Chennai, the first two months

Sorry for the delay folks it has been a pretty crazy few weeks between my internship and everything else. For my internship, I have been working on a research report on women's gender issues in India specifically on the practices of honor killings, moral policing, acid throwing and how it continues to play a role in the country's society. While India is increasingly becoming a more developed society, it is still very patriarchal with women often getting the shaft when it comes to economic opportunities, social freedom, and healthcare among other things.

My internship also allowed me the opportunity to visit a small village outside of the southern town of Tirunelveli. This time I had a successful 12-hour train ride with no strikes in sight. At the field visit my supervisor, a few of the other CASA employees and I met with a number of local community leaders to discuss future efforts involving pensions and farming social benefits. Many of these communities around Tirunelveli have a large Dalit population (members of the lowest caste or "untouchables"). Despite India's progressive social and cultural changes over the past few decades, Dalits continue to be discriminated against and are often the last ones to receive social benefits. Most of the leaders in attendance were there to discuss their communities' efforts to obtain promised pensions and aid for the farmers in the area that are struggling to provide for their families.  Though most of the meeting was conducted in Tamil, my supervisor helped me along the way with English translations. In addition to this meeting, we also met with some of the women's groups to go over some of the positive impacts of their activities that they have conducted in the last few months. I really enjoyed getting out of Chennai and actually meeting the populations we serve. CASA has tentative plans for us to visit some of our Child Free Labor Zone initiatives and talk to some of the beneficiaries of the project. We are hoping to find ways to improve service delivery so that more families are able to place their children back into school.

Hostel life has been interesting. For the most part, I have been ok but I was sick during Valentines Day with either a stomach bug or a parasite. Thankfully it cleared up. I've made a few friends here, most of whom are students at the local veterinary college. They have been really sweet and even invited me to a concert with them which was nice. Little did I know that the concert was actually a large music festival featuring DJ Snake....so many sweaty dancing people! Definitely felt like the oldest person there but the experience was fun. Its kind of funny really, I feel like I'm reliving some aspects of my undergraduate dorm life...friends knocking on your door at night, running down to the mess hall to grab food before they close, and late night discussions aided by sugarcane. Having some distractions from my internship and capstone class assignments has been very welcomed. I have been diligently working on my assignments for my Capstone course during the weekdays which both excites and overwhelms me because it includes a semester long project I need to complete before my graduation in May...just a little stressed.

As far as the city goes, I have been exploring it every weekend I can to try and see all the sights. So far I have visited Marina Beach, Chennai's lighthouse, a few of the city's museums, a shopping alley or two and many other places in between. To help me learn more about Chennai, I recently began reading a book by a Chennai called Madras, Chennai and The Self Conversations with the City. It has been really interesting learning about the "soul" of the city.

Railway Tales

Still getting use to my internship at CASA. Each day the organization begins at 9am with a quick prayer session before we start working. Afterwards some of the staff settle down to read the morning's newspaper while being served coffee by a man who runs a tea stand down the street. The Chai guy usually brings his big thermos and sugar to fix coffee for us. I think he laughed the first time I asked for no sugar but since then he has made it a point to let me know that mine is the one without sugar. Work then usually starts  a little after 9:30am

In regards to my office, I work in a small shared space with three of my coworkers. Most of the time I meet with Poul the organization's Project Manager to go over the latest Core Program reports and research some of the political, social, environmental and economic factors that affect our clients. I'm really learning a lot about CASA's different projects. One of the biggest initiatives they are working on is reducing the risk of children falling victim to the child labor system. In addition to this, I am also assisting Poul with UT's  PUC (Projects with Undeserved Communities) program. PUC consists of a group of undergrad UT engineering and social work students in Austin who are currently designing a community center for the village of Packianathapuram. Construction on the building will begin in May but until then the students are skypeing in with Poul to gather some more details about the people, area, materials available and so forth.

As part of this project Poul invited me to come see the village and help gather some of this information for the PUC team. So with his help, I booked a train ticket for an 11 hour train ride to the Packianathapuram. This was my first Indian train ride experience and was super excited to be on train with beds on it. Anyway, I successfully found the train station, my designated train and my reserved seat without a hitch. To entertain myself I looked out at the countryside, and read some books and  required coursework readings for my online capstone class on my kindle.Well, I was eight hours into my journey when everything went pear shaped...

Train riding

Remember in my last post where I mentioned the Pongal festival? Well as part of the Pongal festival, the people of Tamil Nadu hold a kind of run-with-the-bulls activity called Jallikattu where people chase the bull and attempt the grab and hold on to the hump on its back. However this practice has slowly been banned around the country over the past few years, eventually leading to an official ban on the practice in 2014  by the Supreme Court of India citing animal welfare concerns. Since then there have been protests every year around Pongal to legalize the practice but this year's protest was the biggest recorded yet. Thousands of people came together to protest at Chennai's Marina Beach with many others protesting in towns and villages across the state. Which leads me back to my train ride story...

The train had made a scheduled stop in the town of Dindigul to pick up passengers as usual when we were informed that the railway workers, in support of the protests, were on strike and would not let the train go any farther. Uh-oh! So for three hours I sat on the immobile train trying to figure out my next move. I called my supervisor who was waiting for me at my original destination and informed him of the change in plans. After I called him, he quickly contacted a woman who lived in Dindigul and asked if she would take me in for the night. There I was sitting on the train when a woman named Ciliy approached me and asked "Are you with CASA? Come with me". So I ambled out of the train with my backpack and stayed the night at her house until my supervisor was able to pick me up the following day. The transportation strike continued for another three days so nothing was going back towards Chennai. Since I couldn't go anywhere, Poul and his family took me in for the weekend until some of the trains opened back up. To pass my time at Poul's, I toured an old Hindu temple complex and a palace near his home. In the end I eventually made it back to Chennai. Boy what a crazy time though. What was supposed to be a two day trip turned into a four and a half day adventure to say the least.

My rescuer Ciliy in the middle and her family

More of the Hindu Temple

The Palace

Another incident...one that has been an ongoing challenge is finding reliable ways to acquire money here as a foreigner. Since India's demonetization of 86% of their bank notes in November, cold hard cash has been hard to come by. While it impacts everyone here in India it especially effects foreigners because we significantly rely on the act of drawing cash out from the atm as our main method of obtaining money. My credit and debit cards are not accepted in most stores and shops and are only really good for atm withdrawals, however since there is a shortage of cash in the country, there are very few atms with money in them. After three weeks of not being able to draw out money I stumbled upon a magical atm close to my hostel that still manages to dispense cash. In addition to this I eventually was able to get a hold of some emergency money that my parents  sent via Western Union. Hopefully the situation will get better in the future but right now it's a challenge to locate a viable sources of cash

In addition to this last week, I made some new friends!

All I can say is that it has been a heck of an experience so far.

First Few Days in Chennai

Well, I made it! It only took me three days and two nights of sleeping in airports but I did it. I arrived at the airport late on Saturday night excited to finally be here and to sleep on an actual bed for once. My organization sent a driver to come pick me up from the airport and deliver me to my new home at the hostel. I was pretty discombobulated when I first arrived that night but I managed to take a much needed bath before setting off to sleep.

I am staying at a women's hostel for working women and students. It kind of reminds me of a really old dorm/motel. I have my own room and bathroom which is nice, though it does look like the movie set of the horror movie Saw. I'm trying to dress it up a bit but we'll see. My hostel provides meals in the mess hall three times a day, typically rice with a gravy or a curry. Sooo much rice...that is the main staple here for every meal including breakfast...in fact I can't think of a meal that didn't have rice. That being said, I do have a little hot plate to cook on in my room so I may experiment when I want to shake things up. In addition to my hot plate, I have a mosquito net to put around my bed each night.

My home for the next four months...check out that net

Rice of course and some fish and other things

Going outside is always an adventure albeit frightening at times. You must combat cows, auto rickshaws, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, beggers, and cart vendors. Honking is the preferred form of roadway communication as traffic signals are far and few.  There are honks for when someone is in the way, if they are slow, if you are about to cut them off, and honks if you just want to say hey. Did I mention that everyone drives erratically and there are no sidewalks or walk signals?  It has taken me some time to get use to this since I naturally like to walk in cities. I engage in a daily form of human frogger everywhere I go, and I must say that I am getting pretty good at it. Walking is definitely overwhelming but it makes sense to walk from my hostel to my organization since it's less than a fourth of a mile away.

My walk to work

My internship kind of threw me for a loop these first few days because it started out quite suddenly with my supervisor needing a report on climate change and its impact on child labor by Thursday. In the end it worked out. My coworkers have been very nice and patient with me as I learn the office schedule and culture. I am still unclear about what exactly I'll be doing but I'm sure I'll learn in time. 

The front of my organization, CASA

Where stuff happens in the office

Saturday:

My friends at the hostel took me on an adventure on Saturday. We first stopped by the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. The sculptures depicting various forms of Shiva were really bright and detailed. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to inside the temple because it is only reserved for Hindus.

After the temple we set off to find Thai Pongal festivities. Pongal is a harvest festival that is usually celebrated in the villages surrounding Chennai. Because Pongal is more of a rural celebration, we had to drive around and find what few events we could in the city. We finally manged to find one at a Roman Catholic church called Church of Our Lady of Light. There, they had a beautiful kolam, (a design drawn with rice flour on the ground) and a pot full of the traditional pongal dish, a sweet mixture of mung beans, cardamon, raisins, and cashew nuts...kind of like a porridge. Everyone was very accommodating and made sure that I was able to watch the celebration. Lastly, after the Pongal celebration, Annie and I went shopping for a sari for me. Apparently I picked out an older style but I love it all the same.

Angie, Celin, me and Annie at a Pongal celebration

Sunday:

I managed to clean up my room and research some details for work in the morning. Then later in the evening, the girls and I went to see a traditional Tamil dance held in celebration for the Pongal holiday.

....Another Adventure...To India!

Hey all! So I realize that my last post was in April 2015...let me catch you up. I finished my Peace Corps service in Georgia June 2015 and then traveled a few weeks around Europe before heading back to the US. Over the last year and a half I have been pursuing a masters degree in Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. My program has allowed me to complete my internship portion of my master's degree abroad in...you guessed it India. There all caught up!

Over the next four and a half months I will be serving as a Administrative and Policy Practice Social Work Intern at a non-governmental organization called CASA in Chennai, India. I am super excited about this opportunity since India has always been a place to visit on my bucket list. As far as the internship goes, I will be working with women in nearby villages surrounding Chennai to design and implement more gender equality initiatives. So far that is all I have been able to gather but I'm sure I'll find out more soon enough. Most of this is to put my macro social work studies to practice. While I'm there, I'll be staying at a local women's hostel close to my organization. To learn more about CASA and what it does, I've provided a their website link: http://casa-india.org/

I'll keep you all up to date more once I land since I'm currently typing this overnight at the airport