Introducing Matt, Ingrid and Anna: FEGG India Scholarship winners!

Matt, Ingrid and Anna in Pali - week one of their scholarship adventureNamaste,

After an initial misunderstanding with Mother Nature, who apparently forgot that it was meant to be sunny and mild and instead greeted us with rain and mud. With no wet-weather gear or umbrellas, we braved the desert rains in t-shirts and arrived at the FEGG guesthouse in Pali. Week one over and we are happy to report that India is now exactly as we expected: blue skies, sunshine and happiness all round. The guesthouse and immediate surrounds are alive with creatures and critters. So far spotted: geckoes (in the girls' bedroom), a rat (in the house), squirrels (who have been dubbed 'squizzes' by Ingrid), cows (in the front yard), plus numerous spiders and crickets and bugs that we share our house with.

So much has happened already in so few days. Our home, simply known in the area to locals as ‘Guesthouse’ is a modest two story house complete with five bedrooms (we occupy two between the three of us but other FEGG staff are coming and going so the house always seems full), one kitchen, one bathroom with western style toilet (no flush, getting used to the old manual flush method), one squatty potty (good for leg toneage), a shower that on occasion delivers no more than a minute of hot water, a balcony and a beautiful open rooftop.

We have an amazing cook/housekeeper called Manju, who we all adore, firstly because she is absolutely lovely, but also, importantly, because she feeds us and her food is amazing. Breakfast can be anything from toast to halawa, a sweet bready cakey type thing, to rice, potato and veg. Lunch and dinner is generally a combination of sabjee (different types of vegetable dishes), daal, rice and chapatti. No meat here but we definitely will not be shedding any pounds! Oh and at least 7 or 8 cups of chai a day. At least. Which brings us to Indian hospitality. Within our first week we have dined or had tea at three different houses in our village and had three other dinner invitations (from people on the street and shop owners); we are going to need a diary to start making appointments. People here are just so hospitable and so friendly. And they are constantly checking “everything ok? No problem?”.

We've had two days in the field already to see some of FEGG's work first-hand. FEGG is working to improve girls' enrolment and attendance in school through community mobilisation as well as infrastructure (female toilets etc), more female teachers, establishing girls councils in schools, a more female friendly curriculum (focussing on life skills as well as academia) etc. They have tried and tested a model that works on 500 schools in the district and are now operating in over 2400 schools. They are in the process of replicating this model and expanding to 5000 schools by 2011. We are here to help them in that expansion process. After briefings and a day spent in the field visiting schools we were given our first project – interviewing teachers and students on camera for success stories to be used for a digital newsletter. We spent all day Thursday in a very remote area interviewing students and teachers not in English, not even in Hindi, but in tribal dialects - an extremely challenging task. We spent the following day editing the material without the aid of a transcript – hopefully it makes sense.
The girls we've met have really been inspirational. And crazy! They look so innocent and shy when you first arrive but once they are comfortable with you, which doesn’t take long, they all want to grab you and touch you and hold your hand. Anna and Ingrid have been attacked several times, it’s akin to a moshpit in those classrooms when the girls unleash! Not to be outdone, Matt has also experienced a bonding ritual with the male FEGG staff members over a spot of Paan, a betel leaf with filling that seems to be exclusively enjoyed by men.

This weekend we had our first opportunity to do a spot of travel in Rajasthan and opted to visit Udaipur, India's renowned 'City of Lakes'. We braved an early morning start in order to arrive in good time, anticipating a solid three and a half hour bus ride to traverse the 120km standing between us and our destination. Optimistic fools we were; while taking a pit-stop at the three hour mark we were casually informed that there was "only another 3 hours to go". Upon arrival we were all a wee bit worse for wear, but Udaipur did not disappoint - narrow alleyways littered with budget hotels and handicraft shops wind around the city's hilly contours, all set to the scenic backdrop of palaces perched among idyllic mountains and lakes.

As with just about anywhere in India, Udaipur's streets were also littered with cows, and Matt has taken it upon himself to become spiritually 'in tune' with the sacred animal of Hinduism. This is decidedly best achieved through the 'cow pat' (wherein he cautiously pats a bull's head and hopes not to anger the beast) - he aspires to master the art by the end of our stay and has so far accumulated a respectable tally of 10 pats. In equal abundance to the cows are Udaipur's rooftop restaurants and after checking in we quickly found ourselves soaking up some sun whilst enjoy a panoramic view of our surroundings. This soon progressed into a team-bonding exercise that began with sampling local beer and spirits on a variety of rooftops and culminated in each of us enduring an impromptu body piercing.

Shub-raa¬-tri [Goodnight],
Matt, Ingrid and Anna