Where to Even Begin?

Joanna, Meredith, and I with our bindi’s

A giant monkey at the exit of the temple

A picture of several students in our group and myself
with a group of people who
kept taking turns taking pictures with us

The room in which I was blessed by the Monkey God

A ‘Beware of Monkeys’ sign at the temple we were blessed

Traditional Indian toilets I have become a champion at using

1/1/12
The last few days have been absolutely incredible and I am not even sure how to begin explaining them! Two days in a row we visited villages in the Mewat district. 

Mewat is a closed community comprised of both the Muslim and Hindi culture. Historically this area was forced to convert their belief systems while secretly still following their chosen religion in the home. In result a sort of ‘hybrid’ between the two religions was formed which is what is now followed in Mewat. Neither the Muslim or Hindi community accepts Mewat because they are not 100% followers of one of the two religions. This lack of acceptance by other districts around them has lead Mewat to be a completely closed community in which they operate fully within themselves.

The poverty I have seen in Mewat is
not comprehendible. I honestly believe I have learned more in moments of visiting these villages than I have ever learned in my whole life. You simply cannot explain the emotions and realities of life within the villages in the Mewat District. Some of the individuals we met have absolutely nothing and the extreme lack of safe drinking water is horrific. It is extremely challenging to process to hardship we are surrounded by when we visit Mewat however I find hope in that while I have witnesses tremendous poverty I have also seen laughter, sense of family & friendship, and a light in the faces of many of the children. While many of the individuals in the villages of Mewat are severely in need of water, sanitation, education, nutrition, empowerment, etc. there is hope for change.

1/3/12
I apologize for not being a very good blogger both by not blogging and my jumping around and not finishing all of my thoughts/topics fully. The last few days we did not have internet and many times I am constructing short thoughts in a word document and not having the time to completely finish everything. Once we have more time (which may be when we return home) I plan to go back an update unfinished stories. As with previous posts please disregard my lack of good
grammar and ability to put together intelligent sounding thoughts… I am exhausted but very badly want to write down a few quick things!

The last three days we have been Roorkee visiting a university located there and learning about the water structures they use. During our time in Roorkee we were also fortunate to visit a temple which required you to take a gondola type ride up into the mountains to reach (we were at the base of the Himalayas). Within this temple several of us were blessed by differing Gods. I decided to be
blessed by the monkey God in hopes it would protect me from being attacked by monkeys (they are not friendly here and will rob, smack, and/or accost you!).

My blessing consisted of having what I assume was a priest give me a bindi (colored powder in the middle of your forehead… mine was orange), having me bend forward and taping me on the back with what looked like a padded mallet and tie a red bracelet around my wrist all while reciting Hindu blessings. For now I believe the blessing is working as we saw many angry looking monkeys and none attacked! Later that evening we had an opportunity to attend a festival which happens every night in this area and consists of lighting of lanterns to be floated down a river.

It truly was a gorgeous ceremony to witness and we were told by one of our professors who grew up in India that she remembers coming to this ceremony once and all you could see was light floating down the river. After the ceremony we walked a nearby market place and some of us tried out our haggling skills… which failed miserably. One girl in our group tried so hard to haggle with every merchant we met (and in my mind she was really good at it) however no one would make a deal with her.

During our time in Roorkee I was absolutely amazed by the attention our group attracted. On multiple occasions individuals approached us asking to take pictures with us (I will post a few). One older woman in particular asked another girl I am traveling with and myself for a picture and she was so excited she made her
husband hold several of her sweaters while she fixed her hair and sari before coming to stand next to us. I kept thinking to myself is there anyone I could ever imagine seeing somewhere in the States that I would think to ask to take a picture with them (and I don’t mean celebrities) and concluded that I don’t think there is.

On the academic side of this Indiawinterim we are making progress on our course projects. We have split our large group into three smaller groups focused on the following broad topics: Hydrology, Data Synthesis, and
Capacity/Access/Governance/Health. Within each of these broad topics there are specialties that each group member brings to begin to create (hopefully!) sustainable drinking water to the Mewat District. Joanna, three other students, and myself are in the last group and are going to have the UNBELIEVABLE opportunity to go
back to the villages for several days and conduct interviews!!!!!! I am literally so excited to conduct these interviews I can hardly stand it! Tomorrow we will be at IRRAD all day reviewing data sets IRRAD already has and constructing our interview guides. I am looking forward to interviewing the woman related to health issues the most and am on the edge of my seat with anticipation for what we will learn!

Health wise things have been surprisingly alright (knock on wood) and all I can say is that  Pepto Bismal = PINK LIQUID MAGIC! I have been having extremely vivid dreams (mostly nightmares) from my malaria pills which is a common side effect and not one I am loving. One challenge we have discovered is that with all of the water we have been drinking it is VERY difficult to be able find a bathroom during the days. The camper in me wants to just go outside however we have been advised against that because of all of the attention we bring. As a result my body is in a constant battle of drinking lots of water and being in pain with
no bathroom options. Every night I try and jot down experiences, thoughts, and information I have learned during that day. These next few bullets are a few of these that I am just now reviewing:

-Girls in the Mewat District stop going to school when they begin their menstrual cycle. This is one thing that absolutely INFERIATED me.

-In a large number of the villages girls also don’t go to school because there is nowhere for them to use a bathroom. Some of the villages have begun to put in latrines with the help of IRRAD so that more girls have the option of attending school however most do not have any.

-In the Mewat Distict there are not female teachers which is another large barrier to girls attending school. I feel that getting female teachers into the school HAS to be one of the next strides that is made to increase girls in the school setting

-Woman receive the least amount of education however they work more than the men in this area. I cannot even explain how many men we see in the villages that just sit around all day doing nothing leaving the woman in charge of the fields, children, cooking, etc.

-In a lot of the villages we have seen people getting their drinking and bathing water from the same sources their cattle use to drink and defecate in.

 

-Once issue that I have had some discussions and disagreements with others in our group is over the empowerment of women. I believe (as do many others in our group… not all though) that the empowerment of women is one of the best ways these villages can begin to make changes for the better in terms of health and equality. This is such a large and vital issue to me that I am going to work on constructing a post solely on this topic that will better outline my thoughts and discussions we have been having.
Currently we are back in Gurgoan after a 6 hour car ride and it feels like we have come back
to our home base! On our car ride we did stop at a McDonalds (which I am embarrassed to say) but we were in desperate need of a coffee haha. I’m going to try and lay down now and hopefully will have
internet in the morning to post this along with pictures from the last few days.

Take Care!