Practicum in Haiti 2013 - Evaluation of 'Gadyen Dlo' water treatment system. INdIA Winterim 2011-2012 - Water sustainability course
This first photo is taken by a canal that goes under a tributary river leading to the Ganges.
The second photo is our project group of girls and our favorite driver, Rash Kumar.
This third photo is the whole group in our traditional Indian clothing on New Year's Eve.
The fourth photo is the group on a bridge over the Ganges, the life force for much of India.
The final picture is the group back at Mewat district.
One of my best experiences was at an extremely isolate, tiny village where we were to look at a large check dam. The check dams were built to help recharge the fresh groundwater pockets, by trapping rainwater in an area to hold it long enough to permeate deep below the surface and refill the natural underground “tank”.
As with each village we stopped at, we were soon surrounded by the village boys and men, with women watching us standing at a distance. This village turned out to be particularly friendly and one of the men invited us down to the housing area for a demonstration of the cow patty fires (I’ll explain in a different post) and to show us some of their crops. We were lead to a field of plentiful purple eggplants—as you can see one of the boys showing us proudly.
This village was not only friendly, but also more advanced and well-kept than many of the others we visited. I think this is in large part due to the check dam which supplied them with appropriate water, resulting in betting living conditions overall and those beautiful fields of eggplants. Additionally, two of the teenage boys had cell phones and started asking for and taking pictures of us. This resulted in hundreds of photo exchanges between our two groups, us taking picture of the villagers alone and with them, and vice-versa. I had learned earlier that day that often the people in these friendlier villages loved for you to show them pictures of them on your camera, right after you’d snap one, and this village was certainly no different.
When it was time to leave, there was quite a large crowd around us, maybe 40 villagers (again, mostly boys and men, but in this group a few little girls too) and I turned to snap one last shot of a group of boys who were following me as I walked back to the vehicle. Of course I showed them the picture, and we were all smiling at each other and I was starting to say good-bye, when the boy who had picked the eggplant in the field handed me the vegetable, giggling nervously. Shocked and amazed by this sweet gesture, I immediately turned bright red feeling incredibly guilty about taking something that could have provided a nutritious meal for one of these kids. But I also remembered how devastating I had felt the previous day when a little girl refused to take the banana I had saved from my lunch to offer her—so of course I took the eggplant. I said thank you to the boy, and the men standing with him, and many of them immediately said “Tank you! Tank you! Tank you!” back to me and too each other laughing and beaming with pride at their new American words. I sat back down in the car feeling overwhelmed by the experience, and just wishing I was able to use that beautiful eggplant to cook something delicious.
As requested, here’s a shot of the women wearing our head scarves. While we definitely do not blend in with the villagers, we absolutely feel an eerie sense of camaraderie with the women in the Mewat district villages. Being forced to cover your head, wear long sleeves and pants in warm, sunny weather—while your fellow male classmates are walking around in T-shirts, is unsettling to say the least.
One of the most fascinating things to see at these villages was that the women were the only ones working, and I’m seriously not exaggerating. When you drive through these primitive and poverty stricken areas you see many hard to comprehend sights—like bare bottomed children squatting to urinate in the streets that are lined with animal manure and many other forms of waste—but nothing as consistent as the continual sights of women carrying containers on their heads, kneeling beside water washing clothes, carrying babies and leading cattle, working in the fields, sorting vegetables, cutting sticks, or gathering cow patties for their cooking fires.** Yet every male you’ll see will be sitting in a group of other men, playing cards, talking, laughing, and probably smoking. Our instructor even asked one of our guides about this, saying something to the effect of: “why don’t all these men that are sitting around get hired to work for IRRAD, or the government to maintain these dams and wells [to help the water shortage issue plaguing these villages]?” He responded by explaining that most of them just don’t work, it’s not in their culture. The women do all of the household and “living” work, while about 70% of the men will never have a real job but instead will just “hang out” their whole lives.*
*Please note there is even a government sponsored program to ensure employment for at least one season per year for every person in the rural areas of India, yet the majority of these men just do not participate in the program.
**It's culturally taboo to take photos of women, unless they explicitly give you permission, so not only do I not have very many photos of women, many that I do have are taken from inside our vehicle as we're moving. My interaction with the woman shown below was one of he highlights of our second day in Mewat. We are fairly certain she was the wife of the principle of the school we were touring, because at one point she opened up the principle's office (where she, her husband, and kids also slept) and even showed us some of the school children's work books. She and I made fast friends after we kept exchanging smiles because I couldn't stop admiring her baby. Several other people in our group snapped pictures of me with her (I'll try to get one of those pictures to post) because she immediately allowed me to photograph her and her baby--I think in large part because she is one of the lucky women who has more access to education through her position as principle's wife therefore less afraid and more excited about our presence. She also showed Meagan and I the new bathroom facilities that were built at that school, explicitly so that more girls were allowed to attend school longer.
Our first followers-children at first Mewat District village dam (which is dried up and empty). 
We arrived to Delhi International Airport at about 3 am this morning, after another enjoyable flight on Etihad Airlines out of the UAE. Initially, we didn’t understand why all the hallways in the airport looked smoky, but soon we realized it was like that everywhere (indoors and outside) in Delhi that night, and it was just the smog. It was incredible how many people where out and how much general commotion there was at the airport at that time of night. Our group and another course section of students from Iowa, also on the India Winterim and our same flight, piled into a small 70’s vintage-looking bus and taken to the hotel. That other group of students had a 13 hour bus ride today to the location of their course, which made our group very thankful to arrive at the hotel where we knew we’d be staying for the next 4 nights.
Our group didn’t arrive at the hotel until about 6 am, and at that point both Meagan and I were wide-awake with the excitement of arriving. After spending most of the 6 am hour trying to (unsuccessfully) connect to the internet and then doing some unpacking, we walked down to breakfast through the rooftop patio that is right outside of our room.
While taking some pictures and admiring the lush vegetation, I asked Meagan when she thought we’d see our first monkey, and she shrieks and replies “LOOK! What is that?” Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it was not a monkey, but a herd of feral pigs—at least 20-30 adults (several of whom were mating every few seconds) and at least 25 tiny piglets, nursing on a couple of the mothers. For whatever reason, we took it as a good omen for our trip. After breakfast we were finally exhausted and slept solidly the next 5 hours. Our group reconvened and ventured out of the hotel for an introduction by our host NGO, IRRAD, the Institute of Rural Research and Development. This was definitely a highlight of my day. We learned about the Mewat District of rural India, where we will be traveling to visit tomorrow, which is the problem area that our course is focused on helping. The history of the village people in this district is fascinating. They are a Muslim and Hindi meshed culture, who are described as being “stuck in the 18th century” and “very backward” in many ways. There are several unique factors for this—in addition to the more obvious factors like extreme poverty, low literacy, and oppression of women—including historical religious oppression imposed upon the people (starting over 500 years ago), by “invaders” who forced the originally Hindu people to convert to Islam, or be killed; being totally left behind and not included in governmental policy in modern times, partially because they are a religious mix whom were never re-accepted by either religion, and partially because over the years of oppression and constant invasion these Mewat villagers became very rebellious and distrustful of all outsiders; and because water, perhaps the most valuable resource of all, is scarce and where present, is highly saline/unusable. This last factor is the main purpose of our course, and I will be able to write a lot more about this situation in the days to come after our site visits.
During the presentation made by our hosts at IRRAD, we were told that for our visit tomorrow we had to cover ourselves fully, and that the women in the group must where scarves to cover our heads! Immediately all the girls in our group (7 total), looked around at each other wide-eyed with astonishment, and concluded that we needed to go shopping that evening for scarves. This was our first big outing in Delhi and showed us two main things: how much attention our group will receive from everyone around us, just for being Caucasian and American, and second, how insane/dangerous the road traffic is. I have never been so scared of being hit by a vehicle as tonight when we were walking out of the “mall” area (where we luckily each found and bought a suitable scarf), even being lead by our IRRAD driver. Being in a vehicle is just as scary—since cars, bikes, people, rickshaws, mopeds, buses, trucks are all weaving in and out of traffic lanes, and only honking constantly to try and alert each other vehicle of their own location. It’s pure pandemonium to us.
Health wise, I’m feeling okay… I have been taking my malaria medication (and wearing my insect repelling wrist band) religiously as there have been mosquitoes around since our bus ride to the hotel earlier this morning (even one I can see walking along the wall in our hotel room right now). The food has been absolutely delicious so far, although my stomach has been feeling suspiciously unsettled ever since breakfast. Pepto-Bismol has been comforting for many of us today. The jet-lag is definitely present, as I watched several of my classmates begin nodding off in their chairs in IRRAD’s conference room earlier, despite the exciting issues everyone was genuinely enjoying learning about. On that note, I think it’s time to try and get some sleep before our Mewat site visit tomorrow which I am eagerly awaiting—if my head will be covered by a scarf!
After staying the night with my classmate and travel companion Meagan Schorr—at her father's house in a Chicago suburb—our commute to the airport was early and seamless. We had been packing (and repacking) and organizing our belongings all morning, and incredibly, we both have managed to pack all our belongings for the next three weeks, into one suitcase and one carry-on. Packing was especially difficult for several reasons: we will be on the move to different areas and cities every 3-4 days throughout the course, we have heard weather predictions of temperatures everywhere from mid 30's to upper 60's, and we aren't sure exactly what our day to day activities will be. Perhaps most amazing, we ended up checking our “overweight” baggage without being charged the $50.00 heavy bag fee.
Today has turned out to be the shortest day ever… literally! We went from leaving Chicago at 8 pm, 12/27/11 to arriving in Abu Dhabi at 6:30 pm 12/28/11 in just 12 and half hours! Our flight was on a luxurious (and enormous) Etihad airlines jumbo jet. The plane had the fanciest computer/monitors I have ever experienced on a flight; you could choose from 100’s of movies, flights, news programs, games, maps, travel guides, etc. to keep you occupied. As with most non-first class cross Atlantic flights, the leg room was lacking and made for some knee and hip pain starting after about hour 5, but otherwise it really was an enjoyable flight.
Now, in the Abu Dhabi International Airport, our group has taken turns watching the bags and going exploring… And it really feels more like I’m in a high-end shopping mall than an airport, with a number of very expensive vendors and shops in our terminal. Walking in through the gate we passed 25 ft tall indoor palms, felt a hint of humidity, and even got slight whiffs of the sea. It’s easy to tell we’re at a major international sea port.
Right now, I’m very relieved to have made it this far, and still extremely excited to reach our final destination—Dehli.
