A bit of a delay on the blog, but between the training session, presentations of our project to University professors, and Mom and her crew visiting, things this week have been pretty crazy.

So with the help of Lakshmi and Keilash we arranged our training session with 5 women from UGER in one of the school rooms at an Apna Jatan center. For 5 days from 11 am to 4 pm we sat on the concrete floor and helped cut fabric, hammer snaps, and snip threads as the women worked to design and sew the first 70 pads. Mumptaji, Pinkiji, (two enthusiastic women from Jatan) Steph and I were in charge of shopping for colorful fabric made of 100% cotton for the pads. Our shopping gave us a chance to explore the local markets of hatipol and bapu bazaar like locals. At first the women weren't too sure about having us around, but by the end of the week, we were joking about hitting each other with the snap mallet, and steph trying on our items for size.

Thursday evening, Mom, Mrs. Dunsirn, Hannah, and Anna arrived in Udaipur. I got a chance to see them on Friday afternoon, take the cable cars to the top of the mountain and go back to the Lake Palace Hotel with them. Seeing mom was great, but it was a bit strange because two worlds were forced together. Over all it was such a nice vacation to see my mom and my childhood friends, and hang out by their pool while sipping white wine. Their accommodations were so beautiful, more incredible than any of the museum palaces or forts I've seen so far. But I couldn't help but compare the living conditions I've seen in the field, to those of mom and her friends. Quite a contrast.

On Saturday, Steph, Nat, and I spend 3 hours in a work meeting with local university professors who are interested in our project. It was so invigorating and refreshing to get local support but also criticism of our work. Afterwards we hurried to prepare 30 sample pads with tags, marketing materials, and order sheets for Lakshmi to take to her conference in Bangalore. She will give talks about the importance of Safe and Environmentally healthy alternatives to disposable pads. Hopefully she will be convincing, and our product will help her cause.

Saturday night and Sunday was full of mom time. Saturday she had steph, nat, allison and I to the lake palace hotel for a delicious breakfast. Steph and I ate so much we felt sick afterward, but the spread at the palace hotel; piles of fruit, cheese, breads, fish, and various indian dishes; was too good to go easy. Our other activities were just as fun; a cooking class (that I unfortunately missed because of work), beer on a rooftop restaurant, trips to the Jain temple 'Ranakpoor' (where a priest sang us a blessing) and an ancient fort 'Kumbalgar' (where we ordered coffee that probably was made with goat piss).  The time gave us a chance to catch up and share our stories. It had been a while since I'd seen Anna and Hannah, but it was fun to catch up and reminisce about our days in middle school at Camp BirchKnoll.

They departed but we will meet up again in Delhi... speaking of delhi... I LEAVE TODAY FOR DELHI! I really cannot explain how excited I am. We're taking the night train to Agra... to see the TAJ, then we will bus on to delhi in the afternoon. We have a great hotel lined up, thanks to steph's parent's reward points, and a few club recommendations so that we can celebrate Allison's 21st birthday in style. Otherwise, I cannot wait to explore the streets and monuments, eat some kick ass paranta, and relax at Aqua, a pool side bar that we have all agreed will be worth a visit. Nat will be there with his host family so we will be lucky to have some local there to show us the ropes; hopefully his mom will take us to some good sari shops! While we are there, india celebrates the Raki festival. This is where girls give their brothers bracelets and the brother agrees to protect her... its really sweet, check out the link...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raksha_Bandhan

Last night, after an excursion to a tailor called "Little Armani" in old city for suits, shirts, and skirt measurements, Steph and I decide to crown Nat our honorary indian brother. We both tied our bracelets around his wrists and talked about how happy we are to be a family.

so another week has flown by, its seriously gone and I’ve been in India for over a month. Things feel like home, surprisingly, and I know I will have to return.

First off. Friday night was batman. It was pretty great and I am so happy that we have a really sick movie theatre only a couple of minutes away from my house! What caught me off guard was that India still does intermission during every movie like in The Sound of Music or Gone with the Wind) Overall though, Anne Hathaway’s performance was impressive, making me re-think her levels of obnoxious. But I think we were all hoping that Bruce Wayne would not escape from that pit so we could see more shirtless training montages…

But more on India:

Today was the perfect break from the hectic norm. Steph, Allison, Ciara, Michelle, Becca, and I spent about 2 hours at a lakeshore restaurant eating lunch, and sipping coffee and beer. Then we ventured up to the monsoon palace for a gorgeous view of Udaipur and the surrounding mountains. It began to rain as we left the palace, which gave the entire city a misty glow.

Last weekend’s trip to jaipur was absolutely insane, disgusting, stressful, and invigorating. Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan with a population of about… I brought up the trip idea to our group, and from there, was in charge of managing the transportation and the hotel arrangements and payment. Thankfully, Roma and Olivia helped a lot, but making sure that everyone was on the bus, and our hotel reservation was legit, was pretty crazy. I think for the weekend I was sort of the mom of the wolf pack.  I’m glad to say we made it back alive, only one cellphone (Nat) and one camera (Aaron) short.  Our transportation from Udaipur to Jaipur was a night bus with little sleeper cubbies. It was exciting at first as steph and I climbed up into our double sleeper box, but as the hours rolled by and the musty smell grew stronger and the noisy highway outside grew bumpier, it was slightly less fun. We arrive in Jaipur at 8 am the next morning, and found the wonderful Hotel Pearl Palace, where we checked in and ate breakfast at their roof top restaurant. I had my first cup of coffee in several weeks and it felt like heaven.

After a brief rest, the group went to the pink city to see the city palace. Then Jess, Steph, Allison, Michelle, Ciara, and Kelly and I wandered through some back ally ways as we tried to find the best shop for bangles. We got some weird looks, but otherwise felt safe. I feel pretty lucky that we got a “behind the scenes” view of the capital city. At “Little Italy,” woodfire pizza and a kingfisher beer finished off a delightful day. Everyone was happy to have a break from curries, dahl, and chipate.  Most of us returned to the hotel exhausted, except for Jess who came back to Allison, Steph and my room at midnight with a story about the club she went to with her host bro.

The next day, after another great breakfast at the hotel restaurant, we trecked to the Amber Fort, the most spectacular thing I’ve seen in India so far. The giant fort sits on top of a range of green hills, dotted with cows, overlooking a lake. The fort itself is a labyrinth of twisting passages, staggering staircases, mirrored chambers, and great views. After several corridors that smelled like piss and a run in with a pack of bats, we decided to leave. Our rikshaw driver took us to elephant city to meet the lovely she-elephant, pearl. I loved seeing her and stroking her trunk and the spurts of hair on her forehead, but it was sad and slightly uncomfortable to see her holed up in a 10 yrd by 10 yrd pen, waiting for the next batch of tourists to come see her.

The final adventure of the day was to the monkey temple, where we were anointed with a bhindi, and meet “the monkey man” who assured us that we were safe as long as he was with us. At least a hundred monkeys occupy the hill where the temple looks out over the sprawling and dusty capital. Olivia and Nat decided to feed our new friends some bread, but I refrained. Rabies was not worth a monkey grabbing a piece of bread from my hand.

That night, after a confusing trip to a dark ally with our rikshaw driver where he insisted that we needed to “visit his friend’s shop”, then finally being taken to the restaurant Niro’s for dinner, we got on our night bus back to Udaipur. We were all relieved when all 17 of us made it to the bus station on time and were on our way home. Nat accidentally picked up a bottle of pee that someone before him kindly left in his cubby, it was too dark for him to tell what was in the bottle before it was too late.

At work, Steph, Nat and I have been busy planning and preparing for next week, when 4 women from the SHG are taking their products to a trade fair in Jaipur, and we are producing 300 protoype reusable pads for testing and distribution to different NGOs, interns, families, and friends. By the time we will be done with this project, we will have designed, purchased materials, trained 5 women, priced, and marketed an entire product. I am loving the process and cannot believe the experience and freedom I am having at age 21 in a business setting. At a design firm, you would have to wait to be a senior manager before you could pioneer your own product, design, and over see the marketing. My favorite part was wandering through the fabric stores with Steph and two of the local women, Mumptaji and Pinkiji, looking for 100% cotton fabric for our pads.

Unfortunately our team has not been 100% well, as steph has been to the hospital 3 times this trip, trying to figure out her migraine/lightheadedness/weakness. We have grown so close over the last month that its so frustrating for me to see her worried and exhausted. I am so happy that I have bounced back from my sickness, but I hope she will improve in the upcoming weeks. Feeling sick away from home is physically and emotionally draining.

Otherwise the week has been filled with learning more about menstruation and different attitudes toward it through sites like this,

http://fuckyeahmenstruation.tumblr.com/page/6

http://iheartguts.com/calling-all-gynecologists

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jatan-Sansthan/128644517187874

Also, I’ve been trolling the websites of various consulting firms, fullbright programs, gates scholarships, production studios, and policy think tanks. It’s sinking in that I am going to be a senior and that although I am interested in all types of career opportunities; I have little to no idea what I really WANT to do with myself. If anyone has any suggestions… I’m all ears.

***A BIG thanks to Nat for letting me use his internet stick because mine has been broken for the last two weeks. And he let me eat some of his Dark Fantasy cookies last night, so there's that too***


So the last two weeks have been action packed in the sense that Steph, Nat and I now have a project to work on. We are incorporating a women's health initiative in with our marketing expansion of the Self Help Group. By the end of the summer, we will have hopefully worked with them to set up a boutique connection to sell their embroidered handbags, a connection with a supplier of school uniforms, and finally, a design for them to stitch female sanitary pads. These pads will be an eco-friendly, natural, cheap, and made available for village and city women who are currently using various unhealthy things to deal with their menstruation; synthetic pads (which take ~500 years to decompose) to dirty rags... Our project was inspired by Lakshmi Murthy, an incredible woman and a "pad freak" who has been pushing for a more sustainable and healthy way for women to not be ashamed of menstruation. She's won a Mcarther grant and is getting her phd in Bodily exertions, odd but awesome.  Look her up, you'll find some neat stuff. 

In other news, I caved in to the heat, spicy food, foreign bacteria, special lasses, and lack of sleep. Last Friday I feinted as I got ready for work, was scolded by my host mom, ushered to bed. After about 22 hours of sleep I was feeling much better. Tip to those who want to visit India in the future: Eat out as little as possible, the refrigerators are often turned off and on during power cuts which makes milk products and meat pretty unsafe to eat at restaurants during the summer. You can stay safe by eating vegetarian dishes. They are incredible and my auntie is an AMAZING cook, Again she tries to make me feel at home by cooking me pizza for breakfast : ) I really miss fish, and chicken, and beef,... and beer. At this point I am slightly questioning why I didn't study abroad in the Czech Republic.

It is still so hot that my red shirts are dying my skin red. When I get home and change, I look like I have a horrible sunburn. The next day, when I sweat, my dyed skin turns my white shirts pink... #IndiaProblems. But it has gotten better because the Monsoons have come! Each day it is cloudy and looks like it will rain, when it does, it pores all day, making everything muddy and wonderful. After getting caught in the rain with Nat, I was finally wise enough to buy an umbrella.

This weekend we are going to jaipur, just the 17 Gesi interns! We are leaving at 10 pm to take the overnight bus, and then coming back Sunday night. Hopefully we get to ride elephants!