it's nearly one in the morning and I need to be awake by 7. Every once in awhile, I can hear mosquitos buzzing in my ear and I won't be able to fall asleep. I'll get close to falling asleep, but then I hear the sound and I go to swat it away and adrenaline once again takes over. fmylife.com. That, combined with my three hour nap today after having a terribly sleep on an overnight train, is spelling failure for the possibility of sleep tonight. Instead, I'll tell you all about the (great) week I just had. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in another blog entry, but a part of the semester is a workshop with an NGO. This basically means that we go an observe and participate in the work of one NGO in particular. I, along with 3 other girls, one Hindi teacher, and one academic directory, went to Lucknow, a city in Uttar Pradesh. It was certainly a city unlike any I had seen in India. Sure, it was busy, dirty, and crowded, but it was also dotted with incredible Muslim historical monuments and sites, stunning old Mughal architecture, and even a small body of water. The first day there we got to see some of these great sites and for the first time since Humayan's Tomb we got to a look into India's Muslim minority culture. After that, we had probably the opposite experience: we went to the mall. Oh yes, and not once, but many times did we go to this mall for want of western food which we had been craving endlessly. Seriously, subway has never tasted so good.

Getting back to the point of the workshop. we worked with an organization called Tehreek, which works for the empowerment of the impoverished Muslim communities in Lucknow, and especially their women. This is probably going to sound waaay melodramatic but (a) this is probably the most apparently worthwhile academic part of the program so far and (b) their work and the results I saw made me realize that NGOs really can make a difference here, even if only for a small number of people. To elaborate, they have some really incredible programs that they set up in the slums in Lucknow. They set up women self help groups for economic, political, and social empowerment, and also start up children's commities to inform children of their rights and their communities' rights in regards to health, sanitation, gender roles, etc. With this information, the women and children speak to others in their communities and in surrounding communities to further the progress of empowerment. Now I know what you might be thinking. There are 29389457489450945 NGOs in the world that do these sorts of empowerment projects. But to me what made this unique was that for the first time, I really could see tangible results of these programs. Having visited other slums around the country, it was easy to see how much more empowered women and children were in the Lucknow slums I visited. The women there were willing to speak out against their husbands when they opposed these women's initiatves, the children were hardly shy to talk to us and ask us questions, and there was actually normal interactions between the young boys and girls (a rarity, believe me). There was one boy in particular in the committee who was really intellgent, and made very enlightened comments about communication and understanding, poverty, and development. This kid was 16, and great. It was sad to know that because he was Muslim, even with the help of orgs. like Tehreek, and even though he was really really smart, he probably would face so much discrimination when/if trying to get educated that he would probably not get very far. That realization was certainly one of the most difficult parts of the experience: even if they are empowered in their communities, will other Indians accept them? probably not, or at least not enough. They'll be better off, but by how much?
We got to do some other great stuff in Lucknow also. We got to go to a press conference given by the founder of an NGO which operates on cleft lips and palates of poor children in India. I don't know if you've heard of the documentary Smile Pinki, but that's the NGO I'm talking about, and we got to see the documentary also. Incredibly moving. They really do great work. Another example of an NGO really making a difference. We also got to see the work of a hospital that treated poor Muslims for a nominal fee. There, we learned that many diseases that they see have come about as a result of desperate living conditions and terrible hygenie. These patients had neither the understanding nor the economic ability to make their conditions cleaner, so the doctors told us that many of the problems persisted. We saw some really sad cases, such as babies which were much too small, young mothers clueless about how to care for them, and old, wrinkled tuberculosis patients camping out at the hospital to receive treatment at every possible opportunity. The hospital had a tought time: they could only be open saturdays because all the doctors were volunteers, and many of the people who came simply could not follow what the docotr suggested. These people were so poor that they could not afford a bar of soap to clean their children more than once a month or so. That kind of poverty is totally incomprehensible to us at home. This sort of challnge makes it really difficult for these doctors to make a lasting effect on their patients lives. It must be frustrating, but all of them at least seemed to have good senses of humor.

Did I mention that I got sick???!? Yeah, I know, I was doing so well, and then it was all over. Like in that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry ate the black and white cookie and broke a like 20 year no barfing streak? That was me last week. So uncool. I had to miss one day of work as a result. To this day, I'm a lot less excited about eating the food here.

btw, whenever the Mullahs of the communities wanted to discredit Tehreek's work, they would call them "agents of alien Jews." Oh yes. I nearly lost it every time the director of the org. would mention that. It's like the most juvenile name-calling. So goes life.

Wishing everyone the best and so excited to see you in May!!
Love,
Mimi