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Hey guys, I've made it to the end of my first day in India, all happy and well. Staying with my boss, the Secretary of the charity I'm working with (Usha), who's absolutely lovely and busy feeding me too much. Having slight Nepal flashbacks - being wasteful is really extravagant and rude (i've been lectured already) so you can't waste food or leave any but then if I eat all of it they're convinced I'm hungry so will give me more, which I have to eat because it's rude and wasteful not too.....aargh. expect a hefty Jess next time you see me! Anyhoo, Usha's such an expert in and enthusiast for development and very keen to impart her wisdom, yay for me.
[warning: more exciting tales of Jess' departure at end, skip if bored!]
They live in Gurgaon, about 40 mins out of Delhi, so yet to see the city properly, though we're heading in tomorrow. Already started work on my project (a financial inclusion programme that provides banking facilities for rural poor unable to access national banks or too illiterate to manage accounts, by means of really cool machines that are portable and use fingerprints and voice-activated prompts to bank) - we spent the day drawing up the project proposal, and despite the project having links with DFID, UK Treasury's Financial Inclusion Task Force, Punjab National Bank and the Govt of India, Usha seems confident that I'll be able to manage it myself. Eek! And all this despite the fact I actually fell asleep and nearly fell off my chair in the meeting this afternoon... anyway.
So I'll be staying here for a few weeks until the project gets underway, then I get to move into the central office in Delhi to start managing the team and project reports/documentation. I get the impression I'll be actually living in the office, huddling under office chairs at night, but apparently I'm allowed to whitewash or even build whatever I like there, so who really knows! Think there's quite a lot of travelling about to, I'm certainly off to the project sites next week to interview prospective local partners.... I'd probably better learn Hindi before that, though given I spent most of my day trying and failing to speak Hindi to Usha's mother-in-law who actually was speaking Tamil, not holding out too much hope!
[just a little bit more boring stuff...]
The project does seem very exciting though, and it's great in a way to be plunged into the deep end. Plus most of the issues they're tackling go far beyond the specific concerns of the project - the problems of financial exclusion are relevant globally (even in Britian if you think about the catch-22 facing the homeless given bank registration procedures). DCI (the charity)'s focus is interestingly more on the dissemination of information about development and creating development communication strategies, as well assessment of development procedures, than on the actual projects (they work with local partners and grass-root organisations to get that done), so it'll be an amazing education whatever happens. Already it's interesting to note how development is seen to function here - the govt is heavily involved in all NGO work, and my project at least is an amalgamation of private sector, government, local independent partners and the NGO. And thus the work is also really varied - this project runs for 3months then I'm off to something else. Plus it's really sunny and really warm. ha.
Sorry this is so unexciting (and really academic now I just added an extra paragraph about the project stuff, sorry!) but am sleeeeepy and unable to think. Still only just recovered from oversleeping (well, passing out) and only waking up still hammered half-an-hour away from home in my clothes from the night at 5.30am, the time I was actually meant to be leaving for the airport. Thank you so much parents! And sorry everyone I stamped on/woke up in my drunken panic. Not quite sure how I made the plane, but last-minute hectic jess succeeds again. Plus hangover = not noticing a delayed 8 hour flight nor the small children on the plane using me as a pillow, though I did keep on being woken up and getting told off when they (said small children) spilt their drinks over the posh people sitting behind me.
Anyhoo, am much more interested in whether Ed ever recovered from his hangover, whether Rach is surviving her essay crises, whether Charlie's alive and well again (make that both Charlies I know), whether the girls will pull at the V&A, whether Kyla's been attacked by the polic yet and whether Mum and Dad will ever recover from the stress I put them through, if everyone's forgotten the rubbish I was talking on Sat night and generally how you all are (don't think just because I didn't mention you I won't be expecting updates)..... so let me know! More tales will follow from me. Lots and lots of love from Jess saving the world xxxx
ps. anyone know how to conduct a baseline data survey? anyone?
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