Hello readers! 🙂 We have now completed week 2 of the the project! This week involved IEC material, micro planning, and ,as always, research. The night before the work week began the 5 of us returned from Agra with two other interns we met at the Sehgal Foundation. Agra was AMAZING (Oh My Gosh The TAJ MAHAL) but we were all ready for the adventure of the coming week. Here are some memories from some of the interns:

 

Tommy
We are all starting to find our footing here at Sehgal and beginning to get into the depths of our work. This week consisted of mainly microplanning and mapping. Although the microplanning in the villages focused on meticulous logistics, I found comfort in walking to every house and seeing the faces of the people behind the numbers. Behind each door was the real reason we were here and the reason why this project was so important. I’ve never been one for numbers and statistics, but humanizing the project made it all so much more relatable. After all the microplanning was done we wandered upon some children playing on a swing which manifested this whole concept for me. They were all laughing and having fun, which seems like such a ordinary sight to see, but what made it so extraordinary was that in an environment in which children are forced to grow up so fast and take on so much responsibility at an early age, there were still a glimpse of innocence. It was a strange normalcy; children being children. Just goes to show that even in the toughest situations, happiness can still be found.

Estefania
This week has been one of the most hectic ones for the group. This is because we had to microplan one of the villages we work in. What this means is that we went around the village drawing the main roads to then draw each and every house in the village. The experience of microplanning was entirely new to me, and although I loved, it it was exhausting. My favorite part of this was when I had the opportunity to interact with a group of about 15 children. This happened while we were in the microplanning process. My partner and I had to stop at a corner in order to figure out a confusion we had with the map. Our surprise was that a couple of houses away, a group of about 15 children were staring at us too. As a child lover my first reaction was to want to go hug them all, because we were perhaps the first foreigners they had ever seen, it was best to approach them in a more appropriate manner. At first it was really hard to get them to talk. They were shy and expectant of what we would do. One of the women that was with the children offered to let me get on a swing the children were playing before they had seen us. I kindly accepted and I immediately had a flashback of when I was a little girl and my grandma used to swing me for hours at the time. After a couple of minutes we finally decided to move on, and the best part of our interaction finally came. Saying the word “bye” sparked a commotion in the crowd. Children were laughing all over the place and repeating the word over and over as well as waving. They couldn’t get enough of it. This moment warmth my heart because we had finally seem them talk to us. Very interesting thought was the fact that what for them was a complete joke, for us was a part of our language that it’s used often and to be polite. VIVA language differences!

Madison
This past week has been an adventure. The goal was to complete the micro planning for Bajheda, one of the villages we are implementing toilets. In micro planning we create a map of the village that has all the houses mapped out and then depicts whether or not the house has a toilet and if it is function. This is an important step before the implementation process since we are able to get different views about the use of toilets and which houses need them still. For this step we were in the field for two days, Wednesday and Thursday. As we walked around the first day of micro planning I could feel the sun beaming down on us as we trekked through the village. The different people would come out to see why we were here and were also willing to help on our mission. With the help we were able to find out the owners of each house and whether or not they had toilets. When we passed by the school there was a big group of kids that ran up to the wall of the school. I turned and waved at them. Most of the children would smile back at me and then cover their faces with their hands. As we were leaving the school I picked up a shadow. The shadow way a little girl, who seemed very curious of our presence in the village. She would follow right next to me and I would catch her looking up at me. I would look towards her and smile and she would giggle, smile, and look away. She continued to follow us throughout the village and after we went inside for lunch she would stand by the door and continue to look at us. She was adorable and I think represented a lot of the curiosity from the village about our presence. After, two days in the village we were able to continue to grow closer to the different field workers and the supervisors we work with on the project. Without them this project would be impossible and it’s been enjoyable to get to know every one of them more.

 

Thanks for reading!!! 🙂 Week 3 here we come!!!!!!!