Day 1 in Jaipur, India with World Vision

Although we actually arrived yesterday night, today was really our first day of seeing Jaipur. After waking up late and making everyone else late also, we went to look around the city in order to acclimatize before the film director Mike got here. It was also an opportunity to learn about some of the history behind what we were actually in India to do. We visited the Amber Fort which was built on a hilltop and had originally in past century's been used as a royal palace. After being given the choice to walk up the hill to it, to drive or to ride on an elephant, we quickly decided that driving was definitely the safest option. After looking around the Amber Fort, we went to the city palace and the Hawa Mahal. I found it really helpful to have a day of acclimatisation, not only so that I could get used to the Indian culture and way of life through learning the historical story behind these beautiful buildings, but also so I was able take in and begin to accept the sheer poverty that we saw all around us and through the day wherever we went. On the way to lunch we took a autorickshaw which is a small three wheeled Indian vehicle (the equivilant of a taxi in England) which allowed us to manoever within heavy traffic and get out of it quickly, as well as being able to see everything that was going on around us because it had no windows or doors. Here i was exposed to people living in poverty all around me, everywhere I looked partially clothed people with bones jutting out were going about their daily lives – begging, washing and desperately trying to find food. What I found hardest to accept was the children and babies in the streets, expectant mothers, and disabled people who make up normality here. There is no help and no hope for them.

We returned to the hotel to have a meeting with Allen, the Programme Manager working for World Vision running the projects that we would be seeing tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Mike the director of the film we are making also arrived from England in time, and we discussed various aspects of the project and the filming we planned on doing. It was also really helpful because we were able to ask questions about the project and get answers from someone who had first hand experience of the situation within the communities we were to be working with. This really has helped me prepare for the day tomorrow where we are actually going to visit two of the villages where we plan to do some filming, along with some interviews. What really struck me is how acceptable the commercial sex work seemed to be as a profession and how Allen and his team were not in the slightest bit phased by talking about it. Allen was informative and explained a number of things to be that I wasn't aware of from the previous information I had read to do with the project, I learnt that girls as young as 11 were known to be involved in commercial sex work within the villages, and they are actually forced into this work by their parents and family who need the money in order to to live. Also that the good looking daughter is forced to work mostly against her will while the less attractive sibling are able to perhaps marry and lead a relatively normal existence (in Indian terms) through having an arranged marriage. This is all making me apprehensive about tomorrow.