Adieu Goa.

So, it is the end of this journey. It is the end of the three weeks that passed so quickly. Tonight, we are finalizing our presentation and our preparation for the final presentation. Even though I am so whiny about the food and the heat, I think I will miss how relaxed I felt in India. The energy that people spread out here is amazing.

Usually, I think about the social issues that we have in our world and I am an emotional person so since we got here, I’ve met so many people who are struggling in life but the thing that I noticed was that they always carry their smile on their faces. It is both so beautiful and sad at the same time… I knew that this program was going to be an eye-opening experience for me and make me discover more about myself as it happened. So many people shared their life experiences with us and made me realize how privileged most of us are. Sometimes just a little thing we are dealing with turns into a huge mountain but we do not realize how small the issue actually is. I think we should start being grateful for things that we have and be happy with small things. All I can say now is that I believe this is the key to happiness in life.

Okay, so this part of the blog will be non-emotional.

So today my team went to women’s house who we are working with to show our logo ideas in order to understand how they would like to be represented and they showed some techniques that we want them to learn. Yesterday night, I drew somewhat coconut shapes on a fabric to create the sense as it is printed for them to get it sewed today. I also worked with photoshop to add our patterns on the products.

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Today was the calmest day at the guest house. I woke up really late and when I went downstairs and everybody was already on duty and doing something related to the project. I am responsible for the design of the products so my team and I had to make a decision about the products that we will be introducing to Tara Trust.

I was thinking what we could do for the tourists to buy when they get to Goa or before they leave. Then I thought maybe a summer kit could be useful since Goa is a vacation place for so many people around the world. The kit will be called “GOA Series” and it includes a beach bag, a cover up for females, 5-panel hat, towel/yoga mat and a smaller bag that goes into the beach bag to gather sprays, creams and other things that you would carry when you go to a beach.

Alyssa and T’mikah are working on the patterns that will be displayed on the products and they are trying to choose the patterns carefully because we also want to show the Portuguese influence that exists in Goa.

I did some quick drawings to show what we will be working on but did not make a finalization on them.

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After a little bit more brainstorming, we chose to go with these products;

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The pattern of the bag is designed by Alyssa and now we are working on the other three products that we will be including and which pattern we will be using on the products.

We also played with the materials that we got to experiment and see how it is going to look like and if it is going to be fast and easy to do. Block printing idea did not work out well because the paint kept staying in between the carves and created a mess on the fabric.

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As we moved on, we kept experimenting with the material and made some handles for the beach bag we designed. After trying a bunch of materials, we decided to use; different coloured cotton cords.

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And the monsoon begins.

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I put my t-shirt out yesterday to get it dry but forgot it out there so it is washed again. Thank you Zeus.

Dance, dance baby!

We had an interview with the Park Hyatt Hotel, Goa branch’s marketing manager at 11:00 AM and one of my eyes is still sleeping and the other one is begging for sleep. On the other hand, I was excited to have my Nutella that I got last night with the toasted bread in the morning. After the breakfast, we rested a bit and then went to the Park Hyatt Hotel.
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It was so interesting because there was an X-Ray machine and a metal detector in front of the hotel and a guy scanned our car with a machine to make sure that there is nothing explosive. The hotel was beautiful and so luxurious looking. There were tourists and local people who were visiting Goa. We waited at the lobby for the person who we were going to interview. After she came we went to the restaurant (which was amazing) and they offered us drinks.

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After asking a couple of questions, we started our tour of the hotel. We visited two different rooms and the beach. The first room was smaller than the second one and less luxurious and the second room was massive and there were rose petals beside the bath; which I loved the most. My team members and I took pictures of the products they are using in the rooms or generally at the hotel in order to brainstorm for women who we are working with.

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After our tour, we came back to the lobby and there was a person who was the HR Manager and we asked a couple of more questions before heading back out to our resort.

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I slept three hours because I was extremely sleepy and the heat here is making me more tired than ever. After a three-hour sleep, I took shower and went downstairs to see what people are doing. As I was sitting on the veranda, the sky’s colour turned into orange! Megan and Alyssa went to the rooftop to take pictures and then around 7 PM, I went there to see what they were doing up there because it was dark already and they were not back yet. So I went to upstairs and they were chatting and chilling without me…

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10-15 minutes later, the second group came back from their interviews so we went downstairs to have dinner together.

 

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I am so picky in terms of food, so I was hoping that there would be rotis so that I could eat my Nutella with them and the rotis were there! After talking during the food, we had a 20-minute break and then Raksha took us to our resort’s fun zone to teach us some Bollywood dance moves. Some people got tired, the others kept partying! I really enjoyed the dance night.

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P.S. I have my fourth eye now.

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