Hairy Knees

Tuesday/Wednesday

Indian culture continues to surprise, irritate and please me all at the same time. Today, we reached our 5^th and 6^th Anganwadi center, putting us way ahead of schedule. After these centers, we had to wait nearly an hour outside by the village temple while the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group finished chlorinating a village water source. During this time, a child came began playing simple games with Rachel and I. As we spent time with the boy, Rachel began picking him up, teasing him and so on. At one point, he noticed my long pants had a tear at the knee and began pulling on my leg hair! He told me, in Punjabi, to stitch up my pants. This statement prompted me to ask a few people about how offensive this might be. Apparently it is seen as messy, gross and socially inappropriate in the villages, so I guess we learn things each day. As we were playing with the children, the male leaders of the village were watching us closely and clearly looking very uncomfortable with how we were behaving, despite the fact that our behavior was very within our norms and adult-child interaction. I allowed their social anxiety to control me and I felt forced to stop interaction with the child completely. I have this continuous battle with myself about my behavior in villages, hotels and around Indian society. My general presence is often hard to handle even in the U.S. much less here. I guess I may never get past it.

                                      

This is at the non-profit organization 
headquarters we work out of. We finally have a plaque!

Thursday/Friday

These are children from another village we went to thursday. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures from today because I was slightly sick and stayed home. 

This is our progress so far (each interview was between 30-90 minutes long):

• We visited 8 anganwadi centers and have spoken to/interviewed 10 workers there.
• We interviewed 20 mothers within 6 villages
• We interviewed 2 Sarpanchs (equivalent to mayors)
• 2 ASHA workers (village social workers)

We are shifting our study as of tomorrow to a more political investigation into what possible actions government officials and community members can take to make changes to some clear problems with implementation of nutrition and education.

 These are 1st-3rd graders!

I went to Pizza Hut in CHANDIGARH. This was the fanciest restaurant I have been to thus far. It is funny that the appetizers were more expensive than the meals themselves! The food was just amazing, no question. I had a Margarita Pizza and spicy penne pasta! 

Oh and a mango smoothie... 

Mom, this is for you. I saw this and HAD to take a picture. Your fav.  food is everywhere!