I just wanna feel the day

It has been just over a week since my last official day at PV and I am nearing the end of my trip as a whole.


     On Tuesday I left for Coorg at about 3pm. I had planned on leaving at 11pm that night for an overnight trip, but when I went to purchase a ticket, the lady sold me one for 3pm, so I went. The journey started out with the ticket lady spelling my name Suuoy when I said w, but they conveniently don't check ID on the bus and as long as you pay you are good to go. For the first hour of my bus ride, I was one of two passengers on the entire bus. I of course thought I was on the wrong bus or misunderstood the ticket saleswoman (seeing as that already happened a few times before) but I proceeded without asking questions for a while longer. We stopped about an hour in, and many more people joined on, still for the entire 7.5 hour journey I remained the only female. As the bus ride continued I nonchalantly read my Indian People Magazine and listened to my iPod, only to be disrupted by our bus ramming into another truck's protruding sugarcane stalks. Luckily, no one was hurt and we continued on our way without evening slowing.

View from Raja's Seat

     When I arrived in Coorg, it was about 10:30 at night (it was only supposed to be a 6 hour drive, but we tended to stop every 5 minutes for one reason or another). Throughout the trip I had been in correspondence with the home stay that I planned on staying at, and to my surprise the owner was waiting at the station to pick me up right when I arrived. From then on out I had only the most pleasant encounters with my host family. They were so incredibly kind and warm and went out of their way on multiple occasions to suit my needs

Alpen Glow Homestay

     After my first night in Coorg I woke up and had a delicious homemade Indian breakfast. Then, the owner dropped me off at a park called Raja's Seat where I could hike around and enjoy the beautiful views. Of course, I ventured off the beaten track a bit and managed to step in a huge pile of poop! Luckily, there happened to be a faucet at the top of the hill that I was able to clean up with. After Raja's Seat I hopped into an auto and asked the driver to take me to Madikeri fort, where my host had recommended I see, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication and he dropped me off at Madikeri court. It was no big deal though, I just walked down to the shopping area and wandered around the little town...and a few hours later Kathleen arrived!

Abbey Falls

   I met up with her back at the house and soon after we headed off to an Indian wedding with our hosts! It was a beautiful occasion, and I was so thrilled to have had to opportunity to see a wedding. I have been itching to go to one since I arrived, but I had come to terms with it remaining a lofty dream. We weren't able to see the ceremony but as soon as we walked in, we took photos with the bride and groom and ate a delicious, traditional Indian lunch.Our hosts seem to know absolutely everyone who lives in Coorg, probably because the family owns and operates the local newspaper. And we met a bunch of their employees at the wedding.

Abbey Falls

Wedding! (sorry for the blurriness)

     After the wedding Kathleen and I took a rickshaw ride up to Abbey Falls where we were able to see a beautiful rushing water fall! She and I later wandered about the town some more and managed to cover everything in just over an hour. For dinner we went to a little hole in the wall that to my surprise, was not that tasty. They stuck hard-boiled eggs in plain rice and called it egg briyani (which is typically an Indian rice dish full of spices and vegetables). We didn't have a ton of options for dinner seeing as the town is really tiny, and so we made due with the eggs and rice. On our walk back to the house there was somehow music was playing throughout and as the rain poured down (as it often does in Coorg) I felt like I was in a Bollywood film.
     The next day there was a city-wide strike so all of the stores were closed and none of the transportation was running. Supposedly, UNESCO is fighting with the town because they are trying to protect its biodiversity by putting regulations on the development. But, the townspeople are unhappy because they want to be able to develop and create more jobs. It was pretty disappointing that everything was closed and we essentially lost a day, but our hosts helped make the best of it and took us to their coffee estate. On the car ride there, I was sure I was on Indiana Jones in Disneyland!

Coffee Estate

     Friday, however, fully made up for all of the lost time! We started out by taking a bus to a few towns over to a town called Kushal Nagar where we went to Dubare Elephant Camp. Here we were able to watch retired elephants, that used to work for the forest department, get fed and bathed and then we had the opportunity to ride them! After the elephant camp we headed to Nisagradam where we walked around a beautiful park that lines the Cauvery River. It is quite a trek getting from Dubare to Nisagradam, but Kathleen and I got really lucky when we found Manu, the auto driver. He dropped us at Nisagradam and waited patiently while we spent time there. Afterwards, he took us to a Tibetan village where there are 9 camps and thousands of Tibetan monks who fled from China for refuge. The highlight of the village was seeing hundreds of monks praying in the Golden Temple, a hugely ornate Tibetan monastery. On the ride there Manu stopped and let us walk around a large pond to see giant fish swimming about. After the monastery, we went deeper into the villages to shop around and get lunch. Our bus back to Bangalore was much later that night so we tried to waste as much time as possible in Kushal Nagar. I didn't want to loiter around our hosts' home and be a burden while we waited for our late night bus.

     We finally, we went back to the home and as always, the couple welcomed us with open arms. When it was time to leave the wife gave us snacks,  coffee (which is SO incredible in coorg considering it is known for its coffee plantations) and gifts! Not only that, but the husband drove us down to the bus stand. It was such a terrific experience, and if anyone is ever in Coorg they should definitely look into Alpen Glow Homestay.

     After waiting a bit at the bus station we were able to get on our bus back to Bangalore. We arrived at 5 in the morning! And here, most things don't open until at least 9am so the one time we welcomed an untimely arrival, we came in right on time. The bus dropped us at the train station for some reason, and seeing as it was the only thing open, we joined with the countless people littered about the ground and propped ourselves against a wall. We ended up falling asleep here for a few hours while we waited for the morning to progress. Finally, we made our way back to Mathyoos, the apartments we were staying in before and where I am staying for the next few days. When we came in breakfast was being made and it felt so wonderful to be back in a familiar place.

     Earlier in the trip I got in touch with an ashram where I would be able to practice yoga for the next few days that I am here in Bangalore. So after I got cleaned up and fed I ventured off to look for the ashram. After a pretty long auto drive, and a decent walk I was able to find it. The owner and I had a bit of a miscommunication over what sort of practice I was seeking, but it ended up working out really well! He thought I was just looking for a studio to practice in, but I was actually looking for a class. He ended up talking to me for about 30 minutes about the ashram's rituals and the religious side of his practice. I had trouble personally connecting to his religious views, but I appreciated all the time he took to explain it to me. We went on to practice one-on-one for 2 hours and I really learned a lot. He showed me breathing and meditation techniques and different asanas. He was quite curious about my previous practice in the states even though I assured him that it was far from extensive. He asked me to show him some of the poses that I know and so I demonstrated my version of the Sun Salutation and some of the Warrior poses. At the very end of the session he asked me to show him the Sun Salutation again because he wanted to learn from it. I was really excited but also super nervous because I feel like I have no idea what I am doing. He was really encouraging though and thought it was wonderful. There are countless versions of the Sun Salutation so it was interesting to compare our two. Plus, if I messed up it wouldn't be the end of the world because there are so many different ways of going about it.
     After yoga I headed back into Shanthi Nagar, where I am staying, to meet up with Kathleen. We went out to an early dinner at Mavalli Tiffin Rooms which is supposedly the oldest restaurant in Bangalore. Its been acclaimed by all these different newspapers as the best Indian food in town. What a shame that we found it so late in our trip! We ended up sharing a table with two women who recommended the masala dosa and it was so delicious, I am going to try to go back once more before I leave Bangalore.
     After dinner Kathleen was off to the airport. So, for the next few days I'll be exploring all by myself. After weeks and weeks of having really positive encounters throughout India and of having really productive exploration of myself, I am eager to go back home to California and be with my family. I arrive back on Tuesday, but will try to update once more before then!

Crossing the River to Dubare Elephant Camp

Gaduge, found this while wandering around Coorg
It is the burial site of King Raja

  

Coorg!

     

Coming to a close

I apologize again for how long it has been since my last post. But, a lot has gone on and I am eager to update so bare with me as recap my last few days at PV. It has been a busy, busy week and I have just been focused on staying afloat amongst the ebb and flow of India, so here's my best attempt to update the last bit of time.

Talking with Pervin Verma

Leadership in an NGO
     On Sunday, I was fortunate enough to meet Pervin Verma. She is the former CEO of CRY India (Children's Rights and You), has been working as a consultant in the development sector for Ashoka Innovators for Social Change, Sutradhaar, an education initiative and Greenpeace India. She also works with Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS) to help create leadership for large scale social change. She was really fascinating and very easy to relate to. I had the privileged of speaking candidly with her for quite some time and she helped me understand where I lie on various issues, by questioning my feelings about SE and poverty with her probing insight.


     Pervinji focuses on noetic action at TISS, which she described as a combination of both knowing and wisdom--an important balance between academia and experience. She said that some of the most important movements have been started by the illiterate (and there is a distinction between illiterate and uneducated, because the people she is referring to have been educated by life experiences). She works to build leadership from this space; the balance between knowing and having wisdom. She stresses the importance of using this space to create action, hence her focus on leadership.
     A lot of power can be sourced from deep within, from the wisdom that you have gained through having different experiences. Pervinji creates strong, passionate leaders by turning knowledge and wisdom into action and by honing in on a few key questions:


What do you stand for? Your values.
What breaks your heart wide open?
What do you feel passionate about?
What do you want to offer? What will provide you and others will wholeness?
And, are you manifesting what you stand for?


     If you are manifesting what you stand for (in Pervinji's case it is compassion, dignity and integrity) then you will stand in your power and embrace those qualities. By doing so, you will also give others permission to stand in their own power. I could feel Pervinji standing in her power and manifesting what she stood for, which helped me open up and feel confident in standing up for my own values. If you can manifest what you stand for in yourself, especially in the NGO workplace, you will find that the hierarchy will dissolve and you can understand people on a human level--their values and their inspirations.

PV Team: Navee, Parisa, me, Kristen

     Of course, there will be fears and trepidations that you will face as a leader, and as a person standing confidently in the direction of their values. It is important to recognize those fears and name them, but then step away from them. Step into an area of power, where you are grounded and confident. Let that fear "muscle" atrophy. Pervinji said, release any self-doubt because if you want to inspire others, you must stand and act in spite of your fear.
     When acting as a leader you must also "enroll" others by inspiring them to see their contribution and ignite a passion in them. But first, you must be confident in your own stance and your own beliefs.
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And finally, there are three key components to being a strong leader:
Listening deeply, battling outside thoughts
Speaking responsibly, providing feedback that offers growth and inspiration through speech
and managing conversation, dealing with complaints.


Throughout Pervinji's talk, she really spoke to a lot of the emotions that I have been feeling since I arrived in India, and actually even before I came. When we were able to speak one-on-one afterwards, she really helped me sort through some of my thoughts about where I want to focus my energy, and where I can utilize my talents and passions best. She helped me validate my feelings of uncertainty and accepted my lofty hopes and aspirations. I really look forward to keeping in close contact with her beyond my stay in India.


Last week at PV
     As our last week of work came to a close it was extremely hard to say goodbye to all of the good friends I have made since being here. In just 7 weeks, I really feel like I have made connections that will last a lifetime. I am so deeply grateful for how open and accepting my entire workplace was with me, and how willing everyone was to mold me into their culture at work.

Lunch with Akeela and Pretha, the soft skills teachers

     The last week was really busy and work went on despite all of the emotions linked to the difficult goodbyes. My partners and I really honed in on our final business report and finished creating the entire framework for a focus group. Our final contributions to PV were using the surveys that we created and distributed at the schools to better understand the cultural context that we were working with. We used that data to create the best framework we could for a focus group. When we first came to PV, our task was to find a way that the company could maintain the quality that it currently provides to the 100 schools it works within, throughout its scaling phase as it adopts 400 more schools.

Final Presentation

Vasu's Birthday!

     Of course, this was a huge undertaking, and how to scale is a battle all organizations must fight. After refining our question many, many times and finally came up with (more or less); creating an assessment process that would help PV understand its impact on a large scale. The project has many, many facets and got pretty complicated, but essentially we decided that the videos that PV implements are the inputs and they are inspiring certain activities to take place in the classroom (ie peer-to-peer learning), and it is these activities that are causing student's SSLC (state exam) scores to improve. We used Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory as a framework for understanding how students learn. Then we decided that motivation, retention, motoric reproduction, and attention (the four domains of the theory) are all being affected positively by the videos and thus helping students learn. We are using the focus group to understand how students learn based on the perception of the students and teachers. We will use the information we gain from the focus group to assess whether or not the videos are properly addressing how students learn, and thus having an impact on their success. We trained the soft skills teachers on how to run a focus group and conversed with them about the most effective means for drawing information from a focus group. We learned so much from them and their expertise in psychology. On Friday, we presented our entire project to the different departments and administration at PV and received really great feedback. Suman, the head honcho (especially while Mr. Naresh is away) was thrilled with our work and jokingly said that he wasn't going to let us go back to the US, since he controls our employment visas. It was a really great feeling to have our work be seen in such a good light and be validated by those that will actually be affected by it.

Final Presentation

Falling ill

Sporting a super cute gown

     However, I was late to the presentation on Friday because I was at the doctor that entire morning. The night before (Thursday) I was in agonizing pain all night so in the morning it made sense to visit a doctor. She gave me a little advice and guessed around what my problem could be, but nothing could really be assessed without a blood test. So, I carried on my way to the office and made it to the presentation (it was about 1/4 of the way through by the time I got there). After a day at the office, I went home and met with a doctor who took my blood for testing. The next night we went out to dinner and I was starting to feel a lot better. I was taking the medicine the doctor prescribed and I thought maybe whatever it was had passed. But, that night it got much, much worse and I started having trouble breathing and couldn't walk so my friends and adviser called an ambulance. I went to the hospital and immediately got injections to help take away the pain, followed by a CT scan and a night of monitoring and IV drips. In the late morning the doctor informed me that I had two kidney stones. Supposedly, it is pretty common to get kidney stones in India, and so I guess I was in the right place for treatment. The doctors helped a lot and were able to take away most of the pain, so by the next evening I was itching to leave. I kept asking for urgent discharge, and finally they let me go. After I left the hospital, I was feeling much better and had a lot of medicine in me, so I quickly ran home got my sari and went off to our final celebration dinner.

     People from all the different organizations that GSE has been working with were at the dinner, as well as alumni that had flown in, and members of India's NGO community. It was a really nice evening and my partners and I had so much support from PV. My boss, Darsana, brought her brother along. He and I got to talking about kidney stones because he had one a few years back. In India when you have something in common with someone else (usually when you are wearing a matching outfit) you do the "same pinch", so naturally, he and I did a same pinch for kidney stones! You just pinch the other person and say "same pinch", and then you can make a wish. I am going to miss all of these little quirky interactions that happened on the daily at PV.
All in all it was a nice evening and I am so glad I was able to make it. I was able to talk to people from all different organizations and got a better understanding of what the rest of the GSE team was doing.


Prepping for travel
     Yesterday, I went out to lunch at this really cute restaurant with Bhavani and Sujith from my work, and Kristen and Amanda. It was so nice to just hang out with them and be able to relax before saying goodbye. They are such wonderful people and I am so glad that I was able to connect with both of them on such an intimate level. Bhavani made it very clear that if I need anything at all while I am still in Bangalore, that I needn't hesitate to ask her. I am really going to miss both her and Sujith, but fully plan on staying in contact with both of them.
     Tonight, I am leaving for Coorg, which is a beautiful area about 6 hours away by bus. There is a lot of greenery there a huge Tibetan monastery that I look forward to visiting. I had planned on traveling with Kathleen down to Alleppey in Kerala to spend the night on a houseboat, and then to Cochin for a few nights before reaching Coorg, but since I got sick it was no longer a good idea to take a 12 hour bus ride out of the state, plus going on a houseboat to a remote area no longer seemed like the best idea. But, I am still excited to meet up with her in Coorg, and I plan on staying a little extra time there before coming back to Bangalore to fly out on the 16th. I spoke with Suman about Coorg and he gave me a lot of great recommendations on what to do there, so I look forward to it!

Bhavani, Kristen, me, Sujith

Bhavani, Amanda, Kristen, me

The cows rule the road

Eating only the healthiest snacks and watching Laguna with Kasie

Delays

Again, sorry for the delay. I will update soon with my recent activity regarding my last days of work and all of my changing travel plans. I got sick so my initial travel plans post-internship have been flipped. All is well though and updates are coming!