Randomness

Random Thoughts

Let me first say that I am in a bit of a panic mode. I am a planner. I have been my whole life. For better or worse, I like to have a general idea of what I am doing and where I am going. I am a goal oriented person. So to have only my life somewhat planned till December 17^th is a bit daunting. I really just want to crawl into a whole and not worry about it. I have no place to live in Logan once I get back to school. The place I was going to stay at fell through and I shouldn't be surprised, but I was hoping for the best. Obviously the best did not happen. I will give myself my own advice and say “I'll be strong.”

I should not be complaining. Last week I saw a homeless made take a crap on the side walk because he had nowhere else to go. A group of us toured a massive slum in Mumbai. If you are an illegal immigrant you are not allowed to use public restrooms. You have to pay 2 INR to use the toilet. Most people can't even afford that. So, this makes going to the toilet a problem especially if you're a woman. It is culturally accepted for a man to relieve himself in public. It is not however culturally accepted if a woman were to do so. Most women have to wait till either late at night or rather early in the morning to relieve themselves. As much as I love being in India, I can not accept or wrap my head around the amount of inequality that occurs between the sexes, religions, or even castes.(They say they don't have a caste system, but they still do.)

Let me illustrate. The majority of our local staff uses wood burning stoves as a water heater system. There is a campground on Sangam's property, and the local staff can collect wood to take home. An evening a couple of weeks ago, I noticed Saroj dragging a large potato sack size bag full of wood to take home to her family. Saroj is quite petite and the large sack overwhelmed her small frame. Me being me and not worrying about what is socially acceptable, I quickly ran outside to carry the sack. At first, Saroj said that I could carry the sack to the front gate. I asked her if she was going to wait for the bus or going to her brother's house. When we reached the gate, I told her that I would carry the sack to her brother's house. As we walked together down the alley to her brother's house, I was shocked at the stares that I received. See her world views her as my servant, and it's highly unlikely that her employer would carry a large sack of wood for her. In my world, I view her as my friend and equal. I know that she is up at 4:30 am to put the buckets out so that her family will have enough water for bathing, cleaning, cooking, drinking etc. (If she does not do this, there is no water for her or her family.) She then prepares breakfast and gets her three children off to school. After that, she takes a 30 min. bus ride to Sangam to report for work. She does all of this by 8 am. She works till 6pm. If we have an event, she doesn't get done with work till after 8pm. Immediately she goes home and cooks dinner for her family, does the laundry, and clean the house. This is a typical day in the life of one of our female local staff members. So, when I saw her extremely worn out dragging the sack of wood behind her, I could not do anything but help her. Someone in our group yelled at a child, as we toured the slum in Mumbai, that “if you work really hard, you'll be able to make lots and lots of money.” That may be true where she is from, but here that logic is the exception not the rule.

So, I will not worry about not having a place to live in 5 weeks. My life can always be much worse than that.

Postcards & Mice

Happy Independence Day! Today is India's Independence Day. We (the staff and the Phulenagar Ladies Society) started off the day with a proper Indian flag ceremony followed by an Indian breakfast. (We usually eat a Western breakfast.) This morning was quite nice. So, Happy Independence Day to all of my friends in India!!

So, my work is quickly coming to a close. I have 1 ½ months left here in Pune. I have been busy making plans to overhaul the Yahdei (the shop). If you ever complain about how long it takes to get something done in the States, just come to India and you'll soon come to appreciate the timeliness of vendors back home. I am in the process of making a planogram for the shop, as well as bringing in new product. All is easier said than done. I have 13 days to get everything together. Good luck to me.

I have also been working on designing new postcards for the shop. All I have to say is that they are a slow and tedious process. Most of my friends know how it goes when you make a mock up that you will have to make quite a few changes quite a few different times. I am proud of how they are turning out because I did not think myself capable of doing anything creative on that level.

The excitement lately has not been due to the riots on Mumbai/Pune highway, where people are killed daily, or crazy rickshaw drivers, or even the fight that broke out between two men in the slum across the street. (The two men managed to fight each other with a 2x4 piece of wood in the middle of Alandi Road. Now to give you a visual of Alandi Rd, I would compare it to Main St in Logan while USU is in session during rush hour traffic. For my friends at home, I would compare to Crossgates Blvd and HWY 80 at the peak times of the day or even HWY 25 by Dogwood. When I saw the fight break out, all I could think was “you have got to be kidding me......someone is going to get killed by a car.”) The most exciting thing has been the two mice that have somehow found a way to dwell upstairs with us. For those who do not already know, I absolutely HATE rodents. It all started two nights ago while I was in the lounge. I was by myself and too chicken to get out of the chair where I carefully sat. Luckily for my Priya came in and immediately started laughing at me. I told her to call the night watchman to get the darn thing. He came upstairs to my rescue or so I thought. We couldn't lure the mouse out from under the refrigerator. As soon as we stepped into the hallway, the darn thing ran under the door of someone's room. We asked that person if we could lure the mouse out, and they asked us not to because I really believe that they believed that it wasn't in there, but we saw it go in so whatever. We didn't see the mouse again until last night, except last night we saw a MUCH bigger mouse. Needless to say I screamed my head off and had the night watchman called up again. This time we put a mouse trap (a tree hugger one with carrots and onions in it) by the fridge. We again saw the mouse go under the same door as the night before, but that person wasn't here to give us permission to catch it. So we call them, and they again told us not to catch it in their room. WHAT?!? You have a rodent in your room and you want it to stay there? Trust me I have no desire to go into that person's room, but seriously people. Rodents carry diseases.....do you really need any other reason not to kill the damn thing?!? It's not like the mouse was from PetSmart or something. Needless to say the mice are still on the run somewhere upstairs. How do mice get upstairs anyway? The walls are made of concrete.

I will keep you updated about adventures in miceland! I'm sure there will be more to come!