Friday, February 28, 2014

Class FIeld Trip- Baramati

On February seventh and eighteenth the Alliance students in the Development Economics class offered and I, along with two program staff members and Professor Kulkarni traveled to the Baramati KVK in Maharashtra, India from Pune, India. The class trip proved interesting, challenging, and educational- not to mention fun. The eight students slept two to a tent. That may sound austere, but each tent was twelve by twelve feet and had a toilet, shower, sink, and full-length mirror in a room separated from the bedroom by a zip up canvas tent wall.
            During the experience of the trip, the diversity of India and how that diversity manifests the unity of India unrolled a deeper layer of itself to me. This trip was my first, intensive, tangible experience of and interaction with rural India outside of books and movies. From conversation with women running a self-help economics groups, to tours of the KVK (a Hindi abbreviation for Agricultural Science Center) farm and teaching facilitates for farmers, to an interaction with agriculture college students on their campus, to a visit to the current Prime Minister of Agriculture's museum or display of what seemed to me to be an ungodly amount of wealth and opulence, to conversations with men who ran the teaching and other facilitates for farmers at the KVK, I walked away with away with a brief introduction to the progress and practices of agricultural technologies in India.

            The exchanges I had with my fellow Alliance students also proved enriching. India is a progressing rapidly; though it’s progress is at times and in ways lopsided, from this two-day trip, at least, I felt that a thorough and concerted effort and pathos exists in India to make India truly great.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Mahabaleshbwar!


            The first trip out of Pune as a group of students from the Alliance program was a blast. Sheila, an Alliance program staff member, helped arrange the transportation details. Twenty-one students in total split four cars. The drivers hired drove us to Mahabaleshbwar, around the mountain top lookouts, to lunch, to the Mapro Garden markets, and to the lake where we could go on the lake in a rowboat or paddleboat.
            Upon arrival we all stopped to get breakfast at a small outdoor restaurant on the mountain. Most people got poohai, a rice based breakfast dish, chai, and coffee, though Angela, my roommate, and I were blessed to eat the sandwiches Geeta, out host mother, packed for us. Then,  we were off to the mountain top lookouts. There were many of them, though we only stopped at four.  The first mountaintop lookout was gorgeous; it was the first time I was up so high, and it was stunning. The second mountaintop lookout almost blew me away, literally! It was very windy. There were almost men with horses looking to get us to ride them for rupees, but we declined. The third mountaintop lookout takes the cake! There was not only an echo point, but also a “Kate’s Point,” named after the daughter of a British man who had once ruled over the mountainside during the colony era, but that was not the reason for the extraordinariness of this particular mountaintop. For me, and for the other students in the group it was because of the monkeys. Families of monkeys, over ten individual ones, roamed freely, and often got very close to people. One monkey even stole a lady’s lunch bag and her lunch, only to be chased away by a man who retrieved the lady’s bag.

            After mountaintops visits we all had lunch in a restaurant in the main mountainside town, and had ice cream. Then we visited the lake, and five of us went paddle boating and saw a beautiful lakeside temple. The visit was concluded in the only way fit for such a fun filled day: a flurry of strawberry buying at Mapro Garden! The men who drove us all bought, and helped us bargain. Though I learned many things on this trip, one of the things that stands out most, be it good or bad is up for debate, was the amazing sweetness of a Mahabaleshbwar strawberry.

Kate looking over Kate's Point

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Thread Ceremony

     Last Saturday Angela, my American roommate, and I got a pleasant surprise. Additya, a seven year old neighbor celebrated his Thread Ceremony,  and Geeta, or Aaia, Angela and my host mother, told us we are invited!
     So, after a relaxing morning, we all got dressed up, and waited for the procession to begin. At around 5:30pm we left the house, and walked a short distance to the temple, from which the procession would begin. Upon some inquiry I discerned the meaning behind a Thread Ceremony. Originating in an Indian tradition, a boy's education did not begin until he turned seven years old. At this time he would seize living with his family of birth and would commence living with his teacher, or guru, until he has finished his studies and has become a scholar. At that point, he would be around eighteen years old or so, and would then go back to living with his family until marriage. Traditionally it is a ceremony only for boys, and predominantly for those in upper castes.
     Upon reaching the temple we met up with a sizable crowd of Additya's family and friends all looking their best. Additya was riding a horse, and had his head shaved except for a circular patch of hair on the crown of his head, as per Brahmin tradition. There was also a small marching band of six dressed in red uniforms, and a small, colorful, and decorated jeep with a drummer and a keyboardist. The procession slowly made it's way from the temple to Additya's house, with family and friends, mostly the men, dancing in from of the band, jeep, and Additya. Angela and I danced with the children we have grown to know and play with in the evenings.
     When we all reached the apartment building we were greeted with a colorful display of pathways of rangoli- colorful sand patterns, and a welcome bubble of rangoli. The procession ended in a party of ice cream and gifts for Additya. Additya's Thread ceremony was not a traditional one, I learned, but a "modernized" one. He has been in school for about two years, and will continue to go to school and live with his family.
     I went to bed that night, grateful to have experienced a wonderful celebration of life, full of color, and dancing, and fun, but was a bit saddened about the lack of dancing by the women, which could be accounted for because, as Geeta said, "They are too shy to dance in the street."

Photo taken by Angela Graciano