With classes starting tomorrow and New Student Orientation finishing up, everything around me seems just like it was last year before the start of classes. I am a senior, but since I transferred as a junior, this is my second fall, and I find myself doing all of the same things- meeting with my advisor, […]

As I go through my last days of being in the field, I am finding it hard to imagine myself doing anything else, especially in two weeks when my time in India will have ended for the summer. Since I have spend the majority of my time here working on the case studies of the […]

Although I was planning on posting tomorrow, I was thinking so much about our hike yesterday that we did on our day off, that I decided to post today. Yesterday, we hiked to the Old Chamunda Temple, about 17 km each way. There is the new Chamunda Temple that was built years ago, which is […]

This week was the first time that walking back from the field, I got absolutely drenched in the rain. I’ve been in heavy rain before, but for some reason, maybe because it had been a while, or because I was in such a beautiful place, I found it especially amazing to be in the rain, […]

After many weeks of planning, meeting with mentors, doing some test runs, and getting to know more and more about the MKSP (Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana/ Woman Farmer Empowerment Program), I finally feel at the point where I am just working on my project as much as I can. Once again, I am writing up […]

Something that I have been thinking about lately since being here is the different ways in which I have been connecting. I think of connecting as an ongoing process wherever one is, but one that is usually most noticeable at the start. What first comes to mind is of course learning to communicate in Hindi. […]

It is incredible how much I have learned in just a few days about the organization I will be working for, as well as about the language and place were I am staying. The first few days were spent understanding more about the organization, from listening to the staff of each department share what they […]

Hi everyone! My name is Michelle Lopez. I’m from Puerto Rico and grew up in New York. At Penn, I study International Relations with a minor in Environmental Science, and I am in the class of 2016 in the College. I am very excited because starting tomorrow, I will be interning at Chinmaya Organization for Rural […]