Journal 15

Dear Journal,

Today we went and visited our field sites to gather some more information and do some interviewing. Again, we had some trouble planning everything. Originally we had planned to take the bus, but we had many other things, like batteries, we need to get while we were in the city, so we decided to take a cap this time. Evan came with us because he needed some things from the city also, so we didn’t feel so bad about taking the taxi. We were planning on eating lunch in the city, but Mr. Das offered to make lunch half an hour early so that we could eat before we had to leave, which was really nice of him. After a quick lunch (and of course a quick cup of teaJ) we headed into the city.

When we arrived at the college, we met with Mr. Radika at her office. She told us that she has a very busy day and asked if it was ok if we she would have another teacher show us around that day, we didn’t mind. We walked around for awhile meeting with some teachers and made some appointments for next week. I still think it is funny to see how different things are handled in different places. Just the way the administration and organization at the College works is so different from anything I am used to. After we have our appointments set up, we decide to walk back to the school yard and do some more observing. It didn’t take long for the students to notice our presence, and within seconds we were surrounded by groups of girls. We ended up talking to a group of four girls, who were sitting next us for about 20 minutes and I was fascinated to learn about their lives and their opinions. All three of them were Muslims, and very religious. It was funny, when I told them that I did not belong to any religion, because my parents wanted me to choose a religion rather than forcing one on me, they just stared at me and looked so confused. I think they had never heard of that before. We also talked about relationships and how they felt about love-marriages versus arranged marriages, which is the norm for them. I really enjoyed listening to them and hearing their opinions, but I also liked seeing their reactions to what we had to say. I realized that just as I get confused when they tell me that an arranged marriage is the most normal thing in the world to them, they must get just as confused when I tell them that it is ok to date as many people as you want before getting married. I think I was always aware of that but talking to these girls made it more real for me…

After our visit at the College we picked up some other things and returned to the guesthouse fro a quite night.