The first day of a backpacking trip is always the hardest. Your pack is the heaviest it’ll be because you haven’t eaten any of your overly-salted, dehydrated meals yet; your collarbone and hip bones are sore from the weight of your pack; your inner thighs are red and bumpy from your legs rubbing past one another on the trail.
The summer before my senior year of high school, I went on my first extended backpacking trip: a sixty-mile trek through the Wind River Range in Wyoming. I ended the first night by curling into my dad’s arms and crying. I’m not sure how else to describe it besides saying that the feeling of total isolation in the backcountry brought previously suppressed feelings and emotions to the surface. There was nothing to help distract me from what I was feeling and it all flooded out.
I think that my first week in India was the hardest. I struggled with adjusting to working in an office — staying motivated, focused, and energized throughout the workday. I struggled with never having alone time — I was advised to not explore the city by myself, so every hour of every day was spent with the other Global Fellows. All the challenges of the first week piled up and by the end of the week— just like on that first night of backpacking — I sat on the rooftop of our building with tears in my eyes looking out on the city.
Flash forward to last week: as a procession of people celebrating Rath flooded the streets outside our apartment, the security guard of our building advised me that if I see ever a ghost, I should not run away from it, otherwise I will trip and fall and break my heart. How he got on the topic of ghosts, I’m not too sure. I know that he told me this in some sort of reference to the Bible and Catholicism, but I didn’t understand the reference. What I did understand was the message that running away from the things that appear scary in your life may only hurt you more. So . . . returning back to those week one challenges, I found ways to address them rather than running from them. I started practicing yoga on the hard marble floor of our apartment; I started taking short mid-morning walks around our neighborhood to re-energize myself in the office; and my favorite of them all, I started drinking lots and lots of chai. So here’s to facing challenges head on **cheers together small clay chai mugs**
|ASED|
Now moving on to the real meat of this blog post: my work with ASED. During my six weeks in the office, I am creating an educational pamphlet for potential donors, creating a survey to track students’ growth throughout the Green Rhinos Program, and gathering and editing testimonials from students in the Green Rhinos Program.
Diti has also brought us out of the office to visit multiple schools across Kolkata that are involved with the Green Rhinos Program. Through these school visits, I have learned that Diti and her husband Kushal are introducing a revolutionary approach to youth education — specifically youth environmental education — in India. Rather than following the top-down approach commonly implemented in the schools — students following the instructions of their administrators and teachers — the ASED team encourages students to be innovators and changemakers in the environmental sphere.
Through my work in the office and my visits to the schools, I have noticed that things happen more slowly here, but also more organically. A lot of hard work goes into making something happen here, but none of it feels rushed. Diti told us that ASED and the Green Rhinos Program will take time to develop because she is unwilling to compromise any goals or values of her organization to speed up its growth.
|KOLKATA|
Nick, Dana, Tess, Marialisa and I all live together in a cozy apartment that is located across a small courtyard from the ASED office. After work, we often play Sicilian card games around a small, round table in the living room or watch the sunset over the city — from our rooftop we see people hanging their laundry, tending to their rooftop gardens, and we watch teenagers playing cricket games in the streets below. On the weekends, we explore the city or venture to other parts of India. Some highlights include: exploring the grounds of the Victoria Memorial, walking through the Indian Botanic Garden, hopping around Park Street, and cruising down the Ganges on a small boat.
A side note: not only have the monuments in Kolkata been special but so have the people. I have found a smile to be the most simple and effective form of communication. With the man who owns the chai cart, with strangers on the street, with the students at the schools we visit. We don’t share the same language, and often we cannot understand what the other is saying, but we exchange kind smiles to one another and that seems to express enough.
|DELHI | AGRA | MATHURA|
We spent our third weekend in Delhi, Mathura and Agra. On our way from Delhi to Agra, we stopped in Mathura to visit an Elephant sanctuary.
After hanging with the elephants — and cows — in Mathura, we made our way over to our homestay in Agra. We ate at a restaurant across from the homestay called Good Vibes Cafe — which seemed to only bring us bad vibes — and then headed over to the Itmad-ud-Daula, or the “Baby Taj.” Overlooking the Yamuna River from the back entrance, we saw families bathing and playing in the water.
We wrapped up Saturday in the Mehtab Bagh, a garden stationed across the river from the Taj. As the sun set and the temperature cooled, we looked out on the monument we planned to explore the following day.
On Sunday, we woke up for sunrise at the Taj, ate breakfast at the Oberoi Hotel — just look up pictures and you will immediately question why we walked in there with our dirty tevas and sweaty shirts — explored the Agra Fort, and headed back to Delhi for our flight home.
Until next week,
JJ
