Gina writes:

About 6 weeks ago, I saw that there was going to be a big half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Bangkok, Thailand on the day before we were scheduled to fly back to the U.S. It seemed to be such a great opportunity -- a momentous event to mark leaving Asia, just enough time to train, and reason to be more serious about my on-and-off running regimen.

From conversations with friends and hours of running by myself with my rambling thoughts, I realized that my experience running around in rural India is probably pretty interesting to my runner friends (and hopefully my non-runner friends too!).

"My" Stadium

We're extremely fortunate to live just 1/3 mile from an outdoor stadium/track. It's not an ideal place to run -- it can by muddy and/or rocky, cows and dogs use it too, and there are often dozens of guys playing cricket with one eye and watching me with their other eye! If you can get past those downfalls, it's a pretty great resource to have.





Actually, substitute the blue skies for gray skies and you'll see exactly what I was running in for most of the past 6 weeks. I had the track completely to myself for a vast majority of my runs, since the rain prevented a lot of the guys and teams from coming out! Just me and the cows...

Taking to the Roads

When my training took me above 3 or 4 miles per run, it was way too boring to just go around the 1/4 mile track over and over, so I took to the roads outside of Koraput town. These roads aren't heavily traveled by vehicles, so it's just me and a bicycle or motorcycle every few minutes. It's hilly and sometimes I have to literally wade through dozens of cows making their way to a pasture, but the scenery cannot be beat!







On my run two weeks ago, there was a wedding procession in the small village that I pass through. I had to navigate my way through dozens of grabby, drunk, dancing men and kids trying to shake my hand!

Too Rainy, Too Sunny

Monsoon season this year was extremely mild...until 6 weeks ago, when it started raining 14 of every 15 days. Not kidding, there were only 3 days without rain in the past month and a half! The rain made it difficult to plan runs exactly when I wanted to, so I had to be flexible about running whenever there seemed to be a clearing of the clouds for an hour. The upside was that the constant overcast cooled the temperatures to a comfortable level.

Yesterday and today were the first days of almost complete sun. The thing about temperatures in Koraput is that it's very dependent on the sun, so with the sun shining, the daytime temperatures are above 90 again. It made my run this morning VERY difficult. I have to adjust my training times for the next few weeks, I guess.

My Progress

I'm not a very fast runner and the farthest I've run before is about 6.5 miles...once. Now I'm running 3 times during the week, runs of 3-5 miles, and a long run on Sunday. The long runs increase by about 1 mile each week. Last week's long run was 6 miles and yesterday's long run was 7.5 miles, which makes it the longest I ever ran at one time! There are 4 more Sundays left in Koraput, so I'll run 9, 10, 11, and 12 miles. I'm feeling good about it and can feel my muscles getting stronger, but I'm still nervous about the race. This is a good thing actually, because it gives me less of an excuse to skimp on training or take a day off my running plan.

Stop Staring, Dudes!

I've run on and off since arriving in Koraput almost 2 years ago. It used to be really hard for me to deal with all the "stare bears". At the stadium, the guys playing cricket or volleyball just watch me whenever their not involved in the game. On the roads, if someone sees me running, their eyes never leave me and their body turns as I pass them (I call it the "traveling stare"...it happens when I'm just walking too, but not with such predictability). I'm not very fast, so it would embarrass me. Only in the past few months have I blocked out the anxiety about that completely; now I just feel proud to be a model of fitness!

A Plug for Nike

The best fitness product that I ever bought was my Nike Plus unit. It's a little chip that attached to my shoe and a little connector that plugs into my iPod. The movement of the chip calculates my distance, pace, and time and communicates it to the iPod so that I can check the numbers at any time during my run. It was only $30 and has allowed me to run anywhere I want and has motivated me to get faster and run longer.

Half-Marathon Fundraising

I'm not (yet) doing a full push of fundraising for the half-marathon, but I do have a fundraising page set up here that you can check out. You can easily support specific projects in India for as little as $5 with Paypal, credit card, or Google.

Wish me luck on 20 November at my first big race!

Gina writes:

A few insignificant events in the past few weeks have caused Corey and I to say more than a few times, "We wouldn't have done that in the U.S.!" I'm talking about our relationship with pests -- cockroaches, mice, ants, and other unwelcome but ever-present mini-beasts. With the hottest months of the year behind us and rainy season just about to rear its ugly head, insects and rodents and pests of pretty much every type are hanging out in our wonderfully ventilated (and not sealed from the outdoors) home.

First, there are the mice and chipmunks. Granted, we haven't seen a mouse in months and the chipmunk is really more cute than pesky, but it's worth it to say that our reaction to their presence is decidedly lackadaisical. "Um...Corey? There's the chipmunk again...yeah, just ran into the kitchen. Sure, we can wait until the Simpsons finishes." When it suits us, chase it out, pack the rags into the hole a little tighter, return to our awesome lives.

The war against the crawlies -- ants and cockroaches -- has pretty much been won. After 20 months of drawing pastel green anti-ant chalk lines (that stuff really works!) in creative patterns wherever we found ant armies boldly marching, being very vigilant about quickly washing dishes that had greasy or sugary residue, and keeping the extra-strength HIT on hand for the surprise two-inch monsters, we don't have much of a problem...for Indian standards. About once a week, we find a two-inch cockroach and we have cockroach babies skittering over our kitchen counters, but their presence is just part of being in India and doesn't seem gross or unclean to us anymore. And this past weekend, the loaf of bread that we had purchased was sold with a complementary colony of ants, which I didn't realize until I was about to make some toast. Instead of throwing out the whole loaf, I toasted the pieces on the skillet and calmly picked the ants off the bread as they crawled to the surface to get away from the heat! The rest of the loaf, however, we did give to the neighborhood dogs.

The war against the flying fiends -- mosquitos and flies -- however, will never be won. Despite mosquito nets covering the windows (and our bed of course), plug-in mosquito repellent, constantly burning mosquito coils, mosquito repellent cream and/or spray for sitting outside or in the SPREAD office after 6 p.m., long sleeves and pants if it's not too hot, and fans (if the power isn't out), the mosquitos still get us. No, we have not "gotten used to" the number of mosquitos in Koraput. The flies are another problem that I never thought about before coming to India. Tiny tiny mango flies plague us from April to June (mango season) by hanging out right in front of our eyes. We try to ignore them, but are forced to constantly wave them away, since the alternative is that they land right on our eyeballs...gross!

When it comes to miscellaneous bugs in dry food -- weevils in the flour, unknowns in dried chickpeas or nuts -- we've reached a truce. Flour bugs aren't really an issue since we decided to buy the prepackaged flour instead of bulk. Almost every time we buy chickpeas, there are bugs lodged inside some of the kernels. Some bugs float to the surface when the peas are soaked; for the others, we pick through the chickpeas handful by handful and toss the ones with a little visible black spot (sometimes moving, sometimes not). They go in the pressure cooker anyway, so who cares, right? (To our six visitors from the U.S., don't worry, we picked out all the bugs before feeding you!)

The last pest seems to be kind of a stretch, but it's one that we deal with every single day -- bacteria! We boil and filter every single drop of water that we drink, to destroy the bacteria; this is something I will definitely not miss after returning to the U.S.! As for milk and yogurt, we consume a lot of each, but have to be careful to smell and/or taste it before consuming it, since there is a good chance that it's spoiled, sometimes even before we open it. Both milk and yogurt are sold in 1/2 litre bags, which is annoying at times, but necessary since a 1/2 litre bag will not last more than 3 days in the winter and 1-2 in the summer. In the U.S., the milk is considered to be either spoiled or not. Here in India, we've learned that there are varying degrees of "spoilage" and that, sometimes, slightly spoiled milk on cereal wins out over no breakfast or running out in the morning to buy more milk! And last weekend, Corey made a delicious fruit salad with pineapple, mango, banana, and yogurt. The next day, it was definitely tangier than it was the first time...we ate it anyway, not wanting to waste the fruit!

As rainy season begins, we have one more "pest" to look forward to -- mold. Soon, our clothes and sheets and mattresses and well...everything...will need to be regularly aired out to avoid white hairy mold like we talked about in this entry last year. Oh well, bring it on, I found bleach in the market!

Now excuse me while I go swat at the mosquitos starting to swarm...

Gina writes:

Note: In Koraput, the verb used to indicate shopping of any sort is "marketing"...I laugh to myself when I hear this since both my BA and MBA are in marketing!



Marketing in Koraput (or anywhere in India, for that matter) is an interesting experience.

• Each store only sells certain things, some of which are obvious at first glance, some of which aren't. For instance, we've learned the place to buy mushrooms year-round is not the vegetable market, but the main milk-seller.
  
• Most of the stores have a counter separating the customers from the goods, so you have to know what you're looking for or you can point, but it's hard to browse.
  
• A lot of the stores sell the same basic items (e.g. rice, flour, sugar), but the quality, specifically the likelihood of bugs, differs between them, so you have to get used to which stores have decent stock.
  
• At a lot of stores, you'll just be spending 50 rupees (1 USD) or less and the shop owners sometimes don't have or won't give change. So you have to plan ahead and try to use largers bills when you can, to increase your stock of small bills and coins.
  
• Almost all of the shops close during the afternoon every day from about 2-5. This is there lunch break, but can be frustrating.
  

Here are pictures of some of the shops that we frequent. Notice the HUGE numbers of signs!

This is Santosh's shop, one of our favorites for vegetables.

Here's the main milk seller. The owner likes to chat Corey's ear off, so we always have to plan a few extra minutes here. We don't even know his name, we just call him Omfed Guy (Omfed is the name of the milk brand).

At Rolex Xerox, we don't buy physical products, but we buy internet time. This is where many of our Sunday evenings have been spent, squished in a little closet, using the high-speed Internet to Skype with our families and friends.

This store doesn't look like much, but tends to have a lot of things that similar stores don't. The owner is really friendly and loves when I ask for things in Oriya.

Here is the tiny shop right outside our front gate. Literally about 20 feet away, this shop has gotten us out of a bind more than a few times by selling basics like eggs, potatoes, laundry detergent, and chilis.

This is our electrician. Take anything to him and he'll fix it!

Here's the craft store! I really never thought there'd be a place like this in Koraput. The shop owner lets me slip behind the counter and browse to my crafty heart's content!

There are two stores that I don't have photos of. One is what we call "the department store" which just means that it's slightly bigger and offers a little more choice on brands and sizes of products. The other is "Amar's" where we get special goods like toilet paper and peanut butter and tuna. We buy cereal and soda by the case from him, to decrease the load on the 1-mile walk back to our house!

The trek to so many different stores to buy basic groceries and household needs can be frustrating, but the personal relationships that we've developed with the shopkeepers is something that I'll really miss when we return to the U.S.

Gina writes:

Over the last 4 years or so, Corey and I have made conscious effort to balance the sedentary nature of our office jobs with purposeful exercise. We've done various things, depending on the weather and our interests - aerobics classes, hiking, running, foregoing the use of our car, walking our dog more often. When we were placed to work in India for 2 years, I was curious about what our options would be for physical fitness.

Yoga
If you know anything about fitness in India, it's probably that Indians do yoga, right? Actually, I've found that the Indians that I know are usually AWARE of yoga and know a few poses, but that the actual practice of yoga is confined to the upper class, the people that actually have the time (and interest). During our in-country training in Delhi, we volunteers had the opportunity to take part in a yoga class every morning in the nearby park. Though it sounded like a great opportunity, I'm a realist (with horrible balance) and did not see myself getting up at the crack of dawn, especially when I knew I'd be overloaded with orientation and acclimation. Corey did participate and enjoyed it (and I enjoyed the extra two hours of sleep after his alarm went off).

Running
We are extremely fortunate to have a well-maintained running track just a 5-minute walk away from our house. (Picture taken from a rooftop near our house.)

From December to April, it was a great option to go running there a few mornings per week. The downside for me was that there were always 20-30 guys there, unabashedly staring at the lone white girl panting around the track. After a few months, I stopped going, not so much because of the staring, but because I just will never be a morning exerciser. I can't get lazy butt out of bed earlier than necessary. It gets dark at around 6 p.m. year-round, so evening exercise outdoors is not a viable option. Corey stopped when it got too hot in May and June. Then the rainy season started and it's usually too muddy. (Sidenote: Jackie, I miss running home from work with you like you wouldn't believe. Love you!)

This picture was taken after Corey and finished our first 5K. Jackie Jones made this awesome sign for me and cheered like a crazy woman as I crossed the finish line at Heinz field.

Aerobics
I downloaded a few documents detailing aerobic and strength training workout routines, but it wasn't very motivating to stare at a piece of paper to find your next exercise. Over the period of a few weeks, Corey downloaded an entire aerobics video workout (TaeBo Cardio with the one and only Billy Blanks). For the past few weeks, we've been following that video 3 times per week. If we do it immediately after work, we still have plenty of free time and the extra benefit for me is that the cold shower is not quite so bad. Funny story, we were talking about this video at work and one of the girls asked to see it. Corey showed her and she had never seen anything like it. Eventually, 5 girls were crowded around Corey's computer, giggling and punching the air. Some of them have copies now, but we'll see if they actually do the workout.

Fitness Mentality in India
The physical activity spectrum in India is loaded at the two ends. Millions of tribal and other poor people work for hours and hours hauling bricks, smashing rocks to make gravel, and plowing their small plots of land by hand. At the other end, middle and upper class Indians don't have to do physical labor to make a living and may think of this as a mark of status (albeit subconsciously). Lack of physical activity means you've "made it" in the world. Among the general public, people walk to and from the market regularly, but there is very little discussion or thought about exercise just for the sake of staying healthy, losing weight, or having fun. Especially true among people our age (mid to late 20's), the idea of exercise is just not something that is on their radar. My purview is only of Koraput, though, so tell me if you disagree.

In any case, this spells danger for the future of India. Just like in the U.S. 4 or 5 decades ago, farms and factory jobs are decreasing, portion sizes are remaining the same or increasing, and junk food is available everywhere. India's rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are already on the rise. Is this development?

A few friends and family members have commented on the difficulties I must be facing as a woman in India. I thought my response and thoughts about the issue would make a good blog entry.

1. It's a true statement to say that it's difficult to be a woman in India. However, the statement is really only true for INDIAN women in India. A foreigner living in India or a traveler passing through India doesn't experience gender discrimination in the same way at all. I SEE gender inequality all the time and that comes out in the blog from time to time, but I usually don't FEEL the imbalance affecting me personally.

2. Here are the things that I have noticed that have made me mad:
-- men cook when they are bachelors, living on their own, but then stop cooking when they marry
-- even if a woman works outside the house, she's still expected to do all the housework and childcare
-- when a woman marries, she often moves in with her husband's parents (if he's the oldest male); from what I've heard, her mother-in-law can treat her as badly as she wants and often does
-- men can drink alcohol, but for women, it's socially unacceptable

3. Here are the only times when I personally have felt the inequality:
-- Once, our boss called Corey into his office to "discuss my poor performance" and asked Corey to write an action plan for me and email it (and also not to tell me about the conversation). Corey refused, told our boss to speak to me directly in the future, and told me about the conversation right away. I initiated a meeting with our boss and asked him to have more respect for me in the future. No incidents since.
-- A neighbor lady found out that Corey washes his own clothes and does most of the cooking. Since then, she's taken MANY opportunities to tell me (only half-joking) how lazy I am. Reasoning with her ("we both work outside the house, so we should both work inside the house") hasn't gotten anywhere.

4. One of the important, but subtle differences that I feel I'm making here is setting an example of an independent, confident female. The unmarried girls at work are just a few years younger than I am, but are still living with their parents, never worked a day in their life before graduating from college, and have never even thought about having boyfriends. So they're self-confidence and sense of empowerment is limited. But I encourage them to stand up for themselves at work and at home, and to be clear about what they want and not to settle for less.

5. As a couple, Corey and I have been trying to lead by example. Our friends and coworkers see a successful, modern couple that values equality and partnership. We both reiterate over and over again how it's only logical for us to share the work if we're both working outside the home, how cooking together is a great way to spend time together, how we split all work equally because we respect each other as equals. The reward is when our female friends end up telling us that they want to find a man like Corey. People have told us quite a few times that they like seeing us together and that we have a relationship like they've never seen.

So...don't worry friends and family. I'm fine. And Corey's not turning into a chauvinist...yet!

Gina writes:

Dear Sophie,

I miss you. I miss cuddling with you in bed and on the couch. I miss seeing your tail wag so hard your butt moves back and forth and you fall over. I miss you sensing when I'm sad or upset and coming to comfort me. I miss seeing you inhale your food and then ask for more. I miss watching you toss your toys in the air and catch them. I miss laughing at your tongue and ears flapping in the wind.

Two years without you is a long time, so I've had to find a replacement. He's not nearly as good as you, but he's fun and he's loyal. His name is Sango, which means friend in Oriya. He lives outside near the SOVA office. We've taught him how to sit and roll over.

He's dirty and sometimes he's caked in mud or stinks like cowsh**. He's one of the most well-fed street dogs we've seen, since he gets scraps from people's lunch plates, including chicken and mutton bones (his favorite). Usually, he's inside the office gates when we arrive at 9:30ish and runs up to us when we get out of the vehicle. He hangs around in his two or three favorite shade spots until about 4 p.m., when he saunters off with his pack to have fun in the wild. I give him water during the day if its really hot; otherwise he drinks standing algae water or eats the dirt from the potted plants after they've been watered.

One time he walked almost all the way home with us, until he reached the invisible boundary of his territory, when he stopped and refused to come farther. I hate to think what our landlord would have said if we brought him home with us!

We spent a long time observing him and making sure he was safe and friendly before touching him. Now he totally trusts us and rolls over on his back to get a good scratchin' whenever we come over.



He's not you, but he'll do.

Love,
Gina

Gina writes:

Nothing too exciting has happened in the past week. In fact, I've been bored out of my mind! Corey is gone for two weeks, to a conference near Delhi. He left last Wednesday evening and returns next Wednesday or Thursday morning.

Before Corey left, we told our coworkers and friends that he was going. After realizing that I would not be going with him, but staying in Koraput, the look of shock and pity on the Indians' faces was really just comical. The look was generally followed by an offer to stay with me or a "call me if you need ANYthing." The offer from my 23-year-old single friend, who lives by herself and hundreds of kilometers from her family, was the best!

I was initially looking forward to having some time to myself. With working six days a week, trying to keep the house clean enough to deter pests, and washing our clothes by hand, it seems like our free time is limited. I never realized, though, just how much time is spent each evening just interacting with Corey. The time passes so quickly when we're joking around, having impromptu discussions about culture or about work problems, cooking together. The five hours between returning from work and going to bed seem to fly by when he's around, but drag on and on when I'm alone. I mean it has been nice to have time alone, but I am looking SO forward to having him back. The thrill of sleeping diagonally in the bed only has it's charms for a night or two...

In other news, our landlord has returned after being in Egypt visiting family for 5 months. He left just 2 weeks after we arrived in December, so it's been an adjustment getting used to having someone live above us again. He and his wife are an elderly couple (actually the father and mother in law of the director at SOVA). They're nice enough and relatively quiet, but there are some changes we have to make now that they are around.

• If we are out of the house after 9 p.m., he wants us to call him to notify him. (He wants to keep us safe, which is strange, since we were perfectly fine for the five months of their absence.)
• He and some workers are now walking to and from the back porch area, so they go past our open windows. They also knock on our door sometimes to ask us questions. We need to be more careful about what we wear in the house.
• Some of the neighbor children that we've made friends with and Binu's family will not come over when the landlord or his wife are home (class issues), so our opportunities for casual chats in the evenings are sadly no more.

When Corey returns, he will hopefully have a lot to blog about. Until then, I'll gleefully ignore the piles of clothes and dishes and dust accumulating around the house (yes, Corey is the clean and organized one...)!

Gina writes:

We live about 3 km (1.8 miles) from the office. That's too far to walk, especially during the hotter months (right now) and especially since we lug our laptops to and from work with us every day. Fortunately, the SOVA driver picks us up and drops us off at our house every day. However, the vehicle isn't an ideal solution for us, since it picks us up anytime between 9 and 9:45 in the morning and rarely leaves the office at 5:30 p.m. when our offical work day is finished. That lack of control, combined with new employees who brought the total number of possible passengers up to 10, caused us to consider other options.

Scooter/Moped
After our experience riding scooters in Puri, we decided to ask our boss if SOVA by chance had an extra scooter for us to use. Imagine our surprise when he said that he did have one for us and that he would have it taken to the shop to be prepared for our use! We were so excited! That excitement waned over the four weeks and ten or so requests that it took to get it, but was renewed when we were presented with our new moped last week. Our happiness was short-lived though, since we soon realized that the little, old moped was not built for two fat Americans people our size. When riding home from the office the first day we got it, we just barely made it up the hill near our house and the engine died on every single speed bump (four times). We were laughing and frustrated at the same time. It wasn't a pretty sight, but we've gotten really good at laughing at ourselves. (Imagine it, you'll laugh, it's okay.) Corey continued to ride the moped to and from work for a few more days, but we decided to give it back.

Walking
Last week, we went into work on Sunday. Afterward, we were walking to town with a coworker (to get some exercise and because the vehicle doesn't provide service on Sundays). I remembered to ask where the footpath near SOVA led and she said, "It goes to the hospital." Well, we live right next to the hospital, so decided to explore. 20 minutes later and we were home! It may not seem like a big deal to have discovered this path, but the distance was cut by more than half, to only 1.4 km (.8 miles), totally doable twice a day. The photo below shows our house (G for Grone) and the SOVA office (S for SOVA) and the two main routes.

Another benefit of walking is the beautiful surroundings and the peaceful feeling of being able to be out and about in India, but somewhat anonymous and isolated. There's a herd of cows, sheep, and goats that share the area with us in the morning, but the one time when they were running past me, I just stayed still and giggled while they rushed past! There's also a slum area that we pass before getting to the open land, but the grossness of walking through their latrine area (literally) is mitigated by the kids rushing to say hi everytime we pass by.

Patience
In India, patience is always a virtue. In this situation, patience is truly a third option for us. If we choose to accept that the vehicle will not arrive at exactly the same time every morning and will never leave when we are officially done with work for the day, perhaps we won't get so frustrated. Our wish for independence and control is not always granted.

In the end, we've decided to wait patiently for the vehicle in the morning and walk home at night. Unless it's raining, like it has been about 1/2 the days lately. Then we'll just be patient...endlessly patient.

Gina writes:

In February and March, we were traveling a lot--for work out to the field, for pleasure to Sorada with Siba, for VSO and for pleasure to Puri, and for pleasure(?) to a wedding. So we've been enjoying a few weeks with nothing much to keep us occupied except for work. There have been some random things that have happened, but since none of them is interesting enough for its own blog entry, this entry contains random stories of life in Koraput recently.

Mosquitoes
We have a multi-pronged defensive strategy for the never-ending battle against the mosquitoes and their threat of malaria. We take malaria pills, we made screens for our windows with velcro and pieces of mosquito net, we burn mosquito coils, we have mosquito repellent that's emitted when plugged into the wall, and we sleep under a mosquito net! Even so, we get a few bites here and there. This picture shows how many mosquitoes try to invade our pink princess mosquito net at night. It's not a great image, but it shows the hundreds of mosquitoes that landed on the net and then died (because the net it treated with some killer chemical that we don't like to think about too much) in just two days (we try to clean it regularly)!


Lizard Rot
About two weeks ago, we noticed an unpleasant smell whenever we took a shower. It got to be so bad that we started using the other bathroom (good thing we have two). We finally had a visit from the plumber last night. He removed a decaying lizard (and hence the horrible smell) from the pipes leading to one of the showers in our house! Pros: now we can shower in that bathroom again. Cons: now we know that the smell washing over us before we switched to showering in the other bathroom was lizard rot.

One Volunteer Out, One In
Our friend Hilary finished her placement this week and a new volunteer, Nancy, just arrived. So there are still 5 volunteers in Koraput. Margaret and Jan, an older couple (sorry guys!) from the U.S. are tons of fun and make us delicious food just before we clean their pockets in poker! They're here until June 30 of this year. Nancy is about our age, is from the Philippines, and will be here for two years. She seems fairly adventurous and flexible, so I think we'll become good friends.

Holiday
In India, it's more common to discover information by chance rather than by planned communication. Thus, it was only by chance that we found out that April 14 is a holiday, something about New Year or a deity's birthday or a Hindu festival (or all three?). Anyway, we have off work today. It's nice, since we've worked 25 of the last 29 days.

...and the adventure continues...

Corey writes:

So this week the old lady and I started our official Oriya tutelage, with the help of our neighbor and friend, Binu. Learning a new language is one of the reasons we came on this adventure, but it's been a difficult project for us from the start.

When we found out we were going to India, we though "Great, let's start learning Hindi now!". However, we soon learned about how each state in India has it's own language, and these state-level languages are more commonly spoken than Hindi in their respective states. Living in the U.S., we take for granted that nearly everyone (even yinzers) speak the national language. But here in India, most people learn at least three languages.

You learn your "mother" tongue first. For many people, this is the same as the state language. But if your family moved from one part of India to another (even across the state line), your mother tongue is the language spoken in your ancestral home, the place you "belong to". Even if you were born in another place, even if your parents were born in another place, if your ancestors came from Delhi, you belong to Delhi. Our friend Binu belongs to Andhra Pradesh, so her mother tongue is Telugu.

Next comes your state's language. So in addition to speaking Telugu, Binu also speaks Oriya, the language of Orissa. With any luck, so will we soon.

If you are lucky enough to go to school through primary and secondary, you will then learn the national language, Hindi. This is Binu's third language. If you aren't that lucky, you will still pick up some Hindi here and there. We showed up in Delhi for our In-Country Orientation ready to learn Oriya, but then we found out that we would learn Hindi instead. Since the VSO vols are sent all over India, it makes sense to get us all started with the national language.

Finally, many of the post-secondary schools and universities are "English medium" schools which means that all instruction is done in English. So throw in English on top of the stack. One interesting result of this is that English speakers (like us ourselves) are treated with some unearned reverence. It's the language of the educated class. It's a mythical key to a good job. There are fliers posted all around Koraput for "Learn spoken English in 30 days!" classes. It's seen as a great compliment if we tell someone they speak English well. People we meet around town are always saying "I want to speak with you so I can learn better English". In the meantime, we are just trying to learn to speak two languages fluently.

I'll pause here for an aside that makes me smile: Most of our Indian friends in Koraput have said they are able to understand us better than people from England. They're the originators of the language! I chalk it up to our cultural imperialism. Yay Hollywood movies!

So back to us learning Oriya: we've had two lessons so far and we've learned a lot. More importantly, they're fun! For example, last night, Gina accidentally stumbled onto the Oriya word for "fart". (It's remarkably close to the word for "teach". Go figure.) The three of us laughed for about 20 minutes. I've never had so much fun conjugating verbs: "I am farting", "I have farted", "I fart". Sustaining motivation is probably one of the biggest hurdles when learning a new language. As long as our lessons continue like this, it should be a breeze.

For now, we are only learning Oriya verbally, since learning the Oriya script right away would probably frustrate us into quitting. Below is what the Oriya script looks like. Let me mention that Hindi, Oriya, Telugu, and of course English each use different scripts, so Binu's fluency of 4 languages is even more impressive!

It's also interesting that, in Oriya, there is no differentiation between "I like ____" and "I love ____".

One last aside: some of the Indian gender inequalities are built right in to the language. For example, last night we were learning about "you" and "he/she". So in Oriya, when Gina says "He (Corey) farted", she has to conjugate the the verb "fart" in a way that shows respect, since I am her husband. But when I say "She (Gina) farted", I don't have to show respect.

Corey writes:

One of the things we've been loving here at SOVA is the fact that we get a fresh, hot, healthy lunch every day from the canteen for about 67 cents. Lunch is the big meal of the day here in K-put, and it's usually eaten around 2:00pm. Shocking! Actually eating lunch that late is no problem because we have some tea at 11:30 to tide us over. Our whole eating schedule looks like this:

8:00am - Breakfast
11:30am - Tea
2:00pm - Lunch
5:00pm - Tea (sometimes snack)
8:00pm - Dinner

Our friends here think we're crazy because we eat dinner so early. Most of them eat dinner at 10:00pm and then go straight to bed, this way they aren't hungry during the night. The funny thing is that the common wisdom in the U.S. is that eating right before bed will make you fat, but most of our friends here are very skinny. Anyway, back to lunch:



The lunch consists of rice (craploads of rice), dal (the yellow stuff), sauteed greens, and then a mix of three of four other dishes. Most of the time it's vegetarian, sometimes it's not. The engineer in me loves the utility of the stainless steel trays, spoons, cups, etc. But I can't help getting feeling like I'm in prison sometimes.... or the army....



Meat is a treat. Yesterday we had chicken and Gina didn't take any, because she doesn't like the fact that all the chicken has bones. Six people came up and asked why she didn't take chicken, including our boss.



I've started eating with my hands at work. It's actually kind of nice, and it makes my colleagues happy. Although this is one interesting point of cultural contention. Not all of the people at SOVA eat with their hands. Some of the younger people eat with spoons. In 25 years, maybe everyone at SOVA will be eating with spoons.


This is the Indian way to drink water. Nearly everything is communal property, so putting your lips on that cup or water bottle is bad manners. You're spreading your germs to everyone else who is going to use it.


When we're all done with lunch, we take our trays outside and dump anything we haven't eaten into the bucket for the dogs. Nothing goes to waste.

Corey writes:

We've just passed the first month mark of living here in K-put, so now we're starting to focus on the real reason we're here: writing exciting blog entries helping SOVA!

My official charter for being here is to develop and support several databases (they like to call them MIS's at SOVA) for the various project teams, these include Sponsorship, HIV/AIDS, Health, and Education. My predecessor, Mike, has already created databases for everyone but the HIV/AIDS team. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that no one is using the databases. So, my self-assigned agenda for the first three months of this year is to try to get people using these databases. To make this happen, I plan to meet with as many people as I can and learn about them and their work here. In the process, I hope to find out what the barriers are to using the existing databases, and also maybe start to talk about what they want for the next-generation databases that I'll be creating later this year (using the Django web framework). In addition, I think my boss is keen to have an organization-level database that allows him (and other leaders) to pull & merge relevant information from all projects.

In addition to all the work around my "official" charter, as with any small organization, I'm going to get involved in anything and everything related to computers around here. The first step is to set up a dedicated server for the organization. In this environment, I'm going open source all the way. (Non-geeks, now is your last chance to close this page before being exposed to unmitigated nerdery.) I plan to install Ubuntu Server OS and configure a Samba domain, Apache web server, Sqlite databases, and file sharing. Also, bandwidth is quite expensive and in low supply here, so I'm planning on setting up a Squid proxy and SquidGuard web filter. I'm also currently working to help migrate our domain and public website to a new hosting provider (our current one sucks).

It feels good to be so busy!

Gina writes:

We've been working hard to set up our house. The furniture and appliances were there when we moved in, but we've been trolling dozens of stores in Koraput to fill our kitchen and buy some items to make our space feel more comfortable. It's finally at a state where we can invite you to visit!

First, for some perspective, the floor plan.


The view from the front of the house.


Inside the main gate.


The foyer. (Sadly, the motorbike is not ours, SOVA is just storing it there...)


The living room. We love how bright and sunny the room is when the windows are open! We are in the process of getting a second desk and a sofa/bed.




The kitchen.


Looking out to the back patio area.


Bathroom #1.


Our bedroom.


Bathroom #2, attached to our bedroom.


The spare bedroom, also called the "scarf room"!


As you can see, we have a lot of space. So much space, in fact, that a few rats and cockroaches have decided that we need roommates! (We're working on that...) Though some of the amenities are very basic, we feel safe, it's relatively quiet, and it's starting to really feel like a home.

Here's a map with some of the landmarks in Koraput. We'll continue to update it as we go along!

Corey writes:

As you heard from Gina last time, we've finally arrived in Koraput! Two SOVA staff members picked us up from the train station along with Mike, the outgoing VSO volunteer with SOVA. We were dropped off at the Raj Residency ("the house of comfort"), a new fancy hotel here in Koraput. We're staying here until Mike moves out on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday afternoon, we were invited out for a quick tour of Koraput and a late lunch at Hilary's house. Hilary is another VSO volunteer working here in Koraput. We ate some delicious food, which was provided for free by one of the local shopkeepers (it pays to be regulars!) and drank a few beers. Our gathering was rounded out by Margaret and Jan, the other two VSO vols in town. It was a very warm welcome!

The next day, Monday, was our first day at SOVA. We met so many new faces and names, it was hard to remember them all! But everyone is very friendly and knowledgeable. Mike and I got to work reviewing the progress he's made here and what needs to be done after he leaves. Gina got to work reviewing the objectives for her position. During a meeting in the afternoon where we met the senior staff, we were unexpectedly put on the spot when we were asked to explain to the 10-12 people staring at us what our strengths and plans were. I guess we're jumping right in!

Yesterday and today, our Programme Manager from VSO is visiting. She's helped SOVA and us to start to plan our work over the next few months and also our broad objectives for our placements. We ended the day by taking a quick tour of the Jagannath Temple, the biggest here in Koraput. It's very beautiful!

Everything is very new and exciting, we'll keep you posted as we start to settle in. Some pics to help you imagine our placement.


The SOVA building, a few kilometers outside central Koraput.


The gorgeous view from the SOVA balcony. Note the herd of cows and the blue sky!


SOVA's main stairway. These drawings are everywhere in Koraput, tribal art representing daily life in the villages.


Gina's desk.


At the Jagganath temple.

Gina writes:

I've been communicating with some Brits and an American who are currently in Koraput. They've been so helpful, recommending what to pack and what to expect. They've also been keeping blogs, so it's been amazing to get a glimpse of what we'll be experiencing! In our interactions this week, I realized that one of the volunteers is living in the house that we'll be moving into! (He's leaving just before we arrive, so no, we don't have to share a house.) I now have pictures of our future home, which kicks up the excitement a notch!

 

I've been told that the landlord lives on the top two floors, so our space is the ground floor. There is a gate surrounding the whole property and a heavy-duty lock on the door. So we're pretty safe!

The tile floor looks beautiful! It's so awesome to actually see where we'll be living! Apparently, the place is palatial by Koraputian standards!