Internship

Up till now my time in India has been a lot of consuming and taking: a low-key school time with guest speakers and chai breaks, weekend food adventures, and a whirlwind trip to Baroda, Gujarat and Mumbai where we ate, drank, and had a merry time exploring the cities.

Coming back to Jaipur brought a change in weather (it’s finally cooling down at night!) and a change in purpose. We now have a chance to give back what we’ve learned so far by interning at various non-profit organizations around Rajasthan. After a lecture on food security by Kavita Srivastava (human rights activist-extraordinaire,) I chased her down and asked to intern with her organization, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

Kavita at the Irom Sharmilla Protest against the AFSPA Act

Other interns at the protest

Having no expectations, I stumbled into the chaotic and passionate human rights body that is the PUCL, interning alongside a group of Indian law students. The little PUCL office is constantly buzzing with interns coming and going (currently surveying schools around Jaipur to check if they’re really following the Right to Education Laws,) activists and friends of Kavita ma’am stopping by to chat, and other visitors ranging from a poor rural family needing help with a land inheritance feud to Rajasthan court judges.

the Khejri Sarvodaya General Health and Eye Care Center

Running around to things like nuclear safety press conferences and protests in the middle of the street, I’ve learned a new meaning for the term “flexible”. This flexibility has already led me to some pretty cool places around Jaipur, and last week I was fortunate enough to hop on a motorbike at 7:30 in the morning and drive off to a charity-based clinic that focuses on poor women and children’s health. We drove to a rural village nearby where the clinic was doing a general health check up of primary school students. After checking their weight, height, eyesight, and treating other minor maladies, the clinic distributed protein syrup to the children. Somehow I ended up handing out this syrup and giving instructions in Hindi: ek chamach subah, ek chamach sham ko, khana khane ke bad (one spoonful in the morning, one spoonful in the evening, after eating food.)

serving up some protein 

While giving out the protein syrup (and amidst the stunned looks and giggles at my Hindi from the children,) I noticed how undernourished they looked. While at home in America we focus on keeping a balanced and healthy diet, in India I’ve run into very little talk about nutrition. Speaking with the head of the clinic I visited, a German woman who has been living in India for 55 years, she said often these children are only given chai or milk and maybe a biscuit before they go off to school. The lack of nutritional knowledge in these rural settings is staggering, but groups like this clinic are working to change that, starting with youth health education.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks adjusting to long working hours, very little break time, and even less time to keep sampling the array of delicious things India has to offer. It’s Diwali time now, so hopefully someone will bring me some Diwali sweets to keep me going.