back to my room and some of the chefs started making a big hoopla over something. They started to run toward the path with a flashlight and telling all of us to come with them. We walked down the path about 50 feet and there was a baby python right next to the road! It was about five or six feet long and just sitting there frozen still. It had just eaten something so you could see strange lumpy shapes inside of its thick body too! It was really cool to see although terrifying especially because no one caught it or anything so it could be anywhere now! They said it is pretty rare here, but they also said it has happened twice in the last month! And the last time the little cat that lives around here (and is always hopelessly meowing at my door) went up to the other python and started fighting with it. The amazing thing about that, is that the cat actually got away alive to meow another day!

Tomorrow morning I will be off to a site visit for the morning. These sites are close by the main campus, where as some of the others I will be visiting in the next few weeks are much farther so that they can’t even be reached by phone! I can’t wait to see how the projects are actually working in the field and what village life is like here! Thinking of everyone on Thanksgiving back in the states! Eat some pumpkin for me and sure, twist my arm, I’ll have some naan for everybody back home!!

---