Moti Magri and First Full Workweek

After a relaxing three-day weekend (Oct 2-4), I finally completed my first five day work week in India.  The long weekend was slow but restful, and much-needed after the busyness of the previous seven days.  On Saturday after several hours of reading and relaxing around the house, I was feeling a bit restless and decided to go for a walk.  I set out around Fateh Sagar, a beautiful but soon-to-be-dry lake (due to a meager monsoon) near my house and discovered Moti Magri, or “Pearl Hill.”  I found the name to be pretty fitting, because this place was an absolute gem! A network of look-outs and rock gardens situated on top of a tree-covered hill, Moti Magri contains a number of memorials to a number of past heroes and rulers of the Mewar Empire (of which Udaipur was previously part). It was the perfect late-afternoon retreat, secluded and quite (rare in India!) with a beautiful view of the sun setting over the city.

During the following week at work – my first of five consecutive days – I made significant progress in developing the workplan for my internship. This included a meeting with my supervisor and FSD’s program director to help to give the plan more direction. Very briefly, I will be helping ACCESS develop a strategic plan, with a specific focus on their microfinance operations, an area that I feel will greatly benefit from the additional resources. Already, the whole office has made me feel quite accepted as a fellow team member rather than as an outside intern, and to this end I will also assist in ongoing projects and activities as the need arises. I am particularly excited about an opportunity at the end of this month: I’ll be attending the Microfinance India Summit, a three-day conference held in Delhi and attended by a number of practitioners and policy-makers – apparently including India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh!

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