III veckor har redan passerat! Tiden går så fort!

Hejsan svejsen alla!

Det är ungefär tre veckor sen vi lämnade Sverige och åkte iväg för att uppleva den tredje största staden i Colombia (Cali). Jag skulle vilja skriva att det ungefär som Malmö som är Sveriges tredje största stad, men icke! Cali till skillnad från Malmö innehar två millioner människor och det är lätt hänt att man går vilse i denna stad. Dock finns det två millioner människor som skulle vilja hjälpa till om något märkligt skulle uppstå. Såklart, har vi fått lära oss rätt snabbt att det inte går att vandra runt hur som helst i denna stad, speciellt på kvällarna! Det är då alla vampyrerna kommer ut!
På dagarna har vi svettats eftersom det är super varmt här. Malin verkar ha lättare för värme, än mig. Jag skulle kunna skoja att jag hade kunnat åka till Sverige för några dagar, bara för att andas in lite kyligare luft!
I veckan har vi åkt till Juanchaco. Det tog ungefär 4-5 timmar att komma dit. Först tog vi en buss i tre timmar till Buenaventura och därifrån tog vi en båt till djungel. När vi anlände så mötes vi av den vilda naturen och en guide som skulle visa oss runt! Det kändes underbart att ta en paus från stadens puls och befinna oss närmare det gröna. Vi besökte vår intervjuperson för att fråga om tiden som skulle passa henne att ta emot oss. Det var en kvinna med ett stort leende på läppar och färgglada kläder. Efter att ha ett intervju har vi besökt en skola som ligger precis intill damens hem och butik. Vi blev inbjuda att träffa elever och delta på en lektion. Vi fick till och med dansa och sjunga med kidsen! Det intressanta är att man inte behöver kunna språket för att kommunicera med barnen!
Efter resan i djungel hade vi inte enbart intervjuer i våra fickor, men även en upplevelse rikare. Såklart var det trevligt att komma hem till Cali och njuta av en vardagslyx som att kunna ta en varm dusch.
Med vänliga och somriga hälsningar Rolanda och Malin<3!

Home again!

How time just flies away…

After just about two months in Indonesia, we’re now home in cold Sweden! Of course it was nice meeting family and friends again, but we both agree on the fact that we would love to have stayed longer.

So what did we do our last week in Bali? We lived! We went to Gili Trawangan to spend New Years Eve and Emmas birthday there. It’s this amazing island where the water is beautifully blue and it’s truly astonishing… When there is good wheather. We had pretty okay wheather the two first days, just a little cloudy. Then it started to rain, and wow it really rained. The streets were practically flooded in the evenings, but that was fun too! The day we were leaving, the sun decided to show up! So here’s a glimpse of the beauty of Gili T! (And us)

last day at Gili T

The day after we left Gili T, we had to head home. We went to the airport and after 16 hours in air, we landed and felt the cold scandinavian air. The next couple of days we finished off our essay and sent it in.

We’ve had the most amazing time in Indonesia and we’ve met so many wonderful people making the experience even better. The study has been so rewarding and educating in ways we couldn’t have imagined. We must thank Malmö University and SIDA for making this possible. We are so grateful! And thanks to Bali for giving us memories for a life time!

One of the amazing sunsets we witnessed with newly found friends

Thank you and good bye for now!

Love,
Emma and Aron.

Last day in Mumbai

With mixed feelings it is time for me to leave Mumbai. I have been here for almost a year including my 5 months internship with Vacha, travel and now the 10 weeks of MFS. So I have quite made myself a second home here.

As a last event with Men Against Violenca and Abuse (MAVA) I was invited to come to their arranged film fest in Goa called Sambhav, meaning possibility in Hindi. The fest is a two-day film festival on gender, masculinity, sexuality and relationships in 8 cities and 4 districts.

Attending the first day of the festival was the Swedish ambassador in Mumbai, Ulrika Sundberg. I had the pleasure of talking and discussing with her on some of the topics above.

Swedish Ambassador Mumbai India – Ulrika Sundberg

A few documentaries and short film that was screened included: 

 

And of course the documentary that has been made on MAVAs work.

If you live in Sweden the documentary is available to stream here:
https://kunskapskanalen.se/program/15348/killarna-som-vill-forandra-indien

Now it is time for me to finish up packing and later tonight catch the flight back home to Malmö!

India, don’t you worry (well I know you have more important things to worry about but..)!
I will be back sooner than you know!

 

Some obstacles and change of submission date

Happy new year everyone!
I seem to be following this trend of delayed updates, but life here takes way too much of my attention.

Even though I was told that going abroad for MFS will not always be as smooth as you want it to be, it is rather more likely that the opposite happens, I am a little disappointed on how slow the work has turned out to be. There have been times where the stress got hold of me with a strong feeling I don’t have enough time to finish it.
Due to different things, almost already from start, difficulties arranging interviews, delays in getting the interviews translated and transcribed, holidays and being sick I have decided to submit my study on a later date in March instead of next week. This decision I made together with my supervisor. She believed that I should give my study the time it needs rather than try to hurry up just for the sake of submitting.
This certainly gave me some peace of mind and I have been able to systematically go through the material. This is my last week in Mumbai. I will try to get some final questions answered from MAVA before I leave. Meet with my translator and some other people I have been in contact with for this study as it is easier while here rather than back in Malmö

I also took some time off to travel for the new years weekend to the countryside outside Pune. The landscape was amazingly beautiful and the sky was clear and full of stars at night. A peaceful New Year’s Eve without the hazzle of fancy dinner and fireworks. The Indian countryside is something completely else from the intense city of Mumbai and it was wonderful to get a break.

 

The inevitable….

So it finally happened.. in the middle of trying to analyze my material and finally getting somewhere… I got a cold making my brain work the slowest possible. Then, as a trip to India is not ever complete without it, a wonderful case of stomach problems hit me. As if a normal stresstummy is not enough. This left me weak for several days and I am still not feeling 100%. It was after all doomed to happened so I soldier on!!

Therefore I dont have any pictures from this week but I share the results of my saffronbun making mentioned in my last post

In a way I am almost glad I am not home in Sweden to celebrate christmas. Now I can just lock myself in my room and study not having to stress about meeting family and friends while doing so.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Take care!

Lucia and finished interviews

Lucia!

So I have finally completed all my interviews. I had aimed for 10 but with some difficulties of getting students to agree for interviews I ended up with 8. I am starting to stress a little about finishing it all in time and working hard analysing my material and writing. (So hard I forget to do my updates here haha).

 

Me, my translator Priya and two of the students from MAVA

 

Today is Lucia and I’mm both struck with a cold, making my brain work all slow, and homesickness. Since I have been away from home over Christmas a few times before I came prepared. Other times I have been able to go to IKEA for my homesickness treatment, but India only have one store in the country hahah.  So, this time, to save some time trying to search for ingredients I brought dry yeast and “pärlsocker”. I am planning to do some cinnamonbuns and saffronbuns (lussebullar). Hopefully it turns out okey. The house where I stay doesn’t have a proper oven though. Which is not a common thing to have in India. They usually make do with just a gas stove.  Wish me luck!

One great thing (among many) about doing my thesis here in India is the marvelous option of ordering food through an app. It is cheap and I can pretty much chose from whatever restaurang in the area. This saves me great time. Like instead of cocking I can 100% focus on writing…. or watch youtube videos…. or sit for 40 mins deciding what I want to order and then wait another 40 mins for delivery… you all know how it goes. And did I mention dessert.

Anyways! It is for sure time to pick up some speed to finish this in time.
Christmas is around the corner and so is deadline!!

Progress

Hi again!

Time flies and it’s really hard to realize when it’s time for blogging!

Last time we wrote, we had just planned our first interviews, well now we’ve done them all! Our first interviews were last Tuesday, and we interviewed two gay men who both gave really interesting stories about their life! Our next two interviews were scheduled on Thursday, but in the middle of it all Emma got really sick, so we only got one interview that day.

Yesterday, Monday, we had our final two interviews and we’re happy to say that we have gotten some variation in our interviews, regarding informants. From the beginning we knew that it was hard to find different people of the LGBT-spectra, especially women, but yesterday we met a trans woman who could give us an insight into that life, which was very eye-opening.  From these meetings with these amazing people we have really come to understand the difference in LGBTQ- rights and the issues that LGBTQ- people face here compared to back home.

Besides that, on Friday we are planning to move (AGAIN)! We realized that since we’re done with the interviews and don’t really need to be close to Gaya Dewata anymore, we could travel around Bali while writing! So that’s what we’re going to do! Firstly, we’re going to Ubud, and we hope to get a lot of nice pictures there to share with you all! As for now, you’ll have to manage without since we haven’t been taking any (good) pictures lately!

See ya!

Aron & Emma

Finally!

Halo!

What a great week and it’s only Monday!  We’ve been very stressed out lately since none of our contacts answered us for a while and we were certain we would have to start moving on, finding new organizations and informants for our study… And even though one of them finally started contacting us again we thought they wanted to either get out of this or limit their efforts to the bare minimum… Until today!

So last week we got in contact with Arya, our contact from Gaya Dewata, an LGBTQ- activist group based here in Bali.
(You can read about them at: https://www.gayadewata.com/ )

We decided that we were going to go to them next Monday (the day I’m posting this). We didn’t have much hope for our visit, but we were determined to at least get something out of it. So we went there! When our taxi driver let us off at the address we had given him, we were confused. It was a very small street and no signs of there being an organization there. Finally, we went up to the nearest house and knocked on the door, we had come to the right place! We got to quickly meet Arya before we were seated to wait, since he still had some work to do. Then we got to meet an Australian volunteer who gave us a lot of useful information! He told us about other communities and organizations where we could get help, but maybe the best advice we received was; E-mailing is useless in Indonesia! If you want to contact someone, find them on social media!!

That explained a lot…!

So, after talking to the Aussie for a while we got to finally actually sit down with Arya. Before when we had discussed with him via WhatsApp, he had told us about how they might not have much time for us and that it would be difficult to get us what we wanted, such as helping us to find an interpreter, so we were definitely not hoping for much. Then it all just turned around! Firstly, we knew it would be hard to find informants part of the LGBTQ- community that were not only gay men, since the other parts of the community isn’t as open here, but Arya told us he would try to find a wider range of people so we got the bigger picture! Secondly, he found someone who can interpret for us and thirdly, we’re starting with the interviews TOMORROW already! (Arya invited us to come by every day for new interviews!)

Us and Arya at Gaya Dewata!

It feels like we’ve gone from the bottom and right up to the top! Losing hope just to get all we could ever dream of!

Other than this, last week consisted of writing, writing, quite a lot of rain (and some sun too) and lastly more writing! Hopefully we’ll have more to tell you about when we get started with the interviews!

Bicara denganmu nanti!

Train traveling, interviews and transcribeboredom

Time is flying by! It is easy to forget to update! A lot has been going on.. I had my birthday and went out of town for some celebrations. I have managed to complete five interviews all of a sudden. I am also getting more and more comfortable going on the local trains even if the train as such is not a one of comfort. If you are unlucky with the timing in the mornings and evenings when all of Mumbai also want to go on the trains.. yeah.. well, then you do your best to even manage to get onboard. Put your bag in the front, tackle the door from the side, try to get hold of the doorhandle and squeez your way up. And don’t be afraid to use them elbows your mother gave you cos you need them. At least I am a little taller compared to the majority which is an advantage. This week however I didn’t even make it further in the train than just to stand by the door. And here in India the door does not close.. Exciting to say the least… I wanted to take a picture but then it would have been for the price of losing my phone. Anyways, I try to avoid peakhours as much as possible. It is just not worth the bruises and the sweating and the stares I get from looking like the lost tourist that I am. However, I feel pretty proud about managing this good haha!

 

Pictures from my trip to Gorai, outside of Mumbai, for my birthday

 

So as I said.. I have now conducted five interviews and have five left to go. It has been a little difficult to get hold of students and still trying to get the remaining interviews confirmed. I have transcribed two of them and it takes sooo much time. 50 min becomes 11 pages of text and about 4-5 hours of work.  The other three interviews have been in hindi where I have had the help of an interpreter. So waiting for her to give me a more detailed translation for the interviews before I can transcribe them aswell. But part from this tedious transcribing all this is fun. To meet people and learn new things. I am so thankfull to be able to do all this!

Until next time!

Take care,

Petronella

MAVA and my project

Last week was Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. Diwali symbolises the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. Homes and buildings are decorated with lights, firecrackers are being set on fire in almost every street corner and it is not only cute little *pops* and *cracks* but rather the sounds of tiny bombs. Everyone is laughing at me for jumping of my chair from being startled. It feels like even the cats who lives in my apartment are looking at me weirdly after my little jerking dancemoves.

As promised in my last post I will give you a short introduction to the organisation I will be working with and what my study will be about.

The Mumbai based NGO Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) is the first men’s organization in India directly intervening against gender-based violence towards women. For the past 25 years MAVA has been working on engaging men and boys in India on gender issues and equality. Over the years, they have developed several methods for involving young people through interactive workshops, street-plays, newspapers, poetry reading sessions, talks and discussions.

See their website for more info: www.mavaindia.org

I will be doing a qualitative study on one of MAVA’s programs. A one year mentor-training program engaging male college students in conversations addressing issues related to gender based discrimination and violence. The growing demand of involving men and boys to achieve gender equality has led to an increased number of organisations and programs around the world to answer this demand. Where MAVA is one of them. With the theory that gender norms and social values are socialised from an early age, leading to the unequal power relation, MAVA tries to break gender stereotypes and change men’s and boys’ views on patriarchal society. I intend to interview 10 college students who have recently completed MAVAs one-year mentor training to investigate how they describe their experiences of the program. Focus will be on the training program seen from the participating students’ perspective ending in a report for MAVA to use in developing their approaches and programs.

My overall research question aims to cover: How do the interviewed participants of MAVA’s mentoring training describe the programs content and the impact it has had on how they perceive gender-based discriminations, equality and patriarchal norms in society after completing the one-year program?

Priya and me at Tata Institute of Social Sciences

One last exciting thing before I end this post is that I yesterday met with Priya, my translator for this project. She is herself studying a master in Social Work at Tata Institute of Social Sciences here in Mumbai. It was great to meet her to discuss the best way to go about the interviews which I hope we can start with next week!

Take care,

Petronella