How the time flies

I can't believe that it has already been a week since I last posted and a month since I've been in India. One of the interns that we came with is already done with her program and is leaving us. I am realizing that in a week we will have hit the halfway mark for the program.

My mom asked me to talk a little more about my daily life here so I'll give it a go. After a fairly lackluster begginning the monsoon has finally taken off with much gusto and this morning found me and the other three interns walking in the rain waiting for someone to come along and give us a ride to the village of Paud where we can catch a bus or jeep to Pune. We flagged one down after a bit and were able to get out of the rain but as it was a covered "goods carrier"/ truck and not a jeep we had to croutch down awkwardly on the bumpy ride to Paud. Once there a bus picked us up and we crammed in with about a hundred other people. We sat in the back near a group of people who seemed to be starting thier daily commute. Without even trying we were the funniest people on the bus. The intern that was leaving had all her stuff with here and so took up quite a bit of space and this was quite a novelty to the other riders. You could tell they were talking and laughing about us for pretty much the whole trip. It was funny and I really wish I knew what people here thought of us. We must be a pretty strange sight. I was sitting next to a boy who went to school in Pune to study engineering and he actually spoke pretty good english so we had a broken conversation for a bit. When we get to Pune we usually head straight for the renown German Bakery which serves western food and has an internet cafe, two unheard of luxuries at Sadhana. I really enjoy the food there but it is always the same, we have chowpatty(which is a tortilla like flatbread), rice, some sort of soup, and bhaji(cooked vegetables) so it is nice to have something different.

As for the internship it things are finally beginning to take shape. It seems as though my main role with Sadhana village is to research and document thier community development efforts mostly with regard to the womens SHG's but also with thier supportive education program. This is "program evaluation" and it is a first for me. It is a little wierd that people who have been running this NGO for fifteen years would want the opinions and suggestions of a foriegner who has little proffessional experience in this area. But I suppose that having an outside perspective is always valuable and the Metyatai (one of the housemothers) made the point that they get so involved and busy in the day to day running of the program that they may loose sight of the bigger picture. In that sense I guess that I can see how my thoughts on thier programs might be helpful and I am excited for the opportunity to help in any way that I can. Also I am beginning to see what a great experience this will be in terms of helping me find a job when I get back to the states.

In other news I have decided to try and push my flight back so that I can do more traveling around India and even hopefully venture into Nepal. I think that the McCall reunion is going on right now, or will be soon, and that I am missing it for the third year in a row which gives me real heavy boots. I also found out today that Tim and Mindy are having a baby boy which is very exciting. Congrats guys!I saw the pictures on facebook, very cool. Well, I hope that everyone is having a nice summer and look forward to getting back and seeing you all.