an internet miracle.

I have like, 5 minutes of wireless access and I'm spending it wisely, by sharing some photos with yall!

Me and one of the other interns, Shamina, rocking the bicycle rickshaw.

A visit to the High Court

Kids playing in the mud outside of church.

I love that any construction work involves bamboo scaffolding.

the inch symbol is NOT universal.

Today, I found out that there is a Subway here, and it delivers to the office! The other interns and I decided we would enjoy a taste of home and order subway sandwiches for lunch today. I still don’t trust meat though, so I ordered this fantastic sounding veggie sub (soy/lentil veg patty, delish, right?). One of the national staff offered to place the order, since the Subway staff might have trouble with our accents and so, we each wrote down what we wanted. I wrote:

Laura-Kate: 6”, honey oat bread, Veg shammi with lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, and cheese. Toasted.

The order was placed, and it took FOREVER to get here…an hour and a half later, the subway guy arrives, and everyone takes their sandwiches and pays. I was last in line and after everyone else had taken their subs the delivery guy hands me the rest of the bag, which contains…six veg shammis. So yes, I now have a bag of SIX 6” soy/lentil sandwiches. Which of course, no one wants to share (see soy/lentil patty)…but hey, at least I don’t have to figure out dinner tonight…or lunch tomorrow…or dinner tomorrow…or lunch the next day…or dinner the next day…

I don't know what's better: the fact that the staffer thought I look like a girl who could eat 6 sandwiches for lunch, or the fact that I had to order the weirdest possible thing to get 6 of. Meh, at least my 6 meals only set me back 500 rupees (about $10).

In other news, it’s officially monsoon season! Today I rode in a bicycle rickshaw, covered in a tarp – that’s all that could navigate the flooded roads around my flat! Waded through 6-10” (inches) of standing water to the office. Please don’t let me think about water-borne bacteria/parasites/what-happened-to-all-the-street-dogs/rats/cockroaches??

Every day is an adventure!

Oh and one more thing: now whenever I go to the little treadmill room, the "gym attendant" guy walks me to the treadmill and programs it to 7.5, incline of 2, just the way I like it. Whenever I slow it down to take a drink of water, he stands until he sees that I'm not getting off...and then when I do slow it down to stop, he comes over to walk me out. BFF, yes?

O to grace / how great a debtor / daily i'm constrained to be.

So I think the hardest thing about living here is seeing such poverty and feeling like there is nothing I can do. It’s a horrible feeling to be riding in a taxi to meet friends for dinner, and then a child comes up to the window, begging for money. Most street children are “owned,” meaning they are made to beg all day/night and then have to hand over any money to their “boss.” The boss feeds the child, but not enough to let her look well-fed, and no matter how much money the child brings in, she cannot earn her way out of destitution or into school. So I don’t want to give money, because I know it doesn’t help alleviate the poverty. But I don’t want to NOT give money, because what if the child is beaten for not earning enough? I could maybe give actual food, but it’s hard to just be carrying food around all the time…and if the food package isn’t opened and eaten immediately by the child, the boss will take it too. And what if I decide not to give something, and this was one of the few children that gets to keep the money they get? And how do I tell a shoeless, hungry, filthy, beautiful child that I have nothing to give them, when I am on my way to a restaurant, and I have more rupees in my fellowship stipend than they will ever probably ever see? How can I walk by a baby, so brimming with potential, naked on sidewalk, lying by a mangy flea-ridden street dog, every single day? Can we even really say that these people are “marginalized” when the margin is SO wide?

I see the destitution every day, and every day my heart just aches – actual, physical pain. I am not adjusting to such poverty as inevitable. I won’t - I can’t - look away and think “that’s just the way things are.” I don’t know what to do, but I can’t start thinking there is nothing I (we) can do. I’m sorry this post has no tidy solutions, no ideas for making the situation less uncomfortable. But I think we’ll get there!

On a lighter note, this morning on the way to work, whenever the taxi driver honked his horn (almost constantly) it played “Fur Elise.” Brilliant.

And also - Happy 99th Birthday Uncle Kermit!!!

Run, LK, Run.

I should be able to use my own laptop within a week – pictures to come, I PROMISE!

Yesterday, I discovered that the apartment building I’m staying in (which isn’t actually the building I’m supposed to be staying in…long story but for now I’m staying on another intern’s couch) has a … wait for it … TREADMILL! This is great news, and I now officially love this city with ALL of my heart. You can imagine, it’s kind of emotionally and mentally rough to spend long hours at the office researching and learning how prevalent, profitable, and devastating the child sex trade is here. Girls are trafficked from Bangladesh, Nepal, and within the country, enticed by promises of jobs and education opportunities. Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely have hope, and I love being part of this fight – but there is nothing like pounding out 5 or 6 miles to work out pent up anger at brothel owners and pimps, frustration with corrupt policemen and apathetic political actors, and – gracious, the RANGE of emotion I feel for the girls who haven’t been rescued yet – all of these passions have to go somewhere, and last night they were pounded into that poor treadmill belt.

Best part? Looking up after 45 minutes to see three locals standing at the window, staring like they’ve never seen a white girl run. And maybe they haven’t. They will now!

Jailtime and Mangos

Yall, I have some great pictures (and videos! Shout-out Flip Video Cameras!!), but I am having serious issues being able to get wireless set up for my laptop...so words only for now (as if words could suffice!).

First - VERY EXCITING NEWS! We celebrated TWO convictions this week! The two accused persons had trafficked minors from Bangladesh to work in a brothel here, and after a loooong trial (many many months), the judge convicted BOTH perpetrators and sentenced each to 10 years of "rigorous imprisonment" plus Rs. 25,000 fine (2 extra years in prison if they default on the fines). This is the longest sentence we've ever had handed down, and they were convicted under a law that has never been successfully enforced in this court before. (!!!!!!) The rescued girls are safe in aftercare, and many many more girls will never have to suffer at the hands of these criminals. Joy!!!

Second - I did some sightseeing this weekend - pictures to come. I went with one of the other interns, who is half-Indian and able to blend in quite well. I, however, stick out just a little...short story, at one point there was a LITERAL crowd of 15 or so people following us and asking to take pictures with us. Whaaa??

Third - I LOVE THE (vegetarian) FOOD HERE! Favorite treat so far: there is a man who takes the pit out of mangos, fills the space with vanilla ice cream, then freezes the whole thing. You can recognize him because he sits by a giant bucket of ice and mangos-wrapped-in-cloth. Buy one for the equivalent of 4 cents, and he cuts it open and you eat the YUMMIEST frozen mango/ice cream combination. I was warned not to eat street food that's cut with a knife cleaned in local water, but I can't help it, it's SO GOOD. Other faves: chai from a lady with a teapot over a small fire near the office and bananas and lychees from the sweetest man (he always finds ones without bruises for me!

That's all for now - I'll keep trying with the pictures and video!! Thanks for leaving comments :o)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Feathers.

Aaaah, I wish I had tons of time to blog and blog. It feels like there is something new that I want yall to see and know about every minute! The commute to work has been a continuous lesson in trying to maintain some semblance of calm. Usually, I like to observe as much as I can – take in the fantastic colors, observe the vendors selling fruit and spices, smile at barefoot kids who are kicking around a soccer ball. Today, however, I learned a lesson in observation – be careful what you look for! This morning I walked along the crowded sidewalk and noticed an abundance of feathers. You may know, I’m a huge fan of Feathers. The feathers seemed to be originating at a medium-ish stall along the road. This is where I made my Big Mistake. I looked into the stall just in time to see a dear chicken slaughtered. Blood everywhere. A cage of live chickens screeching, and a pile of dead chickens being unceremoniously plucked (oh, hello feathers.). I turned away just in time to see a young man on a bicycle, and hanging from a pole across his handlebars? Dozens of dead chickens, tied by their talons. Looking at me.

In conclusion, I will be enjoying a vegetarian lifestyle for the remainder of my stay.

Also – I have a mailing address! Email me (ldenny@jd12.law.harvard.edu) if you want it! PLEASE want it, I would LOVE letters (or…care packages?? FedEx and DHL, I hear, are pretty dependable). Oh, and email me even if you don’t want my address. I want to hear about what’s going on with yall!

xoxoxoxo

Jet lag, shmet shmag.

I'm here! Yall, this is one crazy adventure! It's been a day, and I already wonder..where do I start??

I spent most of my flights comatose (thank you Tylenol PM!). In the Delhi airport, I must have looked absolutely lost, because a very nice Indian guy that goes to Ohio State asked me if I needed help - I am SO thankful, because he was pretty much my tour guide through the Delhi airport, the last leg of my flight, customs, etc. Also offered to show me all around the city, invited me to his family's home for dinner - India is welcoming!

I settled in with one of the other interns last night - a long shower has never felt so good! I am in sensory overload. I've never experienced this kind of HEAT. The poverty is striking, but the wealth is similarly so. Traffic is insane - what looks like a 2-lane road to me has 6-7 cars jammed across, along with bikers and pedestrians. People drive on the left here - I keep on looking the wrong way before I cross the street! (also on the left, interestingly, are the toilet flusher things.). There are stray dogs everywhere, and a few stray cows. I'll try to take pictures soon, hold me to that!

If you, dear reader, are the praying kind: this morning as I walked to the office, I passed a baby, maybe 3 months old, on the sidewalk. By herself, wrapped in some fabric, on the dirty sidewalk inches from the gutter. The girl I was walking with saw my face and told me that the mother is in her early teens and just doesn't know what to do with the baby. She pointed out to me that the mother was nearby, just across the street at a food stand. Keep this little family in your thoughts, ok? I have this intense longing to be able to help them somehow.

XOXOXOXOXO!

What's possible.

I've just finished a long and semi-overwhelming week of training at headquarters, before I head to my field office on Sunday morning. I am seriously inspired by the extraordinary work that IJM does around the world. The week's been packed with sessions on cultural shock and adjustment, international safety, the importance of self-care for humanitarian workers who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic situations - practical tools for being a successful legal intern in the developing world.

Throughout the week, I was most inspired by the idea that - by bringing rescue and relief to individual victims of trafficking and by prosecuting individual perpetrators, we really can change the world's vision of what's possible. Injustice is huge, but the hope of relief is huge-er. Each individual child that is rescued has a hope for a new future. Think about how many children will never be subject to the violent oppression of life in a brothel every time a perpetrator lands in jail. It's a ripple effect, and it's a beautiful thing. Let's not despair when we think of the SCOPE of violent oppression around the world - it is a desperate situation, but rather than despair - let's CHANGE the world's vision of what's possible. The problem can't be ignored - it can be overcome, child by child, persecutor by persecutor.

There is real power when we see injustice, when we hear the cries of the oppressed...and we ACT. Oppressors, as violent and deceitful as they may be, don't stand a chance against a mobilized generation.