Week 12, People at Work

I thought it would be nice to show you all the people who I spend my days with. Here is a photo of most of the people in the office. From left to right in the back row: Shashi (social worker), Pramila (and art teacher who does workshops in the slums), Sandya (social worker), Zhaida (social worker), Shoba (social worker), Pradeep (he’s the one Jenny and I work with on GIS and Google Earth, also a social worker), Leena (receptionist/secretary), and Dipak (Pratima’s driver, who also makes us tea and does random jobs around the office). Just to clarify, the social workers are the people who go into the slums and survey the people; they enter the data into the computer and produce reports to summarize and present the data.

Sitting in the middle are Maushi (one of the Trustees of Shelter Associates who is an expert on composting and waste management) and Pratima (our boss, the director of Shelter Associates). And the volunteers are sitting on the floor in the front: Susan, Jenny, Caroline and me. I live with Jenny and Susan. Jenny is another EWB volunteer, and Susan is here on a Davis Foundation 100 Projects for Peace grant. Caroline just got here on 30 August; she is studying architecture in Berlin, but comes from France.


In the office whenever anyone has a birthday (there have been a few already this summer) we get a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’. Then Pratima gets to shove cake into the person’s mouth. It’s really funny to watch. Here they are on Maushi’s birthday (19 September); Pratima was nice this time and didn’t make a big mess because Maushi is the ‘youngest’ person in the office.


Today when I got to the office, all the ladies were wearing saris. They explained that it’s part of the festival on Monday (Dasara, a holy day that commemorates the triumph of good over evil) that women wear saris and men wear traditional kurtas. They asked if I want to wear a sari too, so I said yes. Leena lives close by, so she went home to get me one and they all dressed me up. I would like to get a sari, but I don’t think I would ever wear it again. It’s nice to borrow one for the day. Here I am with Shoba, Sandya, Pramila, Leena and Sandya (not in the top picture, she’s the accountant who only works part time). Also as part of the festival, we set up a little shrine to the tools of our trade: computers, software, slum surveys; they sang a song and we ate sweets.