Which continent, exactly?

This blog's title isn't in reference to actual continents (I've now been to four), but is rather drawn from "The Third and Final Continent," a stunning short story by Jhumpa Lahiri, from her collection, The Interpreter of Maladies. In particular, I'm inspired by the following quote that summarizes the attitude I try to carry with me through life and on my travels

I am not the only person to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.

I love this. It calls on us to consider the tiny details of our experiences, both one-by-one, and in the aggregate, and to maintain a sense of wonder even about the seemingly mundane things that are the building blocks of our lives, and often, the glue that binds us to our traveling companions.

This blog began as a chronicle of my study abroad experience in Cairo in Spring 2008, and continued last year while volunteering in Geneva, and South Sudan with a wonderful organization, VIDES.

Now in graduate school, I'm returning to the Continent this summer while interning in New Delhi, India.

Please enjoy, inquire, and learn.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Data Camp!

During the past week, I have had the opportunity to travel and participate in ASER Centre’s annual national training workshop outside Aurangabad, Maharashtra.  The workshop will kick off this year’s nationwide data collection process to assess the literacy and basic math levels of children in the rural parts of each and every Indian state. I will be headed back to the US right around the time this gets seriously underway, so won’t actually help to put the training into action.  Instead, I just get to spend a week in my own special version of nerdvana, running through data the fine points of organizing and implementing a field data collection process at the grassroots level.

At first I thought it would be like my two “workations,” back when I was a real person with a real job and real responsibilities, but then I realized that, since I am responsible for managing 0% of the activities this particular experience is actually great because has everything I used to love about going to nerd camp as a kid.

1)      A welcome (and beautiful) change of scenery



2)      Fun, yet dorky icebreakers, not to exclude singalongs.




3)      New friends


4)      Roommates



5)      Field trips of both the fun ....


....and educational varieties



6)      Tests and quizzes, here complete with roll call and an intimidating teacher-type (head of the statistics office)



7)      Extremely unhealthy all-you-can-eat cafeteria food.



Please note that in the following image, the vegetables are dusted with hot pepper, and the apples have been coated in sugar and deep fried.



See it’s exactly the same, except this time I’m over a decade too old for camp, and in India. So the friends and the food were all Indian.

Breakfast was Indian. Lunch was Indian. Dinner was Indian. It was almost all pure vegetarian (no eggs) There was no coffee.  I was grateful to have enough to eat and good company and scenery to eat it in, but thanks to the whole decade-older thing, my stomach became  somewhat less grateful just about halfway in.

Like my camp days, I know that any letters home have to put away all the minor complaints and end on a positive note: it was a really unique experience that I was fortunate to have as a lowly intern.  I loved meeting people from all over the country. And I especially appreciated the opportunity to visit a village and get a small peek at (+ hundreds of pictures of) rural life while also getting some valuable field research experience. 

Aaaand let's not forget one of the most quintissential camp experiences/souvenirs:  the group photo.


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