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.
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.
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