Now that I can understand at least a little bit of Hindi, I realize what a sheltered world I had been living in in Jaipur. There are so many sweet and friendly English-speaking people who are eager to make blonde girls feel at home...but so many of them treat people from lower castes like only so much flesh and bone. My host family is really harsh to Purnima; and even the esteemed leader of our health non-profit keeps servants around to bring him biscuits and tea.

All of the philosophical issues that come up with development work that had been previously tying me up in knots have lost their importance to me. There is no way that we can ever really escape our moral ties...There will always be some way to argue that anything I do is reprehensible. But you live from moment to moment, and it is clearer what to do when you are faced with one situation and one person at a time. I feel like criticisms of development are important, but sometimes are too harsh for their own good--if we all allowed ourselves to be paralyzed by the desire to do things perfectly, nothing will ever be accomplished. No, it is not sustainable to steal electricity on the behalf of a community. But at least their water pumps will work.

Alllso, the fact that LSS is so bothered by staff conflicts and gossip and bad coffee and lack of documentation and finance problems is almost comforting. In the future when i am bothered by the same things in some hum-drum non-profit in America, I won't have romantic notions that grassroots human rights organizations in the developing world are better.

I am so in love with everyone here. We have a giant bag full of guavas in the office that are free for the taking, and I'm learning how to make roti like a good di-di, and a few of them have mastered "Old MacDonald."