First Week in Lucknow

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  Lucknow, India
Sunday, October 7, 2007

How can I adequately describe my first week in Lucknow in one blog entry?  Well, the truth is that I can't, but that doesn't mean I won't try.  Just be warned, this entry is EXTREMELY LONG, and there's still a lot that I'm probably leaving out...I think it will take me some time to process and write down all of my first impressions...so there's more to come!

To pick up where I left off, on Tuesday, my second day in Lucknow, Sharon and I decided to do some exploring and a bit more shopping, since this was our one day off before starting work on Wednesday.  My landlady took us around the neighborhood a bit, showing us her friend's cyber café that's about a 10-minute walk away, a small grocery store (a mini-version of the one we went to in the mall) called "Domestic Bazaar," the closest shopping area (about a 15-minute walk from the house), the dairy and the best neighborhood sweet shop (always an important place to know about!).  It was hot out when we were ready to head back home, so the three of us got cycle rickshaw to take us back to the house.  I didn't think that all three of us would be able to fit on one tiny cycle with a seat big enough for 2 small people.  However, we all managed to squeeze in, with my landlady sitting on the small seat and Sharon and I balanced on the wooden side railings.  I was a bit skeptical that we'd make it back to the house in one piece, but luckily we only got up to maybe 6 mph at the fastest and arrived home safely. 

Later that day, Sharon and I decided to check out an area in downtown Lucknow called Hazratganj and aimed to visit this foreigner-friendly bookstore that a friend who'd been to Lucknow before had told me about.  At around 4pm, we hailed an auto rickshaw and asked him to take us to Ram Advani Books on M.G. Road in Hazratganj (the neighborhood).  Of course, we didn't expect him to know the bookstore, but we thought that maybe he could take us nearby.  He looked a bit quizzical, but we thought that we'd try our luck and got in for the ride into the city center.  When we had almost reached what looked to us like the central shopping area, the auto driver pulled over to the side of the road and told us we were here.  It didn't seem like we were exactly where we wanted to be, but after unsuccessfully trying to ask the driver to take us a bit further, we just got out and walked down the road towards the shops we saw up ahead. 

Our first stop was a big "Book Mall" called Universal Bookstore, where I spent almost an hour browsing the cookbooks, trying to find the best one to teach me to cook Indian food.  After changing my mind maybe four times, I settled on a comprehensive cookbook called "Indian Cookery" that included recipes for everything from rice dishes to sweets, ice creams, and sauces.  The book also had a section at the beginning with a list of commonly used Indian ingredients and their Hindi and English names, so hopefully this will help me learn some Hindi as I cook.  The one downside is that every recipe has at least 15 ingredients, so cooking these dishes might take up a lot of my time.

When Sharon and I were leaving the first bookstore, we asked a clerk where Ram Advani Bookstore was, and after being pointed in the right direction, we wandered down the street, looking into a few kitchen shops along the way.

It was starting to get dark when we found Ram Advani Bookstore.  The shop was much smaller than I expected, just one little room, and was filled with fantastic-looking books, many about Lucknow and its history.  When we entered, we were greeted by an smiling gray-haired man with a beard who was probably in his 70s or 80s.  I assumed, correctly it turned out, that this was Ram Advani.  We introduced ourselves and I told him that my friend had recommended his bookstore to me.  He asked us what we were doing in Lucknow, and we told him about our NGO work.  My friend had said that Ram Advani was a great source of information for foreigners to Lucknow, so I decided to ask him about finding a Hindi tutor.  He said he might be able to put us in contact with some people and pulled out his visitor's log for us the put down our contact information.  We spent a bit more time browsing in the shop, but since it was getting late, we decided to come back another day and left to catch an auto home.

Catching an auto home around 7pm is quite a difficult task, as it turns out!  It seemed to be the time when everyone was coming home from work, and every auto that passed us on the street was completely full with passengers.  We stood for a while on several different street corners, unsuccessfully flailing our arms at any auto that looked like it could be available, and trying to figure out which direction the autos going to Gomti Nagar would be coming from.  Finally, we gave up and decided to wait out the rush hour traffic at a nearby ice cream shop.  I got a scoop and we sat for about 20 minutes, hoping the traffic would lighten up.  We were successful in our second attempt, thanks to a nice Sikh man who was also going to Gomti Nagar and helped us locate a collective auto. 

Getting from the auto to the house was another adventure.  We told the auto driver the name of our neighborhood, and he dropped us off on what he said was our street, though in the dark nothing looked familiar.  Unfortunately the Sikh man who'd been riding with us had gotten out earlier, so we couldn't check with him to confirm that we were in the right place.  However, Sharon suggested that we just get out and walk, and eventually we'd find our house.  I'd say that we wandered around the neighborhood (possibly in circles) for a good 25-30 minutes, trying to read addresses in the dark.  We tried to ask a few different groups of people for directions, but with our very limited Hindi and their nonexistent English, we didn't have much luck.  Finally, we saw a girl wearing "Western clothes" (ie. Jeans and a T-shirt) standing at the gate of her house, and I decided to ask for her help, hoping that she spoke English.  My guess was right, and she told us in English that we were actually on the right street, but just had to continue down a short ways.  We thanked her and followed her directions.  A few minutes later, we reached our house and I was definitely relieved!!  I think the landlady had been worried too, since she rushed out to open the gate for us. 

For dinner, Sharon and I made our first attempt at cooking.  We decided to cook some rice and these dried soy nuggets that we'd found at the grocery store.  The rice turned out fine, but because we weren't exactly sure how to prepare the soy nuggets and hadn't purchased any spices yet (other than salt), they came out a bit chewy and bland-tasting.  Although it wasn't the most delicious meal, I was hungry and proud that we'd cooked something, so I sprinkled on a lot of salt to give the soy/rice combo some flavor and made the most of the meal.

First Week of Work
(NOTE:  AJWS has asked that we not include the names of our NGOs in our blog entries, so if you want to learn more about my NGO and its work...just drop me a line!)

I am working at a regional-level NGO that focuses on advocacy and capacity building around women's health, using a human rights framework.  The organization works with many partners in coalitions and helps organize campaigns to support women's reproductive health, youth sexual and reproductive health, and men's action ot combat violence against women.  They also do research to document cases of policy violations and provide advocacy training to local community-based organizations that work in rural parts of Uttar Pradesh and neighborhing states.

Wednesday was my first day of work.  Surprisingly, I have been waking up earlier than usual here, and because we didn't need to be at the office until 10am, I had plenty of time in the morning to cook breakfast, do laundry, etc .  Sharon and I left the house around 9:15 to leave us enough time to find a cycle rickshaw driver who knew how to take us to our office.  On Tuesday, my landlady had tried to arrange for a cycle rickshaw to come meet us at the house to take us to work, but he didn't show up, so we were on our own.  We realized, once out of the house, that we really didn't know anything other than the office address to help us get to work.  First, we got in a cycle rickshaw that drove us the opposite direction, away from where we were supposed to go.  We realized we were not heading the right way and asked him to pull over to let us out.  After our first failed attempt, and because auto rickshaw drivers are often better at directions, we decided to spend a bit more to take an auto rickshaw to work.  We told him the address and he seemed to know the way. 

We arrived right at 10am, just in time to join the staff in their morning chitchat session.  In fact, we learned that the staff sit around and chat every morning from 10-10:30am. It's sort of like a morning staff meeting, but many things they discuss seem to be unrelated to work.  Most of the chatting was in Hindi, so I didn't understand much, but they staff also introduced themselves to us and asked us how we were settling in.  The organization has 13 staff members, 6 men and 7 women, and they all seem very nice and so committed to their work.  Only 4 or 5 of my colleagues speak some level of English, but I will hopefully use this as an opportunity to improve my Hindi and, in the mean time, I'll use my non-verbal communication skills.

Following the morning staff meeting, Paula took Sharon and I to see an apartment they had found for Sharon, since she wanted to have her own place, and I wasn't too disappointed to have my apartment to myself either...it would be nice to not have to share a bathroom for the first time ever!  The apartment that Paula had found to Sharon was a 5 minute walk from the office on the top floor of a nice house.  Paula told us that the house belonged to the parents of a woman who used to work at our NGO, but now was working as a consultant at OXFAM.  The apartment was nice and Sharon said she'd take it and move in on Oct. 1st, to allow the family time to do some minor repairs. 

Later in the day, the director of the NGO (and our supervisor for the year) came to meet with us.  She's a very intelligent, dynamic woman in her mid-40s and speaks perfect English.  During our meeting, she told us more about the organization and the different areas of work, and said that she had arranged for us to meet with the leaders of each of the different projects and divisions over the next few days to give us a sense of the organization's work.  Then she asked each of us what we hope to get of our internship.  We also learned that her husband heads another organization in Delhi and also holds a professor position in the MPH program at University of Washington.  She also invited us to attend a training on research methods and she and her husband's organization had arranged for their staff members next week in Delhi.  We told her that we'd check in with our fellowship coordinator, but would be very interested in coming!

After our meeting ended, Sharon and I went looking for lunch.  Paula recommended the sweet shop across the street from the office, so we went there and got yummy (but spicy) veggie burgers for lunch.

After lunch we came back and met with the leaders of two of the organization's projects to find out more about their work.  One is a project on educating youth about sexual and reproductive health, and the other is a network of men who are working to stop violence against women.  They each gave us reading material about their work, and we spent the rest of the day (until 6pm) reading about the organization's work in these two areas.  Before we left, I asked Paula how to instruct the cycle rickshaw driver to take me home, and she gave me a phrase in Hindi to use.  She also told us about a few well-known landmarks near the office to use to instruct the drivers to bring us to work the next day, so that we'd avoid getting lost again.

Thanks to Paula's great instructions, we got home that day without any detours, and aside from having to be wary of rickshaw drivers attempting to charge us "foreigner prices," we managed to get to and from work relatively smoothly for the rest of the week.
On Thursday and Friday, Paula took us to buy our cell phones, a fridge, etc.  She even took me to a fabric store and called her tailor to come into the office so that I could have another shirt or two made to wear to work (as it stood, I only had 2 Indian-style kurtas, and wanted to add a bit more variety to my work wardrobe).  I feel very lucky to have a Paula here to help us...she's been key to helping me get settled in Lucknow!

Yom  Kippur, Lucknow-Style

Friday night was Erev Yom Kippur, and because there seem to not be any synagogues or other Jews in Lucknow, I decided to mark Yom Kippur for myself by fasting on Saturday.  Unfortunately, my pre-fast meal on Friday night was not the most gourmet concoction, as I made scrambled eggs and toast for dinner, but it was filling enough.

While my fellowship agreement does not require me to work on Saturdays (all Indians work Mon.-Sat.), Jashodhara told us about 2 important meetings that were happening this Saturday, and since it was our first week and we wanted to learn as much as possible about our organization's work, we decided to go into work for the meetings.  Because I was fasting for Yom Kippur, I was actually grateful for the chance to attend the meetings since they'd be good distractions to keep me from feeling hungry. 

The morning meeting was focused on planning for the 16 Days of Activism Campaign that will take place from late November to early December and was attended by my NGO's various coalition partners on this campaign.  This year's campaign would be focused on raising awareness about India's Domestic Violence Act, which was passed in 2005 but has yet to be widely understood or implemented.  Because the entire meeting was in Hindi, I didn't really understand much, aside from the few things that one of our colleagues translated for us.  However, everyone seemed very passionate about the issue and there seemed to be several heated discussions about strategies to use for the campaign.

The afternoon meeting brought together partners from various other organizations to discuss their progress on a campaign to get female elected officials on board to support improved maternal and reproductive health services in many of the rural areas of UP.  This meeting was also conducted in Hindi, so I spent most of it watching people's facial expressions and studying Hindi vocab.  Yes, it was frustrating to be sitting in the meeting and yet, be unable to understand what was being said or discussed.  However, it was also interesting to observe people's body language and facial expressions without knowing what they're saying, since even though I didn't understand their words, I could definitely tell who were the "strong personalities" in the group.  I'm not sure my Hindi will improve to the point which I can completely follow and participate in a meeting in Hindi, but I do hope that in a few months from now (with the help of my yet-to-be found Hindi tutor), my language comprehension will get much better!

After the second meeting ended, I had the opportunity to attend a small wedding party for a recently-married lawyer at one of my NGO's partner organizations.  Apparently, the staff of my NGO and the woman's organization had gotten together and planned this post-wedding celebration because the married woman's parents were not alive anymore, so they could not throw her a wedding party, and she had married a man in a higher caste, so the man's family refused to take part in the couple's wedding.  The party was held on the terrace of the partner NGO's office, which the staff had decorated with balloons and streamers.  They had also hired a caterer to serve "Chaat" (Indian snacks or appetizers).  When the woman arrived, she was showered with rice and flower petals, and led with her husband to the "seats of honor" at the end of the terrace.  Apparently, the woman is a "tom-boy" and never wears makeup or a sari, so all the staff members made a big fuss when she arrived in full makeup and a beautifully-ornamented sari.  Gifts were given to the newlyweds, and lots of photos of the couple with the other staff members were taken. 

Because I had been fasting all day, and it was almost 8pm, I was eager for people to start eating so that I could break my fast.  I also felt lucky that although I couldn't have a "proper" break-fast with bagels, kugel, etc., I would get to have a yummy catered meal.  At around 8:30pm, people started eating and I jumped right in to join them.  There were lots of small, sweet snack-like dishes, including pakoras and potato cutlets.  There was also one of my favorite dessert - gulab jamun (fried balls of dough in a sweet, syrup sauce).  I sampled each of the different chaats, and went back for a second helping of the ones I liked most.  After I'd finished filling my empty tummy with delicious food, I joined a group of my colleagues who were chatting on the terrace.  Soon someone put on music and my boss tried to rouse people to come dance.  Some of the younger women got into a circle and showed off their "bhangra-esque" moves.

Around 9pm, we all got into the NGO's SUV and the driver dropped us home.  The wedding party was really fun, and I'm so glad I was included in the festivities, not the mention the bonus of getting to have a delicious break-fast meal!

Market Day

On Sunday, I told my landlady that I needed to buy some things for the apartment, and asked if she knew how to get to Aminabad, the big market area downtown.  She said that she and her daughter were actually going to Aminabad that afternoon, so I decided that going along with them would be a good way to learn the lay of the land, since I'd heard that Aminabad was crazy and chaotic.  We took an auto and then a cycle rickshaw to get to the market, which is located in downtown Lucknow, near Hazratganj.  The cycle took us into the heart of the market, which was definitely an experience!  In addition to stores and stalls standing wall to wall on both sides of the street, there were carts parked on the sides of the road selling all manner of things, and bicycles and motorcycles parked in every open crack.  Because the parked bikes and carts significantly narrowed the street, what was left of the street was filled with what seemed like a perpetual traffic jam of cards, bikes, horse carts, rickshaws, etc. attempting to inch forward in both directions.  All the traffic on the street and all the parked bikes and carts made it quite difficult to walk, and we spent some time standing and waiting for an opening to cross the street or maneuver around a protruding cart or parked vehicle. 

Our first stop was the fabric area, where we wandered down a narrow, covered alley lined with fabric stores, and my landlady helped me pick out some nice and inexpensive fabric to have some salwar suits made.   Then we headed to some clothing shops with what could be the gaudiest and most unattractive (in my opinion) children's clothes ever.  My landlady explained that she was looking for an outfit for her 12-year old niece for Dooshera, an upcoming holiday where people are supposed to wear new clothes each day.  We went into several stores, where the salesmen pulled out boxes containing neon orange, yellow and green T-shirts and matching ruffled skirts complete with sequins.  After seeing an array of gaudy outfits, my landlady picked one and we went on our way.  We then visited a few kitchen shops, where I purchased a metal mortar and pestle (a key to have in every Indian kitchen) for crushing spices, and some other utensils.  Before leaving the market, we stopped at a small restaurant where my landlady treated me and her daughter to chaat and a creamy sweet lassi, in honor of "Daughter's Day" which just happened to be that day.  Then, loaded with bags, we squeezed into a cycle rickshaw to take us out of the market area, and then caught an auto back to the house.

That night, Sharon and I each packed a bag and met our boss and some of our NGO colleagues at the office to travel by train to Delhi for the qualitative research training.  We'd be in Delhi for a week at the training, and although it was a bit soon to leave Lucknow, we were excited about this opportunity to learn and to get to know our colleagues and those of our partner organization in Delhi!

Thus concludes my first week in Lucknow...More on the Delhi Training and my first impressions of Lucknow in my next entry...

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