Venturing out to the village

 Right now I have moved into my friend Will's room, just for the afternoon for homework purposes. He has the blinds open, a door to the terrace open, and his roommate is gone, so I figured I would just make myself comfortable!! It's so sunny in here, and with the fresh air and sounds of the neighborhood wafting in through the doorway I'm just happy as can be.  And what better way to spread the happiness than to satisfy your needs to hear about my life? (lol)

Last weekend (yes, I'm catching up!) eight of us went on a 4-day field trip to Barefoot College- not far from Jaipur actually. This was a field trip with my Socio-economics class, to learn about NGOs and what's going on in rural India, as we only get to see the lives of the upper-crust in Delhi. Talk about an eye-opening experience!! I loved every minute of our adventure into rural India. This is the sort of thing that I really wanted to get into when I came here. Barefoot College in short, is a place where people can come to learn skills that will help them in their everyday lives, and will help their village. they do not hand out paper degrees, as they feel they are useless out in rural Rajasthan. They would rather teach people useful skills that will better their communities. Even though they are classified as an NGO, they do not like to be called as such. The people at Barefoot believe in equality and honesty among other values. This means that they always publish how their money is being used, and everyone gets the same salary. It really is amazing. You can learn more here.
We slept and ate here, and the food was some of the best that I've had in India (don't tell Auntie...). Also the people we met were some of the happiest I have ever seen. They are all working together towards a goal that will change lives and generations to come.
I honestly don't even remember what we did every day, but we were quite busy I can tell you that much. We visited 2 schools- one day government school and one night school set up by BC. The night school was really something to see. It was set up by BC because they knew there were children in the village who were not getting an education because they were working all day. So these are children who work all day in their homes/fields and are driven to want to be educated so much that they eat dinner and then trek to this night school for 2 hours. It's amazing to see the ambition that these kids have. It's mostly girls too. They are just so happy to be learning!! We also visited a few health centers, which is my area of interest. It is amazing what they are able to do with their lack of supplies and infrastructure.

Women at a worksite- they do hard labor and still dress so beautifully!

Government school

Kiddies!!

More kiddies!!

A map in the gov't school...you will notice that Spain is an island...

Health Center in the village

Cow...idk I thought she was cute

Area where we were in Rajasthan...pretty desert-y