Hey everyone!

It has been a while since my pretty negative blog post. All of us are starting to leave the frustration phase of being in India which is good, but we are all itching to return home. I have gone through several waves of debate about returning to Madurai. On this program there are always 2 program assitants who help us adjust to life in Madruai, hold events. There role is not to be a teacher but not also to be one of us, it lies somewhere between. I have put thought to retuning as a PA one year, perhaps the year after I graduate college, it looks great on a resume, pays, and covers living expenses while in Madurai and on tour (vacation). While I am not completely turned off the the idea the wave of frustration that hit has somewhat deterred me.

But anyways, were are now a few weeks into our IS project. As you all know my project deals with teaching children photography and having them photograph their lives. I am working at an NGO called SEED. The NGO keps children in a neighborhood called Karumpalai which is essentially a slum. There is no indoor pluming and very little electricity in the neighborhood. SEED was founded many years ago by Ted Adams an American Anthropologist who also founded SITA and was funded by a group of SITA parents who wanted to help women get better education in Tamil Nadu. Now SEED is still running, mainly funded by Ted Adams. Every child who goes to SEED must go 7 days a week where classes are held every night and events are held on the weekends. SEED ensures students will get their college education paid for, even if it is 100% funded by SEED. I have been going for a little over a week now, I play english games with the students and teach them about photography. Today I will be handing out cameras to the children along with a list of possible topics to photograph. I hope the students have a great time with the project! I will be posting about how it is going soon!

I haven't posted anything in a while. We are in the middle of our IS project time. For my IS project I am working at an NGO SEED located in Karumbalai, a local neighborhood in Madurai. Karumbalai is a very low income neighborhood and SEED is an NGO that helps children with their studies to help them get out of the life most people in these neighborhoods are stuck in.  I will be teaching them photography as well as english. Once I give them a few lessons in photography I will give them film cameras and a set of prompts similar to my senior project at Watkinson. I will spend a lot of time with the children just hanging out and trying to make a friendship. After the photographs are developed we will talk about what they mean to them and why they took each photograph. At the end I want to have a gallery show for the children open to the community.

But recently I got sick, India sick actually. I went to the hospital and was released, against their advice and after  4 bags of IV. But now I'm feeling much better, so thats in the past. 

But since being sick Im in the frustration phase of being in India. I know it will pass soon though.