the last entry from India

So I fly home tomorrow, but still can't believe three months have passed since I arrived. Today and tomorrow I'll be buying last minute things (i.e. food) to bring back, and packing up all my stuff.
The group finished our two days of debriefing, which were really good for winding down and ending on good terms. I think the real cry-fest will happen at the airport though.
On the weekend, six of us went to Punjab with Amrit's family. It was an amazing weekend, and Punjab is the most distinctly different place in India that I've been. The way of life there is much more laid back, and the people were really friendly and happy. It may have had something to do with the fact that drinking is socially acceptable, and ganja plants grow legally on the roadside. Amrit's parents were amazing hosts, and even took us to see the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The train ride back home was the only low point of the trip, since four of us (and our bags) were illegally sharing a seat for one.
I am really looking forward to lots of things at home, but hope that one day I'll find myself back in India.

village trip and last day at the DIC

Sunday was the 'group trip' to the village to learn about India's rural governing system, only instead of the group it was 6 Canadians and the project supervisor. We met the man from the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (who I met on the metro) and loaded into cars. After a crazy drive there (on a two lane highway passing around corners between trucks, and being passed by two cars at once) we went to a few different houses in the village, and weren't too sure what we would be getting out of the day. After being offered chai a dozen times, we met a man who owned a camel which he rented for weddings and other events. He offered to let us ride around on it, which was really fun. I got to hold the reigns and lead the camel around, which was awesome. After that, we were served lunch, which was a huge feast of really good food. Then the ladies of the village sang for us and made us dance with them. After leaving the village, we took the scenic route back and got to see India's natural beauty instead of the incredibly overpopulated Delhi. I can't say I learned much about Panchayati Raj that day, but it was really amazing.
On Monday, Annu and I met with one of the two directors of SPYM to request funding for different supplies for dressing changes. At first, it was very discouraging and sounded as though they were going to tell the DIC not to do dressing changes anymore, and instead to send clients to a hospital. By the end of the meeting, she handed us 1500 rupees to go and buy whatever medical supplies we thought the DIC would need in the next week until they were able to directly supply the DIC with the recommended supplies.
Yesterday we held the session on dressing changes at the DIC. Because of how the last sessions Christina and I did, I thought a fairly informal approach that left lots of room for questions would be best, so I roughly planned what I wanted to talk about. I thought the session would be for the four outreach workers only. However, when we got there, there were about a dozen clients waiting for the session as well. About ten minutes before beginning, Shalini told Annu and I that there were films being made nearby for SPYM. These films were being made by two other participants in the group (Katrina and Medha) and a contracted producing company on topics such as safe injection and abcess prevention. Shalini then told us they wanted to film our session as well. So not only did our audience increase to five times the size, but the session would be filmed as used for SPYM's training throughout northern India. The session lasted about an hour. For each sentence I spoke in English, Annu translated into Hindi beside me. One of the clients volunteered to let us do his dressing change in front of everyone while explaining everything. I think it went really well. Even though I know there is a very small chance sterile dressing changes will be adapted into their routine practice, hopefully it at least makes the process a little less dirty. Overall, I think it was a really good way to end our placement.

coming back soon

I decided to buy a sari because we're planning a farewell party and the dress is 'formal Indian,' and hopefully I'll be able to come back to India for Annu's wedding. The blouse is currently being made at the tailor's down the street, and I'll be able to pick it up on Monday. I also got a few other shirts and kurtas made, averaging about $6 Canadian for fabric and labour (not bad for a custom fit!).

It finally is starting to feel like I'm leaving soon.... Only eleven sleeps left in India!!! I'm trying to make sure I do and see everything on the many checklists I've made since arriving, and I know there are lots of things I will miss, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to coming home. I remember arriving here and thinking everything was SOOO different, and I was always interpreting and analyzing what was going on around me. Now everything seems more or less 'normal' here. I don't think twice when I see an eight year old digging through garbage looking for things that can be sold, a physically challenged man using his arms to move along the sidewalk, or the many children in the marketplaces asking for money. I am really excited to get back into Canada and go through the same process of questioning everything that I did when I got here. There are definitely things I miss and will appreciate more (hot showers lasting more than three minutes, baking food in an oven, being able to drive places without a two hour traffic jam) and I'm sure there will be things that I have trouble adjusting back to.

Savita's village - finally I've been to a marriage!

I had a really great week at the DIC. Christina, the nurse from Guelph/Hamilton who is also volunteering for SPYM, came with me to the drop-in centre to discuss safe injecting and abcess managements with the outreach workers and a few clients. We made plans on how to provide a workshop for the outreach workers on dressing changes (primarily for abcesses) but we are very restricted in resources, so it will be a huge challenge.
I spent Saturday evening and this Sunday morning in Annu's mother's village in Harayana. There was a wedding there which we were invited to, so I was FINALLY able to attend an Indian marriage. It was incredibly different from any wedding I've been too. Even though there were a lot of people there, it didn't seem that crowded because the ceremony is so long, not every guest watches every party of the wedding. Also, as opposed to overflowing with joy, the bride and groom look like they want to crawl under a rock and die... I guess I would too if I was marrying someone I had not yet had a conversation with. As expected, there was an abundance of delicious foods, and it was hard so say no when everyone continued to offer more. Because it was a village and tourists don't really go to villages, many people were surprised to see me there. Kids are always the funniest, but lots of young women showed off their English by asking me their name. We slept at Annu's uncle's (mom's brother) family home, and they were very welcoming. This morning, Annu and I 'helped' (watched) her aunt make breakfast, which was made on a cast iron pan over a wood fire. After breakfast, they showed me the hookah they use to smoke tobacco, which is heated by burning cow/buffalo patties - mmmmm!!!! On the way back, we stopped at a 'bird sanctuary' which was a little low on birds, but still a really nice place to walk around. Annu's dad even pulled off a branch from a tree for me to brush my teeth!

High Commission & EAD

Last Wednesday was our day at the High Commission (Canadian Embassy). The other group was about 2 hours late because they got a flat tire on the way to Delhi. It really felt as though we had entered into Canada for the day. The facility was really nice, with Western architecture and a swimming pool. I had a bit of culture shock seeing so many Caucasians there. For the first hour there, we set up the timeline we had made of pictures from the pre-orientation camp in September to our Indian midproject in Mussoorie. We talked with some of the Canadian employees at the embassy, and found a lot of connections with them (i.e. one man I spoke two had two sons doing their degrees at University of Guelph). Then it was lunchtime, and we all moved downstairs to the restaurant. There was some Indian food (rice, daal, etc) as well as 'Canadian food' (chicken burgers, beef burgers, french fries, lasagna). It was so good to be eating familiar foods. The other Canada World Youth team arrived as we were finishing up our lunch. I think the funniest thing to see was that they (living in a remote village) had all lost weight, and we (living in Delhi where our host families feed us like crazy and then we buy cookies) had all gained weight. The Canadian part of the team was only 4 people big, and compared their program to 'Survivor' since so many people had been kicked out. Lunch was followed by apple crisp and chocolate cake, and we went upstairs for the official part of the day. Each group did a brief presentation on their program so far, and we discussed the challenges and benefits of the program. We learned that because India is no longer consdered a developing country, it is not on CIDA's list of priority countries, and therefore a Canada World Youth program in India looks doubtful past next year. Although the CIDA representative present did not have any direct say over the project funding, she seemed very passionate about encouraging CIDA to continue funding the program.
Last Thursday, I decided to get a haircut, which turned out to be more of an adventure than I would have expected. It's not an easy thing to get your haircut in a foreign language, not to mention the fact that my hair is different than any hair they cut. Although I asked for them to just add layers and not take any of the length, my hair is about 5 inches shorter. Oh well...
Friday was my EAD with Annu, and we went to the Global Open University for the Inauguration of the Panchayati Raj Department. The prochancellor of the university was there, as well as the man from the government's Ministry of Panchayati Raj who I have been communicating with. There were also a few foreign embassadors there to attend the inauguration. It was an interesting insight into the inner workings of the Indian government and parts of the education system. You'll have to ask me about it later when I'm not writing on a public blog.
After the day at the University, the group went to a nearby mall, which was nicer than any mall I've been inside in Canada (the contrast within this country's economy will never cease to shock me). All big brand name stores were there (ie. French Connection) and clothes were at least 10 - 20 times the price as clothes you can buy in the markets. We settled for some 19 rupee (50 cent) gelatto ice cream, and headed for home.
On Saturday, I went with Annu, Barbara, and Aakanksha (another counterpart pair) to Suraj Kund, a craft sale just outside Delhi in Haryana. They have crafts and clothes from all over the country, so I was able to buy typical products from other states. I did a lot of shopping for gifts that day, and bought a lot for myself as well. It was really crowed there, but a very interesting place to be. There were huge colourful carpets and umbrellas hanging everywhere, and all the buildings (i.e shops, food vendors, washrooms) were mud and straw huts.
On Sunday Annu had to work on university applications, so I had a free day to venture out on my own again. I took the bus to SPYM and spent the day with five of the Canadians from the team. We spent most of the day in an autorickshaw because we kept changing our minds about where we wanted to go. I decided to get some dress shirts custom made here, but the tailor others have gone to was in a market that was closed on Sunday.
Today Annu and I are taking leave from our placement to go visit her aunt and go to a market near her house. I plan on buying some fabric to get clothes made, and hopefully check a few more things off my shopping list.

Taj Mahal!

Yesterday, almost the entire group (all but 3 participants and one project supervisor) got on a train in the very early morning to go to Agra for a day of sightseeing. We arrived at around 10am and spent a while bargaining with taxi and rickshaw drivers. In the end, we agreed with a few rickshaw drivers for each person to pay 50 rupees ($1.25) for the entire day of service. We started off by going to a restaurant, which unfortunately turned out to be terrible food (but that’s a first so far in India). Then we went to the Taj Mahal, and I paid 750 rupees to get in. As it was a weekend, there were A LOT of tourists there, but it was still an amazing experience. I think the best part is that I’ve seen so many images of it my whole life, and never thought I would actually see it, but there I was. The group wandered around for almost two hours, taking lots and lots of pictures, and we met back at the rickshaws to head to Agra Fort. On the way there, we stopped at a very high quality marble store, where supposed descendants of those who built the Taj Mahal carve and designed marble table tops, boxes, elephants, etc. with inlayed precious stones. It was interesting to see the process, but the prices for even the smallest pieces were expensive by any standard. After looking around, we continued on our trip to Agra Fort. Agra Fort was another 250 rupees for the foreigners in the group, and so a few of us decided to keep travelling around. We went to Mughal Gardens and walked around for about 10 minutes, then decided it was time to go get food. It took three attempts to find a good restaurant, taking a rickshaw from one to the next, and finally we found a cheap restaurant with possibly the best food I’ve had so far. We met back at the train station at 6pm and headed for home.Today, Annu and I went to the a university which is planning to introduce a Panchayati Raj Department of studies, and has invited us to its inauguration on Friday. We got a tour of the area and finalized plans for Friday. Then they had the driver take us all the way home (a 90 minute trip). Wednesday the group is going to the Canadian Embassy to present our program to the officials there. We will be seeing the other Canada World Youth group that we were with during the pre-orientation camp in September for the first time. They have already lost 5 out of 9 of the Canadian participants! We created a ‘timeline’ of pictures, and two participants from our group will be speaking at the event.

only 5 weeks to go!

There isn't much to update you on in the last week. We had a great group day last Friday. I presented the proposal for work in the villages to the group and everyone seemed really keen. We will meet at a university next Friday (Feb 8) where we will be introduced to many important people working with the village governments. On Saturday (Jan 26) we stayed in and watched the Republic Day on TV, which was really long, but interesting and without bomb blasts. The past few days at the DIC were fairly uneventful, except we had our Canadian project supervisor visit, and I did a few dressing changes.
I was going to be going to the Taj Mahal in Agra this coming Saturday and then a wedding on the Sunday, but we were unable to book train tickets to Agra for the whole group on Saturday so now we're going on Sunday and missing the marriage. Hopefully I get to see one before going home!

Mussoorie!

Last week was fairly uneventful at the DIC. On Friday, we had our usual EAD at the SPYM main office in the morning. In the afternoon we had a mock trial for a case involving negligent transmission of HIV that turned out to be really interesting. That night, we left on a night train for a small town in the mountains northeast of Delhi, called Mussoorie, for our mid-project. The train station in Delhi was probably the most disgusting place I’ve ever been in my whole life. It was really crowded with very dirty people, and there were huge rats digging through garbage on the tracks beside us. The train was much better than the station, but we still all had the sense we were being taken to a concentration camp somewhere. The car we were on was called a sleeper, and the seats fold out into benches you can sleep on. I put my wallet, camera, and passport in my sleeping bag while I slept, because there was no way to secure my bag. The train took about 10 hours to reach Dehradun and we took a bus from there to get to the youth hostel just outside of Mussoorie. The drive up was more thrilling than any roller coaster I’ve ever been on, because the bus didn’t seem to slow down at all for 90+ degree turns even though the dropoff was at least a few hundred feet at all times, and the road was barely wide enough to avoid oncoming traffic. At least we were bigger than most vehicles we passed. The hostel was pretty nice, besides the fact it was freezing, and we were the only ones there. On the Saturday morning we spent our time settling in. Then in the afternoon we got back on the bus and headed to Mussoorie to see the town and do a bit of shopping. The town was super-nice. Like Delhi, it had a strong culture, however it was MUCH cleaner. We could only imagine how incredible the view was, since it was really foggy out, and we could barely see 20 feet in front of us. On Sunday we stayed at the hostel doing team-building activities and catching up with each other. Monday we went back to Mussoorie and hiked up a path to a place called Gun Point. There was no fog Monday, and we were able to see snowy mountain tops in the distance (the Himalayas!). We stopped for about a one-hour photo shoot, complete with traditional Indian costumes we rented for 50 cents. Even though I’m sure we all could’ve stayed there all day, we hiked back down, got on the bus for another adrenaline rush, and went to a beautiful waterfall. On the way to the waterfall, we saw lots of monkeys, which always makes me happy. The waterfall took a bit of hiking to get to, but was well worth it. Apparently in the summer lots of people go swimming under the falls, but at that temperature we probably would’ve suffered pretty severe hypothermia. The bus took us back to Dehradun, where we ate at a small hotel restaurant with surprisingly good food. Then we got back on the train and arrived in Delhi early Tuesday morning.
Last Thursday on the way to my volunteer placement, I met a man on the metro who is a National Coordinator for the ministry dealing with village development in the Indian Government. He gave me his business card, and Annu and I went to meet him yesterday. He seems keen on networking with SPYM and sending some or all of us to a tribal village in Madhya Pradesh (a state south of here) to help with some aspect of development (infrastructure, health care, sanitation, exporting goods). It seems really promising, and I’ll talk to the group and SPYM to find out more tomorrow.
As a group, we are also trying to plan a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. As we try to figure out all these plans, I’m starting to count down the weekends until I’m home, which doesn’t seem so far away!

i can't think of a title right now

Last Friday afternoon (Jan 4), the whole group went to a few Mandirs (Hindu Temples) together, which was really nice as we haven’t been able to do much as a group. The architecture here will never cease to amaze me. On Saturday I went to the zoo with Annu, Amrit, and Jenny. It was for the most part like any other zoo I’ve ever been to, except all the plants and birds were different. I expected to see elephants and tigers that would be happier than those in zoos in North America, but I can’t say they looked too different. It was nevertheless a good experience. Monday was a typical day of outreach at the Drop-in Centre. We did a few house visits and spoke with family members of clients at the DIC. At the first house we went to, the wife of our client offered to get chai and disappeared. Within 5 minutes of arriving, there were almost a dozen people (women and children) around Annu, Tekchand ji (the outreach worker), and I, asking questions and telling me I should move to India and get married here. The chai came about 30 minutes later, and I found out that the client’s wife took so long because she had to milk their cow before making the chai. Needless to say, it was very good chai.
Each day, the clients at the DIC receive free food from the Iskcon Temple. So, on Tuesday, we went to the temple to thank the man who is in charge of the ‘Food for Life’ program. We weren’t able to go inside the temple as it was closed at the time we were there, but it was still great to see. The Iskcon Temple is just behind the famous Lotus Temple (aka Bahaí Temple) so we went there right after. Then we left to meet the group at a huge convention center, where we observed a videoconference on trade between India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Nepal. Representatives from each country spoke about their needs and the barriers they face for trade, and how they could motivate their governments to work together to improve the logistical constraints they were facing. It was a really amazing exposure to many concepts I would not normally think about.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Annu and I went to do some outreach work with Tekchand ji in another area of Delhi. I don’t know the name of the colony, but it is apparently the largest (by area) in Asia. It has been around about 25 years, and they had still not yet completed many of the roads in the area. It was obviously not a place where tourists go, because many people seemed very surprised to see me there. When we went in the house of a client, everyone again crowded around me, practicing their English to ask me my name, where I was from, etc. It’s really a bizarre experience for people to be so fascinated with me because I’m a foreigner. Tekchand ji was going to be staying longer, so he had two boys take us to the bus stop where we needed to catch the bus to go home. We followed them through crowded streets and narrow alleys, hoping Tekchand wouldn’t send us with people he couldn’t trust, and they eventually got us out to the main road where the bus stop was. They even got on the bus with us, made sure we got seats, and told the bus driver where we needed to go. That was good service. It took us almost three hours to get home, and we have guests coming for dinner, so we decided to take a leave from our placement today. We leave for our mid-project one week from today, which means we’re almost at the halfway point already!

Happy New Year!

I went to an internet cafe on Wednesday, but it wouldn't let me log in to my blog, so I'm giving a quick update from the SPYM Office now. We got together as a group for Christmas, did a secret santa exchange, and had a pretty good time. Obviously it was nothing like Christmas at home though! On Christmas day we went to a small slum area to facilitate some games with kids there, which was a really different way to do outreach than what I've been used to. Last Friday we went to Lal Kuan, which is where they have the drop-in for MSM ('men who have sex with men,' and they had a dance show for us, which was entertaining to say the least. On the way back from it my wallet was stolen on a bus. I only had the equivalent of about $12.50 in it, and no important cards, so it was a best-case-scenario for being pick-pocketed from, and I'm sure whoever took it was disappointed. Last Saturday, I went to India Gate with Amrit and Jenny. It was my first time venturing out in Delhi independently, and I made it home safe. This week I had a very low key New Years celebration at home - Annu's parents went to sleep and Annu and I just talked until midnight, wished each other a happy new year, and went to sleep. Wednesday was a really good day at our placement, and I took lots of pictures for a change because I realize if I don't start taking pictures soon, I'll regret it when I come home. We did 3 home visits, and saw more people injecting, which always makes the day more interesting. Today was our real EAD and is ending early, so we're going to regroup and make plans for the weekend.
Also, I figured out where to buy and send postcards, so if you want one, email me your address!