Ohhhhh India!

Hi Everyone!

This blog has long been overdue, I apologize for not writing in here sooner. I haven’t had the time to truly sit down and to completely reflect about my experiences here thus far because it is hard to find the right words to express exactly what I’m going through. I’m trying to immerse myself as much as possible within the culture—to understand the language, the customs, the people, and their way of living. I quickly realized that India is a land of extremes and that I had to throw any expectations I had out of the door before I could truly begin understanding this culture. It is a land of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, a land of extreme chaos and extreme serenity. I just have to go with the flow, to trust my instincts, to trust my teammates, and to keep my head held high even when faced with difficult challenges. I have learned a lot about myself in the past two weeks--things that I did not imagine I would have to work out. It has not been easy being here, I do miss home a lot, but I know that the work we are doing makes it all worth it. 

 On a Completely Random Note…

I have been completely overwhelmed by the crazy humidity, the pollution, and the heat here and the fact that I am a sweat-making machine does not help. I’m getting used to it, though. I have never needed to drink this much water in my life! Also, the only snacks that I eat here are great tasting buttery biscuits that are supposedly healthy for you (not really) called “Parle-Gs.” Everyone in the USC Global Impact Program is absolutely addicted to these cookies. For those of you that know me, you know I’m a health freak when it comes to eating food back in the states. I have wholeheartedly eaten everything that comes near my face here, and I’m proud of it—samosas, gobi manchuri (a crazy good cauliflower fried dish that looks like orange chicken, yum), masala rice, rajma, alu palak, raita, you name it! I have been eating ice cream at least once a day as well because I figure I live once and I might as well splurge while I’m at it. Don’t worry, I’m trying to workout once a week to offset all this food (haha). By the way, chai tea in the mornings and chai tea in the afternoons and chai tea in the evenings makes alex a crazy kid.

Working….

Working with our NGO Agastya has been absolutely amazing in the past two weeks. We hoped that we would be able to collaborate with them to develop a puppet show emphasizing the importance of having good health and hygiene. Instead, we were surprised by their openness to work with us, their warmth and dedication to seeing this project through, and their frankness and sincerity in wanting to truly work with us to create an art curriculum that can potentially create a huge impact in many children’s lives. Agastya currently serves many rural communities surrounding Karnataka, as their science mobile vans and great teachers reach out to many schoolchildren each day to places where science labs and models would not otherwise exist. We hope that this puppet project can go a long way towards supplementing Agastya’s science-oriented projects by providing another dimension and artistic medium by which kids can learn.

In the past two weeks, lots of progress has been made. I can’t even imagine in my wildest dreams that things would go as smoothly as it has. We have been able to develop our creative story ideas in a manageable way. We plan on having three 5-to-7 minute puppet skits that include a fun and interactive dance in each. The skits will be centered around three overlying themes--the environment, the community, and the self. Within these overlying themes are pertinent issues such as the water cycle, the ecosystem, the importance of picking up trash, the importance of brushing one’s teeth, the importance of living a balanced life, and the importance of living healthily and hygienically.

Our meetings always end up SO QUIRKY, SILLY, and RIDICULOUS that it is always an absolutely joy to be a part of. Our group dynamics have been great because each person brings in a fresh skill and perspective (we all love kids and act like kids ourselves). Nabila is great with singing and dancing, Pip is great with cinematography and the technical filming aspects, Jennifer is great with the teachers and the kids with teaching arts and crafts, Krishnan is great at facilitating and being artistic, and I just love interacting and playing fun games with the kids. They were extremely shy at first (some were afraid of saying their names) to really opening up and being one of the loudest groups of kids I have ever worked with! In the past week, we have been playing games like head, shoulders, knees, and toes, and duck, duck, goose (we called it Kothi (monkey), Kothi, Mola (hare)) with the kids to see which kids are most engaged so that they can be a part of our drama club and puppet show.

We have also started paper-mache-ing and other arts and crafts activities with the Agastya teachers this week in order to create the puppet show set. We have been working on creating huge clouds, a moon, a sun, and various other things like flowers and bees (super cute bees). What’s fun is that the Agastya teachers are very supportive and they work alongside us every step of the way in these arts and crafts projects. In this way, they can continue to develop their art curriculum and engage in these types of activities well after we are gone.

It has been so fun!!! Can’t wait to update y’all about our progress as we go along!

-Alex Nguyen :)

So we are here!

But before I give you details about our new environment let me give you a quick recap of our travels.


Alex and I traveled together from LA to London to Banglore to Hubli with Nina, one of the USC students on the water filter team (and my new roommate). We spent a good 22 hours on planes. But before we even get to the rides I will start in LAX. So Alex shows up with way way way too much luggage. The nice woman at the front desk warned him that if he wanted to check an extra bag it would cost him $165! So thanks to Alex’s good nature (and the woman’s day shift ending in 13 minutes) she gave us time to redistribute his luggage into one less bag. We spilled his stuff into both of our other bags (they are so tight they are about to rip at the seams!). Meanwhile (because she likes us) she calls up a male coworker of hers and has him go see the woman in charge of seating arrangements (because that woman has a crush on the coworker). He sweet-talks her into putting our seats together. This worked out so well because not only did we find out that we can sit together but we were assigned bulkhead seating (she must really have a crush on the male coworker!).

Otherwise the trip was pretty seamless, Alex only almost forgot his passport on the plane once when departing and a bottle of glue was the only thing confiscated (from the random arts and crafts supplies and equipment). I also had to reassure passengers and airline employees that no, the tripod is only a tripod and not a bazooka.


On our way to Hubli our final destination from Banglore we met up with Krishnan who has chopped off all of his hair (8 inches!!). We were then picked up by Deshpande and taken to our separate dorm buildings. The guys dorms are not available yet so they have been put in a luxurious guest house. The pictures I have posted show the difference between the female and male living arrangement exteriors—words are unnecessary.



The three of us just met with Mr Suresh, the head of Agastya in Hubli and have become even more enthusiastic about our project. The science center we met at is full of experiments and projects for students from primary school levels to high school (although as college students, we too found ourselves putting on the shoes made of nails and playing with the multiple display projects). The science center holds two classes a day. Each class has 50 students from a local government school. Simultaneously both mobile science vans bring their science teachers to schools in rural areas during the day, 6 days a week. Today we went on one of these mobile van adventures to a primary school and watched the students become enamored by the Agastya teacher and his experiments (we were so well dressed and quiet that the students assumed we were Indian! And therefore not disruptive to the class). Yes, of course I have already purchased a shalwar (traditional female shirt/dress), it is on a very rare occasion I have trouble shopping.

The timing of our project could not be more perfect. Agastya has just initiated an art curriculum and hired an art teacher who will work with us to establish our puppet drama club. He will continue working with the club after we leave. They are even getting a whole new van dedicated to art instruction which will be the perfect vehicle for disseminating our curriculum when we finish.


So we shall see, everyone seems very supportive of our project and we are all very excited to be here and have adapted quite well…I can’t believe its only been a week!

More to come soon,
Jennifer

We're Here in Hubli!

We will update very soon. We're here in Hubli starting around 11am on June 3rd (India Time, which is 12.5 hours later than California time, so it would be 1030PM June 2nd for you guys). 

Myself, Jennifer, Krishnan, and Nina from the water project are safe and sound. Expect pictures and video soon enough. Much <3

On My Way to India!

The idea of writing a blog has made me cringe with awkwardness at the same time it stirs up some excitement inside me. Not the kind that makes my heart beat so fast it wants to protrude through my chest (yes, that happens on more occasions than you would believe), but the kind of excitement that causes a sly smile and a single eyebrow raise. No, I can’t actually move one eyebrow without the other, but that’s the best way to visualize the type of excitement blog writing provokes for me. But back to the blog-inducing-awkward-cringe-part: a blog about a trip to India and a project that I am apart of must be personal (which is extraordinarily intimidating—I’m not an air-my-dirty-laundry-type of girl) otherwise its boring, typical and cliché. So, while I will try my best to keep you interested, you will have to get to know me in sporadic puzzle-piece doses. There will be no straightforward clear explanation of myself or my journey because…well, that’s not how it works. As a friend once said I think and I live like a series of post-it notes: I get everything done that I need to when I need to (for the most part, of course, I am not superhuman), but the process never follows a straight line.

And why is this blog writing so intriguing to me? Well, it makes me feel somewhat rebellious. Why? I’m a PhD student. What does that mean? It means that I have spent the majority of my life (21 of my 26 years if you don’t count preschool) in school being trained to write. And, I’m sure I don’t need to go into details about the type of writing this entails, almost everyone has gone through some type of writing class (see, at my level of academic writing, I would get in so much trouble for making an “everyone assumption”). I have even taken part in teaching and helping undergrads write formal papers. We are trained that a thesis is a must and writing should be organized, have proper grammar, and a strong, well-articulated argument. You get the picture: writing consists of lots of rules. As you can see, I don’t seem to have a thesis here (and I have used a contraction) or at least I haven’t figured one out quite yet. But this is a blog and I’m trying to rebel, so please be patient, I’m getting to the purpose of this entry.

While, I have blathered on for half a page about nothingness, (this intro would be poorly graded by me if it were to be turned in), there is a point to this blog: I am off to Hubli in the Northwestern Karnataka Region of India for two months to take part in the PiP (Puppets in Play) Multimedia Project. I am part of a great, extremely entertaining group of 5 grad students (all with very distinct voices—an understatement to say the least) who have been given a grant by the Deshpande Foundation to carry out our project in collaboration with the Agastya NGO. Agastya, a primary and secondary education nonprofit, specializes in bringing interactive curriculum to the classroom through their mobile van service and engages teachers and students through their science fairs and other educational activities. Once in Hubli, we will create a puppet drama club with a group of Indian students. After the drama club has been established, we will then film these skits, which will consist of stories that teach the students about health, hygiene, science and art (yes, we plan on getting more specific upon arrival, for all of those liberal skeptics out there).

This is an extremely intimidating project. We are dealing with culture and education—two very heavy, complex factors that are deeply embedded in country, region and local specificities. How are we suppose to bring our own memories of Sesame Street and the Muppets, plus the books we read and research we have done, to a culture already very rich in puppetry, with a different educational system than our own? Well, I don’t have the answer quite yet, but I promise to give you reports on how it works.

In the meantime, as I have stated we have done research, from across the world and have had great correspondence with Agastya, which has been extremely helpful. Our plan is to open up to the NGO, teachers and children to figure out what type of stories they want, interest them, and be aware of what we in our own powers are capable of doing. So, we shall see. I’m optimistic, but cautious, which I am hoping is a healthy combination of thoughts for the week before I leave.

Our group is full of experienced travelers and that is definitely a plus, but Krishnan is the only one who has spent a significant amount of time in India (he participated in Indicorps). I too have been to India, but it was a backpacking trip and well…I’ll save those stories for another blog, perhaps…but let’s just say this will be a very different trip. Otherwise, I am about to run last minute errands with Alex this week; Pip is recovering from getting typhoid…well sort of. He reacted to the vaccine with typhoid symptoms (no, the project is not technically named after him). Krishnan is in bed with a 104-degree fever and Nabila is in anticipation of receiving a lion costume in New Orleans (no, not necessarily for her to wear).

All in all, this seems like a very typical beginning for a very atypical (and heart protruding though my chest—I am so excited) trip.

Until India arrival,
Jennifer

BTW: In future blogs, I promise to better introduce you to my teammates (although you are welcome to read their blogs as well) and to explain why I have chosen to take part in this project (if you read my bio you will see how this project connects to my dissertation). This entry was more like a therapeutic exercise to help me come to terms with blog writing.

What a surreal moment for all of us...

Hey folks! :)

So I'm sitting here at 2AM on Thursday morning trying to get every bit in of California as possible before this summer trip to India. At this particular moment, I am filled with countless emotions--I'm excited, nervous, stoked, scared-for-diarrhea (well if that's not an emotion, it should be), sleepy, and hopeful. Our Puppets in Play Team (PiP) as well as the rest of the USC Global Impact crew are about to embark on an amazing-filled summer full of surprises, challenges, and mosquito bites. Here's the link for more about the different teams involved published by the Daily Trojan. 

MY GRADUATION

I just graduated this past week from USC and things have been pretty crazy ever since. 

You would think graduation day would be crazy, but no...it's actually attempting to catch up with everyone before I leave that's even more hectic. I had such an amazing graduation, and I couldn't ask for such wonderful and supporting friends. I've included a picture just to make this blog a little more personal! [and i couldn't help but showcase my smile, just kidding! I'm on the right in a picture with my buds]

 

PUPPET PROJECT THUS FAR...

The puppet project has been picking up steam as-of-late, and for those of you that don't know, we're hoping to have kids participate in large scale puppet shows incorporating issues of health and hygiene to empower the community through entertainment and the arts. We thought that by reaching out to kids through creating drama clubs and programs, we could work from the inside out and create change where it would be most effective. Since plays and music are such large facets of Indian culture (ie. Bollywood), we thought that entertainment seemed like a good path to take. My amazing team members--Jennifer, Krishnan, Pip, and Nabila, will be filming these puppet shows while creating a curriculum to pass onto teachers and older students so that that these programs can continue well after we leave. We just ordered the puppets (various animals), and the team is super excited to begin our next leg of the work!

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