What a busy two days it has been!  Lets start with yesterday morning...
Not much happened! We didn't have to be in to work until 11:45am, so Yoshi, Amanda, Maria and I had an easy-going morning hanging around the apartments.  We met up around 10:45 to catch the bus to Hippocampus, since we have walking on both ends of the bus ride, too.  When our bus came, the driver barely slowed down to let people on and off, so Yoshi got on the bus (because the men have to board the bus from the back- the buses are gender separated here), but then Maria, Amanda and I had to run to jump on- I am pretty sure Amanda was hanging off the bus for a few seconds before we could shove our way on the rest of the way.  Anyway, then we got off at our stop- Koramangala Water Tank, and started walking.  When Maria and I found Hippocampus last week, it was completely easy to find, but somehow, even though we had been there before, we got lost.  Really, really lost.  We walked around in circles for at least half an hour through this residential area, before finally finding the office.  We were supposed to meet Professor Moledina outside the office before we went in, so we waited outside.  We were calling/texting him, and he was lost as well, so we sat down for a bit.  A guy from inside the office saw us waiting there and came out to let us know that the office was in fact closed, and that we should come back tomorrow. Interesting.  We asked him if our supervisor, Lily Paul, was there, and he said no, that the office was closed.  We decided to just wait there for Professor Moledina anyway and then figure out what to do.  After waiting there for at least 20 minutes, we get a call from Professor Moledina, and lo and behold, there are two Hippocampus offices, and we were at the wrong one.  Oh boy.  So then we had to navigate our way to this other office without a map or really any solid directions, but what Moledina told us was only partially helpful.  After getting turned around and asking many people where to go (and getting followed by a woman trying to get us to pay for a ride on her cow...) we finally found the correct office, and we were just a little over an hour late.  Oops.

Professor Moledina was waiting inside for us, and our supervisor, Lily, was extremely understanding and friendly.  We learned that we are also going to be working with a woman named Lakshmi, although she goes by Rams (I'm really not sure if I'm spelling that right).  Both women are extremely friendly and passionate about what they do.  Lily has had a long career in social enterprise, she helped found the Ashoka India office (Ashoka is the leading organization throughout the world in social enterprise) and Rams is a young software engineer that deals a lot with the data side of what Hippocampus does.  We met with both women, Professor Moledina, and the four students from about 1pm-3pm and just talked generally about what Hippocampus does as an organization and what each of our projects are.  After the meeting, we established what time we should come in from now on in the mornings, and then we were dismissed for the day.  Because of all the confusion about offices, Professor Moledina treated us to a lunch at what I believe is an Indian chain restaurant.

Once we finished lunch, we had to stall for quite a while.  See, yesterday was Maria's birthday, so the other teams from Sattva and PremaVidya were assigned to pick up ice cream and to decorate the apartments and surprise her when we got back, but since we got out of work so early and we knew everyone was going to get stuck in rush hour traffic, we had to stall for quite a while.  Amanda, Yoshi and I clued Professor Moledina in about the plan, and so he helped us.  We stopped and had coconuts right after lunch- this process completely freaks me out, so let me explain.  People sell coconuts on the road, and they have what looks like a mini-scythe without the long handle, and they chop the top of the coconut off and give you a straw so you can drink the coconut milk from inside.  Amanda and I split a coconut, and she was completely delighted at this whole experience of having a coconut for the first time.  Then, once you finish the coconut milk, you hand the fruit back to the guy with the mini-scythe, and (while looking like he is most certainly going to chop off his own hand as well) he cuts the coconut in half so you can eat the fruit inside.  While this was a great stalling technique, it was also quite sad, because while we sat there enjoying our coconuts, we saw a man across the way that started having a seizure in the middle of the road.  A few people gathered, but no one really knew what to do.  We watched for a few minutes, and he did eventually sit up and drink some water, so we hope he is ok.

Anyway, after the coconut stop, Professor Moledina suggested that we go to this shop he knew of called Mother Earth, which is a socially conscious business.  He seemed to know the way, so we started walking.  And then he thought he was lost.  We got some pointers from people, and eventually we knew where we were, but it was a bit of a walk.  So we walked.  And then we reached what I think I will call "the Bridge of Death".  There is a piece of concrete about the width of a normal curb, and on one side is a 4-lane highway (although lanes are completely irrelevant here) with cars zooming by, and on the other side is a complete drop off (at least 100 feet down) to what I believe was a creek.  For those of you that know me, I am not the most coordinated person ever, so walking along what was essentially a balance beam with speeding traffic on one side and nothing but a drop-off on the other was somewhat bothersome.  But we made it to the other side, obviously.  After quite a bit of walking, we made it to Mother Earth, which is a lovely (although expensive) shop.  At this point, people from Sattva and PremaVidya were texting me letting me know when they would be ready with the ice cream and decorations, and we had to stall just a little bit more.  So we decided to take a bus instead of autos to get home.  We were in an unfamiliar part of town, so we had to do a bit of navigating to find the bus stop and then we weren't exactly sure which bus to get on.  But Professor Moledina saw a bus that he thought was the right one, so he darts right out into traffic, and the four of us just had to run when there were multiple lanes of cars coming right at us, and we screamed the whole way.  Luckily it was the right bus.  Although traffic here is scary, this was the scariest encounter I have had so far.  The bus didn't get us quite as close as we thought it would, so we got off at MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road, and then decided to take autos the rest of the way back.  Amanda pulled me aside and suggested that Yoshi, Maria and I go together and that we stop by the store to stall Maria a bit more and pick up a few things for dinner (which we really did need) and then she and Professor Moledina would go back and make sure everything was ready.  So thats what we did.

On the way back, Maria pointed out how tired she was, and Yoshi and I just had to basically ignore that and drag her to the store with us, and after picking up some water (we were all totally dehydrated), tomatoes, onions and yogurt, we headed back to the apartments, only to discover that Matt and Amanda were coming to the store to get the same things we had just picked up.  So we all walked back together and the rest of the group had done a nice job of decorating with what we had (scarves tied together to make streamers) and had picked up quite a bit of ice cream.  We all had a good time hanging out and talking about our first day of work (although ours was a very short day) and then Laura suggested that Maria go around and feed everyone a bite of cake (oh yeah, there was cake too), because apparently that is what a lot of Indians do at birthday parties.  Maria took this to mean that she should smear cake in everyones face- and that is exactly what she did.  And somehow, she managed to get it up nearly everyone's nose.  It was quite special.  After a fun evening and a tiring day, we all headed to bed pretty early.

And then there was today.  The Hippocampus crew was up early to go in for our first full day of work, and because we had gone to the wrong office yesterday, we had to look up new bus routes.  We didn't think that would be much of a problem.  We were wrong.  After breakfast we headed out and got on what we thought was the right bus, only to ask a lady which stop we should get off at, and her telling us that we were on the wrong bus.  Great.  So we got off at the next stop and tried to figure out where to go.  We realized we weren't going to be able to figure it out and still be on time, so we got autos the rest of the way and made it by 9:30 without a problem.

This morning from around 9:45am-2:45pm we sat in a meeting with Lily and Rams.  We talked about a lot.  Everything from more general information about Hippocampus, to the difference between Hippocampus's branches (there is Hippocampus School Services which sets up libraries for paying customers, Hippocampus Children's Company which is the library and activity center in Bangalore, Hippocampus Reading Foundation which sets up libraries in rural communities, and Hippocampus Learning Centers, which is who we are working for and they set up kindergarten and after school primary education centers in rural areas), to their assessment methods (holy cow, is it complicated because Hippocampus is still a very young organization, so these methods aren't very developed yet), and their existing social media presence.  While it was certainly a long meeting (there were no breaks in there, although we did get brought coffee by a wonderful lady named Seema) it was fascinating and held my attention the whole time- I am taking this as a very good sign.

After the meeting, Professor Moledina, Amanda, Yoshi, Maria and I all went out to lunch to a place that Moledina recommended- Thulp.  It is not an Indian restaurant... I actually don't really know what it is, but it was yummy! At 4:30 we headed back to the office to do a bit more work.  Amanda and Yoshi went and met with Rams to start their data clean-up project, and Maria and I sat down to begin familiarizing ourselves with Hippocampus Learning Center's (HLC) website, facebook, twitter, and Global Giving pages, because this is what we are aiming to improve (or at least provide a plan to do so).  It is an interesting office, because no one really has offices, there are just lots of desks throughout the the building and everyone sits in a different spot everyday, because space is limited, so they just work with what is available.  Anyway, Maria and I spent some time looking things over, and then a few other people came and sat near where we were and started talking to us, asking if we were the new interns.  I don't remember all of their names (it is going to take me some time...) but I do remember the Colonel, he was in the Indian military for 23 years, and then felt like he had a responsibility to give back to the community, so he got involved with non-profit work.  Maria, Professor Moledina, two women whose names I can't remember, the Colonel and I had a great conversation about their past experiences in India (broad, I know) and in the non-profit sector, why we are here all the way from the US, why we chose India, why we chose Hippocampus... we talked about quite a lot.

After today, I am absolutely convinced of a couple things.  Everyone at HLC is incredibly passionate about what they are doing, and they are some of the friendliest and most accommodating people I have ever met.  I feel completely welcome and at home in their office, and I am sure I will become even more so over the next 6 weeks.  I had a wonderful time in the office today, and I am thrilled to get to spend the summer here.  I'm not really sure she even meant it this way, but today Lily mentioned that the social media fundraising project that Maria and I are working on is geared toward fundraising for their student scholarships.  In my mind, this means: improved social media presence -> more fundraising capabilities -> more income generated -> more scholarships provided -> more students enrolling with HLC -> more students receiving a quality education that will help them succeed in the future. If the thought of contributing in some small way to the number of children that can attend HLC's courses by increasing available funds for scholarships can't get me up in the morning, I don't know what will; I can't wait to go back tomorrow.

After work there was some more transportation drama, but I'll skip over that, because otherwise, today was amazing (just picture us wandering in the dark, and then finally fitting all four of us in one auto with Amanda on our laps to get back because we couldn't figure out the bus).  Today definitely helped me gain a perspective on what all HLC and the rest of Hippocampus does and showed me how committed all of the employees are to improving the state of education in rural Karnataka.  I think I am incredibly lucky to have been placed in this office, and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.  

It all starts tomorrow!  After a weekend off, the whole GSE crew is getting ready to head in to work for the first time in the morning.  We spent the weekend sleeping in, doing some shopping (I have some Indian clothes now, so hopefully I won't sweat quite as much anymore...), doing some reading on our organizations, and learning our way around the kitchen!

We went on our shopping adventure yesterday, which was quite interesting.  First we went to a mall, where there was one store that sold what we were looking for (women's clothes), and two of us had luck finding salwar suits, but the others didn't.  Then we headed to Commercial Road, which is a major shopping hub.  The streets are packed with people and there are tons of stores to look through.  On our way there though, we walked through another shopping area (I'm not sure what it's called) that had all upper-end, western stores.  It was fascinating to me to see the noticeable difference in the people that we saw in this western store-filled area: most of the women were in western clothes, not Indian, which is definitely not true when walking through most other streets (normally women are in saris or salwar suits).  Also, just a side note because I don't think I've mentioned it up to this point, the "sidewalks" here make walking a lot more challenging than anywhere else I've ever been.  Certain points of the sidewalk are fine- level pavement etc.- and then there will randomly be a 2 foot hole in the ground.  So walking is tricky because you have to be paying attention to what is over your head (tree branches or electrical wires), below you (garbage, holes in the ground, big breaks in the sidewalk) and whatever you are looking for (a store, restaurant, auto, etc).  Anyway, I was talking about shopping.  Once we got to Commercial Road, most of us had good luck finding kurtas and salwar suits.  I found a kurta I really like that needed to be altered a little, and the shopkeeper told me it would be an hour.  Since we were actually wrapping up our shopping time, a few people in our group decided to head back home, and a few of us stayed to wait for my alterations.  In the mean time, we went to the McDonalds down the street for some soda since it was pretty warm outside still.  I think I laughed out loud when I saw the menu- everything is called a "McSpicy".  Great.  Anyway, after I picked up my lovely new purple kurta, we caught autos back to our apartments, and then began our first real cooking adventure.

Our whole GSE group has decided to create a cooking schedule where everybody that wants to have home-cooked meals on most days pitches in 500 rupees for the week, and then we have pairs that are cooking on each night.  Last night was the trial run- we made pasta with home-made sauce.  We are cooking for 10 people as a part of this rotation, so it is kind of humorous using the few pots and pans that we have to cook that much food.  Also, we only have 6 plates, so people are eating out of pots and pans and sharing plates- but its cheaper than eating out every night, so we are all still happy campers!

Last night was a pretty early night, and then this morning no one was up and moving around too early- we are savoring our last day without the stress of work!  Not much meaningful activity happened today- I did laundry this morning and went grocery shopping with Navee, Amanda, Kristen, and Kasie this afternoon, after which Navee and I made Vegetable Biryani for the group (which was a lot spicier than I expected, but still quite yummy!).

The most exciting part of the day came right after dinner, where all of us got emails detailing our projects for the summer.  Up to this point, we had a general idea of what our projects might be, and we knew what our organizations were, but we didn't know who would be advising us or what exactly or tasks would be.  But now we do!  Professor Moledina is going to be the advisor for Hippocampus (my organization).  Maria (my lovely partner) and I are going to be devising a social media fundraising strategy for Hippocampus, and assessing what capabilities and skills they have/need to make this possible.  Seeing as all I know about social media is how to open my facebook, this should be interesting!  The other team at Hippocampus, Yoshi and Amanda, are going to be working on an assessments project- trying to establish a qualitative assessments procedure for Hippocampus and refining the way they handle existing quantitative data.

So, tomorrow is the big day!  If I am still semi-conscious by the time I get back, I will try and let you all know how it went!


  

For only being here two full days, I feel like there are already dozens of things to tell, but I'll summarize for everyone's sake :)  Well, lets see- yesterday we had some semi-structured activities with our whole GSE group to get us oriented in Bangalore.  We started off the morning with a lovely breakfast at the apartments where we are staying, and then we were tasked with navigating the Bangalore city bus system from our apartments to the various organizations that we are working with, in my case Hippocampus Learning Centers (HLC).  My partner and I totally lucked out; a short walk, bus ride, and another short walk and we were in the middle of a lovely residential area that is home to HLC.  With more than two hours to kill until our next scheduled meet-up with the rest of the group, we had a chance to roam around the neighborhood a little, seeing some beautiful homes and finding nearby shopping areas, etc.  When we learned where we were supposed to meet the group (they didn't tell us ahead of time, since we were supposed to have to figure it out in the moment) we were so excited because we were told to look for the Sony Center in Indiranagar, and we saw the Sony Center from where we were! After a few minutes of wandering though, we realized that we were in Koramangala not Indiranagar, so we had to catch an autorikshaw to the location where we were supposed to meet (this was my first ride in an auto, and it wasn't nearly as scary as I imagined, although the haggling with the driver- called an autorikshaw wala- will take some getting used to).  We met the rest of the GSE crew for lunch and talked about how the rest of our time here is going to play out, and then we all headed out again to meet with Sattva, one of the other non-profits that two GSE groups are working with this summer.  We went to their offices to discuss social enterprises in general, what the landscape looks like in India for social enterprises, as well as to learn about what Sattva does (they are a media and consulting firm that works with other social enterprises).  Then (as we were all coping with a bit of jet lag) we made our way to dinner.

Well, at least that was the plan.  Kristen, Navee and I all got in an auto from Sattva to get to the restaurant we were going to for dinner.  The auto ride was fine, we arrived where we were supposed to, but once we got there, we weren't exactly sure how to get to the restaurant.  Then we also realized none of us knew the name of the restaurant, and that none of us had Indian phones (we had realized this earlier but didn't think it was too problematic).  So we started walking.  And walking.  And walking.  We finally realized we needed to know the name of the restaurant, so Navee called one of our advisors on her Malaysian phone to get the name of the restaurant.  But even once we had the name,  no one seemed to know where the restaurant was.  They all pointed us toward other random restaurants and businesses where they thought it was near, and so we walked back and forth and back and forth and still couldn't find it.  At this point, it is 7:30 and the rest of our group is already at dinner... yay for us.  We called our advisor back to get more landmarks as reference points, and then, after realizing that the very first direction we started walking after we got out of the auto was incorrect, we found the restaurant and the rest of our group- probably 45 minutes late.  Oh well!  We had a great dinner of Rajasthani and Gujarati food (both North Indian) but waaaayyy to much of it!  We all had a busy (and very hot!) first day, so after dinner we all headed off to bed pretty quickly.

Highlights of day one: cows in the streets, first few auto rides, sweating more than I can describe, and not totally crashing from the oh-so-lovely jet lag.

Now- today was structured a bit differently.  After breakfast, our whole group- advisors and all- were picked up by two hosts from CSIM (the Center for Social Initiative and Management) and piled onto a bus (that was actually quite cozy), to go on two site visits of other non-profits in Bangalore.  After some spectacular traffic mishaps, we arrived at the Association for People with Disabilities (APD).  APD was kind enough to show us around their entire campus, where they do everything from constructing artificial limbs, to vocational training, to physiotherapy and sign language instruction.  They have a beautiful campus and it is evident that they do quite a lot there to help the disabled in and around Bangalore.

After lunch, we then went to visit Selco, a solar lighting social enterprise that works in rural Karnataka (the state that Bangalore is a part of).  While we didn't walk around their facility, they gave us a wonderful talk on what they do at Selco.  What is most interesting to me about their organization (and is rather fundamental, but I still think its neat!) is that they are actually a for-profit enterprise with a very strong social mission and impact.  They work with banks to facilitate loans for the rural poor to install solar lighting systems in their homes, which then allows for activities such as studying, cooking, cleaning, income-generating activities, and leisure activities to occur after dark, which would not be possible without a reliable light source of some sort.  This visit was valuable not only get a better grasp on their business model, but also to better understand the challenges of energy and sustainability in Karnataka.

Once we left Selco, we had the rest of the night to ourselves.  A few of us- Laura, Navee, Kristen and I- decided to go out and get cell phones and do a little shopping.  I was the only one successful in getting a phone (which is quite a process here- you have to have passport photos and copies of your passport and visa as well as some proof of residency in India) because the shop only had one of the cheap phones left, so everyone else has to go back tomorrow.  We also went to the grocery store which was lots of fun (I get a strange kick out of looking at other brands and types of packaged foods- I just think its interesting to see all the differences), and we got ingredients for chai, pasta and sauce, and tabouli.  Then the four of us came back and made a great mess in the kitchen (which we cleaned up- don't you worry) and made tabouli and mint water and had a nice time just sitting around and visiting until about now- 2am.

None of us really have a plan for the weekend- we want to start some clothes shopping, though- and then we start work on Monday! So I guess this is the last stress free weekend for a while- lets see what it has in store  :)

Well holy cow, I made it to Bangalore! Not quite in the manner I expected though, lets backtrack a couple of days...

I was lucky enough to spend a week in Hawaii with my family to celebrate my dad's 50th birthday, where we spent most of our time scuba diving and catching up after a semester (and soon to be summer) apart.  On our last day there, Sunday, I remembered that it was 48 hours until I was scheduled to leave for India on Tuesday afternoon, which meant I could reserve my seats for the various plane rides. So, I got online and typed in my flight info to reserve seats, only to see that my flight was in fact on Monday afternoon when I had believed for the last however-many months that it was Tuesday.  How this very important fact got so distorted in my head I don't think I'll ever figure out.  With panic spreading and an all-out freak-out right around the corner, I ran upstairs to tell my mom and then called one of my friends in complete hysteria, in what I was later told was a conversation where my voice was about 8 octaves higher than usual and was radiating through the condo.  What this oversight meant was that when I arrived back at my parent's house in California on Monday morning after flying all day and driving all night, I would have no more than 5 hours to unpack, do laundry, and repack for India.  Oh, and I was also hoping to make a Wal-Mart run in there.  It took me a few minutes, but eventually I did start calming down and started making to-do lists.  My parents and I had an extra hour or so in Hawaii, so we were able to stop by Wal-Mart there to get the basics of what I needed, and without further ado, we were on a flight to San Jose.

When we landed in San Jose, it was about 10:30pm on Sunday night, which meant it was time to begin the 5 hour drive back to Santa Clarita.  I slept for about an hour and a half on the drive, and when we arrived at my parent's house around 4am, it was time for me to start packing.  It turns out that 5 hours was just about enough time to unpack, do laundry, repack, and shower, and before I knew it, it was 9:30am and my mom was driving me to LAX.

A short, teary goodbye later, and I was in a deserted wing of the LAX airport awaiting my flight to Hong Kong where I got to enjoy the glory of a middle seat for the 14 hour flight.  In reality, that flight wasn't too bad, and when I arrived in Hong Kong I had just enough time to go through two extra security checkpoints, and get straight in line to board my next flight that would take me to Delhi in just 5 short hours.

Arriving in Delhi wasn't quite as straightforward.  First, obviously, I had to go through customs, which was relatively painless.  Then, however, because my flights from LA -> Delhi were booked separately from my last flight from Delhi -> Bangalore, I had to go claim my bags.  I also had about an 8 hour layover in Delhi, which meant that I couldn't check in for my last flight right away, I had to wait until 3 hours before my flight.  So, I got put in the lovely "visitors lounge" for more than 5 hours, which meant that I sat on the floor of an enclosed room with close to 200 other people from 11pm-4:30am.  When I was finally allowed to leave the charming glass enclosure, checking in and clearing security was pretty smooth, and then I had some time to kill at my gate.  The last flight was actually enjoyable 1) because it was only 2.5 hours, and 2) because the skies were crystal clear and I had a window seat so I could just watch the country pass below.  As we got nearer to Bangalore and I started paying closer attention, I realized just how red the soil is here- it is pretty remarkable.

Once the plane landed, it was completely uneventful and easy to find my bags and the proper taxi.  The cab ride was at least an hour and a half because my driver got a bit confused as to where we were going, but he was very helpful, so he eventually found it and I got checked in to my room without a problem.  And so after a short nap and a bit of unpacking, here I am.  Tomorrow our group activities begin, which I am sure will be both overwhelming and exciting- I'll let you all know how it goes!