May 2010
57 posts
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Health Status (and hair) Update
I’ll spare details, but basically -
When I eat a lot, I get an upset stomach. It hurts and is no fun. Thus, I haven’t really been eating >1000 - 1800 calories a day (depending on how much soda I drink because cold water isn’t available and I’ll actually settle for high fructose corn syrup infiltrated drinks if that’s what it takes for some cold sustenance).
My...
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Three D's - Disenchanted, Daunted, and Discouraged
Thought this was going to be its own post, but I covered the bulk of it in Plan for Change: Part 1 - Why I’ve Been Unsuccessful.
Basically, things have been rough here. I don’t really know what I’m doing (but the fog of that is slowly being lifted) and I have been upset much more than I thought I would be, which is a combination of physical frustration (hot with no electricity...
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NREGA Surveys
In 2005, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed. It entailed that every villager over 18 years of age would be guaranteed 100 days of unskilled, manual labor as long as they were willing to do it. Every day, the workers would get paid minimum daily wage (hourly would be more fair, but…that’s what it is) and they’d be offered a provision of water, shade, medicine,...
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Luxury and Indian Giving Culture
Two nights ago, I went to Varanasi City (where all the ghats are, the Ganges, the busy people, etc.) and saw the light show of the Ganges (aka aarti, for the Indian readers) and took an evening boat ride on the river. It was beautiful. It was refreshing. It was a reminder of luxury and urban lifestyles.
I then spent the night with my dad’s friend in Varanasi City in a beautiful home. I had...
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Summer Camp
This is a fun idea that could take off really nicely if good content is incorporated, but we’re organizing a summer camp in Mirjamurad where we’ll be bringing in about 100 kids from villages near closeby cities in Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow, Kanpur, etc.) for a week.
Every day, they’ll be fed and whatever while they take courses in arts, crafts and music. Totally right brained. For...
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Plan for Change: Part 2 - Hope for Success
To leave here knowing I did something for the people here, I spoke with my host and we decided to create a nourishment program. This is the raw skeleton of it (going to discuss further details with him after blogging): 10 malnourished and uneducated kids from each of 6 nearby villages, arranging transportation for them 5 days a week, giving them two substantive meals a day, and providing an...
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Plan for Change: Part 1 - Why I've Been...
So I thought simply stepping foot at Varanasi International Airport would change the world, but…it’s not that easy. I spent a lot of the last few years thinking, “I want to change the world. I want to change the world. I want to change the world,” but I never actually thought about how it would be done beyond…monetarily supporting change. I’ve raised tons of...
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Outline
Okay, so it’s been a while since I was last able to post (time moves really slowly here, which is a good thing because I can…do more but a bad thing because I have to bear more heat haha), so I’m going to do a little outline of what I’ve been up to, and then I’ll follow this post up with some substance:
Plan for change - 60 malnourished, uneducated kids
Summer...
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Quickie
Just spent the last 1 hour 50 minutes replying to emails, facebook messages, tumblr questions, and miscellaneous things. Now I have 9 minutes to quickly update blog. Rather than getting extensive, I’ll briefly just copy the notes I’ve made in my journal, but when I get a more sustainable source of electricity, I’ll expand upon this.
8 minutes.
1) No one will ever care for me...
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Anonymous asked: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10133159.stm
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spodick asked: I don't follow you or anything. I just know you because of congress but those photos are beautiful and I am beyond jealous you are able to witness all of that. Where are you visiting?
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Anonymous asked: Your pictures offer a great lesson that I believe everyone should understand. The old cliche is "you never miss something until you lose it." But why can't we understand how valuable something is to us and cherish it in the present when we do have it? The answer, selfishness. Selfishness is something we all suffer from and there is no one in the world who can say they have never...
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Challenges
So as much as I’ve been blogging about the things I’ve been doing and thinking and whatnot, I haven’t once posted about…how this trip has been for me personally.
Two things I’m thinking of, specifically, right now are the climate and the animals.
(1) It is over 105/110 degrees here for about 7-8 hours of the day, every day. When it’s not that hot, it’s...
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Note regarding photos #2
All photos and content on this blog from hereon out are original. The two photos I posted a while back were reblogged from someone else, but all the photos I posted in the last 24 hours and will continue to post are my own :)
And yes, I use iPhoto to make some of them look especially cooler than they are.
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Shoutout to Sarah
She emailed me letting me know that she was going to send some of her old clothes for me to hand out in the coming weeks in the village.
Email me if you want to do something similar or help what I’m doing in anyway that…could use me as a means :)
a.shah811@gmail.com
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Shift in Direction
So I’ve had the intention of conducting a research project in rural community development to get closer to developing a model of sustainable development without external support for the last few months. My research proposal for this project is what got me pretty much fully funded by different groups at Penn for my travels and expenses here in India. Pretty sweet.
Initially, the research and...
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Initial exposure to real villages
Yesterday, I went around rural Varanasi to two different villages to visit two groups within the Mushahar community and learn a bit about their circumstances and report a site report update for Asha (as Asha provides some educational support for both of them). The Mushahar commuinty is one that has to deal with the sufferings of being “untouchables” in the Hindu caste system, and being...
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Suraj
The sun, suraj in Hindi, is something I don’t think I’ve appreciated enough (except I thought I did plenty before I woke up this morning).
Today, I woke at 3:30a and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I went for a walk and, 10 minutes later, stumbled across this river called the Ganges. You may have heard of it.
From 4:30 - 5:15, I watched the sun rise as I never have before. It was...
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I saw a whole family riding on a motorcycle...
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Respect for nature
Watching this sort of thing in Avatar and living it are two totally different things.
They say the lizards on the wall aren’t a bother because they’re eco-friendly. I don’t know what eco-friendly means, but their definition is that the lizards sustain themselves on bugs, so they eat all the mosquitos that would otherwise suckle at our blood. Thus, they’re totally...
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Rules are just a formality in Indian traffic. They...
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Milk gets delivered to the flat in Mumbai every...
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Cows are BEAUTIFUL here. I want one (that doesn't...
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Less analytical and more descriptive
This blog was meant to just talk about what I’m up to, but I’m really gaining a ton of insight about…everything on this trip (and it’s only been two days). I’ll try mixing up the posts regarding what I’m doing and what I’m thinking. This one is more…what I’m doing.
I arrived in Varanasi today afternoon. My host - the coordinator of the school...
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Note regarding photos
Most internet sources I have / will have in the next few weeks (if not all) are connected Internet ports. What that means is that, although I’ll upload photos on my computer, I don’t think I’ll be able to get them online (on facebook or tumblr) because my internet access comes from other computers. I’ll try my best to find a way to work around this because…this blog...
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“But this [Mumbai] ain’t India. The real India is up near the Himalayas, at...”
– Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts
I put the other two books on hold to read this, and it is PHENOMENAL. Google it.
I’m in Varanasi now, and will be here for the next 5-6 weeks. If it’s 5, I’ll spend a week in Nepal near the Himalayas, then a week in Rajasthan followed by a week...
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Wealth
What boggles me more than most things here is how the line is drawn between the rich and the poor. Twenty feet away from teh dense slums of Mumbai can be the apartment buildings where doctors, chartered accountants, and international business owners live. It’s absurd. In my short-lived account of India, I’m still lost as to how/where the more well-off do their work. Where do the...
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I am WAY too scared of mosquitoes, bugs, mice,...
I have really got to man up if I’m going to save the world or whatever.
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Approaching people
Smile more. Everyone, when going about their day-to-day activites, forgets to smile. It makes them look super-serious and straight faced all the time. Quite intimidating, really.
Look at someone. When making eye contact, they continue to intimdate, as if you have no business looking their way.
Smile. You immediately become friends. They smile back and realize that you, too, are just like them.
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