Preparation

Having been encouraged to keep a blog throughout my travels, I decided to start early. I will be updating this as much as I can. (Whenever I can catch a jeep to the "town center", then a government bus to the city of Jaipur, then actually locate an internet cafe...)

I plan to arrive in India on June 1st. I will be living with my homestay family from my trip abroad last semester for a week, before venturing into the desert for eight weeks.

I stayed on this organic farm for a week last October and worked in the fields with one of the three brothers who owns the farm. They bought the land in 1998 and have since developed a large and self-sustaining organic farm with an orchard of fruit trees, many cows and animals, and large fields adjacent to their three-generation family home. There is a school in the front yard that educates close to 60 students on a full time basis (Hindi, math, English, art, history, science, and local crafts such as pottery-making). When it is too hot in the middle of the day to be in the fields, I will be assisting in English classes and conducting computer classes (for the students and teachers) on the two new computers that were just donated.

Because I am on a scholarship, I have the amazing opportunity to travel around India as well. I plan to make a trip to the South of India (where I have never been), to Mumbai, to Varanasi, as well as visit other farms in the desert region.

I am VERY thankful to Charles Salisbury for so graciously providing me the means to do this, as it will help me in hopefully obtaining a Fulbright Scholarship next year, and go to graduate school in Anthropology.

I will update this as often as possible with photos and what I am doing!