Now my advisor advised me not to spend too much time blogging, but with the lovely comments I have received and the prospect of more of their kind, I have to write more than once a week. Today was a winner. I spent the morning at a local NGO that brings Indians born and living abroad back to India as fellows to work on various projects for social justice and civil rights. I was fortunate to get to brainstorm with the woman in charge and she, of course, had all sorts of comments, ideas and contacts for me. In the afternoon I went to Gujarat University where my Gujarati language professors work. It is clear that if I am going to make progress in my Gujarati studies I will need to get off campus as much as possible, study on my own a little each day, and continue to take lessons with these professors. I was reminded of how very kind they are, and how hilarious one of them is!

While it feels as though things are moving slowly, it has only been four days since I arrived in Ahmedabad and I already have a long list of potential contacts. Now I have set myself to the tasks of studying Gujarati, emailing and making as many phone calls as I can each day, and reading and writing as much as I can. I am still very much in the planning process of my research and every conversation, every reading, every brainstorm changes and furthers my project a bit. It's kind of fun and kind of scary! I want to get out to some farms soon and to a few of the agricultural institutes to start talking about cotton production! I want to get my feet dirty!

So, I am beginning to feel settled here at IIM, and though I am homesick, I am getting used to where I am. I am also just barely beginning to see where I might be going with all this, but I'll let you know the status of this in the next few days.