Extreme Tuk-tuking

Namaste everyone! I will write a longer entry once I have rehydrated/caught up on my sleep, but just so everyone knows, after over 30 hours of traveling I have arrived in Jaipur, the legendary pink city. Upon my arrival, two toothless Indian men who assured me "yes okay" even when I asked them where we were going, accompanied me on the tuk-tuk ride of my life. After encountering a lane barrier on the highway we veered across onto the other side and to my horror proceeded to careen the wrong way as three lanes of bikes, cars, buses, and trucks came speeding at us. Just as the main character of the new show 'Outsourced' noted, riding in a tuk-tuk is exactly like playing a live game of Frogger, only the roads are lined with cows, camels, and elephants.

But enough about India's wild side (yes, they may be sexually conservative and they may not party hard, but man, they are wild drivers). Today I will be visiting the site where I will be teaching women empowerment, a slum dwelling called Kathputli Nagar. I am hoping to recruit about 20 girls (at the very least 15) to attend lessons from 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM everyday. Ideally these young women would benefit from full-time schooling, but since women are in charge of all domestic labor most of their mornings are spent cooking, cleaning, and collecting fresh water, especially if they are somebody's wife. As you can tell from my opening, I am working to learn some Hindi while I am here, but I will be working with a translator during class hours just in case I run into any lingual roadblocks. I have many great ideas for lesson plans, but have not set a course in stone since I am hoping to get feedback from these young women and tailor the lessons to their specific interests. I am hoping to have more updates and some project photos next time I sign on, but right now I am sweating like a pro athlete (to say that it is hot would be an understatement, the nights reach lows of 75 degrees) and must go tend to our newest house guest, the ten inch green lizard who mistook our toilet for a pond. Accha-ji!