Since I have been away for a while, I'll break this post down into the days since I've been gone. We left for Udaipur Monday evening on an overnight sleeper train and returned to Delhi by sleeper train on Friday night.
Monday
On Monday, I realized I would need more cash money for our excursion to Udaipur, but I assumed there would be a hold on my account because I never informed Bank of America that I'm in India (Bank of America and I have troubled relationship at best, and it's not unusual for me to spend an hour at a time on the phone with their customer service people). After running out of prepaid minutes on my phone while trying to talk to customer service (funny, this exact same thing happened in South Africa! Good times!), I walked to a nearby mall to get more minutes and get money. I tried my debit card and by some miracle there was no hold on my account, so I had money! Back at the program center, I picked out a book from the library to read on the trip, and we headed off to get to the train station. Some people were confused about what time we were leaving, however, so we ended up getting there a lot closer to departure time than we expected, and all of our teachers were visibly stressed. We settled into our sleeper berths, which had three bunks facing each other in each little alcove, so six of us sat together. The middle bunk was folded against the wall and we sat on the bottom bunks as a bench. When it was time to go to bed, I ended up on one of the middle bunks and I took my Tylenol P.M. and nestled in. I didn't end up sleeping very well, however, and I kept having weird dreams. I was incredibly groggy as we rolled into Udaipur on Tuesday morning, and I tried to dodge the tourist welcoming committee when they put a flower necklace on me because I thought they were going to make me pay for it. It was a grim scene at the Udaipur station.
Tuesday
The buses from the train station dropped us across a bridge from our hotel, and our first walk gave us a nice view of Udaipur in the morning. The city is situated on four manmade lakes, with Lake Pichola, where we were, being the oldest and largest. Our program staff ensured we all got rooms with lake-facing views, and the hotel itself was directly on the edge of the lake. We rolled into the hotel around 7:30 or 8 a.m., and I was assigned a room with my Hotel Karina roommates, Lauren and Sagarika. After showering, eating breakfast, and drinking some coffee, we headed out for our first day in the field. I was not feeling very well, due to my dinner the night before and the train ride, so I slept for much of the bus ride.
Archna Ji was sitting next to me, so she answered my sporadic questions about Rajasthan whenever I was awake. Apparently the state isn't normally as lush as it was while we were there (there have been years of drought in the past), but there has been heavier rain this year and as a result the landscape is much greener. We drove over bumpy roads through beautiful hills and passed over clean rivers and streams. It reminded me of the hills of Northern California, and made me remember how much I love the drive between Seattle and San Francisco. I've done that same road trip twice and could probably do it a hundred more times without getting bored.
We had split into two groups to go to different areas where the NGO ARTH works on maternal and child health issues. The drive ended up being quite a bit longer than expected, and we were stopped at one point by some village youth who put rocks under our tires until we paid them about Rs 50 for their festival decorations. We finally arrived at the health clinic and watched a baby receive a vaccination and took a tour of the health facilities. ARTH has a very specific focus on mothers and children, and their clinics are operated mostly by nurse/midwives with OB/GYNs coming through twice a week to evaluate more serious cases. They deliver children, do testing, and perform medical abortions, which they consider a very important part of the services they offer to impoverished women.
We ventured out to a village and watched one of the nurses examine a baby, though I kept getting distracted by a little girl sitting next to me who had six toes on each foot. She was shy but eventually she was smiling at me. After that, we had lunch at the clinic and headed ARTH's main training center to get a debriefing on what the organization does. After a long, long day, we headed back to Udaipur and we got to go on a relaxing boat ride around Lake Pichola at sunset. I then went for dinner at a rooftop restaurant with five other girls and watched people set off fireworks for a festival (which almost hit people standing on a pedestrian bridge over the lake, so they quickly scattered).
Ok, I'm getting tired of typing for now, so I will update about Wednesday-Saturday later.
Blegh, ant discovery in our bedroom, streaming from this mysterious boarded up hole to my Seattle tote bag. Ants are everywhere here. If our dining room table is against the wall, the ants will travel up the wall and onto the table. There is a constant stream of them in the sink and around its edges, and we often get them in the areas where we eat at the program center. They're small and seem harmless, but they're annoying and gross and ruin food when they get in it.
P.S. I'm reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling and that's where the title of this post is from!
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