So that meeting last week that my boss took me to with the UNDP? It was actually a day-long conference for all of it's IKEA Women's Social Empowerment projects in the area at the Taj Gateway Hotel, probably the swankiest chain of hotels in India. I'm glad I got to see the inside of one before I left, but I wish I had brought my bathing suit to sneak a dip in their pool before I left. It was held in their "Gulabi" (pink) room, was fully catered complete with two chai breaks, and was set up just like our ISP presentations from SIT - complete with a notepad & pencil at each place and glasses full of candies intermittently placed around the table. Lucky for me, one was placed in between Dipti and me, and I have a way bigger sweet tooth than she does.
Anyway, there were representatives from each project, which were either Technical Agencies - groups like my company that do value-chain intervention programs, or Community Facilitation Organizations (I think that's what CFO stands for) - groups that run women's self-help groups in the same villages that the TA's work in. The CFO's and TA's in theory work together to promote women's economic empowerment. Each TA gave a presentation on their projects. My favorite one (aside from Rangsutra's, but I'm biased because I made the power point) was a TA that taught women how to make papad and rear goats. I love papad and goats. I could eat papad all day, every day, and I want a pet goat like no other after coming to India. So I was very interested in this project for personal reasons. Too bad the presentation (and all the others) was in Hindi. All the power points were in English though, so I still got the gist of each organization & what they were doing.
Presentations were the first part of the day. Then lunch, which was delicious. Fully catered buffet and butterscotch ice cream for dessert.
The second activity of the day was what I've been referring to in my head as a "modeling exercise", but I think that's incorrect because the UNDP wants the "modeling" done in the exercise to actually come to fruition. I'll explain. The TA's and CFO's that work together got together in to three groups, and were given the scenario that they are to merge in to one group. They were to develop their institutional mechanism, their name, their scale-up plans, and their trainer's platform. I referred to this as a "modeling exercise" because I do things like this in my classes at Wheaton a lot - being put in to a group and given a scenario with specific points to hit, a set amount of time to do so, and a presentation to everyone else at the end. I guess it surprised me because everyone jokes that the liberal arts don't teach you about the real world, but there I was sitting in a conference being run by the UNDP and ready to dive in to this task. Too bad, again, it was in Hindi.
One of the things that struck me the most about the conference was the way the hotel staff treated me in comparison to everyone else. I was the only foreigner in the group - everyone else was Indian (and I was one of 3 women, but that's another issue). When it was time for chai, a waiter came up to me and specifically asked if I wanted coffee instead of chai. I appreciated this because I do prefer coffee to chai, but I was the only one he did this to. What's to say our caffeinated beverage choices are determined by our ethnic identity? For all he knew, I could've grown up in India too. After all, I was wearing a sawar kameez.
In other news, the Ganges is now super high because of the monsoon. I'm a little worried it will rise up and block the road that runs in front of my guesthouse, but Dipti told me that won't happen so I guess I'm just being paranoid. Also there's another road out so I wouldn't be trapped or anything if it did.
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