Greetings from India!

Greetings one and all!

Sometimes experiences live up to expectations and other times they don't. But ideally, expectations are not had, so the experience can forge itself, unabated by hypothetical notions. This has been my approach in coming to India. It is not a place I can neatly put in the context of a past undergraduate class or even a location I can leave to the pontifications of an author or teacher. Not that education would misrepresent or skew my time in India, but I hope to experiment in absorbing all I can without being told to think or even how to think about a topic or issue...yet.

To save you from the wanderings of my thoughts, I will be more explicit about what am currently doing here.

This past week has been the orientation of my/our program in Udaipur. Essentially, I went through orientation with 7 other interns (staying different periods of time with different host NGOs and host families). We we taken through the juggernaut of life in Udaipur and our internship program: Hindi lessons, guest speakers from local NGOs, city tours, and, of course, my favorite eating at a myriad of tasty restaurants. All of the interns seem to get along seamlessly well, all coming from different backgrounds, jobs, schools, parts of the country, etc. I have been given some clarity as to my day-to-day life here. I will be working with Jatan focusing on migration issues. Oddly, NGOs here focus on the other side of migration, the leaving. Rajasthan, the region I am currently in, is plague with many developmental issues (more later) so many people, men and children especially, leave for other regions in search of work. So the challenge is quite multifaceted as services need to be provided and anticipated needs must be addressed. I know little about the 'how's, why's' and other unanswerable questions, but hopefully will be illuminated to them in a small way in the coming weeks.

I have so much to write...but I know if I was reading I would lose interest a few sentences back, so ideally I will update the blog more often and with greater details. But, in short, the food has been nothing short of amazing, the people have been quite kind, unfortunately traveler's diarrhea is a reality, learning the language is presenting itself as my personal nemesis, and my jet lag is all but gone. I have a feeling I am going to get along with this place, once I learn how to effectively get around using a 'tempo' (communal rickshaw/taxi) and constantly remind myself that I did not come here to 'do,' but to 'learn.'

Cheers.
Paul

Btw the picture is in the 'Old City' from the rooftop of our hotel we stayed in the first week.