Yesterday we were able to travel with the Community Health Department staff to three villages in the community. These are very poor communities around Fatehpur where the Community Health Department at the Broadwell Christian Hospital does outreach programs on HIV/AIDS, gender issues and women’s microfinance. The villagers were incredibly warm and welcoming. We were offered chai and sweets and shown around. On the whole, we made quite the splash – being the first Westerners to ever visit these villages. Some people even asked us to come back so that their children who were in school then could see us!
They were very curious about us – what brough us to India, how we liked it, our marital status and they even wanted to hear us talk to see if we sounded like the people on tv! They really enjoyed when we took pictures of them and they were able to see themselves on the small camera screen – in fact, we even doubted whether we’d get the camera back! In addition to the cows, goats, sheep and dogs, we also met an adorable litter of piglets, which the villagers thought we were crazy for taking pictures of.
Fun fact: The population of Uttar Pradesh (the state we are staying in) is the same as the population of the entire United States! Very had to believe, but true 
One more update – we have started a project with one of the doctors here examining the breastfeeding practices in this area. There are a lot of low birthweight babies born here, and many women are uneducated about the benefits of breastfeeding, and the risks of introducing animal milk too early in the babies’ diet. So far we have come up with a questionnaire to ask the women about their knowledge, attitude and practice concerning breastfeeding, and are using a translator to interview the women. We have talked to 11 women so far, and had varying and interesting responses. Someone at the clinic will be translating the questionnaire into Hindi so that we can have the women complete it themselves, if they are able. Our goal is to talk to 100 women during our time here, and then see what the results tell us about how this clinic can better prepare women for breastfeeding. It’s a very exciting project, and has kept us busy!