The Day to Day

Paper dosa at our favorite lunch spot

I think that it would be a good idea to give a better idea of what my day to day life looks life. Where's my house, who lives there, what's my daily routine, what's my job description, what's the NGO I work for. Heads up: this might be more boring than usual. I post something about smoking hooka looking over the jungle some other time :P

I live in a four story house in the south of Jaipur. It's pretty far out of the city center, and takes about 30 minutes by bus to arrive there. Still I am incredibly grateful to be at this particular house. It is kept very clean, the street is quiet, we have a great home cooked breakfast every morning, the family who lives on the first floor is really friendly (though sometimes cultural barriers can get interesting) and I love living around the other interns. In my room there are two other girls, next door there are 4 more girls, 2 firls upstairs, and 3 guys downstairs. There is always someone around to explore with or travel with on the weekends. The family that lives downstairs is mostly just the mom and dad, Agrawal and his wife Usha, and their children come and visit often, and then there is a servant family that lives in a small house in the garden, with two daughters, Nanu and Pinky. Some evenings I like to climb the winding metal staircase on the outside of the house to the roof, where I can feel the cool breeze and see fireworks going off to celebrate the many weddings around the city.

Currently I am interning at an NGO called HEDCON, the Health, Enivornment and Development Consortium (HEDCON.org) in Jaipur. They do research, advocacy and technical support in conjunction with other NGOs to better the position of mineworkers in regions around the Thar Desert in Rajasthan (the state surrounding Jaipur). A lot of what HEDCON odes, mostly involves surveys, and trainings, and then it passes the torch off to a larger NGO, GRAVIS, that then implements projects and programs to help the mineworkers. As a result most of what I have done for the two weeks that I have been work has been office work (and that's when they actually have things for me to do). However yesterday I was given my large assignment for the summer and I'm pretty excited for it once I start. I will be going out into the field, to 3-4 different regions of Rajasthan, to help conduct a baseline survey of the condition of mine workers and their families in those regions. This will include collecting surveys, conducting interviews, and in general observing conditions. Most of this field work will be conducted in July and then in August we will work on analyzing the data to create project and policy proposals out of the conclusions that we draw from the baseline study. It will still mostly be office work, but I'm satisfied with office work if I see that it lays an important foundation for more effective aid to these impoverished and exploited people.

 Monday through Friday I wake up around 7:30am, eat breakfast with the other interns and then head off to work around 9am. We have to walk 10 minutes to the bus stop along a very busy street (I'm proud of myself every time that I cross without dying) and then wait to catch the bus. As a side note of the probably 30 or so buses that I have taken in the last 3 weeks, I have only had a seat 3 times.  It is an adventure every day to run and jump onto the bus, navigate through a large crowd of men to pay the conductor, and then try to not fall over as the bus weaves through crazy traffic. I must say though that the challenge generally just excites me :) We ride the bus about 10 minutes, get off and then walk to work through a small residential neighborhood. Our office is around 4 rooms with several different offices, though our desks (there are 3 of us working here total) are in a more common area. We work until 1 pm (which often means about 10% finishing the small assignment that we have and 90% emails, facebook, and blogging) and then walk 10 minutes to a local lunch place. It's actually an amazing Indian restaurant, and I've enjoyed almost all the food that I have eaten there. We come back work to 6pm and then repeat the bus adventure on the way back to the house.

I'm still getting settled into a routine after having travelled with Rachel for around 9 days so I'm not yet sure what my typical evening will look like. Probably about half will involve hanging out with interns in the city, and the other half taking care of things at the house, talking with friends and family on skype, and going to bed early.  A little less than half of my weekends I will spend traveling to nearby cities, though this weekend I plan to spend in Jaipur exploring the hills and forts above the city. It's crazy to think I've almost been here three weeks, it feels like an eternity and no time at all.