So I have been meaning to write a few blogs in the past two weeks and have been sidetracked or detained for different reasons. I feel in India, when you want to be productive, you should always account for problems to arise in your success. These are just things that you must get over and accept as part of life.

For me the biggest problem outside of work is the constant sickness that envelops my previously healthy body. In the U.S I rarely ever got sick, whether it was a simple cold or something larger to require a doctor. In India, however, I feel I am always contracting some small bug or other problem to makes me feel awful and all I want to do is sleep. Right now it happens to be a sinus infection doubling with a broken toe… Don’t ask. Random things happen. This makes it extremely hard to do anything outside of the work that I perform on a daily basis at the crafts center.

Besides being sick of course, there are plenty of other problems that arise to divert my attention from the tasks I set forth at work. Communication is always a hindrance, and even today, while paying the wages, the women and I had to take extra time to go through the literal hand motions and few common words to explain the necessary items in the pay system. The biggest problem I have encountered as of late though is the fact that the partnership with the Indian non-profit, that I had been set on working out, will no longer be an option. So I am back to square one in trying to figure out the best option of training, marketing, selling, and completing my overall tasks while being here in Chandelao. I am already searching and speaking with other Indian groups about the possibilities, but I wish I had not spent as much time thinking it may work out with the last one.

Time is another problem that I encounter here in India. Not that I don’t have plenty of time to get things done, because I do, but the problem lies in the sense of time that Indians possess. Relying on my Indian counterparts to help me with specific tasks takes allocating at least three times longer than expected and constantly reminding them of the mission at hand. The needs I have right now, and that I have had for a minimum of a month, are things like opening a bank account and getting specific items for the center that I cannot get myself. Being a foreigner, I am not allowed to hold an Indian bank account, which means I cannot open the Sunder Rang account and must wait on my supervisor/host father to go to the city and do this himself. This is easier said than done, since the sense of urgency is not there, it is always forgotten about. The same thing happens with items in Jodhpur that I cannot find for the center and need help buying. Sometimes, being unfamiliar and being foreign gets very frustrating.

I just got back from a vacation of 9 days in the south of India and will blog about that soon as well. I had meant to write while I was gone, but the time budgeted for travel was simply not enough time for leisure and unfortunately that was what my companions and myself needed most.

Here in Rajasthan, India, the lifestyle is closer to the traditional way of living than in most states of the country. Some states even refer to Rajasthan as “the backwards state” because of the lifestyle and traditions that are still lived by the natives. Things like arranged marriages and caste system beliefs are seen anywhere in India still, but here in the village, they are still very prevalent in the every day life of a person.

A day in the rural villagers life here in Rajasthan would be considered uneventful for most, but it is the same life their ancestors lived and those before them. Waking up early to worship while hearing the puja (Hindu worship) at the temple, always at 8:30 (the only thing in India always on time…). Before and after the monsoon season are the only busy times of the year for the villagers of Rajasthan because of harvest. They must plant the seeds before the rains come, which last for nearly two months in the beginning of fall, then after the rains they must harvest the crops. This harvest season can last from one month up to two depending on the amount of rain that year.

On all other occasions in the village, the people do not have steady employment, which makes it hard to support their families. The younger generations of males end up being migrant workers and get recruited to work in the large cities. This is not a ideal arrangement either because these men do not make enough money to both support themselves and send money home, so they generally end up living in less desirable conditions in the cities.

Women are still oppressed in most village circumstances. The women are not allowed to marry in the village and once they are married, they have to leave their family in the village and live with their new husbands family in completely new village. This ends up very badly sometimes and most women end up very unhappy with their living status. The mother-in-law is the female leader of the household and if she has a vendetta against a daughter-in-law there can be very serious consequences for them. Sometimes, the mother in laws actually end up killing the daughter-in-laws and after going to jail, if that happens, they still don’t understand why what they did was wrong… The only way to combat these prejudices is to educate both men and women and hope for change that is slowly coming into India.

The caste system plays a major role as well. People in India are not supposed to marry or socialize outside of their caste and this is not just upheld in villages, but can be seen all over India in marriages and social prejudices. As for arranged marriages, these can also be seen all over the country, and when a couple has had a love marriage (getting to choose their own spouse), they are very lucky and also rare. In the villages though, the arranged marriages tend to be child marriages. Organizations are fighting against this, but it is still very common.

In the west, we generally think of 30 year old men getting married to 14 year old girls when we hear of child marriage, but it is a bit different. What usually happens in a village is that when someone gets married or dies, there is a large get together. During this time, if there are families who have un-betrothed children, they will pair them off to other un-betrothed children from another village. These children could be of any age but would not get married until later in life. Once another get together happens, these children will generally all be married at the same time because the villagers do not have enough money to support more gatherings. The then married girls will go live with their new families only when the families feel they are old enough. This could be anywhere from 14 to 24 though. It is a financial decision, and the more organizations interview these young child brides, the more the parents are realizing their mistakes and wishing things had gone differently.

Here in Chandelao though, things are a bit better off for all the villagers. Because the hotel is in the village, there is employment opportunity for men and some women to work here without venturing far from home. Other than the hotel, the women’s crafts center, Sunder Rang, employs women from this village that helps support their families. At first, the men didn’t want their wives and daughters working, but the village soon saw that the women were making a substantial difference in the families while they still had time to take care of their family duties. Now, there are more women who would like to be trained and work at the center, but until the business is scaled up, the employment is at capacity. In the near future though, we hope we can afford to hire more while increasing the existing pay wage and buy more capital.

So this past week has blown by without me realizing it and without me finishing any amount of work… After last weekend in Jodhpur, I caught something terrible and was laid up in bed sick for 3 days. I don’t know whether it was the something in some food that I had during the weekend or a stomach bug or possibly the terrible “Delhi Belly” that is so famous for travelers to get while in India. All I know is that I couldn’t eat or keep anything down and I hardly got out of bed. My poor grandmother, Dadisa, well host grandmother; she kept trying to get me to eat anything and I would try just to appease her but then feel worse than I did before. But finally I have gotten better, only for my host father to become very ill with a cold and I hope I don’t catch it from my immune system being susceptible to sickness right now.

I did go to the doctor in Jodhpur on the third day of my sickness with recommendation from the director of my organization. Once I walked into the doctors office, I immediately wished I had sucked it up and stayed curled in a ball on my comfortable bed in the village. The car ride into town was enough punishment for one day; that was until I went to the doctor. After asking me what symptoms I had been experiencing (in more or less words…) he did not give me a diagnosis, but told me what he was giving me: two injections and prescriptions for 6 medications to be taken over 3 days. Um, WHAT? He explained they were to stop the nausea and me from vomiting since I might throw up the medicine otherwise. I reluctantly gave myself over to the nurse who came in with the needle and made me lie on the table next to the wall while there were four Indian men, besides the doctor, all in the room trying to sell him some contraption. After giving me one shot in the ass, she made me turn over for a second one, which felt like hell in a needle while she injected what I could only hope, was helpful, into my blood stream.

After paying the doctor the equivalent of $4, I left with the driver who brought me and went to fill the prescription at the corner pharmacy/ chemist. After giving me the 6 medicines that the doctor ordered… I paid the man another $6.5. So after going to a doctor, getting two shots, and filling 6 prescriptions for drugs, I only had to pay about $10. Why is that and what is up the health care system in the U.S. if I can get this so cheap here? Well, that we all know is a totally different discussion and something that is somewhat touchy in the U.S. to talk about. About the medicine though, I don’t even take medicine in the U.S. so there was no way I was going to take all the medicine that the doctor told me to take… especially since I couldn’t remember which medicine was for what symptom. I wrote down what I remembered about them after getting back to my village and waited to see if I needed them. Turned out I didn’t need to take them, and the next time another intern or I have bad stomach problems, I already have the medicine.

So needless to say, I didn’t get any work done this past week. Then the women took the day off today for holiday so I have yet to do work still… Well, I did get some work done, but nothing at the center. I will have a lot to do before I leave for Christmas vacation in 10 days. It is unbelievable that Christmas is SO soon.

Work is still a bit slow at the moment due to that fact that I am waiting to hear back from Nest whether or not there can be a partnership between their non-profit and Sunder Rang. If there is potential for a relationship, it would be a great help to the organization, the women, and myself. Once a group is established as a partner with Nest, they will work in the areas that are needed most for the artisan group, and for our crafts center those areas include teaching English and business skills, quality control and efficiency, capital growth, and other necessary areas for the center to grow successful and sustainable. This would be a great help to me because I do not have the language skills in Hindi yet to teach the women business, or much else for that matter, and it might take the entire time I am here to get far enough along in the language to help in these areas.

Being the technical manager currently, this leaves the everyday duties for me to do. This week was no exception and I actually found myself finding more things I needed to get done. First off, I went to a city about two hours from our village and ordered handmade paper diaries to cover and sell at the center. The paper factory was a great business to see, especially in India. All the paper made in the factory is made from recycled cotton scraps bought from clothing factories. I had begun to think that no one recycled anything in India, and it was a great relief to see a business that was using recycled materials to make an amazing product.

They first buy the cotton material from the factory and separate them buy color. After separation, they soak the material in vats of water to make a cotton pulp, much like factories do with wood chips for papermaking. The pulp is then layered on top of a screen in the next vat of water then pulled up to make a sheet once dried on the screen. The paper sheet is then placed between two steel plates and rolled out to ensure the paper is compressed and smooth. The paper is then dyed if needed to be a different color and some are screen printed on as well. They sell the paper only, but can make different products if bought in bulk.

The week went by fast after that, and I kept coming up with things that needed to be done in the city. So this weekend, my trip to Jodhpur was one full To Do List and involved shopping for materials, running errands, and trying to find time to relax with friends. This sounds easier than you would think. It is almost impossible to shop in India and get a fair price as a white person. Due to these circumstances, I had to wait for someone who could go shopping with me to translate and ensure a low prices point for the materials needed for the center. Once this was done, and many bags later, that was one thing off the list and it was already Saturday evening. So the next day I spent getting my errands done as well as running more errands for the center and buying leggings for the girls in the village, since they are unable to go to the city or make them like the ones I have bought.

So at the moment I am still in Jodhpur waiting to go back with my host father because there is practically no way for me to fit my bags and all the bags of materials bought for the center in a crowded rural bus usually stuffed to the brim with 50 plus people sitting or standing, or more likely shoved into the ram shackled public transportation…

Oh American Holidays... One of the many things that is really hard to explain to Indians, well anyone not from American actually. The time honored tradition of how the Native Americans were gracious hosts to the pilgrims who wanted to escape intolerant England and helped them when they were starving. And what did generations later do to those who lent a hand to their fellow man in need? They rounded them up into thousands and either killed them or placed them in the least desired plots of land in North America. Well, in the memory of that time, at the beginning of America’s history, our families gather for a warm and inviting celebration of giving thanks.

Our tables fill with many dishes, sometimes different depending on where in the U.S. you may be, or what your family traditions are, but there are always staple foods that must be on every Thanksgiving table. Turkey being the most important, then dressing (stuffing for you non-southerners), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and of course… pumpkin pie! Excess food pouring over the sides of dishes while salivating mouths are waiting to eat because they haven’t eaten all day in preparation for the onslaught of food about to be consumed.

Well even though I am living in India right now, the other American interns living in Jodhpur and I decided that the best remedy for any homesickness or food cravings would be to make a Thanksgiving meal here in India! This was an endeavor that was great in thought, but not carefully thought through in order to be executed smoothly. With a grocery list consisting of nearly 30 items and not a single Westernized grocery store, the shopping started at 2 pm on Saturday for our meal that was planned for Sunday at 2 pm. Everyone split the list and started shopping around in two groups. After going to vegetable markets, and small stores, the hunting really began. Where the hell are we going to find marshmallows, evaporated milk, and cranberry sauce? After long ado, all was found at various places after asking person after person at stores, and even being given a phone to talk to different storeowners. I am really glad I missed out in having to get the chicken, because apparently they got to pick their chicken live, and then watch it being chopped up in front of their eyes. NO THANK YOU!

We finally got all of our cooking supplies and started prepping on Saturday night at our director’s house. After adjourning, we decided to meet at 9:30 the next morning to get the rest going in order to not delay the lunch plans. Well I got there at 9:30, but being in India, I waited on the others for a while, then a little longer to get things going. Finally, after all the prepping had been done, cooking had to ensue. This was the difficult part considering Indians do not have ovens, and they generally only have a double gas stove in their kitchen. We had to use a toaster oven to cook the sweet potato casserole, banana bread, and pumpkin pie, but surprisingly they turned out really tasty. With the help of our director, we had an extra gas stove brought in to cook and after we cooked most of our American food, the two Indian women from our organization made some Indian dishes as well.

It was a hit! Separating the non-veg and veg items on two different tables, we pondered upon the smorgasbord of random foods in front of our eyes and teasing our taste buds. The tables consisted of mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (complete with marshmallows and pineapple), green beans, cranberry sauce, salad, matar paneer (peas and paneer), Indian layered rice dish, paneer gulab jamon, and steaming piles of fresh chapatti. On the non-veg table, our tandori-ish chicken, pumpkin pie (made from fresh pumpkin!), and peanut butter banana bread covered in Nutella. These were non-veg items because vegetarians in India do not eat eggs and there were eggs in the baked goods. Everyone, host families and all, thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the food. I am pretty sure the Indians preferred the Indian food though, probably because our American food just wasn’t flavorful enough for their palettes.

This past weekend the other American interns and myself went of the midterm retreat for our session. For me it is no where near midterm, but the others are here for shorter times than me. Our trip to Udiapur, “The City of Lakes”, was a nice and needed time to relax and enjoy our surrounding in India. Udiapur was a much more of tourist friendly city and more relaxing than Jodhpur. The lack of people and horns crowding the already busy street was slightly mind boggling when walking around Udiapur. Being in Jodhpur, it is quite natural to walk past a cow eating trash that lines the streets while having a car almost run you down while blaring it’s horn right behind you. In Udiapur, however, it was almost like the Disneyland of Rajasthan because the lack of sensory overload was no where to be found, and the city was a lush land of beauty.

While walking around Udiapur, one might see the occasional cow walking or local bathing in the lake, but most of the time it is not nearly as crazy as the rest of the cities in Rajasthan. We even ended up riding swan paddle boats in a large fountain in the center of the city. Now tell me that is normal in India... The city’s Lake Palace was the setting for James Bond’s Octopussy and on a nightly basis, a tourist with a desire to fill their James Bond desire can catch a showing of this movie at a plethera of rooftop restaurants featuring their claim to fame. Tourists can also find a range of stores selling their goods to the doe eyed tourists not knowing what to pay or how to bargain and restaurants feathering mouth watering baked goods that are a treat to find anywhere in India. The oldest German bakery started a fad, in 1966, in Udiapur of selling desired baked goods and strong, fresh coffee to travelers in need of a taste of home. Now though, there are “French” and “German” bakeries all over Old City that try to attract the watering mouths of the Western tourists wondering if they will be satisfied by a piece of cake or a stimulating espresso. I was lured in multiple times by the Edlewiess Bakery and had my fill of pastries and coffee.

Other than the delicous pastries of Udiapur, the sites were amazing to see after leaving my current hometown of Jodhpur which is a flat dry city full of trash and dirt. Although I do not think I will see a fort in India that surpasses the grandeur of the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, the city of Udiapur leaves you wishing for a few more days in paradise. While the weather is the same, the city gets an abundance of rainfall during the monsoon season which leaves the lakes full and the trees green for seasons to come. The mountains surrounding the city allow the tourists and locals to see an ariel view of the sparkling city especially at sunrise and sunset. Leaving the city was quite hard, but knowing I would be going back to the room I call home, and the village I have become so fond of, I knew I would be just fine.

Thanksgiving was yesterday and although no one here celebrates the American holiday, the interns and I will be cooking American food today and tomorrow and inviting our host families to enjoy our home country’s holiday. We have to do this on the weekend because we all had to work during the week. I will definitely give some glimpses of the Americans at work...

As for work though, the women are starting to teach me some Hindi words and I am trying to teach myself as well. It is a very difficult language to learn here though because there are no particular ways of spelling the Hindi words in the phonetic alphabet and when the Indians tell you word to learn, it is very difficult to understand and pronounce correctly. This is the most difficult part of being in the village. Not knowing Hindi and trying to be the manager of the center where most of the women know nothing of my language and I know none of their language, definitely has it’s drawbacks.

This week I have been working on the business side of the crafts center that has not been set up. Inventory, stock, marketing, artist training are all things that have been lacking and needed to ensure sustainability of the project. I started the week out by taking inventory and going over past sales to find out what items sell the most. Many items that are featured in the product catalog have not been made recently and without having samples of all the items, it is hard to sell and ensure speedy delivery of orders.

The main progress of this week though has been the possible partnership with Nest that I have been working on. There is a joint company, both non-profit and for-profit, that works with artisan groups of India. Nest is the non-profit side of the business that works with the producers on further training and getting products ready for international markets. The Collaborative Group, the for-profit side of the business, works on the export of these products to markets in the United States. Currently, I am still building on the relationship and trying to find out if this will be a good fit for both sides of the partnership. I feel I am starting to catch my stride here in India. Hopefully this will be a venture to pursue for the center.

Other than the business that I am working on with the crafts center, I am talking to a Basecamp employee, who works with the village on their projects, about the opportunity of a government greenhouse. This will take a lot of time to set up and may not be feasible in such a small village, but it is worth a try. The Indian Department of Agricultural works with rural villages on different projects, one being a subsidized greenhouse which they agree to pay ¾ of the initial investment while also training workers in the village. This type of project usually costs around 4,000,000 Rs., which is about $80,000. That is a lot of money in Indian terms, especially in a rural village where they are lucky to make over a dollar a day on average. The government does guarantee subsidies for ¾ the amount of the cost, around $60,000, but still leaves $20,000 that would have to funded by other sources. The other problem that might occur is the training. It would be bad development to only train the men to work in the greenhouse, but if the training happens to be in another part of the country, it is difficult for women to leave the village. The women are not encouraged by their families and extended families to pursue employment, and definitely not supported to leave the village for long periods of time, which training might require.

I am not able to stay at the hotel this weekend due to large tour groups coming in to stay at the hotel. I had to leave so they could use my room for guests, but I have not been in Jodhpur for close to two weeks, so I am fine with going to the city to get some supplies and hang out with the other Americans. Next weekend is going to be our midterm retreat, even though it is not close to my midterm; most of the other interns are here for a shorter amount of time than I am. The plan is to visit Udiapur in Rajasthan and stay for a three days in “the city of lakes.” There is also an FSD team that is based in Udiapur, but we most likely won’t see them during our stay there. Apparently it is a beautiful city and it is amazing they have lakes since in all the other areas of Rajasthan the lakes dry up within weeks of the end of the monsoon.

That’s it for now, but I will update if anything come up this week and definitely after our trip to Udiapur.

Today is my first official day as the manager of the center that employs the women from the rural village. The manager left yesterday after a three year stay in the village and said goodbye to those she had grown to call family. Among the tears and well wishes that I could not understand (because of the language barrier), there was happiness for the future. Radhika will be missed by all the women who have grown accustomed to seeing her everyday, but they all know she will be going to do great things in life.

As for me, I just wish I could communicate with the women. It is quite hard to sit there all day and not be able to understand or speak to anyone. This I will have to get used to fast or learn Hindi at an unprecedented speed. I am starting to learn a bit but it is not fast enough being that I am the now the only person managing the center. The business side is my specialty and I believe I can help in many ways that the previous manager was not equipped to because she was a creative mind. I will not be able to replace her in any way, and all I can hope for the next few months is that I am able to further the progress of this program and community and help them for the future.

I have already started working on Fair Trade Certification, which costs more money than they can afford currently, but I will try to get a grant from the Foundation for Sustainable Development. This will hopefully open doors in selling products. I have also reached out to my alma mater, Belmont University, and the program I used to be a part of, SIFE. Being that they specialize in this type of non-profit help, I am hoping to have the students help me with marketing in the Nashville area to secure orders for the crafts center. This would ensure a flow of money to support the program in a way that has not been available. Currently, there are few buyers outside of the tourists that stop by hotel to stay for a night or two, and not every tourist buys the products. Other than securing orders, there is much for me to do to help develop this community and center. I am going to help with the business at the hotel, and the solar project in the village once the donors have set up the equipment and trained the women. There has also been talk of a government greenhouse that would ensure a village to have enough food for themselves and to sell. This will require much research and funding, however, but I hope I can help to start this initiative as well.

So this weekend was nice and relaxing... for the most part. After of a week of being on the other side of the world, I was feeling a bit lonely and quite sad about why I had come. Other than this not being the exact opportunity that I foresaw in my future, I have figured out that I just need to adapt to my surroundings and see how things go. After leaving the village at the end of week, I was still feeling new and uneasy about the city: Jodhpur. I took the rural bus from the village to the city and although people were very nice and made me sit down, I couldn’t help notice that I constantly being stared at, especially by the young girl beside me who never took her eyes off me the entire hour long drive. Once I arrived in the city, I had to figure out what bus would take me to the place I needed to be across town. That was a joke. I actually got on the right bus, thanks to a police officer who was standing close by to my dilemma.

Soon after arriving and settling down from my ride in, I found out that a friend of a friend was actually in Jodhpur for the weekend and we decided to meet up. Manni, a fellow British traveler, and myself all met for coffee while meeting other Europeans on Saturday night then met up the following day for the tour of the Jodhpur Fort. The fort is the center of attention in the town and sits atop the hill at the center of the city. Maharajas resided in the fort for hundreds of years and brought it through many sieges that occurred up until the mid- 1900’s when they moved to the palace across town. The architecture of such a historical place in a country so widespread and cultured was the perfect way to take me out of a slump. Being able to be a tourist first in the city that will be my home for almost a year is a good starting out point since I now know the history and stories behind the Blue City. What was also helpful was going on the public buses everywhere I needed to go during the weekend. Hearing the streets and neighborhoods will not benefit me unless I know where they are, so I traveled by bus around the city and back to the village. I am getting used to the people staring at me now, although it can be overwhelming at points.

This week is the week of Diwali, and although it is only celebrating one day, the women have taken the first three days of the week off to celebrate. Yesterday a couple of us went to the market in Pipar City, probably 20 miles from the village, and shopped for Diwali and visited the block printer to buy materials for the crafts center. The block printer was really intriguing and it is amazing to see how some producers still strive to produce quality products with natural ingredients. The block printer is run by three brothers and their families (actually three generations) and they still print all materials by hand while using only natural dyes and fibers. This makes their fabric much more expensive than the machine processed products, but who wouldn’t want natural quality that supports the work of true artisans rather than printed and processed material?

On the way back from the market, however, the car broke down and the we had a flat tire. This always seems to happen to me in foreign countries. Or for that matter, I just have really bad luck when I am anywhere near a vehicle. The driver changed it relatively quickly and we returned to the village to relax and enjoy the quiet week of Diwali.

It is the end of the week here in Chandelao. I have been in the village for about four days and have gone to Jodhpur for the weekend to have hindi lessons and see the other interns. This week has been my first week here in India, and it has not been an easy transition. First, when I arrived, I was constantly passed around to people in FSD and not given orientation very well. Every night I was staying in a different place and not knowing what was going on. Once I arrived in the village, it was nice to be able to get settled in my room and have somewhere to leave my things. The room is nice. I am staying at a hotel in the village that is an old fort from the 1740’s. It is an amazing place to be living since it is so historical. I get three meals a day and it is extremely quiet and quite lonely. There are really only two people who speak english there, the hotel owner and the manager of the women’s center. Radhika, the manager, will only be there for one more week and then she is moving away and will no longer work there which will leave me to work as the manager there. I don’t speak the language and don’t know anything yet so this is not sitting well with me. I thought I would be doing development with the rural women, and the center is already running and I am not sure what the point of me being there is just yet, except run the center that I know nothing about.

Other than that, there is a ton of wildlife in the area, including a monkey that keeps running around the hotel grounds. There are two pet dogs at the hotel, Hazel and Kitty, which are nice to have around. The tourists come to the hotel and stay for a few days at a time and will at least give me some people to talk with. This week there were two Swedish people who came to check up the solar project that they are funding, which has yet to be started since the solar system has not reached the village and only 2 women have been trained. There were also two Australians who got to the village last night and will be there a few days. It is quite interesting to have conversations about the difference in cultures of India, America, and the other countries that are home to the tourists.

The isolation of the village will not give me very fun details to report on on a daily basis, but hopefully I can figure out something to work on. The pictures are of the hotel and crafts center where the women make traditional handicrafts from the Indian state of Rajasthan by hand.