Phal means fruit in Hindi

So, I am currently in Udaipur, in the third week of our course, and loving it.

Since last time, I have seen Taj Mahal, been followed by the jewel-mob in Jaipur, and took almost a week in Pushkar, where i turned 22 years old. I have met a bunch of great people, and started the course which is the reason for me being here.

The other people that also take the course with me; Karianne (kk), Johan, Fredrik, Lachlan and Mattias come the weekend before we started, and we soon found our rooms and tried to settle down. We live in the house of Mr. Arvind, who will go into our rooms and turn of the lights if we havent, and who have been so grateful as to give us a curfew of 9.30. He looks like he is cut out from some movie from the 90's with a hockey in a ponytail, cut offs and tank tops. Great guy. The place is great, and much better than the other volunteers at Seva Mandirs, given that our techers at home did not think us fit to have the normal standard. So, embarrassed as we are, we have a tv, a roof top gym and maid and delivery of dinners and breakfast. The last week we have started to make food ourselves, but it was nice to indulge for a bit.

The first weeks was mainly classes in development, the Indian context, about the role of NGO's in India, etc, and Hindi lessons! The second, we went to field visits, and got to see some of the many ways that Seva works with the rural population, and on Friday we had presentations of projects we could choose to work with. I was lucky enough to get two! I work on a micro program for obstetric health care, where it will be implemented in another area than it has been before, and on a Neo-natal health care program, where I more or less will be reviewing if it works. Both projects are super exiting, and even though I can hear people snore at the titles, they are great projects. I Also have one american and one indian co-mentor, and they are both competent and willing to learn me all about this. I have spent most of this week reading up on the health and practices of pregnant women, and about feeding practices and diseases of newborn. To say I am learning something new every day would be a gross understatement.

The next weeks will be reading and field visits, and I am thrilled. At home we are cosying ourselves, most of the time, allthough the long hours and required reading + hindi lessons sometimes get the better of, ehem, me. Thank god I have songs like this to make it all better. (The song is from DABANGG which i went to see last weekend)

There's a bunch of other stuff happening of course, like us all getting to know the other volunteers, visiting deaf and blind schools, and i also visited a hiv/aids center the other day, but the main idea you should get is that we are having a great time, the volunteers and staff at Seva are amazing, and that I am learning a lot, this is my sixth week here, and it is all good.

pics will come, at some point.

m