Namaste from India! The Wandering Two are back but this time in hailing from Southeast Asia. We are living in a city called Pune in India which is the 7th largest city in India. Pune has a lot of IT companies based here and is a pretty thriving city. We arrived here last Wednesday in Mumbai and the driver from the organization picked us up and drove us for 4 hours to Pune. Olivia said it was my crash course welcome to India as even after midnight the streets of Mumbai were bustling with honking cars, zooming rickshaws, motorcycles and cows with no regard to lane designations or traffic lights/signs. We arrived at the Deep Griha Cultural Centre where volunteers live and we have a room with our own bathroom and shower. I’m also very excited because in the living room there is satellite television complete with ESPN, YIPPEE! We will be here working for Deep Griha Society until mid-December when our tourist visas expire and we’ll go back to wandering again. We have only been here for a few days and still haven’t yet grasped all of the projects and work that Deep Griha does in the community...it’s a lot! Here in Pune they work in 3 main areas, doing women’s empowerment, childcare and education, medical and healthcare, outreach in the slums and so many other things. They also have two projects in the rural areas which we hope to visit in the coming weeks; check out their website www.deepgriha.org
On our first day here we went to a lunch with the other volunteers and the restaurant we went to served beef burgers…aren’t we in India?! The Cultural Centre where we live is close to a main street containing shops, restaurants, a café with free wifi(!) and a movie theatre. There will be lots to occupy us, though from what we’ve seen so far, we won’t have that much free time. We get served our breakfast and dinner here at the Cultural Centre and lunch is served at the office during the week. Meals usually consist of rice, chapattis, dhal and another vegetable/curry-type dish. It’s all been delicious so far.
Olivia is going to be the coordinator of one of Deep Griha’s Projects, Wake Up Pune which is an HIV awareness program that aims to increase awareness of the HIV epidemic that faces this city by increasing knowledge about transmission, risk perception and awareness about HIV testing and care services as well as fighting to reduce stigma and discrimination for people living with HIV. You can check out Wake Up Pune at http://www.wakeuppune.org There are a lot of local volunteers who work with Deep Griha and Wake Up Pune and we’ve already had a chance to meet and spend time with many of them and are making plans to see some of the sights around Pune with them as well.
We were lucky enough to arrive in Pune just before one of Wake Up Pune’s main events, a matrimonial event for people living with HIV. Matrimonial events are a common thing in India, however this one is geared towards HIV+ people so it’s a very unique event. All of the volunteers wore shirts that say ‘HIV Positive’ promoting the message that it is important to have a positive attitude towards HIV, especially with regards to education, awareness and support, and reducing stigma, which is a huge issue here in India. I was in charge of about 10 male candidates; our morning was spent playing icebreaker games with rotating groups of female candidates so everyone could have a chance to meet others. Many of the rules of the games were lost in translation so it ended up being an interesting experience to say the least. Each of the candidates were given a list of information about the other candidates including caste, occupation, income, religion etc… Based on the list, candidates could say that they wanted to be introduced to so-and-so etc and it was my job to make sure my men met the women they were interested in meeting/getting to know. Olivia worked in registration and also helped serve lunch out of the biggest pots I’ve ever seen in my life. She said it took 12 men to carry the pot of rice to the serving area from the catering truck! By the end of the day, 4 couples had announced their intention to marry with another 12 couples looking to follow in their footsteps soon. We were really glad to be able to be a part of such an interesting event and we really learned a lot about Indian customs surrounding matrimonial events and marriage.
Today Olivia and I participated in a ‘HIV bootcamp’ for a group of 18 drug addicts who were participating in a 15-day free rehab program. That was also a very interesting experience and ended with 10 of them getting tested for HIV. It’s been interesting to see how HIV is perceived and what people know about the disease here in India compared to what we’ve seen in South Africa and Kenya and we’re learning a lot every day.
Besides bootcamps and other events, we spend a lot of time working in Deep Griha’s main office where a chai wallah brings us chai every afternoon J We also spent an afternoon working at the Ramtekadai slum with the youth outreach program. It reminded us of VVOCF as we mainly played and did activities with the kids who came there after school. All the kids called me ‘Uncle’ and I spent 2 hours hitting a ping-pong ball back and forth with a young boy named Ishad, there was no ping-pong table…
We’re looking forward to continuing work with Deep Griha on their many projects and activities and are enjoying life in India so far. Independence Day is Monday; we expect some crazy things, which we’ll write about in our next post.
Love,
The Wandering Two
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| Positive about education, awareness and support for HIV |
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| rickshaw on the street outside the office |
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| Deep Griha's central office |
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| Pune street scenes |
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| The lovely chai wallah |
