Hi!!! We are officially one third of the way through my time here at the institute. I have loved my time here and getting to know the staff better has made me feel so fulfilled. From getting my nose ring infected to my third interview, my staff and coworkers have lifted me up, brought their children to work so I could meet them, and we’ve documented everything with moments and memories in pictures.
This week was eventful, with a trip to the Brindavan gardens, an IDI, transcription and translation, a training session at the University of Mysore, and international yoga day celebrations! I also went shopping for saris with the other interns for the upcoming reception we are attending. It was nice to visit the market and sari shops with Sanjana and Dakshayani. I have had a lovely week and have also gotten closer and closer to staff and my coworkers. I also got to meet some of the children of the staff such as Chandramani’s daughter and Manjula’s daughter, both of whom were so cute! I am excited to share the memories I have made this week.
Sunday, June 16th
We went to the Venugopala Swamy Temple, and the Brindavan gardens. The temple was beautiful, and simple at the same time. The stone and dark grey marble architecture not only was elegant but what I loved more was that the temple featured various individual gods and goddesses in their own pockets in the temple. Above each altar there was Kannada text specifying the goddess, and I could read some of it. I helped explain some of the context behind Ganapathi and Shiva, and also Vishnu and Parvathi to the other interns when they had asked who some of the goddesses and gods were.
Next, we headed to the Brindavan gardens and spent most of the day or afternoon, rather, there. The garden is built on levels, so each staircase brought another natural atmosphere. There were lots of fountains and we stayed till the light show in the late evening which was lovely. We got to see the plant exhibits and the tree arches, and the light show was fun because it was to modern songs but the water in the fountains were coordinated with the music. On the way back, we were so tired and so hungry but had a great meal at Frosting and followed it with mango ice cream from Corner House.
Monday, June 17th
I had my IDI for the week with Stanley sir. Mr. Stanley is the founder of Odanadi, an NGO dedicated to helping women, men, and children who are victims of IPV or sexual violence, by guiding them through education programs and workforce training. Mr. Stanley is the in house counselor who talks to victims and helps them open up about the trauma they have faced throughout their stay at Odanadi. The interview was almost an hour and 15 minutes, and he spoke about various issues that affect people who have been in this situation. It was good to have his perspective because it is unique in comparison to psychologists and psychiatrists I have been speaking to. He was the first NGO leader we got to talk to, and I know how involved he is in both the local and international community, so I was very privileged to be able to speak to him in such length. The reason the interview was long, I think, was because we had to dig a lot to get to the heart of his role in victims’ lives. Often, I have seen that subjects for my interviews have a lot to say about the questions I ask but do not necessarily know how to frame their answers. So, we have to keep asking questions so they have more opportunities to discuss what they see in their profession.
Afterwards, I focused on starting the transcription for both this interview and finishing the one from last week.
Tuesday, June 18th
Both Tuesday and Wednesday there was a training session at the Vijnana Bhavan auditorium in the University of Mysore. The training was centered on accelerating the challenges and addressing how universal health coverage would look in the context of India. Though it was important, it was focused on Indian history and Indian healthcare history, most of which us interns did not know. I was interested in Dr. Smitha’s presentation on Universal Health Coverage as a concept, but the rest of the presentations were less interesting and the presenters themselves did not discuss topics in a way that would be applicable to everyone. For example, the presentation after Dr. Smitha’s was on Road Safety however the presenter started with clapping and it took away from the information being talked about later on in the presentation. We stayed for a few more presentations and ate lunch, and then went back to PHRII. We then worked on other projects. I worked on transcription with Ambika and Anisa.
Wednesday June 19th
I did not do too much on Wednesday. Technically, there was another training session on this day, but we did not attend as the first session was not helpful. The other Indian intern, Rishika, attended but she also said it was not that helpful. So, I think it was a good decision because personally I have a lot of transcribing and translating to do for the two IDI’s that happened. I worked on that for most of the day. I had about 3 hours work of interviews to transcribe, so I was working through that and catching every word. It was very tedious, but it is always fun to relisten to the interview because you forget how much the interviews cover, and what other extra questions needed to be asked in the moment to get the answers needed for the interview. It was always nice to go over in case there was something particularly interesting I needed to highlight or bold. I could not finish all of the transcriptions on the day of.
Thursday June 20th
I did more transcribing on Thursday as well. I finished the rest of the transcription today and discussed some options for the next interviews with Ambika. I also shadowed Ambika as she did some data analysis and saw how Dr. Neha processes her data from the questionnaires. In addition, I saw how Rashmi does her data analysis for the HLHM project as well. After work, around 4 we went sari shopping for Dr. Indira’s daughter’s wedding on Sunday June 30th! Dr. Indira is on PHRI’s board of trustees and we met her on Saturday, she was very kind! But I was really excited to go to Anand Bazaar with Dakshayani and Sanjana and Murli driving us interns. I was having a lot of fun selecting ones to try on, and we went to two stores and settled on saris from the second store. Afterwards, we went to Devaraja market and got bangles! And Bindis! I was happy to get a red sari and also get a matching set of red bangles and bindis we could all match our dresses to.
Friday June 21th
Friday was the 21st which was International Yoga Day! Ever since the second week of us being here at the institute we have taken yoga lessons from Swami Ji! I have loved having him teach us because he teaches very well and pushes me to do better. I have already noticed in the improvement of my stretching since being under his tutelage. I have appreciated having him as a teacher. I mostly shadowed on this day and worked on data analysis for Dr. Weaver from the last summer. I have counted words from the previous IDIs and counted and tallied how much words appear and what they mean and how many times they appear. I was mostly busy with that in this day.
Saturday June 22nd
On this half day, mostly everyone was gone for FGDs for a different project. I was mostly working on this report and my blog post. I worked till around 1:30 and then took a nap till 5 because I did not get much sleep the night before. There was a large lari with a loud horn that woke me up very early on and it was hard to go back to bed afterwards. Afterwards I hung out with family friends that live past Panchavati circle till around 9 pm and then met up with my fellow interns to get ice cream at Corner House.
That’s a wrap of my whole week!
Summer 2019: Mysore 