Visit to the tribal belt

The latest from India Matt, Anna and Ingrid have spent the last week coming to terms with their imminent departure from Pali and preparing for the final stint of their internship, which will take place in Mumbai. There have been an abundance of mixed emotions.

While our train tickets to Mumbai, still known popularly as Bombay, have yet to be confirmed we hold a pretty secure spot on the waiting list and are set to leave on either the 6th or 7th of this month. Time has passed us by far quicker than we could have possibly imagined, and the thought of uprooting and leaving Manju and the Pali staff behind so shortly has left us all a bit shell-shocked.

On the plus side, Matt and Ingrid managed to organise a final visit to the tribal belt in order to complete an ongoing photo project that seeks to juxtapose the benefits of a school going girl against that of a tribal dropout. Trips to the tribal belt are always an eye opening experience and have been one of the definite highlights of our stint in Rajasthan. It is always inspiring to witness the breadth of Educate Girls' program, and this is most distinct when travelling to these areas (some of the poorest in all India) where basic living conditions are so grossly malnourished and yet so many children now have access to real education. The photos themselves have turned out great and we look forward to compiling the remainder of our project in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, Anna has had the opportunity to make some uninterrupted headway in her compilation of Educate Girls' program manual and has been working closely with all the Pali staff. Accordingly she has come to better appreciate their individual roles and has helped us better understand the intricate workings of our grassroots NGO while simultaneously cementing our rapport with the team. We also had a surprise visit from Safeena, the Mumbai-based head of Educate Girls, which proved to be an enlightening and enjoyable experience; we received some great feedback on our respective projects and had a chance to appreciate her indefatigable charm over a veritable feast (all credit to Manju) at the guesthouse.

On the more banal side of things Matt finally swayed Ingrid to drink coffee - a beverage she usually abstains from - resulting in a caffeine-induced episode of autodidactic brilliance; within 15 minutes both had become entirely fluent in radio alphabet and have ceaselessly pestered Anna with their inane ramblings.

We also finally confronted the issue of sending packages back to Australia, as we were all in dire need of ditching some excess baggage prior to our onward travels. We falsely assumed we would need only arrive at the post office, surrender our bags and see them on our way (having been in India for two and a half months, you think we would have learnt not to assume anything by now...). After queuing up for a while at the wrong counter, we shifted to the parcel booth where we eventually worked out that we needed to put everything in a large cardboard box, seal it up with tape and then sew white cloth around the entire monstrosity. This apparently was a service not provided by Pali post office, and after enquiring at a local textile shop we discovered that we would have to buy the cloth and sew it up ourselves. After some scrounging around at the Educate Girls office we located some semi-suitable boxes, crammed everything in there and set Matt to work with an oversized needle and thread. Never having sewn anything before the end result was somewhat crude, but nonetheless effective. We finished the job bang on 4:30, rushed to the post office and discovered (somewhat predictably) that contrary to popular wisdom their opening hours extended not till 5, but 4:30. After much fruitless pleading we agreed to ditch our colossal parcels with them, leaving the conundrum of how to actually get them out of the country till tomorrow.

Alpha Lima Alpha Sierra.