Once again, it’s been way too long since I’ve updated!
The short version of the story is that I was sick for the past couple of days and there hasn’t really been too much going on to update about. No worries though, I am doing much better after a quick trip to the local hospital, a day or two of rest, and about five prescriptions completed. The doctor never really gave me a diagnosis so the closest I’ve been able to come up with that matches all of my symptoms is Dengue Fever. But, I don’t really know for sure and probably never will, so I will just be content knowing that I feel better.
Because of my being sick, I had to miss our very last field visit. But, my group members were able to finish the last of the 120 interviews, which also gave me time to get tons of work done on the compilation and analysis of our interview data. As of now, I am finished with all but the last interviews and have about 12 different tables to look at different aspects of or research questions (I hope that makes you proud, dad :D). We’ve also made a lot of progress with our training module this week and now have completed write-ups (only in English for now with Hindi translations in the works) and a set of beautiful illustrations, hand drawn by a local artist. As we move into our last couple of weeks in India it seems that our project pieces are finally falling into place and the results are very exciting. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out before we leave!
Aside from project work, life in Udaipur has been incredible, as always. On Tuesday and Wednesday the city held its annual street festival celebrating the green brought by monsoon season. The streets were lined with craft and food vendors, carnival rides, the occasional stray cow, and more people than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. We went on Tuesday, the day everyone is welcome (because Wednesday is only for women and small children) and it was great! A few of us went on one of the rides, a boat that swings back and forth (not sure if there’s a standard name) while some more brave friends chose the Ferris wheel going around at about a thousand miles an hour. We also all tried a wide array of great, albeit questionably sanitary, street food, none of which I could name or identify. But, from my experience, sometimes it’s better just not knowing lol. All-in-all, a great experience, one I am very glad I did not miss.
And for the next few days I will not be updating because we are taking the holiday weekend to go on a mini vacation to Jodhpur and Agra. Jodhpur is the second largest city in Rajasthan and is home to a fort used in the filming of one of the Dark Night movies. And Agra has this thing, you may have heard of it before, called the Taj Mahal. It’s one of those places I’ve always wanted to see, so I’m psyched we were able to fit it into this weekend adventure! We’ll be leaving in a couple of hours and travelling over night to get to Jodhpur. Then we will spend all of Friday in Jodhpur, all of Saturday on a train to Agra, Sunday in Agra, and then Sunday night on a train back home, where we will arrive Monday morning. So, it will be a busy, but hopefully exciting few days to come and hopefully I’ll have tons more to share when I get back!
In the mean time, thank so much for reading and have an incredibly fantastic day (whatever day that may be and wherever you are)!
And it wouldn’t be a proper update without a couple of photos:
An Adventure in India 