Getting into field

So for the rest of my time here in India I will be working at the family services center in Colaba, which is in the very southern part of Mumbai.

I'm not sure exactly everything I will be doing yet, but many days will consist of traveling with the employees to a nearby slum where education programs occur with the younger children in the morning and the older children in the afternoon. (The older children go to school in the morning and the younger children go to school in the afternoon). A key goal of the organization is family preservation and helping the community be able to make ends meet. While most of my days will be spent in Colaba, yesterday I went with the director and the other student (from Sweeden) to visit a village.

We traveled by rickshaw, train, and then rickshaw again to get to the village which is approximately two hours north of Mumbai. The village is on the water so my organization is consulting with the community leaders to educate the people on the importance of keeping the water clean and helping them to plan a clean-up day for Saturday. While the whole meeting was in Marathi (the official language of Maharastra, the state where Mumbai is) it was still very interesting to watch the process of the meeting and see how similar the meeting functioned to community meetings that I've attended in New Orleans.

On Saturday I may be going back to the village to help with the clean-up and see the different educational skits, but since everything is starting at 7 a.m. if i go I get to stay Friday night with one of the women from my placement who lives in a neighboring village! I say if I go because I'm feeling a little under the weather, but hopefully I will be good to go for this experience.


Women of the village with the fishing boats in the background



Fish hanging out to dry.

Some additional observation and facts you might like to know:

-Sari's come in a least three different lengths: 6, 9, and 12 feet of fabric. I will be learning how to wear one before I leave and it will probably just be the 6 foot one.

-Parts of Mumbai are so developed that one can "forget" about the slums for a period of time (compare the foreground to the background of the picture)


-monkeys are everywhere on Tata's campus most mornings.