Another week of work has finished and we only have two more weeks to go! We are on schedule so far, and should wrap everything up this week, so next week we can talk next steps with the team. Since I'm the project manager in the group, I make sure we stay on task and keep Pawel from trying to solution too much. I think we make a good team so far. Pratima, Medha and I managed to make him get up and leave the room at the end of a meeting last week, but that's because I don't think he was interested in talking about women's fashion and Indian/US celebrities.
The girls at work seem to enjoy learning about the Western culture, which I think is a big part of us being here. I'm learning all about Indian culture too, which is quite interesting. I love their clothes and need to make sure I find some nice tops before I head home, they've given me the names of a few bazaars to check out. But the most interesting end of meeting conversation so far has been about Pratima and her arranged marriage. She is the nutritionist on the team, and I'm guessing is 24 or 25? She comes from a pretty traditional family and just became engaged to be married. It is an arranged marriage, she met her fiance first and talked to him for a bit at her home and she was able to decide whether or not she wanted to marry him. So, she does have some say in it. They will be married in October and as she says (and I've heard it from a few others), love comes after marriage. It's a concept that would never even cross our minds in the West.
But she seems happy, and she knows what her role is and seems fine with it all. She'll continue to work after she marries, but she did say that her dress will change. Right now she wears a salwar suit to work, which is quite young looking. But after marriage she will wear a sari, that's pretty much it. She tells us all this and seems very excited. On our taxi ride back from visiting a special needs children's school on Friday she talked to her fiance the whole way back. It was in Hindi and we had no idea what she was saying, but after Medha told us who it was, you didn't need to know Hindi to understand her giddy laughing and the way she spoke. It was very cute. Interesting side note...there is a very low divorce rate in India, in fact there is no Hindi word for divorce. love after marriage... :-)
On Friday, we had a short day before we headed off to a weekend out in the country. Pawel, Medha, Pratima and I visited the Milestone school, which is a private (non govt funded) school for children with special needs. Most of them had down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, are mute, or have other developmental diseases. It was a very small school, with small classrooms, but you could tell that the children are happy. We saw their books where they are learning english and hindi, some of the kids can't speak but are extremely bright. This is one of the places where the Annakshetra program delivers food.
Today (Sunday) is Holi in India, which is a festival of colors. They were celebrating it at the school, so we joined them, sort of. We toured the rooms and then they put the music on the kids were dancing. I was taking a lot of pictures and they kept posing for me. There was one little boy, probably about 3 or 4 who kept wanting to see himself, I eventually had to put the camera away. There are too many pics to post here, but I did put them out on our group picasa site. You can see all the colors on their faces (and mine) and also the dancing. It was a really fun morning, was great to see how happy they are and the good that the school is doing. After we were done dancing and left the room, they had fun throwing the dyes all over each other, . Good thing they waited!
https://picasaweb.google.com/108504812675139412203/Annakshetra#
We headed back to the homestay and then boarded our little Tourist bus for a week of organic fun. More in the next update...
The girls at work seem to enjoy learning about the Western culture, which I think is a big part of us being here. I'm learning all about Indian culture too, which is quite interesting. I love their clothes and need to make sure I find some nice tops before I head home, they've given me the names of a few bazaars to check out. But the most interesting end of meeting conversation so far has been about Pratima and her arranged marriage. She is the nutritionist on the team, and I'm guessing is 24 or 25? She comes from a pretty traditional family and just became engaged to be married. It is an arranged marriage, she met her fiance first and talked to him for a bit at her home and she was able to decide whether or not she wanted to marry him. So, she does have some say in it. They will be married in October and as she says (and I've heard it from a few others), love comes after marriage. It's a concept that would never even cross our minds in the West.
But she seems happy, and she knows what her role is and seems fine with it all. She'll continue to work after she marries, but she did say that her dress will change. Right now she wears a salwar suit to work, which is quite young looking. But after marriage she will wear a sari, that's pretty much it. She tells us all this and seems very excited. On our taxi ride back from visiting a special needs children's school on Friday she talked to her fiance the whole way back. It was in Hindi and we had no idea what she was saying, but after Medha told us who it was, you didn't need to know Hindi to understand her giddy laughing and the way she spoke. It was very cute. Interesting side note...there is a very low divorce rate in India, in fact there is no Hindi word for divorce. love after marriage... :-)
On Friday, we had a short day before we headed off to a weekend out in the country. Pawel, Medha, Pratima and I visited the Milestone school, which is a private (non govt funded) school for children with special needs. Most of them had down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, are mute, or have other developmental diseases. It was a very small school, with small classrooms, but you could tell that the children are happy. We saw their books where they are learning english and hindi, some of the kids can't speak but are extremely bright. This is one of the places where the Annakshetra program delivers food.
Today (Sunday) is Holi in India, which is a festival of colors. They were celebrating it at the school, so we joined them, sort of. We toured the rooms and then they put the music on the kids were dancing. I was taking a lot of pictures and they kept posing for me. There was one little boy, probably about 3 or 4 who kept wanting to see himself, I eventually had to put the camera away. There are too many pics to post here, but I did put them out on our group picasa site. You can see all the colors on their faces (and mine) and also the dancing. It was a really fun morning, was great to see how happy they are and the good that the school is doing. After we were done dancing and left the room, they had fun throwing the dyes all over each other, . Good thing they waited!
https://picasaweb.google.com/108504812675139412203/Annakshetra#
We headed back to the homestay and then boarded our little Tourist bus for a week of organic fun. More in the next update...
Sacha, It sounds like you are having some amazing experiences and meeting so many new people. I want to arrange Ruthie's marriage so take notes for me. We miss you but feel like we are right along side you with your wonderful stories. This weekend was a normal weekend of soccer, church, yard work and birthday parties. Your stories remind me to not take any of it for granted.
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