The Whole Nine Yards

Hm. I have been here a full month, and haven't yet put up a blog post. I figured that someone should keep up this blog now that Mitch is gone and the trip continues, though...

A brief overview of MY impressions of the last four weeks:

Week 1: India is hot. And humid. And, when presented with the option of playing badminton at noon in a non-air-conditioned gym in such weather, one should NOT leap at that opportunity. One should not even indulge in a small, half-hearted, lurching hop. Unless one is fond of heat exhaustion.

Week 2: Our trip through Nagapattinum and Cuddalore was fantastic, involving everything from discussing US-India politics with the director of Barathi Women's Development Center over lunch, to spending a full day on motorcycles, driving over 100 km to three different rural villages, learning how to make salt from seawater, and seeing Rama's footprints. We came back to Chennai Friday night and met with two more (spectacular and inspiring!) organizations which have been (and will hopefully continue to be) goldmines of contacts and info.

Week 3: We went to two Indian weddings, which were both incredible... interesting cultural side note: in South India, weddings only take place while the moon is waxing and the sun is rising, so that means that all weddings get crammed into the mornings of two weeks per month. One wedding was for Roshni's classmate, and one of the weddings was for (wait for it) Teju's mother's cousin's husband's business partner's wife's sister's daughter. Further evidence that India may, in fact, be just one huge extended family. Everyone there welcomed us as though we were their long-lost niece and nephews, explaining all of the little ceremonial quirks to Mitch and me, inviting us to have tea with them... PS Apparently the phrase "the whole nine yards" came from a traditional Indian garment called... a sari! Full saris actually involve nine yards of fabric, which, after wearing one to an Indian wedding, I can now vouch for personally.

Aaand... we spent last week in Delhi. For the record: If you, like me, have ever wondered, in a small, skeptical corner of your mind, whether the Taj Mahal is really worth all that hype, the answer is YES. Not only is it just Beautiful (with a capital B and that rhymes with E and that stands for Enchantingly So...) but it was built so deliberately! There's perfect symmetry over the entire 5-acre plot or however big it is, and the domes are mathematically perfect, and the minarets lean outward just enough to not destroy the center in event of an earthquake, and there are optical illusions in the stonework (PS, we got to visit the workshop of the guys whose great-great-400-years-and-fourteen- generations-ago-great grandfathers did the original stonework... they're not only still doing that stone inlay work, they're still using the same mortar recipe!) and the garden is laid out according to some Quoranic passage, and... AND!!! And the Red Fort was amazing, and we got to see this abandoned city, and we played an epic 2.5-hour Uno game on the 36-hour train ride... in short, it was wonderful, and I'll do more justice to it some other time (like when it's not 1 AM).

Anyway. That Delhi train ride catapulted us into the 22nd century with the cow count (it's now at 2126 or something) and me thinking of it catapulted me into bed, so good night!

Final Post

Dear friends and family...

All out if time and there are tons of stories that never made it up...

I have, however, developed a strong liking for Chai and would love to tell stories/ catch up in person!

Much love...

Skeleton of the last two weeks

Cow count: 1634

Boo on you Nate Reaven for your less-than-ardent dryer post...
Boo on me for no posts at all...

First things first... apologies that its been so long since I've been able to write- the days have filled up and I've been utterly daunted by the prospect of trying to convey the ever mounting list of interesting/ moving/ fantastic events that have made up the last two weeks. Still processing lots of it and will probably be slowly adding stories between now and the time I get back...

The last two weeks...
Maybe the best way to start is with a brief run of the events. We left two weeks ago to undertake our second circuit of research-subject-NGO's, traveling down the coast that was struck in the 2004 tsunami. We met with 3 organizations, traveled to 6 villages, and learned a whole heap about rural development efforts in India.
In the time since we've been back in Chennai, we met with an inspiring research organization (as close to the cutting edge in development work as we've been yet) and the head of TAFVA, a network of 1500 NGO's operating in Tamil Nadu (the state we're in). I'm not exactly sure who they had us confused for, but they took us out to lunch with the heads of several organizations and two members of the Indian National Parliament. Fortunately, I managed to make it through the meal without spilling anything. Since this meeting we have spent our time working on developing a survey which that will allow us to expand our research from the 4 NGO's we've interviewed in person to the 1500 members of TAFVA. A really lucky break!!

Looking forward, we leave Tuesday by train for Delhi to visit Angie Hsu, more of Teju's infinite family relations (who have once again offered us the hook ups), and the Taj Mahal. In the two days until we leave I really hope to be able to write more about everything that has happened... there is a whole swirl of quickly fading memories and emotions that I would like to make a clean exit from my head.
Love to all...
MDK

Journey #2

So this just a quick note- there is so much to tell and so little time to record it all. We have ventured down the coast and spent the past two days meeting with NGO's and the villagers with whom they work. This was very fruitful time and the next four days are booked with meetings in which we will hopefully learn as much as we did today and yesterday. Our Current Journey is marked here in green and our previous trip to Dindigal is in purple- just to help give a sense of where we're going!

Mostly, I'd just like to say that we are well, and it will probably be a week before I'll be able to sit down and record more of whats been going on. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!

MDK