Amie's study abroad blog to document her summer in Pune, India
After traveling for about 36 hours, I made it home on Saturday afternoon without too much drama (I only had to cry my way through the Mumbai airport in order to do early check-in, but that’s a story for another time). I think I’m pretty over jet lag already, since I slept for 15 hours that night.
The last few days in Pune were a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time with the others in our program and with our awesome Indian buddies. On Thursday night we had our cultural performance and dinner, which our host families and people from our NGOs came to. It was nice to see some of the women from Saheli, as well as my interpreter and dance teacher, one last time! Victoria, Lauren, and I performed our bharata natyam dance, which went pretty well. We had so much fun wearing the costumes!
On Friday morning we took a quick trip to see a cave temple in the city, and after finishing packing, Sami and I had one last chai with our host mom. She gave us good advice about taking care of ourselves and always having some “me” time. She was such a great host mom, and I hope I am able to visit her again in the future!
[Our last rickshaw ride]
[Saying good bye to the hostel]
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I finished my last presentation today so I am done! Got some more bangles today, went to our last dance class, had a delicious [beef] dinner, and now I am going to bed relatively early.
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It’s my last full week here, which is crazy. The time flew by so quickly! This week is a blur of writing papers and finishing up internship work. We have two shorter papers due tomorrow and then two more longer ones next week, plus two presentations on those papers. This weekend we’re all going to hang out a lot, and visit some caves and copper-makers.
Last night we went to our host mom’s concert (she played violin) which was a bharata natyam performance! It was cool to see people that are actually good at it, and definitely inspiration for the hostel girls in our performance next week.
On the way home from the performance, we got a call from our program director about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It’s kind of surreal to think about it. Please pray for those that were injured or lost family. I feel very safe in Pune, and our program director talked to us about it this morning and answered any questions we had. There shouldn’t be any problem leaving from Mumbai next week, and the program is organizing transportation to the airport for us now.
Today I wore my sari to my internship, which the ladies absolutely loved. I got many compliments and “a-ok” signs, which I believe is universal language for “you look awesomeeee!” (haha, just kidding… but not really). Allie and I played with the kids in the creche, probably for the last time. The boys said the alphabet and numbers and the months in English with me (always skipping May, and a lot of odd numbers). I also got a chance to pre-test the ‘mental health and addictions screening tool’ that I created for my organization to test the level of depression, anxiety, stress, and addictions of sex workers. It’s been a busy few weeks at my internship, but hopefully the work that I’ve done will be useful to them in the future.
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The hostel girls have been taking yoga classes for a few weeks now and I must admit, I still as inflexible as ever. But how cool is it to do yoga in India, where it originated?! Our yoga instructor is awesome because she is very patient when we giggle while trying to contort our bodies while remembering to do deep nose breathing. It’s a lot to do all at once, which is why my favorite yoga pose is shavasan, which literally means “dead man’s pose.” I’m sure you can imagine what that one is like.
My other favorite is surya namaskar, or sun salutation, which is a 12 count yoga pose.
But the all-time best asana is the Lion’s Pose, which the hostel girls are particularly fond of practicing in public places:
As our yoga instructor explained, it is very stress relieving. It’s also hilarious.
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“ When fifty percent of your population is suppressed, how can you even dream of being a super power?
— Anand Agashe, our Contemporary India guest lecturer, talking about gender inequality in India
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This past weekend we visited several rural villages. We interacted with students at a rural college, then went to visit a micro-finance and women’s empowerment NGO, then to a Gandhian community, where we stayed for the night.
At Narayangaon Rural College, we were warmly welcomed with chai, roses, speeches, and the Indian national anthem… after which we had to sing the American national anthem (only slightly awkward). We were paired up with a few students, who showed us around the campus. My tour guides, Arti and Adi, were very nice and understanding of my desire to take a lot of pictures and talk to the animals that I saw. I had a lot of fun and everyone at the college, including students and faculty, were extremely welcoming.
[in the chemistry lab]
[in the agricultural area]
At Rajgurunagar, we visited an NGO called Chaitanya. They have done a lot of awesome work in women’s empowerment, setting up tons of “self help” groups in villages all over the state of Maharashtra. They do micro-finance and a few other things, so we talked to the founder and various staff about their work.
[village life]
Then we went to a Gandhian community (resort) in the Ananda Valley. It was really pretty and nice to relax in clean, fresh air for a night. On Saturday morning we talked to the founder of the community, who is also an allopathic and ayurvedic doctor in a nearby village. On the way back to Pune we had idli for lunch, which is like a steamed cake of rice that you dip in a soup.
[snack time!]
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![[random rick pic of the day]
I wanted to add something to the blog since I haven’t in a while, but nothing exciting is happening in my life so you get this awesome picture.
Still writing papers and making presentations!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lohj2vJTdt1qjzp7fo1_1280.jpg)
