Bats in Austin, Texas

I spent the last two days at the University of Texas at Austin getting to know the 15 Fullbright- Hays participants and listening to lectures on: The Economics and Politics of India, Hindi, Innovation in Science in India, Science and Religion in Contemporary India, Islam in South Asia and Art in India. I believe the most interesting talk was Mathangi Krishnamurthy's work on the Gendering of the Call Center's in India. Many educated women are entering the workforce as large numbers of call centers open in India. This new transnational industry affects woman's experiences of life and labor in India's newly liberalized economy. She played one clip of a disgusting mid-west radio station calling in and harassing the call workers. I have never felt more embarrassed of being an American than sitting in a room with people from other countries listening to an American radio jockey harass call workers to increase his radio station ratings. Want I took away from the lecture were the many parallels of women's issues in India with woman's issue in America,  since woman won voting rights. We ended the day at dusk watching thousands of bats leaving their roost under a bridge. It was pretty cool. We take off tomorrow for India via Washington, DC, and Franfurt, Germany. I will learn to put pictures on the next time I blog.