A forgotten trip to Australia & Vanuatu

Hello anyone who is still reading this blog!

Naveed recently got me a wonderful gift for Ayyam-i-Ha that made me remember all of our wonderful times as the Wandering Two and think about this blog and our lone reader---my dad ;) Anyways, Naveed got me a personalized map of the world on a board and color coded pins for us to mark all the trips we each took and all of the trips we took together.  We had a lot of fun sticking pins in the board, remembering our adventures in each of the places we have been so far and making plans for future travels ---because we want to travel, not only because we want to stick more pins on our map!

We did miss out on blogging about one amazing trip here and that's probably because the whole family went together to Australia and Vanuatu to visit Nura and Faran this past November/December but just in case, below are some of our favorite pictures from some of our adventures during that trip.  Of note is the celebration of Nura & Faran's second wedding celebration, thrown for them by the chief of the village near where Faran grew up in Vanuatu---an incredible experience for all of us!

Market in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu

View from the boat on our snorkeling tour

Beautiful day at Mele Cascades--Naveed and mom having fun swimming in the falls

Children's class in Mele village singing at feast

The family in our island dress for Nura & Faran's second wedding

The bride and groom 2.5 years later...

Naveed would appreciate that this picture needs to be posted

View of Lady Musgrave Island in the Great Barrier Reef

Naveed and Faran about to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef

The fam enjoying time in Australia

A turtle!!

The kids in Brisbane

The Baha'i House of Worship in Sydney

With mom at a viewpoint in Sydney

Nura, Anisa and I jumping at North Stradbroke Island

Eating my way through a weekend in Pune

The following are some pictures of my continuous food-coma in Pune.  I spent the weekend there, and my last few days in India for now, visiting old friends Farshad and Yeeteng, eating at all the places I have missed for the last year and a half, and visiting my dear DISHA ladies at Deep Griha Society.  It was the perfect way to end a wonderful month in India and I'm already looking forward to when I can come back again!

Thai iced tea at Malaka Spice

Saffron pistachio ice cream at Naturals

Darios!! Pizzas and pasta and yum!

Indian digestives and snacks

Cheap pedicures with Yeeteng

Pav bhaji (spicy vegetable curry) and fresh juices at Juice World

Delicious pav bhaji

Mango, kiwi and pomegranate juices

MG Road

Shivaji Market

Shivaji Market - buying fish for dinner

Teaching Farshad and Yeeteng how to bake!

I have missed these beautiful women!

A short but sweet visit

Popse in Lucknow

So my time in Lucknow flew by and suddenly it was my last week and then last day in the office!  It was busy busy busy every day but thankfully I managed to get everything done that I needed to do including a couple more days in the field doing some pilot testing and interviewing and working on reports.  Here's a few pictures!  From there I went on to Pune to spend my last couple days in India visiting old friends and Deep Griha!

With Shiji and my supervisor Kiersten at the partners' meeting

Group at the partners' meeting - consulting with our two local partner organizations

Found this gem in the village!

More pilot testing of the endline tools

Refresher training for the ASHAs

Rita, one of the ASHA supervisors for the project

My sweet friend and colleague Shiji

Update from Lucknow

It has been a busy time here in Lucknow, and in the surrounding villages.  I have been working very hard on the tools for our endline evaluation next September.  Yesterday I went to two of the villages in our pilot district to do some pre-testing of the survey for the women.  In it we are gathering information about their knowledge and behaviors around key maternal and child health topics such as breastfeeding, birth preparedness and cord care.  With the help of our local partner organization I was able to visit 6 women who had given birth within the last couple months and pre-test the survey with them to see if the questions are easily understood, if the flow and order is right and to get feedback from the women, the organization staff and the ASHAs.  I’ve never worked much in the rural areas of India, most of my time spent here has been in the urban slums so it has been a very interesting experience for me to be able to attend mothers group meetings and visit women in their homes in very rural areas of Uttar Pradesh and I’m so grateful for the opportunity.  We got caught in a downpour of the last of the monsoon and I was up to my ankles in mud!

The staff at the guesthouse have taken a liking to me I think and are taking very good care of me despite the obvious language barrier.  If I’m not home by 6:30 to place my dinner order they worry about me and call our project manager to ask if I am alright.  They’ve started bringing me the dinner that I ordered along with a few bowls of other random dishes they’ve prepared saying, ‘you taste madam, taste!’ and of course I am more than happy to oblige.

It is extremely hot, muggy and humid.  I am always feeling sticky outside but the office and the guesthouse both have AC and then I feel spoiled.  I have been enjoying pomegranates and other fruits that are in season and much better than anything you get back at home as well as eating paneer every day, sometimes for lunch and dinner!  My other supervisor from Seattle arrived yesterday so it has been great to have support throughout my time here in Lucknow and to be able to check-in with questions and get feedback on the projects I am working on.  Everyone keeps telling me Lucknow is famous for lamb kabobs but everyone I know here is veg and won’t take me to try them!  Naveed is probably not impressed and would have had a kabob within 20 minutes of arriving in Lucknow if he had been here! 

I have been told not to buy any new Indian clothes during this trip but of course that didn’t last long.  My excuse is that most of my clothes are more than 5 years old from my first trip to India and they are now very out of fashion…I need to keep my Indian wardrobe up to date right?!

Here’s a few pictures from days spent in the field:

Mothers' group meeting

Another mothers' group meeting

Interviewing some women

Back in India!

I am lucky enough to be back in India after too long! As part of my MPH degree I am required to complete a practicum with an organization and was fortunate enough to get an internship with PATH (www.path.org).  I have been working in their headquarters office in Seattle since June on a health education project based around Lucknow, India and got the chance to come to Lucknow to see the project, meet the team and continue my work from here for about a month.  The project is a community-led health education project using videos on key maternal and child health issues and is currently being scaled up for an evaluation next year.  I am here with one of my supervisors from Seattle, and we have been working on various tools for the monitoring and evaluation of the project, meeting with partners, and attending the “video disseminations” to ensure quality of the data collection and just to make sure things are running smoothly.  One the weekends there is a little time for shopping and exploring of Lucknow which has some beautiful architecture.  I haven’t taken many pictures but here’s a few!  I miss my Wandering Two companion!

Visit to the House of Worship in Delhi

First meal of paneer! YUM!

Visiting Ambedkar Memorial in Lucknow

Huge park with lots of statues

There were 62 elephant statues in this row!

All of the elephants, this park just kept going and going with marble columns and statues etc...