JJVS Life

I’m here.  It is well into the second half of the program, where I will be living at an NGO and operating as an intern.  I have been here for two days and am all settled in.  Staying with me are two other people from this semester, Rachel and Jasper, and one girl here for the whole year, Lauren.  It is really nice to have Lauren around because she bridges the gap between us newbies and the men who have been working here for decades.  They have even started calling her our “principle” or “headmaster.”  Though our sleeping arrangements are not ideal, (the three of newbies in one room, each sleeping on the floor with a couple blankets) everything else is fantastic.  The food is excellent, with plenty of it, and we are encouraged to help in the kitchen and do our dishes.  It is so much more comfortable being able to help out, instead of just watching our maid clean the entire house.   There are two teenage boys living here as well, and it is the nicest thing ever to discover that not all Indian boys my age are creeps and freaks.  They are both really funny and have yet to try and hit on any of us!  The staff here is also very accommodating.  There are so many of them, each specializing in a different area, but all of them love joking around and do their best to make us as comfortable as can be.  Lauren even jokes that she thinks of them like her fathers now.

We haven’t done much these past two days, but tomorrow we are leaving in the morning to stay in a field office for a few days.  The main office of JJVS is based just outside of Udaipur, a city that we have just begun exploring.  But they also have many projects about an hour away from here, in several small villages.  We will be staying for three days, in the hopes that seeing the hands-on aspects of different projects will help us identify what area we want to work on.  Because there are so many needs in India, most NGO’s tend to focus on improving the entire community through many different measures including but not limited to, health care availability, education, human rights, water management, sustainable agriculture, curbing pollution, and developing small businesses.  Here, there are so many different projects, so even though it would be very cool to work with natural medicine or sustainable agriculture, I am really looking forward to getting a taste of everything – even grant writing.  If anyone is looking to come and volunteer in India, I highly recommend JJVS.  Check it out - http://jjvs.org This organization has been accomplishing great things in surrounding communities for over thirty years now, and is always open to students who want to research and change how something works for the better.  Hopefully, my trip out into the field will help me decide which path I want to spend my month of volunteering doing.  I can’t wait to start helping people again – even just helping erect the public school building would be rewarding.  

For now though, I am just trying to help my roommates and myself get adjusted to living here.  It will be a hard couple of weeks, sharing the room with two other people, but I think all will work out in the end.  We all have papers to write and will soon be starting projects of our own, so I do not foresee any major issues.  Hopefully it stays that way! 

I have no JJVS pictues yet, so here are my awesome pants I am wearing.

And one last thing – I have free wifi here!  Though it is usually off for a couple of hours during the day because of planned power outages, it is much faster and more reliable than what I was using back in Jaipur.  Hopefully, this means I will be blogging a little more frequently!