may 31 haryana
so much has happened since we last spoke, blog. highlights: yesterday we made our second visit to the community center that the foundation runs for the mewat villages. we filmed a big meeting of leaders from different villages, and then we went to see the school in one of the villages that the foundation has made a lot of progress in. it was a relatively cool day but it was still sweltering in the village. i don't know what to think of the rural schools. each time we walked into a classroom (there were 5 or so) all the kids would stand up and salute us and shout something really loudly. other than that they were shy. i've attached some pictures, photo cred georgia dealey: 1) one of the volunteers from the village preparing mid-day meal in the school kitchen. 2) second grade classroom. 3) some kids outside of the school gate. they are either not enrolled, or they just wandered out because their teacher was out of the classroom -- not uncommon, our translator said. on the way back to gurgaon (2 hour drive on perhaps the bumpiest roads on earth), one of the women from the village rode in my car because she had an errand to run in the city. she is perhaps the coolest person on earth. she got married at age 12 and wanted to run away. but she didn't, and later she won a national women's achievement award for leading healthcare programs in her village. she shared dried channa with me. she also shared a selection of indian pop music, via an earbud plugged into her cell phone, which was apparently also an mp3 player, and considerably nicer than my samsung. she is an exception.
last night and today we had a break from our work. we went to delhi and did some sight-seeing (india gate, rashtrapati bhavan, chattarpur temple, sai baba temple, qutb minar), some shopping (palika bazaar), some eating (punjabi by nature and a random sweets shop + restaurant), and generally embraced being tourists. several families asked to take pictures with us. also, i bought some sparkly nail polish and a small hair scrunchee, both necessities, for a total of 25 rupees (about 50 cents).
tomorrow we have a full day of work, and before breakfast i am going to sneak into the kitchen and learn how to make paratha.
