Knowing a thing and understanding a thing

Sometimes you can know a thing, believe it to be true, but not understand it at all until you experience it. I read in books and on websites, was told by friends who have been here, that things move at a different pace. I never doubted it for a minute. But still I was completely unprepared.

After effectively 2 days of talking about what this project is going to be, today was the day Catherine and I would go start meeting with women's organizations, pitching the idea, getting their feedback, and gathering information.

As a brief aside, let me say how lucky I am to have Catherine helping me with this project. She is another volunteer. She works for Catholic Overseas Development Agency. She was quick to tell me that she is not Catholic and certainly thinks the agency could have a better policy on HIV/AIDS, but went on to describe the work she does writing and administering grants in developing countries. She more or less pestered the agency into making her their first and only gender specialist, so her work focuses entirely on women's issues. She has been traveling on her own for the last 6 months in East Timor, Indonesia and, as she puts it, "countries ending in -stan." She is 27. I am in awe.

So I feel confident that between the two of us, Catherine and I are going to put together the groundwork for an amazing program for connecting donors with women who need money to pursue their rights in court. We've figured out our plan of action and identified groups we want to talk to.

We are starting with a local group that works with returning migrant workers, about 80% of whom are women who have been badly exploited by "employment agencies." Even those who are not put into the sex trade often end up working in horrible conditions and there have been some cases of these women getting redress from the employment agencies once a lawsuit is filed. Which is exactly the kind of case we (think we) are looking for.

We think. But we need to meet with someone there and run it by them. And conveniently, Scott and Catherine met with the woman who runs the program about something else last week, so we have an in.

This morning Catherine and I convened with Scott around 10 before heading out. We talked some more about the idea. Then we were waiting for Raj Kumar to arrive. Raj is a journalism student, speaks some English, and has lots of contacts among local NGOs, so he will accompany us to translate as necessary.

But Scott didn't have Raj's phone number. So he sent a message on Facebook.

And we sat and waited some more.

Around 11:30, Raj arrived, and Scott described the entire program to Raj, and we talked about it some more.

Then I learned that we were waiting for Caitlin, another volunteer, who was spending her morning at the child care center but wanted to join us. She was expected back "around midday."

At 12:30, Caitlin arrived. And we went over the whole program again.

At which point Raj announced he was leaving and he would see us tomorrow. Catherine and I asked if he wouldn't come with us today.

He agreed and at 1:30 we all headed over to the immigration program.

Only to discover that the woman we need to talk to was in an all-day training.

Raj will return "after 10" tomorrow morning, at which time he will call the contacts we have and make appointments for us to see them.

So at 3:30, I took myself to Thamel, the main tourist center, to buy some clothes since my bag still hasn't arrived. I got a tika and was sprinkled with marigold petals by a holy man.


Perhaps tomorrow something will happen. But I'm not holding my breath.