Visiting Hosekote Village

Today's visit to Hosekote village was quite different than the village visit near Pondicherry. We had the opportunity to spend time in a rural village on a normal day, not during a festival. Yet we were still met with warm hospitality in the form of tea, biscuits, and flowers. We began the morning learning about "Chetana", the village's independently run NGO that Christ University's Centre for Social Action helped start. Chetana is run solely by women and they focus the project on childhood education, nutrition, and hygiene as well as women empowerment and the formation of self help groups (SHGs). 

We met with the Board of Directors for Chetana to further understand the SHGs. All of the board members are women, it is very common for SHGs or other improvement projects in poor communities to be run by women. This is because a large majority of men from poor families have become alcoholics and are unable to support their families. Hosekote women found a solution to feeding their families and educating their children through SHGs. SHGs are composed of approximately 5-10 women in the community who pool together their money to create mini banks. When women in SHGs in communities surrounding Hosekote need money to start a small business, buy a sheep or goat, or send their child to school, they will propose their project to the Board of Directors who will determine whether or not the mini banks will give a loan. The Board of Directors oversees around 60 village SHGs. Already the Board has given loans to construct a toilet in every household in Hosekote as well as send multiple children to private schools where they receive quality education. 

Christ University's Centre for Social Action (CSA) was able to remove themselves from the project in 2010, after seven years of developing Chetana. Now the program is self-sustaining, one of the first in CSA history and will serve as a model for NGOs working in other rural communities. In addition to making visible improvements in the community, Chetana has created a stronger sense of community in the village. The Board told us five years ago different families in the community would avoid interacting due to superiority complexes. But  the formation of SHGs has led to close bonds between the women of the community. They now smile at each other and stop to chat in public. Additionally, women are more willing to help each other out when water runs short or they need to trade for food.

In the future, the Board of Directors hopes to turn the mini banks into a private bank to increase the number of loans they can give and improvements the village will see. They've developed 50 goals for the village and look forward to meeting one after the other. Overall, our group left the village with a strong sense of admiration for the resilience and resourcefulness displayed by the women of Hosekote village. These women and Chetana are contributing positively to the quickly changing Indian society. 

Temples and Shopping: Experiencing the Old and New

Thursday January 22nd we had the chance to experience both the old and the new in India. We started off our day visiting two temples and ended our day shopping in the massive Commercial Street district.

The first Hindu temple we went to was home to the largest Nandi bull statue in the world. We got to visit the statue and see an old tradition in a new way. People would drive up to the area around the temple on two-wheelers (motorbikes) or four-wheelers (cars) to get their vehicles blessed by the temple workers. The blessing of new things before use is an old tradition that now, in a globalized India, includes motorized vehicles.

The second temple site was home to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness  (ISKCON). We were introduced to the initiative by a monk who stressed the importance of realizing that we are all human and therefore no matter oh nationally or religious background we should all treat each other with respect. For me this connected to the purpose of this trip which was to learn about India's culture and the people who live here. I've done a lot of compare and contrast over the last weeks but I've always tried not to judge and to keep an open mind about new experiences because there is not just one right way to do something. I think we have a lot to learn from other cultures if we remember to respect them for what they are.

We ended our day getting to bargain and explore on Commercial Street, an example of the great commercialization that India has seen in recent years. Rows upon rows of shops sell jewelry, clothes, scarves, and trinkets. Getting to experience the art of bargaining is something I know is exciting, yet dreaded for myself and many of my classmates. It creates much more of a connection between shopper and shopkeeper which I very much enjoy. But it also adds a lot of pressure compared to the traditional shopping experience in the U.S.

Parikrma Humanity Foundation and some dinner!

We've been busy during our time in Bangalore visiting and learning about many NGOs. One that particularly stood out to us was Parikrma Humanity Foundation. Parikrma is addressing the growing gap, in urban India, between the privileged and the poor by providing education to children whose families live in the slums. many of the children from Parikrma join at 5 years and stay till in their twenties, with a less than 1% dropout rate. Their mission is to complete the circle and have students who have found success through Parikrma come back to positively influence the current children.

All of us had the opportunity to visit the classrooms (one 8th grade and one 1st grade class) and interact with the children. We exchanged songs and stories. We sang them the St. Olaf fight song and Grace even shared the legendary tale of Paul Bunyan. It was an amazing cross cultural exchange and we couldn't contain our smiles as the first graders told us all about their hobbies and asked us questions about our ambitions and hobbies.

On Wednesday we had another cool interactive opportunity as we worked with culinary students at the Department of Hotel Management to cook ourselves a delicious dinner. On the menu was a corn salad, fish, ginger chicken, fried peppers, and of course naan, just to name a few dishes.

Bangalore Adventures: Day Trip to NIMHANS

We are halfway through our time here in India, and Bangalore is treating us nicely.  The weather here is still very warm as Bangalore is located in the state of Karnataka (in the south of India).  Unfortunately, the few words of Tamil we had been learning in the earlier part of the trip aren't much use here because the local language is Kannada (sounds like Canada if you don’t speak any of India’s 100s of languages).

Monday we had the opportunity to visit the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Science (NIMHANS) at two of their different locations. NIMHANS is the largest mental health institution in Asia. Originally called “the Lunatic Asylum,” NIMHANS has transformed itself into a leading rehabilitative treatment center for those with severe mental illness.  Clients received treatment either as inpatients or through daily visits to the facility. We were able to tour the building and see the many different types of activities and occupational therapies available to the patients. They worked to teach vocational skills and crafts in order to empower the patients, in addition to their treatment.

The NIMHANS Center for Wellbeing (NCWB) is an outpatient service center that works to promote mental health through training and outreach. Most of their clients are dealing with mild mental health illness and do not require serious interventions. The center helps to spread information, awareness, and non-judgmental support, as well as offering preventative services. Some of their more popular clinics include Stress and Lifestyle, Clinic for Youth and Wellbeing, Trauma Recovery, Marital Enrichment, and Psychiatric Social Work. It was really cool to see how NIMHANS combated the stigma surrounding mental health in India by embedding this center into the community.

We ended the day with entertainment and dinner at the Saint Marks Hotel. The entertainment featured many traditional dances from different regions in India. Each region in India has its own distinctive culture and art forms. There are far too many to count but the dancers gave us a wonderful sampling of just a few! In particular, we were all amazed by one form wherein the dancer balanced a live flame on his head while dancing with his feet on the ridge of a copper pot.  At the end of the show, we got to join the dancers on the stage to learn another dance, called ‘the doll dance.’ This dance is supposed to replicate the movements of a tanjore doll (Indian bobblehead from Tamil Nadu). The food consisted of traditional dishes from the Karnataka state. All in all, we had an eye-opening morning and an enthralling evening, followed by a good night’s sleep!

Lalbagh Gardens Observation Project

On Friday morning we visited Lalbagh Gardens for our first outing in Bangalore. Lalbagh Gardens is a well known botanical garden in Bangalore, established in 1760. It has a large glass house that hosts an annual flower show, which we missed by a couple days. Lalbagh is also home to India’s largest collection of tropical plants and has a large lake you can walk around. It is a very popular tourist attraction in Bangalore.

We were assigned to participate in an observation project with psychology honor students from Christ University. We were given a couple hours to observe any nonverbal behavior exhibited by people in the park and then make a presentation on what we observed. Each group got to pick their topics and they ended up ranging from fitness, to couples, to technology.

Some of us had a unique experience because we got the chance to interact with the Indian students from Christ as well as an international student from Holland. It was interesting to compare observations not only between India and the US but also between those two countries and Holland.

 It was really interesting to compare the differences between our students and the CU student’s views of the behaviors. For example, we discussed how we were not expecting to see couples holding hands based on what we’ve been told, but the CU students were not surprised, saying that the garden was a place where public displays of affection were more accepted.

Walking throughout the garden it felt like Central Park in New York City. There were people jogging (which we haven't seen people doing), friends walking and taking pictures, and families enjoying a walk in this beautiful place. One group observed how technology affects the display of affection. It was clear that people using their phones were not being as affectionate as others who were not using phones and interacting with one another..