Pune and then Mumbai

Well thank you to everyone who wrote comments it is nice to hear from you all. To answer Tim and Mindy's question, the economy is growing very rapidly. Last time I looked India's GDP was growing at a rate of about 11-12% per year compared to the US which grows around 3% per year. It is a complicated situation however because there is a fair amount of income inequality with mostly rich people living in the urban areas benefiting from the growth. The gap between the rich and the poor is continually getting wider and wider. That being said however the poor are being made better off by the improving economy but at a much slower rate.

I am finally getting accustomed to life here in India although it is hard being in such a rural area so far away from any sort of large city. Things move at a different pace and it is sometimes very frustrating. Out daily routine consists of morning chai at 730 then breakfast at 830. After such a taxing morning we usually take a break till around 1000 and then do some sort of activity. Lately we have simply been visiting and learning about the nearby banks, schools, and hospital trying to get a feel for the communities surrounding our village. Then we have lunch at 130 followed by another break till three. Sometimes we will have another outing and sometimes we won't. For most people the day slows down to a crawl after lunch and never really picks back up. Despite this I am getting am learning a lot about how people live and work in this area. One particullarly unique experience was when being able to work in the rice fields of a nearby farm for a few hours. It is suprisingly easy work. Befor the monsoon starts the rice is planted and allowed to grow to about a foot tall. It is then pulled out and replanted to increase the yield. And when I say easy I guess I should be honest and say that I don't know if I could have done it for more that a few hours. It wasn't very physically demanding but it was very hard on the back. After planting the family invited us back to thier house for dinner. This familly had about eight acres of land which is more than most people (the average in this area is one or two acres) but still they lived in abject poverty. They had no power or running water, which sadly is the norm in the area. I have heard the phrase "subsistence farming" many times but I had never really had a deep understanding of what this meant until recently.

Me and two other interns are heading to Mumbai tonight and have a four hour trip ahead of us and I'm already pretty exhausted, can't seems to really get my thoughts out in any real coherent manner so I will try writing again tommorrow after I've had some rest. Thanks again for all the comments, I miss all of you and can't wait to see everyone again. Very bummed that I am going to miss the reunion as well. Oh well, hopefully I can read about it in everyone else's blog.