jenny b

One of the real luxuries of working for a large, well-established organization like Seva Mandir is that they have a very functional system for volunteers, including housing. I am one of the fortunate ones to live in an apartment, affectionately called the Love Nest, rather than a dorm in which many of the other volunteers live.

I’m also very lucky to have three really swell, perfectly compatible roommates. I share a room with a lovely Wisconsin-born lass named Wendy and the boys rest their heads in the apartment’s two other rooms. Fizzy is very sadly packing his things, as I type, to head back to London after a year and a half stint with Seva. Arjun is an American-born Indian whose family is from Delhi – he’ll be here until December when he returns to NY to finish up his degree in Economics.

We are four fat and happy clams to have a wonderful Indian woman, Santosh, who cooks lunch for us five days a week and tidies things up when needed. We each add Rs. 500 (about $10) to her monthly salary from Seva for her motherly services.

Santosh’s story is a fairly typical Indian lower-class one. She is a mother of three beautiful daughters whose husband died three years ago. I sympathetically apologized to her about this only to have her assure me that it was actually a blessing. Married when she was 17, theirs was an arranged marriage and he was an alcoholic, abusive man. The only tragic thing for her was that because she had left him before he died (to escape his daily wrath), she was not entitled to any of the common monetary, or otherwise, recourses typically due a wife in such a circumstance – and of course she now has the stigma of being a widow, and three mouths to feed on her own. Despite how difficult this must be at times, she is one of the happiest creatures I know, always smiling and laughing, and has become a welcomed, pure joy in my everyday life here in Udaipur.

Our little apartment is about 10 minutes walking from the Seva Mandir compound (more on that in a minute) – which I do walk, back and forth three times daily, even though I recently acquired a bicycle (woo-hoo!). We have a small kitchen, hallway-like dining area and three rooms – two of which are “real” bedrooms with closets and their own bathrooms and one that was a ‘common room’ before Fizzy made it into his bedroom. (Though this didn’t change the common-ness of the room much – Fiz loves nothing more than to have his guitar in his lap, singing self-written tunes to anyone interested in sharing his cozy company – this home will not be the same come tomorrow evening when he boards that plane).

There are probably about 15 foreign and 5 or so Indian volunteers working for Seva at the moment and Seva’s mission is accomplished through 8 different departments (and almost 300 staff) – Natural Resources Development (my department); Health; Education; Early Child Care; Women Empowerment; People’s Management School; and a Child Representative Program. Each department has an ‘In-charge’ and we all have a staff ‘Reporting Officer’ whom we are accountable to. None of us has an office – most volunteers work from the third floor of the library (which is open to the public, but run by Seva) or a computer lab in the main administrative building (across the street from the library). Seva has several wireless internet networks, which are not the most reliable (I splurged on a mobile internet modem that functions about as well as the Edmond house satellite internet connection, but is super handy as it works anywhere there is a cell signal – one of the smartest purchases so far). There is also a dorm facility in the compound, where many of the current volunteers reside, and an on-site chai walla – cooking up the most deliciously sweet tea all hours of the working day.

Seva, like many Indian companies and organizations, has a 6-day working week, so we only have Sundays off (though every other Saturday is a “holiday” too). A typical day has me first waking to the morning chorus of our street dogs (whom are in love with me and I them) sometime between 4 and 5:00 am, only to fall back asleep until the nearby mosque reminds Muslims to start their morning prayer around 5:30. I begin really waking by 6:00, but usually stay in bed until a little after 7:00 when the first of the street vendors comes down the street – selling I can never figure what.

Since I got a bike I’ve taken to morning rides at least three days a week, which I combine with a heart-thumping climb up to a nearby hill-top temple before returning home to enjoy some breakfast (usually yogurt, nuts, and muesli) with some home-made chai (I’m getting quite good, if I do say so myself) while I check personal emails, sometimes g-chat with Bri (thank you google!), and read some internet news.

I am to work no later than 10:30 and so far have been more than busy until 6 or 7 in the evening. I often eat a bit of leftover lunch for dinner and spend the evening chatting with roommates, watching Arjun and Fiz play Scrabble, reading a book, or whatever my tired self desires. I’m oft dreaming by 11 or 12, just to do it all again.

Many of us were thrilled to line up a yoga instructor last week – Wendy’s Argentinean boyfriend, Kury, who distinctly reminds me of Roberto Benigni of ‘Life is Beautiful’ fame. Now we have an hour of yoga on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings after work. Score! This combined with the regular cycling and hill-climbing has me feeling much more jenny b-like and has become the necessary physical compliment to my very busy working schedule. Life is good.