Threnodi

The Peruvian Adventure Part 3 (the final installment)

threnodi — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:55:27 +0000

This time, I think I am going to start from the end… Our team paused on June 7, 2007 at the peak of the path, to look back one more time at what we had accomplished. This team of five intelligent, talented, and motivated students, had accomplished their dream. Looking back you couldn’t see all that went into this bridge, but it was there. Over a year of hard work had come to fruition providing a world of opportunities to everyone involved. I believe that the ramifications of this project will certainly propagate throughout our lives in more ways than we can even imagine. We made it happen. We made a difference. On this day each one of us was touched by the scores of children caring banners that read ‘ muchas gracias por la ponte’ and one small child parading around with an upside down hawkeye pendant held on a stick high above his little head.

Standing on that precipice was one of those moments that I will never forget. This project not only marks the end of our undergraduate education but it signifies the end of a chapter in our lives. It was a wonderful chapter. I can only speak for myself but am so grateful to the University of Iowa for giving me the opportunities of a lifetime. I have had, a more complete education than I had ever thought possible. I have had the experiences and adventures of a lifetime in these past five years… and I had my best friend to share them with.

It was on this day that two plaques were placed on either side of the bridge dedicating the bridge to the community of Yavina and Ccollpa followed by our five names as the design engineers.

below that, the plaque reads:

“a la memoria de Alice Kusmierek”

The team didn’t tell me about this. Without my knowledge, they decided that they would dedicate the bridge to my mothers memory. They told me it was because they believed she always was our biggest fan… and she was…

Standing on that hill looking one last time at the culmination of my educational career I felt, for the first time, a sense of closure. The page turns. As I leave this community my life will continue in a new direction filled with new people, experiences, and opportunities.

I did however, bring one thing back with me… It was on one of those days that Azra and I spent picking up boulders for hours on end that she came across a fascinating stone. We decided to take a break at this point and hit it with a sledge hammer to see what was inside. The rock split into three pieces. Each piece has a band of blue, grayish green, and dark red crystals. It was a fantastic stone. Both Azra and I decided to bring home one piece. It wasn’t until the second to last day of construction that I stopped Azra from working and pointed it out. In the center of the Northern abutment the third piece of stone was visible resting between the two cables. Within an hour the stone was completely covered with boulders and rocks creating the stairway..

When most people die they are rewarded with a 4×9 ft hole and a stone etching of their name. I find it only to fitting that for my mother, she got so much more. She got a monument to her memory that will bring joy to numerous children and an entire community. For me, it seems only fitting that she should have her final namesake on something that is solely for the benefit others.

Looking off that cliff in the beautiful Peruvian sunshine I smiled as I closed one door, and began my journey to open the next…

I want to thank you all for your love and support of my team, my family, and me. I hope you enjoyed my little story of our adventure.

love,

threnodi

The Peruvian Adventure Part 2

threnodi — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:02:13 +0000

Alright so now as I mentioned Azra and I now began our adventure on our own, without Caitlin. At this point, we followed a path that rose quickly through tall thick grasses filled with crackling Autumn leaves… these were the first leaves that we had seen since our arrival. As we crested the top of the small hill you could catch a view of huge pool of frothy green water. We of course had to investigate and diverged from our upward decent to check it out…

I think that this story might be too much to write about without doing any justice to the scenery so let me be brief and summarize. We spent over 6 hours traversing trails that span the mountains and riverbeds like spiderwebs. Each path is only about 8in wide and they intertwine and disappear continuously. The flora changes drastically around every corner. One moment it feels as though you are in a desert surrounded by cacti and enormous aloe plants and the next minute you will be prying yourself through thick jungle like underbrush clinging to vines for support. The paths have a tendency to often steer upwards in sever switchbacks that kill the thighs but inspire with the breathtaking vertigo. We ended our morning explorations of the riverbeds unique curves and waterfalls with a 1,000 ft vertical hike (rough estimate).

This is where we stopped for a powerbar lunch and absorbed the view before heading back to Yavina, taking the high paths. With our new path we cut our time back in half. We were also warmly greeted by a couple of locals with a blanket of potatoes as we passed by. It was a perfect day.

Alright back to the bridge… We have been so blessed with the most wonderful help and support throughout this project. It has all worked out so well I feel as though it was fate. Specifically, I feel very fortunate to have been partnered with a community that is filled with kind and passionate people. The Teachers of the community were a never ending source of caring, support, and help. Also, the Mason was all we could have ever have asked for. He had built 10 other similar bridges in the surrounding areas and his workmanship and technical abilities were unparalleled. He consulted (probably more humored) us on every technical decision and modifications needed for our design….

Well, I must stop once more because we are trying to organize our travel plans home and we must say goodbye to all of those who have helped us. I will continue later… but check out me and the bridge.

love,

threnodi

The Peruvian Adventure Part 1 (the bridge is complete and looks AMAZING!!!)

threnodi — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 04:16:30 +0000

So the last time you heard from me, the team and I were headed to Yavina. This was a fantastic ride. The six of us piled into the back of an open bed truck that contained all of our wood planks, steel cable, and packs. It was a bumpy ride, so quickly we were all standing. I must admit, the team was making fun of me for grinning like an idiot as I scampered from one side of the truck to the other with my camera, hanging on precariously with one arm so that I could take hundreds of pictures through the cloud of dust. It was soooo beautiful. The view was just so much better without the hindrance of a roof and doors of a cab. When we arrived in Chilliwani we were all so completely covered in dust that our bodies and eyelashes were gray. We then unloaded all of the materials into a pile at one of the houses to be slowly brought to the site. We then enjoyed our two hour hike to Yavina in the sunset.

When we arrived, we set up camp in the one of the mud brick rooms located in the school yard overlooking the mountains. These first few days were very difficult for the team. Since we arrived on a Saturday, the school was dead quiet and deserted. The teachers of the community all live in Santo Tomas and they make the weekly commute to Yavina just for school each week. Now the problem was that we were totally trapped here with no means of communication. This means that we were forced into a horrible state of inactivity where we had no way of reaching the mason or finding out progress on the transportation of materials. Furthermore, on Monday, we planned to meet with the mason but then he never showed up. Ryan and Sergio just kept pacing the school yard like caged tigers…

I actually enjoyed this waiting only when I had the opportunity to perch myself on one on the mountain peaks in the center of the community and look off in every direction. From this vantage point you could see any movement on the path leading from Chilliwanii and any movement down at the bridge site.The only way for me to try to describe this, is that I felt like I was perched up high on the side of this perfectly clear snow globe and I could look down and around me and see all of the toy like Peruvian people calmly herding there pint sized sheep, horses, etc. I swear the clouds are more pristine by day and brightly colored at sunset than anywhere else I have been in the world. Even at night, I swear the moon shines more brightly. My favorite time however was when the moon had risen just high enough to place the town of yavian in a dark shadow within the mountains silhouette. Then when you looked out from the school yard all of the mountains in the distance would almost appear to be glowing with the bright illumination of the moon….

Finally by Tuesday the Mason showed up and met with us. This however wasn’t until early in the afternoon and we only went down to the site to discuss the construction schedule with him and conduct the site survey for the larger bridge that will be built by B2P in the near future.

Now let me quickly describe the state of our bridge site on arrival. As usual, there was a bit of communication that was lost in translation. The bridge piers were defiantly done and looked fantastic but the anchors, the most important part because they would be load bearing, were not even finished with excavation! At this point it appeared that we would not be completing the project as quickly as we had been anticipating.

So as I mentioned, this day was basically wasted in regards to getting any work done on the bridge so Azra and I took this opportunity to go on an adventure. I have totally appreciated having Azra here with me because she is really the only one of our team members who whole heartedly shares my love of mountains, clouds, stars, trees, and waterfalls. Basically we just pick a direction of the river and we see where it takes us. I will go into more details later.

Now back to construction. On any given day we had anywhere from 1-18 Peruvians helping the Manson and us with construction. Now in the first few days we had on average 3. Since excavation needed to be done on both sides, the Mason left Ryan, Tara, and me on the side with the rock face with a small hammer, a sledge hammer, and a variety of large steel wedges/nails. lol…. this was certainly a sight. We needed a meter and a half deep hole and us three little gringos could barely make a dent. Eventually we started hording our most pride full splinters in a pile and we began measuring our efforts based on the size of rock chipped off in quarters. We defiantly got a few $5-10 pieces but honestly, we got a lot of quarters. It was hilarious. we did this until we could no longer lift our forearms.

So just for brevity, I want to give you a few other highlights of construction. Lets start with Peruvian concrete. Now lucky for us, one hundred, 44 kilo (approx 93 lb) bags of concrete were carried to the site via man/horse power prior to our arrival. These bags were placed in a small dwelling approximately 600-800 meters from the bridge site. These bags were then carried to the bridge site on someone´s back. Now I defiantly saw some amazing feats of strength on these long days of construction. These Peruvian men who appeared to be anywhere from 40-65 years old (the sun damage makes it hard to tell) would throw a bag on their back and walk, the lets say 700 meters to the site, walk down the river bed, across the short temporary braid of reeds, through the center island, along the other small rock crossing, traverse the rock face along the river bed and then ROCK CLIMB the 15 ft or so of rock to the site of the foundation without once removing the 93lb bag of cement!!!!! It was crazy. Just for comparisons sake, how many gringos does it take to carry one bag of cement? Well, we found three to be the optimal number. One person has it on their back with their head forced forward to the ground. The second person walks close by to help steer the cement bearer to the site. The third person lifts up on the back of the bag removing a few pounds and acts as an alternate along the way. I must say that I am quite proud to report that every member of the Continental Crossings team carried at least 2 bags of concrete on their backs at some point in time ( can we say ‘lower back pain’).

Now the second truly amazing feat was in regards to the transportation of the 80 wooden planks. These planks are not all that heavy… I am estimating maybe 30lbs, but they are awkward. These are also carried in a similar fashion to the cement bags ( i.e. on your back). With these however, you tend to look a bit more like you are being crucified or are trapped in some medieval rack. So, as I have mentioned before, to get to the site you must first cross a 60-80ft river crossing on two braids of reeds, climb a small mountain, and then descend the other side. Well needless to say, I HATE this crossing. In hindsight, I actually though it would be an interesting psychological study to see how many times I would be required to make this crossing before it no longer caused my breathing and heart rate to increase so terribly.. Well one day after I had crossed the bridge I saw this man come by with two planks strapped to his back. This man then proceeded to take off his shoes, hold them in his hand as he casually waked across this braid of reeds barefoot. Obviously, he then sauntered up the mountain, down the other side, and across the treacherous temporary river crossing I mentioned earlier, finally depositing the boards in the dwelling 700 meters away… As I slowly racked up my daily tally of braid crossings I would think of this man and think about what a wimp I am..lol… In that same vein, one day Azra and I saw this young man come SPRINTING down the mountain and he then proceeded to actually full out run across the braided reeds. I decided it wasn’t until crossing number 1,200 that I would ever even consider crossing the river in a similar manner….

Just for a minute I would like to go back to the concrete. Now just because you have the cement bags on site does this mean the work is done? ha ha ha, of course not. first of all you need sand. Where does the sand come from you ask? why the center island of course… This means that you must take a potato sack and fill it with hand fulls of sand and then carry it as before, across the small rock crossing, along the riverbed, hoist it up the 15ft rock face across the foundation and down the rock slide on the other side…. then dump, and repeat X 300…. whhheewww that was tiring. It is amazing how much sand is needed. Now you have the sand and the cement you must then dump them on top of each other and shovel the entire pile 3 feet to one side…. then shovel the pile once more back to its original position. OK. mixed—> check.. then form the pile into a volcano shape and fill the center with water. Let it sit for a few minutes before you let the fun really begin… Once the mixture becomes somewhat saturated you begin to shovel the sides of the volcano into the center never allowing the water to escape down the sides too far.. With two Peruvians completing this process with shovels it looks like a well choreographed dance…its unbelievable how they make it look so weightless (keep in mind the majority of these men are wearing sandals the entire time). Now one day, when we only had 2 Peruvian helpers we got the privilege of attempting this dance ourselves… let just say it was not quite as pretty. First of all, please enjoy the picture of me mixing and shoveling this concrete mix into the foundation for the cumulative amount of time of about 2 hours…. once again can we say ‘lower back pain’…I enjoyed it though..

The cable was another fantastic feat of strength since it also needed to be carried all the way from Chilliwanii. Unfortunately however, none of us got to witness this feat since the cable just appeared on site one morning prior to our arrival.

My final truly pride full achievement was in Azra’s and my fantastic ability to move large stones.. I have moved more large stones in the past two weeks than I have moved in my entire 23 years and probably ever will again.. yeah secretly, Azra and I truly enjoyed this task. It was kind of fun trying to balance watermelon sized boulders on one hip and then testing your biceps ability to lift a second stone the size of your head into your other hand. Azra and I proudly estimate that we carried 25% of the 2,000 or so stones needed to complete the stairway on the island side of the bridge. Don’t worry, there are a lot of photos.

Now you would think that with all of this intense manual labor and daily mountain hikes we would all have dropped about 20lbs… well we would have if the community were not trying to kill us with potates!! For goodness sake I have eaten more potatoes in the past two weeks than I have eaten in my entire life.. Breakfast: Potato soup, a giant bowl of potatoes that you peal with your fingers, tea, and maybe bread (if you are lucky you get boiled milk with sugar) Lunch: Potato soup, a giant blanket of potatoes, and often a second course of rice, chicken, or fish. Dinner: yep you guessed it…. potato soup, potatoes and maybe similar seconds like lunch… please kill me with potatoes…. Azra and I were fascinated.. one day while we were alone at the site sitting with 5 older ladies, who carried all the food over to the site in a pot wrapped in a blanket on their backs, we watched them eat. These old ladies would down 3 bowls of potato soup and then follow it with the two egg yokes that Azra and I couldn’t eat… man it was intense.. I can barley finish one bowl..

Alright now we worked hard every day of the week except Sunday. So on Sunday Azra and I decided to go for an adventure…. all day. So we started out by heading downhill to the river and planned to follow it as far as we could in the direction of Chilliwanii but on the opposite shore. Caitlin came with us as well, but we were concerned because she got really sick. The problem is that in one day the temperature fluctuates sooooo much. At night it gets to below freezing and then during the day in the sun, the temperature can get as high as 80!!! it is crazy. We come home before sunset and pile on every item of clothing we have just to strip down to a tank top by noon the next day.. Unfortunately, all the kids around us were sick as well. It seemed as if everyone had some kind of racking cough. So anyway, we try to take it easy for Caitlin and just walk straight along the river bed. Well after a couple of hours we hit our first obstacle… Azra thinks it looks like the only way we can make it around the giant rock/mountain face jutting out into the river is to go up…. Well Caitlin and I follow her up for a ways until it seems that it is more rock climbing then walking and Caitlin and I express our doubts about this being the best way to continue.. I could plainly see paths in the mountainside leading down to the river so I though that there must be a way around by just taking the lower rocks. This turned out to be a treacherous decision because this part of the mountain was completely covered by loose dry sand and rocks. Furthermore, due to the arid climate the mountain sides are scattered with intensely prickly little plants…. you must be very careful where you grab and slide… Slowly we slipped and slid down the mountain side switching back numerous times until we finally reached the bottom. This portion of the river bed was fantastic. We had finally reached a curve in the river and there were numerous mirror still pool and moss covered water trails lining the smooth rock face the ascended hundreds of feet up to our left. We then hoped along the large boulders until… dunn dunn dunn…. we came to what seemed to be a dead end. Damn it, I didn’t want to admit that Azra was right… but then I saw a small Peruvian foot print emerging from the water. I show Azra and of course, her being the fearless one that she is, she jumps along the stones until they ends in water. She quickly reports back to Caitlin and me that the water is only ankle deep and we can totally make it if we just take off our shoes and socks.. So off she goes though the water to the other side. I follow soon after and Caitlin laughs on the bank at my decision to continue the day with a wet foot rather than risk the possibility of slipping without shoes and injuring my camera… She headed home at this point.

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to be continued…

This is too much writing for one day. We are just waiting for the bus to Cusco at 3pm I will work on the rest of the adventure when we get to Cusco.

love,

threnodi

Still in Cusco…

threnodi — Wed, 23 May 2007 05:49:16 +0000

So it turns out we will not be leaving Cusco as soon as we anticipated. We had planned on getting the truck that will transport all the materials this morning, however we had to first make sure the cable had arrived from Lima…. and it hadn’t. So we had to hunt down the driver and try to verify it was stilllllllll on its way. Now it looks like it will be arriving tomorrow morning or late afternoon. The next disappointment came shortly after, when we went to check our order of wood planks. If you take a look at the plan set, the bridge decking is designed to have the cable secured into two notches running the length of the bridge… This seems to pose serious problems for the peruvian carpenters and no one wants the job! (we are not sure if it is just our problem not being able to convey the type of machinery necessary to simplify the project) so anyway, the notches that were supposed to be done today were definitely NOT done and they were requesting more money to make it happen… lame. So we were pretty bummed out about the whole thing because this means that we would have to a) pay more and wait a day, or b) get the notches in Santo Tomas and wait three days, possibly pulling the mason off the bridge site for that amount of time.. So luckily we headed to the carpenter´s place ( it was in a supper cute mud brick building with two white rabbits jumping around.. i don’t know why) and we were able to convey exactly what we wanted and what we were willing to pay. In the end, we all really liked the carpenter and were able to clarify exactly what we wanted and we agreed to pay 3 soles more per board (yeah 80 boards, about $1 a piece… not bad for manual labor with a circular saw).

Now Azra and I were pretty concerned at this point with the whole construction schedule because we wanted to head to Santo Tomas on Tuesday and now we are most likely not leaving till Friday (everyone is kind of antsy to get to the village). Anyway, Americo (the guy from the local non-profit- amazing guy, we really couldn’t do this with out him) showed us the pictures he had taken from the site so that we could see the progress that has been made. AWESOME!!! they have completed the piers, and over a week ago they had the entire excavation completed for the anchors… This concerned us before because it the anchor are not completed on our arrival we will have 7 dead days waiting for the concrete to cure before we can load it with the cable. So yeah, wow. it was pretty amazing to see the photos.. its just makes it all so real.. In the end, I actually think that we are doing fine, time wise. The mason is totally competent to complete the foundations without us, so really we just have to concern ourselves with bringing the materials needed to complete the last stage of the project.

So this is how our days have been going; we meet in the morning to hunt for supplies, then we wander around town in the afternoon, check in again in the early evening to find more supplies, and then take it easy for the rest of the night. So yesterday I was with Sergio and Ryan when we completed our work with Americo and we decided to go on a quest for raw sugarcane and fresh coconut juice. Now we never actually found the sugar cane, but our adventure was AWESOME!!! First of all we found this HUGE market. My favorite part was this area that had like 30 ladies behind counters filled with every type of fruit imaginable and for 1.5 soles (ummm 50 cents) you could have what ever kind of fresh squeezed juice you want made right before you. You then have to pull up a stool and hang out there because you have to give back the classy glass it came it. OHHH this would be my downfall if I lived in cusco. I am a sucker for fresh squeezed pineapple, mango, strawberry, etc. juice. So yeah the rest of the market was fantastic as well. There was bread the size of my torso, more potatoes that I have ever seen before, as well as a few goat heads set around just to keep it interesting. It was fascinating. There were also two other markets very close by and each one was so unique. Another one of favorite things to see was the dye vendor. The Peruvians have the most vibrant colored blankets, hats, etc. It was so interesting to see all these tins filled with crazy vibrant powders of every color imaginable.. (I wish I spoke better Spanish because I would love to know where it all came from.) So needless to say I could entertain myself for hours in this area of town just taking pictures…

(Peruvian dyes)

(Peruvian Bread Lady.. yes bread the size of my torso)

There was one other interesting thing I learned yesterday. Well the story starts with the fact that our team started out in November with 3 cell phones.. Azra´s got taken last time in Lima, and two days ago Sergio accidentally left his in a taxi…. so we are down to one phone. yeah you would think that this would not do us much good…Now when you walk the streets of cusco you always see numerous people on street corners brandishing cell phones around. We kind of all just thought that there were a lot of stolen cell phones in cusco…Well, yesterday while we were with Americo we asked to call Azra and interestingly enough he just went up to one of those guys on a street corner and asked to use his phone!! lol so that is the modern day Peruvian Pay phone. All you need is a couple cell phones and a stopwatch and you can make some money on a street corner…what an interesting idea. So now, it is pretty nice that when we want to talk to our other team members we just pay a sole or two and use the cell phone on the corner.

more later,

threnodi

Plans and stuff

threnodi — Mon, 21 May 2007 06:11:00 +0000

The trip is still going quite well with only a few minor glitches. Unfortunately everything takes longer than you think and there is a lot of dead time like weekends and evening when nothing productive can be accomplished. It is going to be really bad when we get to the village because it is winter and when the sun sets there is nothing you can do. We are all bringing a number of books to share and I have been working on planing out my website work for this summer.

In regards to the supplies, the cables should be arriving tomorrow morning, we have an order for all the wood planks, and we found most of the steel needed for connections today. We are working with some amazing people who are just so passionate about their jobs and helping these communities. It is awesome that we can be a part of this.

(Azra at the wood shop)

The only major road block we hit so far was the fact that Ryan forgot to bring the pin number to our team account so that we could access the 5 thousand or so dollars in the team account. Yeah, bad news.. so his parents offered to front us like 2 thousand in his account so that we could make all the purchases necessary… well shortly after, Ryan was pick pocketed. yeah I feel really bad for him. This is his second time abroad and he has been robbed both times within the first 3 days!!… yeah talk about bad luck. In the end, it is not a big deal, a few soles, he canceled his cards, and we are having his parents deposit the money in my account. so all is well it ends well.

We plan on heading to Stanto Tomas Wednesday. It is a 9 hour drive through the mountains to get there and then hopefully we will head to the village on Thursday morning. Then the fun will really begin. Supposedly, numerous community members are awaiting our arrival at the end of the road to help carry supplies. It will be probably 23 days from that point that I will actually see electricity or a shower but what an adventure!!!

later,

threnodi

Arrived in Cusco

threnodi — Sat, 19 May 2007 06:15:37 +0000

All is well so far. Yesterday a few of the team members headed to the cable supplier and ordered the cable that was needed, and arranged for it to be shipped to Cusco. Catlin (Avery´s friend who was studying in Buenos Aries) Tara and I just wandered around downtown and took pictures.

It was supper fun. We also arranged for our transport to Cusco on the following morning. So we arrived in Cusco without problem today, and we are staying at the same hostel we stayed at last time. It is nice to see all the familiar faces. We met with Cadep this afternoon and it seems as if everything is progressing smoothly in regards to construction. The foundations are well on there way to completion and the piers have been completed. Unfortunately since the slabs have not been poured yet, we will have a minimum of 7 days down time in the village before we can load the cable. Everything is closed on Sunday´s so we are thinking about trying to go to Macchu Piccu tomorrow. Monday we will meet with Cadep again and purchase the decking and all the other supplies needed. The cable should arrive Monday or Tuesday and on Tuesday we are going to meet with some people from the local university so that we can develop better ties for future projects. Then on Wednesday we will head to Santo Tomas and the Village. We are so lucky to have such great help from Cadep on the project

Trip to Pondicherry

threnodi — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 06:45:05 +0000

Well the start of 2007 was defiantly a memorable one if not somewhat anticlimactic. I will begin with yesterday morning.

At 8:00 we piled into these Project Simile vans that have horrible pictures of little kids and adults with cleft pallet covering the whole exterior, to drive to Pondicherry (the vans are from the hospital where the doctor who is sponsoring us works). Now I decided I would sit in bucket seat in the front so that I could be somewhat anti-social and just look out the window. However, this plan was foiled when the most flamboyantly loud tour guide from the micro-finance organization, Victor, decided since he didn’t have a seat he would sit on the front consul near me. Now I tried my hardest to quietly look out the window while he suggested “lets play a game…. oh lets sing a song” — Oh let’s shoot me now — Again this was only a two hour drive but I decided the back of the vehicle was a better idea for the return trip.

Oh our arrival around 11am we entered this fantastic house located in the beautiful French corridor. The house was fascinating from an architectural perspective with numerous balconies, a small marble spiral staircases, and interesting ceiling variations. We were lead into the basement where we watched three presentations about organizations that originated in Pondicherry by this community of affluent Indian activists.

The first presentation was about Satya Special School Clinic Nallam. This school was set up to benefit children and adults who are mentally or physically handicapped and have no means of paying for any special treatment. They told us two specific stories about the children. One story was about
a child who was 10 years old with down syndrome. She grew up in a small village where her parents basically confined her to the 4 walls of her hut. She was very lonely.Once she began coming to this special school she felt like her whole world opened up and she was happy.

- Background: There is no governmental policy in India relating to disability. Also, as we are realizing, there is also a terrible social stigma relating to parents who have a child with a disability. Basically most of the people in India believe that the reason why they have a handicap child is because they committed some sort of crime and are being punished. This even further compounded with the belief that having a female child is considered a burden. Since even a healthy female is considered a burden a handicapped one is even more so because they can not be married off. The second story they told us was similarly about another female child who was found in a dustpan next to the hospital, abandoned afterbirth because the child contracted polio. The child was found and raised by a kind of orphanage. The child’s only means of getting around by age six was by crawling. Once the child was enrolled in this school however, she received therapy and can now walk with braces and a walker. They have about 50 students in their school and 13 professionals. The woman in charge says the every day she get new students who want to enroll but turns most down due to space limitations. What I didn’t understand was how are they ever going to get new students? Many are mentally handicapped and they all have zero money so what happens when they grow up? Is this a lifetime enrollment? Anyway I do think they do a great job with educating the families and trying to first address the immediate health of the patients. In the end I gave her the family enrichment programs (www.fepecho.com) website because I thought she might find some inspiration for activities from it.

The Second Presentation was on Planet Read and Book Box. I wonder if you have heard about these. So here are a few statistics, there are 900 million illiterate people in the world. 300 million live in India. Each TV in India is watched by and average of 5 people. Basically the organization dubs Bollywood films in local languages and broadcasts them on the standard channels. If you have ever seen a bollywood film, which I am sure that Lindsay has, they always have these singing and dancing music videos, and these songs and videos are known nationwide. I think that this is a great program to help improve literacy by teaching the poor through entertainment. This program is trying to expand thoughout Africa as well. Another interesting fact, These videos are viewed 10,000 times a year, all for 1 US dollar. www.planetread.org

- Now this leads to the next part of this presentation on Book box. www.bookbox.com This is similar to planet read, however this organization offers basically graphic stories that are read out loud with the language of choice written below. The languages that are readily available are English Spanish, French, Portuguese, but they are trying to expand to like 20 more languages. The thing that was cool about this was it basically emulates what it is like to have a book read to you page by page. Also the parent can program their own voice reading the story so that the child can go through it without them. the stories can be downloaded online for $2 and are available from itunes. They also try to make sure the stories are universally relevant, and not preachy.

Finally the last presentation was on Shuddham – a program to beautify India. This project was awesome! They basically came together as a community and began a garbage collection. Each household has a leader and they are required to separate all the trash into, plastics, glass, aluminum, paper, and organic and food waste. These are then brought back, sorted and the plastic and aluminum is sold to companies, and the organic matter is composted. They had a fascinating set up for composting and they built worm basins to aid digestion of the organic matter. I was very impressed. These were extremely intelligent, motivated people, who were making a difference in India. It still blows me away that the majority of people have no garbage collection, and the ones that do, just dump it exposed in the outskirts of the city. Wow, that needs to change.

Following that, I had a fascinating conversation with C. B. the woman in charge of the women and science and engineering program at Iowa, over lunch. C.B. is 45, a single parent, with two daughters who will both be finished with college soon. She got her masters in public health specifically epidemiology, but prior to her work as a scientist she traveled around in a rock band. – I found this out by asking what hereditary influence lead to her daughter studying opera singing at a school in Manhattan and pursuing that as a career. Anyway, the reason why she is here is because Raj wanted her to do a presentation at an engineering college in Chennai on Women in Science and engineering in the US. Her reasons for coming was to personally investigate why in a hugely oppressive female society, like India, rates of enrollment in science and engineering has increased while in America they are decreasing. She mentioned that the most recent data is proving this, and since they started the WISE program 13 years ago, they are finally getting in data about those women and a staggering 60% are not working in a career related to their degree in science and engineering. Why? Well I know I have discussed this female time line with numerous other girls my age but it was interesting to discuss it with C.B. Well now lets see, since by 2015 you will be required to have a masters degree to be awarded your PE (professional engineering certification) you will have to get your masters, which will have you graduating a university at about 25. It still takes about 4-5 years to become a PE, and what is the average number of hours starting engineers work, Oh just 80 hours a week. This seems like the perfect time for any women to develop a relationship with her future husband and plan for the children that she will need to have before down syndrome sets in at age 35. Now lets say she wants to become a professor of engineering. Well at Iowa, just recently, they are requiring each professor have 2 post doctoral degrees. Now the average age of completion of one degree is 34. Now we are pushing that age back to like 38. I hope that during all this you have a very nice stay-at-home husband because school work never ends, and I sure would hate to think that your kids are really appreciating the two hours of time you have allotted to spend with them. Basically C.B. was telling me about a time she asked a big CEO of an engineering firm, ” If I told you the one thing you could do to get and keep women at your firm, would you do it?” “all you would have to do is limit the amount of time that you can work each week to 50 hours. No more. Make sure there is no advantage to working over that amount of time and you would have the most dedicated and competent women that would never leave your staff.” Is this ever going to happen ? sadly, NO. Obviously I can see this from Strand. All you are given in this world is time. How you spend that time is precious. You will spend more time doing your job than any other activity, you better think that time is worth it.—- So in the end I was happy to hear that C.B. is excitedly anticipating the end of college tuition payments and is planning on finding some organization, maybe like the ones we saw in Pondicherry, and leaving the US to commit herself to some cause that benefits the greater good. I just feel bad that she felt like she was stuck in Iowa for 20 years….. Now this translates into, why is it that women in India are increasingly entering the workforce as scientist and engineers. Her theory, is that the society here is so heavily based on the family every Indian woman has an ample amount of free childcare at her disposal because often the extended family lives in the same household. It is the son’s responsibility to take care of the grandparents so this gives the women more freedom to pursue a career.— The goal of C.B.’s presentation is to start conversations where we will be given opportunities to learn more.

Part 2 coming soon..

One of a kind New Years

threnodi — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:19:13 +0000

Following our Pondicherry trip, we head off to a site of famous ruins I that I can’t retain the name of, but it is an hour outside of Chennai to the South on the way to Pondicherry. I will tell you the name later. Anyway the only problem with the day was that it was sooooo rushed. Go here, go there, what is going on? I blame this partially on Azra. Ok, you know I commend Azra’s ability to make things that she wants happen, but I also think there is a point when you don’t ask. So Azra’s girlfriend is flying into Chennai at 8pm. Raj scheduled a ‘party’ for us at the hotel for dinner, and a DJ for 1500 Rs. ($30US) a person!!! now keep in mind for this amount before, Azra and I got a camel ride, an oil massage, hotel room, breakfast, dinner, and personal driver. === can we say a ridiculous amount of money!!====

So anyway, Raj planned this party with Mahassamen to ensure our safety, which I understand. But Azra, who has a little bit of an authority problem, was like no, I am not going, I don’t care, I am not paying and I am not going. So it worked out because Leela (her gf) was flying in at 8. Problem: well we were supposed to be coming from Pondicherry at 7pm. does anything happen on time? Of course not. So here we are at this fantastic archaeological location with 40 minuets to look around. It was so cool. This park was filled with Giant monoliths carved and balanced at fascinating angles. I of course, was ready to wander by myself, which I did until too many Indian men go ” hey girl, by you self? Where are your friends” So I found my friends. — grrrr—- I hate that I cant walk around by myself, I could never live in this society where women just accept their place behind the men in the shadows. Can you believe that just by looking at what a women is wearing you can tell if she is married, widowed, a spinster, or available (I mean unmarried). Do the men have any sort of identifiable feature???? NO! Of course not. Why? Because the women are just another branded cow that the man possesses and the men are free to have their affairs with out retribution. Sigh, sorry it does frustrate me. This is expounded in our evening activities.

Back to my original tangent. Azra wanted to pick up her girlfriend from the airport, so she is imposing her time schedule onto the rest of the class who are just here to participate in the course and get out as much as possible. So 6pm Azra heads back with one of our personal drivers to the airport (they wouldn’t let her take a cab).

We return, freshen up, and parade down to our New Years celebration. So we get downstairs, and it is in the same room as breakfast except they cleared a small 10 ft area for a dance floor and a DJ booth. They FORCED us to sit in the annoying center tables right in front of the speakers where you couldn’t hear yourself think. But anyway, they gave us cardboard party hats, blower things, and decorative facemasks. So we had our buffet fit for a king and I enjoyed it. There were a number of VERY spicy dishes, but I found the few that were not.

Now this is where it started to get weird. So the party was supposed to be for 100 people -there seemed to be more. Well there were about 3 other females in the room besides our plethora of pretty white girls, with the rest being young Indian males. These men wasted no time before hitting the dance floor and it was like we were in the center audience of a Bollywood film (please check one out to understand this reference to the hip shaking and oddly well choreographed dance moves between men). Now we got up and danced with some encouragement once. What happened? the room slows down and stares while every man gets out their picture phone and starts taking our pictures. So weird….. So after a couple of girls get a boob or butt grab, this activity seems to be finished. I leave at this point. I really have no attachment to New Years, to me it is just another day and I would prefer another day with less crowds. So I go up to my room. Well my key doesn’t work — why, I think it is because Azra and Leela are in there — Uhhhhhhh I hate this. I wish I could have my own room where I could go to bed whenever I wanted. But no. So I figure, they haven’t seen each other in like 2 months so I will just leave them alone for a while- Back to the thrillingly weird party. So the next highlight of the evening is when Victor showed up. This is the weird tour guide I mentioned previously. Well he started up another terribly awkward situation. Somehow, he got his sleazy paws on the microphone and made an announcement somewhat to the effect of lets have all the blonds on the floor. So now it is like they turned us into caged animals and pointed a spotlight on our table. The whole room circles us, clears the dance floor and waits in anticipation for some white girl dancing freak show that Victor is trying to instigate. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. So we sit there – like “hell no am I going to parade around in the center this dance floor while these Indian predators circle me and stare.” Not one girl moves…. Awkward…….. I once again look for an exit to the door, but I fear my movement upward could award me some unwanted attention. So we try to send the two boys at our table onto the dance floor to try to alleviate the situation. So whatever, people move on and start dancing again. Now you must keep in mind that I said this was anti-climatic, I understand it sounds eventful in writing but while in the situation, I was really quite bored and would have greatly enjoyed running up to my room if it weren’t for the fact there were two girls occupying the vicinity. So I wait. Now the weirdness goes to a new level. So I am sitting with this girl from our class, Mary, and I am like “is it just me or do you get the impression we are being guarded like Fort Knox?” A small Indian man who we were told was our IT computer guy has stepped up his authority and is beginning to herd us like cattle to one side of the table furthest from the dance floor. Then Ed, the other professor who is very tall but quiet and kind of shy sits directly behind me. I turn around and say, “do you want us to go to bed? Because really, I can, it is not a big deal.” He was like, “no why do you say that?” I reply, “I get the impression I am being surrounded”. – He said, “yeah sorry the people for Mahassesm want you to have a good time but that guy (the IT guy) was hired by them as a secret agent to guard you guys and ensure your safety. Also, I must confess I get nervous as well, It seems ever since I became a parent I think of all the things that could happen.” Now this was after they gave us a big long talk about how if we are planning to leave they have cars and drivers available to take us and pick us up but they would recommend us not to go. One of the reasons is because of the Sadam Hussein hanging, there is a number of protests and American flag burning happening in the city, and it would be in our best interests not to leave. Wow, so you see how they are building this up and then circling us for protection. Then, here is the climax, Victor whispers, I mean yells (we are still sitting next to the speakers), to one of the girls “at midnight they turn off all the lights for a few seconds…don’t be alarmed”. Cool. So what is going to happen when they turn off the lights in the middle of a party when we are surrounded by young Indian men while anti-American sentiments are running high. while the count down begins……. 3…..2…..1…… Darkness……………… Good lord, I braced myself. 1….2…..3….4….5… slowly cell phone lights come on and you could see lights coming from the cracked front door. Here I am ready to duck under the table clutching my wallet safely stowed in my sports bra, trying to understand why you would ever want to turn the lights off at a party at midnight in India. Needless to say nothing happened. The lights came on, and everything was the same and I happily took this opportunity to head up to bed where two women were probably making out on my queen sized bed. knock knock I’m home!! So yes, I spent the night in a queen sized bed with Azra and Leela cuddling next to me…… weird…….and I’m up.

What is for today? While we were on our own for the day, there was no planed agenda so my goal is to lose the lovebirds, get the room to myself, and chill with my book. The only problem with coming to India early is the fact that since I am a closet introvert, I have already just about maxed out on my social contact in the first 16 days and now I need some time to recharge in private. — So this goes back to the difference between Azra and me. I would NEVER have let my significant other join me in India while I was participating in some sort of prior engagement. I would have been like, cool your coming to India, It will be really fun to compare stories and that would be great if we could meet up at some point but I doubt it because I am here with a group of people…….. Well the world goes around because we are all different. I really don’t like how freaking awkward it is to share my room with Azra and her girlfriend…… And that is why I kindly sent the two girl on their way this morning and I headed to the internet shop. As you can see, this is my substitute journal entry. Hopefully this evening we will visit the beach for sunset so that I can stick my feet in the Indian Ocean. So that is it for the day. I am hoping I will be recharged enough to play extrovert again this evening. Maybe Leela will find a hostel and Azra will stay with her this evening…. doubt it but maybe. So in conclusion, here I am eating a soft candy that has a thin tasteless film on the outside, that I though might be plastic, in an internet shop where a small Indian man with a handicap is probably wondering what I could possibly be doing on the internet for so long.

— small tangent—

did you know after every Indian meal they offer you these thistle looking green seeds and sugar that taste like good and plenty’s? Sometimes they are coated in sugar… I really like them, Azra doesn’t, I am totally bringing them home for you to try. Ok Azra and Leela just came in, I guess there is a violin concert tonight at 7:30 after dinner. Well maybe no beach for me. I will post more soon.

Love you all

threnodi

India.. the course begins

threnodi — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 07:08:09 +0000

The rest of the class arrived last night at 2am ==== this was the latest Avery and I have stayed up as of yet. Our first impression of our class mates is very good. There a number of girls who seem very cool. There are however 20 people who will be paraded around beautiful chaotic India in a fleet of SUVs which once you see my pictures, seems ridiculous. It is like we are rinding in the Escalades of India – A very big contrast to the little rickshaws we usually ride around in. In those at least you feel like you are in India besides the fact it feels like you are swallowing gasoline. Well our nice air conditioned vehicles are defiantly going to be better for our health. Yesterday Avery and I unpacked our things in our luxurious two room hotel suite and decided that our one pair of pants and 2 shirts we had been wearing for the last two weeks suddenly looked a little socially inappropriate in this particular setting. So we headed to the near by bazaar to see if we could purchase some long skirts, shawls and more Indian appropriate tops. We are now happily dressed in long two dollar skirts with pretty flowing shawls. We then went to the concert I was telling mom about in our new outfits and still we defiantly did not fit in. Every single woman was wearing a Saree. Oh well, at least it seems to be an improvement. The concert was interesting. The women and musicians were very talented and I do not know how she made such sounds with her vocal cords but I would really like to suggest the addition of maybe a costume change or two and definitely an intermission. I will be happy to show you the 30second clip I took and I would like for you to then imagine it multiplied by 3 hours while sitting in a chair that seems to be slanting to the left at a 30 degree angle. As I said Interesting.

We were picked up at 10:00pm and brought back to the hotel until it was time to pick up our classmates. Raj the course instructor sure likes to talk – a lot. I will be very interested to see how well he keeps track of this many people. We had a wonderful breakfast and now Avery and I are just hanging out until the class officially begins at 3pm.

Bangalore

threnodi — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 07:14:24 +0000

Azra and I have now arrived in Bangalore. Last night we arrived at 5pm and we found our way to the Bangalore youth hostel. It only costs 100 Rs. ($2) a night for a bed, but you seem to get what you pay for. There are no western toilets, no hot showers, no adequate lockers, but it is very quiet and cheap. So on arrival we dropped off our bags and headed downtown for a nice Christmas dinner. It is really cool that you can live like a queen here with like $20. We found this supper classy restaurant called Le Rock and we had a spectacular meal of stuffed chicken breast and vegetables for a staggering 200 Rs. a plate. We had 3 waiters hovering constantly to pour your drinks, arrange your silverware, etc. (I must say I really do not like to be waited on hand and foot). The ambiance is really cool though, with all the Christmas lights and flashy decor. I know there are cool places like this in America but I could never afford to go there. So it is kind of nice feeling like a rich person. A couple of guys at the table next to us started talking to us and we ended up hanging out with them for much of the night. Two of them were were French flight attendants who were just here for 2 days. Bangalore is an interesting city. Last night it was beautiful all lit up with Christmas lights and packed, I mean packed, with people. It is a new level of saturation then I have ever seen before. The people and cars really continuously flow. Today we are going to try to send a few things home and check out the temples of interest in the town. It is crazy to think it is almost time for our course to start.