Half Way

For those of you that were worried about me, I don’t think there is any need. My spots seem to be going away slowly but surely. It seems since I’ve left Kovalam they’ve stopped multiplying. Perhaps I was just having an allergic reaction to something after all. I’ve never been prone to allegories but I do hear that you can develop them later in life.

We have four weeks left in Rajakadd to complete our work, and we’re starting to feel the time crunch. I wish that I had more to write about my work here, but I’m afraid it’s rather boring to the reader. Since our area is organizational development, it’s a lot less exciting than being an activist or organizer for the rights of people, or even a peace protector. Basically we are working on four different tasks to help increase the strength of the organization: implementing evaluation systems, grant writing, web site development and making brochures. There’s not much excitement in that, except for when people confuse us for organizers or activists here to rile up the people. Mostly the first month here was spent just understanding what the organization did. Working through language barriers made it very difficult for us to clarify those activities that they had done in the past, those currently being run and those that they would like to do. The last few weeks were spent doing research of potential funders and web site hosts and activities. For this we went to Bangalore because we needed good internet connection, a basic tool that at least for my generation. I know little on how to survive without it, especially when it comes to research and communications. We’re now to the phase where we are writing funding proposals and have helped them work on using participatory methods to identify impact indicators for evaluation and monitoring purposes.

Even though our work is less exciting than other human rights activities, it’s just as beneficial and I feel that on some levels we have the opportunity to make a more lasting impact. The people here are learning a lot about ways in ways to make their organization more stable and by doing so have the capacity to serve more people with higher quality and greater lasting impact. So although it’s less exciting to talk about, I like to think that we’re the sly ones who fly under the radar most of the time.

We had to finally start saying no to meeting with people, which I know is disappointing to others, but necessary if we are to be able to complete our tasks. In the last few days alone we have been invited to visit more Self Help Groups of women, three schools, the hospital and a few other NGO’s in the area. Our presence here is greatly welcomed by the community and everyone wants to spend time with us, or get our ideas on what they could do to better their endeavors. That is the precisely the conundrum we often find ourselves our in. As you all know, we are not experts in the many fields that we can asked for advice. We’ve had to tell people that if we have additional time at the end of our stay here them maybe we can visit, but until then it’s just not possible.

Life at home is pretty much the same, we were gone the last two weeks so it was a nice break from the routine. The children were very happy to see us return. Tonight we got our first cooking lesson from our landlord. We make a jackfruit curry dish that we love. Tomorrow night she will teach us how to cook Chapatti’s and vegetable curry. They are very kind and generous to us, always bringing us fresh fruit and sharing food. It’s a very nice experience, and I hope to have neighbors like this in the future.

It’s been raining for one month straight now. Everyday there is rain. It’s very spotty peaks of sun followed by a sudden down pour, then dry then a light drizzle all through the day and the night. Everything in the house is molding. The pillows, clothing, bags, mats all of it. It’s the hazard of the monsoon or so we’re told.

That’s all for now.

Blessed be you and yours,
Jessica