TravelStream™ news feed for member azurra on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/azurra en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:48:57 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1245073905/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1245073905/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1245073905/tpod.html Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:48:57 -0400 One Summer in India

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Ahmedabad, Gujarāt, India

It took about four weeks, but my job at the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation has finally been established. I will be designing and conducting an impact study of WASMO's water supply schemes on the living environment and quality of life of rural tribal communities. I will be creating four separate questionnaires: one for household members, one for health care works, one for dairy workers and one for nursery school teachers. Then I will be making several trips to the rural villages to complete the required questionnaires (sample size yet to be determined). And finally, back to the office to compile and analyze the results or my surverying and hopfully come up with some idea of how tribal communitites have been effected by receiving a safe and reliable water source at their doorsteps.

So, this is not at all what I had expected to be doing while I was out here. I choose this internship based on a job description that in no way matches what I am actually doing. I thought I was coming out here for work experience, not academic experience. Of course, I am going to make the most of the situation I find myself in and I'm sure there be many valuable lessons I can take away from my time here. But it's also just one of the many reasons why I have felt so much frustration and disapointment with this internship. On the bright side, there's still lots of time for this position and this organisation to redeem itself.

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Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

July 11-12, 2009

Taking advantage of my alternating two-day weekend, Leah and I headed out of town and out of state, to Udaipur in Rajasthan. In one way, it made me sort of feel like a traveler again, being that it's a tourist haven. Hostels, restaurant and shops aimed specifically for tourist's tastes and needs. Which is totally opposite to the Ahmedabad, a city where you see another foreigner on the street only once in a blue moon and there are no ammenities designed for westerners. In another way, being in the touristy Udaipur made me feel less like a traveler and more like a resident. I couldn't believe what the other westerners were wearing! Slobby, unflattering, unfitting, revealling, hippy clothes that pay no attention to Indian culture ot customs. I can see why travelers could get unwanted negative attention in India, if they were dressed in that fashion.

Udiapur's narrow, winding streets and tall heveli-style buildings charmed me. I was so excited about walking around and seeing all the nooks and crannies. Leah tells me that most old towns and cities are set up in the same manner, but this is new to me since I live in a newer part of one of the largest, most developed cities in India. During our brief 24 hour stay in the city, we did a lot of shopping (taking advantage of the tourist markets not available in Ahmedabad) and visited the City Palace and it's adjacent museum.

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Dharampur, Gujarāt, India

July 1st to 9th, 2009

Second working visit to rural tribal communities to complete collection of research for study. Visited three districts of Navsari, Valsad and the Dangs and countless small communities and villages. Completed about 50 questionnaires of women, health care workers, teachers and dairy workers. Monsoon rains made collection of data extra challenging.

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Navsari, Gujarāt, India

June 17 to 22, 2009

My first official, working field visit to rural tribal communities. Visited all around the district of Valsari, about 5 separate villages. Completed about 30 questionnaires for my study.

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Palitana, Gujarat, India


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Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Friday, June 12, afternoon

I am very much looking forward to having two days off this week, after working six days a week for the past two weeks. To celebrate and take advantage of my extra time, Leah and I have made plans to travel out of town. We've purchased bus tickets for Saturday morning at 7 am, to take us to a town named Palitana, about 5.5 hours south of Ahmedabad. From there we're going to visit a nearby plateau (Shatrunjaya) just outside town that has a collection of about 900 Jain temples on it's summit. To get to the top, we going to climb approximately 3500 stairs that supposedly will take about 2 hours. Because it's somewhere around 44*C in the daytime here, we're going to try our hardest to stick to our plan of arriving at the base at about 6 am, before sunrise on Sunday morning.

Should be karmalicious!

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Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Monday, May 25, 2009: 1:00 pm

So I realize this first blog entry is long overdue, so I thank you for your patience! I have been in India for one week now and it goes without saying that it has been a very different, unexpected, challenging but relieving time for me. So much has happened in this time that I don't know where to start or what to include. Or more so, that there's so much I want to say that I don't have enough time to cover it all!

I have pretty much settled myself and have become fairly comfortable in my surroundings and daily routine. On my second day here I moved in to the intern flat, met my roommates, chose a room and unpacked my bags. I learned how to use the gas stove, how to shoo pigeons out of the kitchen without being crapped on and refined my showering from a bucket skills. Through word of mouth and daily journeys through the streets of our neighborhood I've learned how to cross the street unharmed, where to buy apartment essentials and where to find the best Gugarati and Western foods. Last Tuesday was my first day of work and I was excited about starting a new job but very nervous of taking the local bus. All the buses look the same except for their route number painted in a way-too-small font on the bumper. There are no bus stops so I have to stand on a busy street corner, watching dozens of buses zoom by, spot my number (8345) and then flag down the bus and hop on when he slows to a running pace. It's good fun now that I'm used to it!

So far my job at WASMO has been quite unsatisfying, as they haven't really given me any work yet. I think it may have great potential once the work actually begins, as they said I can choose to work in the area that interests me the most. Because this is the headquarters office, it is quite large, with approximately 60 people working in it. On top of this, they have offices in each of the state's 26 districts, so it is quite an extensive organization. Everyone that I've met in the office is so very nice and friendly. My computer space is in an office with three others: a wonderfully funny woman named Shilpa, a fast-talking man named Hemant and another gentleman whose name I don't know because we never speak due to the langauge barrier. A few of my favorite things about my office so far: it has air conditioning, there's chai service twice a day, there's squat toilets instead of western style ones (yes, I do prefer the squate toilets!) and the staff continuously take snack breaks. As I said, as soon as I actually start working instead of writing personal emails all day, it'll be great!

Three interesting things I've seen today:

1. This morning a herd (? troop, barrel?) of monkeys took over our apartment complex. I was out on one of our balconies after breakfast when I first saw them approaching from a distance. There was about forty of them, running and jumping along the rooftops and terraces of the houses below. From my safe vantage point on the seventh floor I was thrilled and filled with delight, as this was my first encounter with monkeys in India. As they came closer to our building, they hopped into the trees of our courtyard, some of them taking a rest and eating some leaves and others jumping onto the cars and continuing on their way down the road. About twenty minutes later as I left the flat to go to work, the elevator arrived on the main floor and there were a handful of monkeys perched on the railings, basically surrounding the elevator door! Thinking back to my grabby-monkey experience in Thailand, I was not prepared to thrust myself into the middle of a potentially harassing experience so I stayed and hid in the elevator until they left! They were surprisingly big, about the size of a large dog, with long skinny arms and an extra long tails. When they did finally carry on their way, I cautiously pulled the back the elevator gates and started making my way through the parking garage, but there were monkeys sitting on some of the cars! Not knowing how they would react to me, I decided to run, which made some of the local kids in the courtyard laugh. Since none of the monkeys chased after me, I guess I overreacted and may try and play it cool for our next encounter.

2.The traffic in India is pure madness from a western perspective, with massive congestion, no streetlights, blazing horns and no one staying on the proper side of the road. Although it seems to work quite well in India. Even with the rickshaws playing chicken with the semi-trucks and the cows taking naps on the roads I have never seen an accident, until this morning. While riding the local bus down the highway on the way to Gandhinagar, traffic came to a crawl as everyone had to pass a huge dump-truck that had tipped over and spilt all its contents across the road. It was quite the sight to see, the bottom of the truck, the crowd that had gathered around and the hundreds of stuffed burlap sacks blocking the road. I'm guessing the cause was not so much a collision of vehicles but that the truck was taking too sharp of a turn around the roundabout. I laugh to think of how they are going to clean that all up and put the truck back on its wheels again!

3. While using the super awesome Indian style squat toilet at work this morning (is that too much information?) I saw the neatest thing. There was a water spider (you know, those spiders that you find in the washrooms all the time) who had just caught an ant in its web and was using two of its legs to wrap up the ant into a cocoon. When it was done, the spider carted the packaged meal into a crack in the tiles of the wall, presumably to save for lunch.

...

I'll do my best to continue on describing the ways of India. However, there's no convenient internet shop close to my flat, so enteries may be farther apart than I had hoped.

On with the rest of my "work day"... :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1244441170/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1244441170/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/azurra/2/1244441170/tpod.html Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:08:51 -0400 One Summer in India

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Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India



As mentioned, my new flat is located on the third floor of a house in an area of the city called Usmanpura. The Indian owners who live on the first floor are a very nice and helpful elderly couple we affectionately call Aunty and Uncle. Uncle, who speaks very good English, is not around much as he works full time as a city planner. But Aunty is always home and very much enjoys calling us into her suite as we pass by on the way to our room (we have a separate entryway, which includes a crazy steep staircase from the second to third floor. It's actually more like a ladder, and true to Indian safety standards and regulations, only half of it has a railing. Leah and I always joke that we find it funny that the railing disappears just when you need it the most. And we think that the staircase is actually meant to teach us about the cycle of
Buddhist desire and suffering and how expectation just leads to disappointment.
If we make it our whole time in Indian without falling down and breaking a bone, I will consider this a great success.) So on one occasion Aunty called us into her kitchen to taste her freshly made mango shakes and the conversation led to her talent for embroidery. It was great to see this old Indian woman get so excited to bring out all her embroidery pieces to show to two young Canadian girls! She mostly works on saris and children's clothing items, but also has this beautiful piece hanging in her living room wall. Even though the attached picture doesn't catch all the wonderful details, I think it's a great capture of Aunty being proud.

Working at WASMO, I get Sundays and every second and fourth
Saturday of each month off. May was cruel as it had five Saturdays, forcing me to have two six-day work weeks in a row. My Sunday this week involved sleeping in, hand-washing a big load of laundry, finally getting an activation SIM card for my mobile, and running some errands during the afternoon. For the evening, we decided to take the advice of some of my co-workers (and of the Lonely
Planet guidebook) and head to Kankaria Lake, just south of the old city. We heard it was a "great place for a promenade", an ideal place to people watch and a "pleasant way to spend an evening". And we were looking forward to enjoying some greenery and a relaxing evening. Oi-yoi-yoi! Indians and Canadians must have a very different perception of what we consider an enjoyable experience! Yes, there was a lake, but it was overshadowed and forgotten by the ugly gray concrete boardwalk that dominated the shoreline. I bet about a quarter of Ahmedabad's 4.5 million people were there, making it impossible to stroll without employing a constant strategy of dodging, side-stepping, elbowing and pushing. Add to this, vendors gave this gong show a carnival flavour by selling noisemakers, balloons, sweet-eats and by setting up rides and games for both kids and adults. Being the only foreigners there garnered us way more attention than we were comfortable with, so left after only strolling around half the lake. Needless to say I'm going to write Lonely Planet about this one.


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Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Namaste!

Yes, I want to apologize for the scarce blogging. I don'tmean to, it's just that I don't find myself at an internet shop very often. Sohere's a run down of what's going on with me in India.

First, I have moved out of the intern flat that I was staying at. For a fewreasons. First, I didn't really enjoy the atmosphere and the types of peoplethe other interns were. The flat itself wasn't bad. I mean it wasn't luxuriousand it was a bit run down, but it had some good features (like a washingmachine, a kitchen, an iron and such). And I was prepared to come here and livewith a group of strangers I did not know. However, once I got to know them abit better I came to realize that they weren't really the type of people I hadhoped to meet. I got this feeling that most of them didn't care about being in India,were not enjoying their internships and we keen on having fairly rowdy partiesevery second night. On top of this, I didn't really trust them and always wasworried about keeping my room and wardrobe locked up. In the short time that Ihad been living there, money from people's rooms were stolen twice. One timewas actually the "community pool" that was collected for paying forthe water, gas and electricity and we ended up going with out water for four days.Secondly, I didn't enjoy the neighborhood that the flat was located in. It wasin the newest and wealthiest part of the town, so it was definitely safe, whichis good. But all around us was big box stores and huge four lane streets thatwere impossible to cross and very stressful to maneuver. Stores closed early,there were no restaurants and so I had to take a rickshaw (transportation) awayto do any shopping or to eat out. I just didn't find it convenient for me atall.

The one great thing about the flat is that I met a fantastic friend named Leah,who is from Ottawa.Right from the first moment we met, we hit it off. When I first arrived and Iwas lost and disoriented and didn't know what to do, she was friendly andhelpful and took the time to answer all my questions and help me out. Leah isalso doing a developmental internship at this organization called PRUDA, whichworks on urban issues. She had been to Indiaseven times, so she is a wealth of information and knows how to speak Hindi, soI really appreciate having her around. We both agreed that the intern flat wasnot the type of experience we wanted to have while in India,so we decided to move out together. Through a suggestion of one of her colleaguesat work, we decided upon this fantastic place closer to central Ahmedabad. (Ifyou want to google map it, it's right near the corner of Ashram road and 120Circular road, in a section of town called Usmanpura.) We share a room on thethird story of a house, which was fully furnished, with a terrace and our ownbathroom but no kitchen. It looks as if it's been recently renovated withperfect walls, new linoleum and new tiling and fixtures in the bathroom. Frommy experience, it's rare for anything in Indiato look this new and clean, so I'm very pleased! :) Plus, living with Leah hasbeen great! We make a good pair, with similar humour and interests so she makesfor very good company.

Work at WASMO has been slow going. My main objective over the past two weeks ofworking here has been to research, study and get to know all the areas of theorganization as best I can. This has included me reading tons of annual reportsfor their various projects, viewing handfuls of slideshow presentations andgetting lectures by the directors of some of the programmes. All this becausethey want me to take on a research project or study project of my own choosing,on the subject that interests me the most. In theory I like this idea, but I'vefound as I sit here wracking my brain everyday trying to come up with a projecttopic, that I would much appreciate a little more direction. I see mysupervisor only once every two or three days, so I'm finding it hard to getfeedback on my ideas. And so this project of mine is still in the developingstage.

I'd say that I'm now pretty much well settled into life in India.At first of course, everything was new and exciting and I was nervous because Ihad almost no idea what to expect. But now I am becomingused to maneuvering the streets, riding the local buses, bargaining in themarket and being continuously started at. I've learned a few handfuls of wordsto help me order food, give directions, greet others and defend myself againstthe begging street children.

I'd say one of the things I am liking the most about Indiais the women's clothing and jewelry! :) They have two types of traditionaloutfits: the sari and the salwar kameez. The sari is one big long piece ofbeautiful fabric that is wrapped around the waist a few times, then is gatheredat the front in a couple of zigzag folds and then tucked, with the end of thefabric coming up over the shoulder and hanging down the back. This is worn witha choli, a little short sleeved blouse of a coordinating colour. The salwarkameez is a three part outfit. The kameez is a tunic type top that can be ofvarious lengths, from below the knee to waist but usually covering the bum. Thesalwar is a pair of baggy pants worn underneath the kameez and these are toppedoff with a dupatta, a flowy scarf. Sometimes this outfit is just referredto as a suit. Even with the billions of people in India(I know I haven't seen them all!), I have yet to see the same outfit twicebecause there are just so many types of fabrics! Add to this the women wearingsaris usually have on glass or gold bangles, elaborate gold earrings andbindis, which make women of any class look beautiful! (Bindis are the either self-adhesiveor painted on dot or marking that Indians wear in between their eyebrows. I thinktraditionally they used to symbolize marital status, but in modern time they'rejust used for decoration.)

I think one of the things I like the least about Indiais the lack of personal space. Surprisingly, I do not mean physical personalspace, even though that is also an issue, but I more so I mean personal mentalspace. Their society is different in that strangers (say like the people in myoffice or the people on the bus) have no qualms about diving right into yourpersonal affaires. And they are blunt, direct and pushy about it too. It's justthe way they kind of are here. Your business is everyone's business. They arenot shy about telling you what to do or about telling everyone they know aboutyour affaires. Suddenly everyone in the office knows how I caught the wrong busto work and then was overcharged by the rickshaw driver. I mean come on, doeseveryone really care or need to know about that? Apparently, yes. It may notsound like a lot, but it feels like a lot to me. Dealing with this type of behaviouscontinuously all day sort of drains me and leaves me irritated and frustrated. Butlike with everything else, I am getting used to it and am learning how to bemore patient with others and myself. It is also teaching me how to speak moreboldly about my interests, because if I don't then I end up being put on bus to Kutch with only four hours notice. (it almost happened!)


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Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Thursday, June 4, 2009: Morning

Each morning I have to stand on this busy street called Ashram road at this particular bus stand in order to catch the bus to work. Not only do all the buses heading to Gandhinagar stop there (if you flag them down) but there are also shared jeeps that regularly stop by. I've taken one of these shared jeeps before and it was not a pleasant experience: they literally cram as many people as they can into the vehicle and the jeep I was in ending up with 19 people in it! I was such an uncomfortable experience that I vowed to never ever do it again! So today, like everyday, I get a kick out of fellow passengers who run up, eager to get a good seat, as the jeep pulls up to the stop. The tightly packed crowd includes seasoned and young business men, old women and families with goods from the market and small children. It's such a shock to me, still every morning, to watch the aggressive elbowing, pushing and shoving that takes place as the passengers wrestle to be the first in the door when the jeep stops! A similar thing happens when getting on the bus or going through a doorway. I guess I never realized how much I appreciated out western chivalrous behavior before.

...

I actually just wanted to write a quick entry so that I could also post some pitures that I didn't get a chance to post the other day. I hope you enjoy! :)

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