I've discovered pleasant similarities between entrepreneurship and engineering, but first some background.
~
The project is going well, in short.
We've all but established a distribution network for point of use water filters in the villages surrounding towns. An NGO we're working with has womens' self help groups in 250 villages (3500 groups total, 300 of which are seen on a regular basis) and they are going to have their field staff give demonstrations of the water filters to the womens' groups and offer to sell them to them. We're going to tag along to some at first to help the sale (because people are excited by foreigners, honestly) and the NGO will make a small margin on the filters to help them fund their operations and expenses, while providing a useful service to the womens' groups and hopefully improving people's health and well-being.
We're also expanding the education curriculum put into place last summer to teach 6th and 7th graders (children here are markedly less mature and educated than their U.S. counterparts, partly because of nutrition and the quality of education honestly) to teach them about health, hygiene, sanitation, and water (really, the links between them). The theory, then, is that this builds awareness to help encourage families to take a stake in empowering themselves to be aware of and address their water problems. This will lead to either...
...a small business that sells point of use water filters are low cost. This will be a profitable enterprise that will ensure that the owner(s) have financial incentive to continue to sell, maintain, and repair filters in the community. With the right level of awareness, this will allow anyone in the community to control their family's health through the proper stewardship of their water.
OR
...a small business that operates a community level water treatment facility that sells water for cents on the liter whenever people want it. This may also be coupled with an optional delivery service, but that has yet to be decided.
We're going to do some research, conduct meetings with the appropriate people, and talk to the community to learn about what the best course of action is.
This is all very exciting, and I'm really getting into the spirit of entrepreneurship. I see that business has great power to do good in the world, and that engineering without the business aspect accomplishes nothing. Both engineering and entrepreneurship are ways to solve problems -- the combination of the two is a potent force.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Dharwad
June 20, 2009
Back on the Bus
Today we had a meeting at KIMS College in Dharwad, the “sister city” of Hubli. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long so I brought along my i-pod and hit play on my “Bus Ride to Tel Aviv” playlist from last year when I lived in Israel. I lived in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, for three months last year, and the bus into town took up to 40 minutes. I commuted at least twice a week and always brought my i-pod with me.
Today, the tunes flowing into my ears made me nostalgic of my year in Israel. I remember countless bus rides that took me across the country, from one body of water to another or from one city to the next. I learned to love these bus rides and took advantage of enjoying the constantly changing scenery out my window. Today, I kept my eyes glued to the side of the road liked I learned to do last year. I was absorbing all that I was seeing and through that, learning about the area in which I currently live. I watched as we went through little slum areas into blank green fields, past fruit stands and tailoring shops. My ear buds kept the cacophony of horns and whistles from the city out of my ears and allowed me to peacefully enjoy 45 minutes of India.
Dharwad is beautiful. There are more trees and less trash than in Hubli. As we walked through part of the 700 acres (!) of the KIMS college campus, we were happy to see large clean buildings, a myriad of tree species, and trash cans (public trash cans are sadly hard to find in this country). Out of the forty or so college students we presented to, we successfully recruited seventeen volunteers and three Volunteer Leaders to teach our health and sanitation curriculum at a primary school during the coming year. Getting twenty volunteers to sign up is fabulous news because we were only expecting about ten! Volunteering in India is not popular like it is in America; it’s not a resume builder here. This is quite unfortunate because there are so many people in India who need help. Because we were only expecting ten, we might have to find a second primary school in the Dharwad area for the college students to teach at, which is definitely not bad news!
I had a great Saturday and am looking forward to my one day off per week – Sunday Funday baby!
Back on the Bus
Today we had a meeting at KIMS College in Dharwad, the “sister city” of Hubli. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long so I brought along my i-pod and hit play on my “Bus Ride to Tel Aviv” playlist from last year when I lived in Israel. I lived in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, for three months last year, and the bus into town took up to 40 minutes. I commuted at least twice a week and always brought my i-pod with me.
Today, the tunes flowing into my ears made me nostalgic of my year in Israel. I remember countless bus rides that took me across the country, from one body of water to another or from one city to the next. I learned to love these bus rides and took advantage of enjoying the constantly changing scenery out my window. Today, I kept my eyes glued to the side of the road liked I learned to do last year. I was absorbing all that I was seeing and through that, learning about the area in which I currently live. I watched as we went through little slum areas into blank green fields, past fruit stands and tailoring shops. My ear buds kept the cacophony of horns and whistles from the city out of my ears and allowed me to peacefully enjoy 45 minutes of India.
Dharwad is beautiful. There are more trees and less trash than in Hubli. As we walked through part of the 700 acres (!) of the KIMS college campus, we were happy to see large clean buildings, a myriad of tree species, and trash cans (public trash cans are sadly hard to find in this country). Out of the forty or so college students we presented to, we successfully recruited seventeen volunteers and three Volunteer Leaders to teach our health and sanitation curriculum at a primary school during the coming year. Getting twenty volunteers to sign up is fabulous news because we were only expecting about ten! Volunteering in India is not popular like it is in America; it’s not a resume builder here. This is quite unfortunate because there are so many people in India who need help. Because we were only expecting ten, we might have to find a second primary school in the Dharwad area for the college students to teach at, which is definitely not bad news!
I had a great Saturday and am looking forward to my one day off per week – Sunday Funday baby!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Short Stories of the Week
It’s a relaxing Sunday morning. The start of the single day of the week solely dedicated to non-project related activities. It’s the perfect time for some blog writing. It’s the best time to remember and reflect on the closing week. So, here it goes--a collection of assorted short stories of the week.
***
It’s early: 6:09am. I roll out of bed, get dressed, and step out of the apartment to the noises of a slowly waking community. I stroll. A half-clothed three-year-old from the “squatter” home next door cries unabashedly while a group of roosters confidently make their morning calls. Birds trill their exotic tweets above while auto rickshaws distantly honk their mechanical horns. Sleeping dogs are scattered here and there nestled in mounds of trash and mud. Two minutes go by, and I arrive at my destination: guided morning yoga on the rooftop.
***
I walk behind the podium stationed at the front of the classroom. Externally, I look calm. Internally, I feel my nerves firing. In front of me are thirty pairs of focused eyes watching my every gesture and thirty pairs of attentive ears listening to my every word about the value of community service and serving others. Our team’s presentation ends. We circulate the sign-up sheet and patiently watch it fill up with the names of almost half the audience. We are relieved and excited. We say our good-byes happy to be partnered with a great group of student volunteers from this Women’s College eager to teach our health education curriculum at a primary school in the local slum community.
***
A smile lingers on my face from all the fun I just had playing alleyway cricket with the neighborhood kids. Without warning, rain begins pouring and lightning illuminates the darkening sky. This is monsoon season. My two friends and I keep walking along the side of the street seeking cover and dinner. Suddenly, three young children--one brother and two sisters---close in on each of us. The oldest girl, probably around seven years old, isolates me. Her tiny left hand tugs forcefully on my wrist. Her right hand makes a hand gesture to her mouth. We keep walking. The kids keep up stride-by-stride. My compassionate heart yells “please help, your pockets are full with rupees”. My thoughtful mind counters “be smart, you shouldn’t perpetuate the cycle of begging”. I’m torn. After nearly a hundred meters of walking and countless reluctant shakes of my head, the kids resign. I look back as they drift away, now soaked from the falling rain. I’m disappointed with myself for letting an opportunity to make a genuine, even small, positive impact in someone else’s life slip through my fingertips.
***
It’s Friday Movie Night in the Deshpande Center’s seminar room. The credits roll as Jamal and Latika dance to the beats of “Jai Ho”. The film hits me with an even stronger emotional punch after seeing it a second time. For this time, I am witnessing first-hand the land of “Slumdog Millionaire”. I am in India: the amazing place of unbelievable contrasts.
***
Eyes glued to my laptop screen, I realize that I haven’t moved from this couch for over three hours. Completely immersed in the task at hand--assessing the financial feasibility of implementing a community-level reverse-osmosis water plant--time passes so quickly. The prospect of having uncovered a legitimate water solution for S.M. Krishna Nagar sends pulses of inspiration through me. The potential opportunity: clean pure drinking water for a family for only 2.5 rupees a day, a viable business model with significant earnings potential and long-term sustainability, a way to improve and protect the health of over 4,000 individuals. I keep plugging on applying entrepreneurial frameworks I’ve learned at USC to a real-life problem. I’m in my element: changing the world through business.
***
The four of us comfortably sit in red plastic chairs eating ice cream under the dark night’s sky. Our conversation moves from topic to topic: exercise, girls, USC, spirituality, strawberry ice cream. Enjoying our late night Hubli hangout, I remind myself for the fifth time today, “I’m in India”.
-Bronson
***
It’s early: 6:09am. I roll out of bed, get dressed, and step out of the apartment to the noises of a slowly waking community. I stroll. A half-clothed three-year-old from the “squatter” home next door cries unabashedly while a group of roosters confidently make their morning calls. Birds trill their exotic tweets above while auto rickshaws distantly honk their mechanical horns. Sleeping dogs are scattered here and there nestled in mounds of trash and mud. Two minutes go by, and I arrive at my destination: guided morning yoga on the rooftop.
***
I walk behind the podium stationed at the front of the classroom. Externally, I look calm. Internally, I feel my nerves firing. In front of me are thirty pairs of focused eyes watching my every gesture and thirty pairs of attentive ears listening to my every word about the value of community service and serving others. Our team’s presentation ends. We circulate the sign-up sheet and patiently watch it fill up with the names of almost half the audience. We are relieved and excited. We say our good-byes happy to be partnered with a great group of student volunteers from this Women’s College eager to teach our health education curriculum at a primary school in the local slum community.
***
A smile lingers on my face from all the fun I just had playing alleyway cricket with the neighborhood kids. Without warning, rain begins pouring and lightning illuminates the darkening sky. This is monsoon season. My two friends and I keep walking along the side of the street seeking cover and dinner. Suddenly, three young children--one brother and two sisters---close in on each of us. The oldest girl, probably around seven years old, isolates me. Her tiny left hand tugs forcefully on my wrist. Her right hand makes a hand gesture to her mouth. We keep walking. The kids keep up stride-by-stride. My compassionate heart yells “please help, your pockets are full with rupees”. My thoughtful mind counters “be smart, you shouldn’t perpetuate the cycle of begging”. I’m torn. After nearly a hundred meters of walking and countless reluctant shakes of my head, the kids resign. I look back as they drift away, now soaked from the falling rain. I’m disappointed with myself for letting an opportunity to make a genuine, even small, positive impact in someone else’s life slip through my fingertips.
***
It’s Friday Movie Night in the Deshpande Center’s seminar room. The credits roll as Jamal and Latika dance to the beats of “Jai Ho”. The film hits me with an even stronger emotional punch after seeing it a second time. For this time, I am witnessing first-hand the land of “Slumdog Millionaire”. I am in India: the amazing place of unbelievable contrasts.
***
Eyes glued to my laptop screen, I realize that I haven’t moved from this couch for over three hours. Completely immersed in the task at hand--assessing the financial feasibility of implementing a community-level reverse-osmosis water plant--time passes so quickly. The prospect of having uncovered a legitimate water solution for S.M. Krishna Nagar sends pulses of inspiration through me. The potential opportunity: clean pure drinking water for a family for only 2.5 rupees a day, a viable business model with significant earnings potential and long-term sustainability, a way to improve and protect the health of over 4,000 individuals. I keep plugging on applying entrepreneurial frameworks I’ve learned at USC to a real-life problem. I’m in my element: changing the world through business.
***
The four of us comfortably sit in red plastic chairs eating ice cream under the dark night’s sky. Our conversation moves from topic to topic: exercise, girls, USC, spirituality, strawberry ice cream. Enjoying our late night Hubli hangout, I remind myself for the fifth time today, “I’m in India”.
-Bronson
Monday, June 15, 2009
Yoga
June 14, 2009
Today was my second day taking a new yoga class. An Indian Deshpande Fellow decided to offer a one hour yoga class every morning. Deshpande Fellows are Americans and Indians who have graduated college and get chosen by Deshpande to work in the Hubli area on a project with an NGO for a whole year. Fellows get a monthly stipend from Deshpande for food and living expenses and get their flights paid for as well – the fellowship program is basically like what I am doing, but for a year instead of a summer. My yoga teacher’s “fellowship” project is to travel to rural areas and teach yoga in primary schools. He is hoping that exposing the kids to this healthy form of exercise at a young age will encourage the children to stay active in the future.
So, for the past two mornings I have had the pleasure of roof top yoga! About ten of us lay our towels out on the terrace of a three story building and get to enjoy a pleasant breeze while performing different asanas, or body poses. I close my eyes and chant “aum” while I bend into shapes and “observe the changes of my body,” as my teacher tells us. Another Indian Fellow who lives in the building does his morning meditation on the roof every morning and looks so at peace with himself and with the world. The whole atmosphere is utterly and completely relaxing. Today there was even Indian music coming from somewhere off in the distance that we heard as the wind tickled our ears.
-Nina
Today was my second day taking a new yoga class. An Indian Deshpande Fellow decided to offer a one hour yoga class every morning. Deshpande Fellows are Americans and Indians who have graduated college and get chosen by Deshpande to work in the Hubli area on a project with an NGO for a whole year. Fellows get a monthly stipend from Deshpande for food and living expenses and get their flights paid for as well – the fellowship program is basically like what I am doing, but for a year instead of a summer. My yoga teacher’s “fellowship” project is to travel to rural areas and teach yoga in primary schools. He is hoping that exposing the kids to this healthy form of exercise at a young age will encourage the children to stay active in the future.
So, for the past two mornings I have had the pleasure of roof top yoga! About ten of us lay our towels out on the terrace of a three story building and get to enjoy a pleasant breeze while performing different asanas, or body poses. I close my eyes and chant “aum” while I bend into shapes and “observe the changes of my body,” as my teacher tells us. Another Indian Fellow who lives in the building does his morning meditation on the roof every morning and looks so at peace with himself and with the world. The whole atmosphere is utterly and completely relaxing. Today there was even Indian music coming from somewhere off in the distance that we heard as the wind tickled our ears.
-Nina
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Biggest Challenge: Uncertainty and Ambiguity
What I predicted is true: this summer's project will be the most challenging entrepreneurial endeavor I've faced to date.
I'm operating in a completely new and unfamiliar environment. And not just any environment, but India: an extremely complex country made of confusing contrasts between ancient and modern thinking and living. Further, I'm working to solve problems in areas not of my expertise--education, water, and health--within this unfamiliar context. Simultaneously, I'm taking on personal issues like adapting to a different culture and surviving new living conditions. To top it all off, I'm pressured to create meaningful change in the short span of two months.
All in all, what makes this summer so challenging is dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity. Right now, I have more questions than answers. I know parents care about the health of their kids, but why do let them drink contaminated water? I know there is effective technology to treat contaminated water, but why is it so hard to diffuse this technology?
Never before have I recognized so many individual opportunities to act and create value, but at the same time I have never been so unsure about how each relates. I am surrounded by passionate and capableNGOs and social entrepreneurs so excited and willing to meet our team. Which should my team engage with? What true value can we add to already long-standing efforts with our limited time and experience?
Importance of Handling Uncertainty and Ambiguity
Ultimately, the ability to handle uncertainty and ambiguity is what defines an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a person who can actively gather bits and pieces of information and resources, organize and sort them, then finally take these disconnected fragments to construct a cohesive and valuable mosaic. Therefore, the success of entrepreneur can be directly linked to their capacity to effectively deal with uncertainty and ambiguity.
Dr. Saras Saravasthy has conducted a lot of great research on entrepreneurial thinking that would support my claim. She found that what really separates entrepreneurs from managers is the way they think. Managers tend to use "causal thinking" whereby one takes a predetermined goal and a given set of means then seeks to find the optimal route to achieve that goal. On the other hand, entrepreneurs tend to also use "effectual thinking" whereby one takes a given set of means then allows a goal(s) to emerge.
Effectual thinking entrepreneurs collect, organize, and create using already available resources. As such, they can continually realize new opportunities for growth, ways to build beautiful mosaics, when others can only see stagnancy and a littering of broken fragments.
How to Effectively Deal with Uncertainty and Ambiguity
Seeing the importance of effectively handling uncertainty and ambiguity, I've reflected on two practical guides to direct my work.
First is to "operate with openness". Be open to meeting new people and participating in seemingly irrelevant experiences. For example, yesterday while shopping with a group of friends, we spontaneously decided to play cricket with some kids in their narrow alleyway. We learned a little bit about the lives of the kids, got a glimpse into India's sports obsession, and just had some simple fun that inspired and motivated everyone. We now have a match setup for 2pm this afternoon, and the kids are inviting all their friends. Who knows what this could evolve into?
Operating with openness ensures a steady flow of new information and new contacts--the collection of more fragments--that in the end provides the materials to construct new goals that otherwise would never be discovered.
Second is to "value the small steps" like meeting strangers or doing a small act of compassion. No matter where you are going, or how big or small your goal, getting there is a step-by-step process. Therefore, every step is valuable, and every step is essential to getting to the destination. By valuing each small step, it is easier to handle uncertainty and ambiguity; it becomes possible to recognize and appreciate your forward progress even though you may not know for what or to where you are progressing.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Let the Project Begin!
It's Day 21 in India. My feet are "sufficiently" settled in this new place (not fully, but I don't think they'll ever be completely), and I'm thankfully almost finished with my fight with food poisoning.
The past two long, activity-packed, exciting days have been dedicated to orientation through Deshpande. "Long" in that each day has lasted over ten hours. "Activity-packed" in that each day has squeezed together a mix of Kannada language lessons, lectures, networking, and site visits to NGOs. And finally "exciting" in that each day has been solely directed to learning and thinking about innovation, social entrepreneurship, and development work.
These two days of orientation have opened my eyes to two main things. First is that so much of the value of this opportunity of working in India is getting to work alongside like-hearted and like-minded people from all around the world. There are 30 total innovators (from USC, UNC, and UC Berkeley) each with their own unique background, experience, and personality. Yet, we are all here together in India working towards a common goal of leaving this place in a better state than when we arrived.
Second is that there is so much work, effort, and progress already happening in Hubli through the community and NGOs. However, this development is only the start of greater things to come. There is so much room and so much need for new ideas and new growth. This understanding furthers the importance of collaboration with local stakeholders because it builds on the idea that our summer's task is not to build something radically new, rather it is to add something innovative to the base already set.
The past two long, activity-packed, exciting days have been dedicated to orientation through Deshpande. "Long" in that each day has lasted over ten hours. "Activity-packed" in that each day has squeezed together a mix of Kannada language lessons, lectures, networking, and site visits to NGOs. And finally "exciting" in that each day has been solely directed to learning and thinking about innovation, social entrepreneurship, and development work.
These two days of orientation have opened my eyes to two main things. First is that so much of the value of this opportunity of working in India is getting to work alongside like-hearted and like-minded people from all around the world. There are 30 total innovators (from USC, UNC, and UC Berkeley) each with their own unique background, experience, and personality. Yet, we are all here together in India working towards a common goal of leaving this place in a better state than when we arrived.
Second is that there is so much work, effort, and progress already happening in Hubli through the community and NGOs. However, this development is only the start of greater things to come. There is so much room and so much need for new ideas and new growth. This understanding furthers the importance of collaboration with local stakeholders because it builds on the idea that our summer's task is not to build something radically new, rather it is to add something innovative to the base already set.
Getting Started
June 6, 2009
Monsoon season has officially started. As Alex John, Jen, Krishnan, Alex N., and Bronson and I left the boys guest house last night to go out to dinner, we felt the first of many rain drops fall on our heads for the summer. It was a very light rain, that Krishnan said was a deceiving preview to what would soon be thunder and lightening storms with horizontal rain due to heavy winds. During the monsoon season we are to expect about four hours of cumulative power outage throughout each day – fifteen minutes here and there.
My typical morning has been roughly the following: My roommate Jen and I wake up at 5:50am – usually without an alarm. Our remarkably early rise is only possible because we started this routine the morning after we got here, so when we adjusted to the time difference and shedded our jet lag, immediately forcing ourselves to wake up early told our bodies that 5:50 was the normal time to wake up. If only our bodies knew the truth ;). That being said, I love this change in the schedule of my day. At 6:15am, before the city of Hubli wakes up, we walk from the Ladies Hostel to the boys Guest House. This has come to be my most favorite part of the of day. I don’t have to fear for my life when crossing the street and there are less people out and about (people who blatantly stare at us because we look different).
At 6:30am the “R.A.” of the boys Guest House, Rahul, leads us in a relaxing session of yoga.
After the early morning I have some down time before the Indian work day starts (usually 9:30 or 10am). I make oatmeal for breakfast and read or go online.
This past week has been pretty low key, which was beneficial to Alex, Bronson and I. Alex and Bronson needed some time to adjust from vacation life to working life and I needed get used to India!
We did meet with an NGO called Chinyard that we might work with for the micro-credit/water kiosk part of our project. We will be meeting with them again this week after they talk to their director about our project. We also met with Mohsin – a college student at KIMS College who was one of the volunteers that taught out curriculum in the elementary school. We want to talk to him in detail about each lesson plan and find out what worked and what didn’t so we can improve the curriculum this summer before it is taught again. Mohsin was also one of the volunteers that went around to households to do surveys about the water filters. This aspect of the project definitely has to be improved because Mohsin just has hand-written questionnaires that he filled out last year at each house. The online data base that was supposed to be used to record survey results didn’t work out for some reason. Mohsin has final exams now and is finishing his last year of college. He will be a valuable asset to the improvement of the project, so we hope we will be in close contact with him in the next few weeks after he finishes his exams.
On Wednesday we have a meeting with WLF (Water Literacy Foundation), the NGO our project paired with last summer and that we will continue to work with this year.
-Nina
Monsoon season has officially started. As Alex John, Jen, Krishnan, Alex N., and Bronson and I left the boys guest house last night to go out to dinner, we felt the first of many rain drops fall on our heads for the summer. It was a very light rain, that Krishnan said was a deceiving preview to what would soon be thunder and lightening storms with horizontal rain due to heavy winds. During the monsoon season we are to expect about four hours of cumulative power outage throughout each day – fifteen minutes here and there.
My typical morning has been roughly the following: My roommate Jen and I wake up at 5:50am – usually without an alarm. Our remarkably early rise is only possible because we started this routine the morning after we got here, so when we adjusted to the time difference and shedded our jet lag, immediately forcing ourselves to wake up early told our bodies that 5:50 was the normal time to wake up. If only our bodies knew the truth ;). That being said, I love this change in the schedule of my day. At 6:15am, before the city of Hubli wakes up, we walk from the Ladies Hostel to the boys Guest House. This has come to be my most favorite part of the of day. I don’t have to fear for my life when crossing the street and there are less people out and about (people who blatantly stare at us because we look different).
At 6:30am the “R.A.” of the boys Guest House, Rahul, leads us in a relaxing session of yoga.
After the early morning I have some down time before the Indian work day starts (usually 9:30 or 10am). I make oatmeal for breakfast and read or go online.
This past week has been pretty low key, which was beneficial to Alex, Bronson and I. Alex and Bronson needed some time to adjust from vacation life to working life and I needed get used to India!
We did meet with an NGO called Chinyard that we might work with for the micro-credit/water kiosk part of our project. We will be meeting with them again this week after they talk to their director about our project. We also met with Mohsin – a college student at KIMS College who was one of the volunteers that taught out curriculum in the elementary school. We want to talk to him in detail about each lesson plan and find out what worked and what didn’t so we can improve the curriculum this summer before it is taught again. Mohsin was also one of the volunteers that went around to households to do surveys about the water filters. This aspect of the project definitely has to be improved because Mohsin just has hand-written questionnaires that he filled out last year at each house. The online data base that was supposed to be used to record survey results didn’t work out for some reason. Mohsin has final exams now and is finishing his last year of college. He will be a valuable asset to the improvement of the project, so we hope we will be in close contact with him in the next few weeks after he finishes his exams.
On Wednesday we have a meeting with WLF (Water Literacy Foundation), the NGO our project paired with last summer and that we will continue to work with this year.
-Nina
Friday, June 5, 2009
Learning through Sickness
The bulk of the past two days have been one long menacing nightmare. After a relaxing escape filled with great food and good health in beautiful Kerala, I came down with a fever, chills, headache, body aches, and diarrhea as soon as I made it to my main destination of Hubli, Karnataka to start project work.
Almost at the very moment of arriving to Hubli after a total of 21 hours of train riding (12 hours from Cochin-Bangalore, 9 hours from Bangalore-Hubli), I fell completely sick. To make things worse, a few hours into my sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I awoke from itching bites all over my sweaty body ultimately forcing me to half-consciously stumble into the bathroom for an unwanted cold shower. I'm hard pressed to recall a night's rest as terrible as this one. Putting it all together, the night was made of a miserable mix of ingredients: a fever, an aching body, a dozen mosquito bites, the mental stress of thinking of what those mosquitoes could be carrying, and the desperate need for sleep after such tiring travels.
The following day was filled with more of the same. I tried my best to rest as much as I could to beat this bug, but found it difficult to overcome my body's uncomfortable oscillations between hot and cold. I lost all sense of time. Every time I dozed, I had an irritating, incomprehensible, and reoccurring dream (or should I say nightmare) filled with feelings of stickiness and stress. My day went by at snail's pace.
The second night was bad but not as bad. And luckily today has been much better. I saw a doctor to make sure my illness was nothing serious, and by this afternoon I felt noticeably better. Most likely (and hopefully) my sickness was due to basic case of food poisoning based on its short duration.
All in all, as terrible as this cloudy experience has been, it has brought with it many benefits through recognition of its silver lining. And by seeing the value through the struggle, it definitely helped me maintain a more optimistic attitude to the course of things.
Through the ordeal, I've learned and reflected on the health care system in rural/low-income India by going through it first-hand. Overall, I witnessed the system's lack of service capacity and its barriers to entry for the community's poor. As an illustration, I waited two hours past my scheduled appointment time for a simple four minute check-up; financially, the check-up billed at 80 rupees and the prescription at 90 rupees, a hefty sum for any low-income family in India especially just for treating a mild illness. It's now much clearer to me how and why a family would pass up receiving medical help from professionals. And sadly, in severe cases, such bypassing of simple help and intervention often leads to preventable long-term health problems and the crippling financial problems.
Finally, through this experience I have literally felt the problem and pain that I will be spending my summer trying to alleviate here in Hubli . Through my two days of suffering, I have developed an even stronger motivation to tackle the problems of poor sanitation and contaminated water which are causing similar illnesses to what I felt. Experiencing the overwhelmingly averse effects of bad health that completely upends life, I've grown a deeper connection to the real value of the impact I hope to make in the next eight weeks.
Almost at the very moment of arriving to Hubli after a total of 21 hours of train riding (12 hours from Cochin-Bangalore, 9 hours from Bangalore-Hubli), I fell completely sick. To make things worse, a few hours into my sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I awoke from itching bites all over my sweaty body ultimately forcing me to half-consciously stumble into the bathroom for an unwanted cold shower. I'm hard pressed to recall a night's rest as terrible as this one. Putting it all together, the night was made of a miserable mix of ingredients: a fever, an aching body, a dozen mosquito bites, the mental stress of thinking of what those mosquitoes could be carrying, and the desperate need for sleep after such tiring travels.
The following day was filled with more of the same. I tried my best to rest as much as I could to beat this bug, but found it difficult to overcome my body's uncomfortable oscillations between hot and cold. I lost all sense of time. Every time I dozed, I had an irritating, incomprehensible, and reoccurring dream (or should I say nightmare) filled with feelings of stickiness and stress. My day went by at snail's pace.
The second night was bad but not as bad. And luckily today has been much better. I saw a doctor to make sure my illness was nothing serious, and by this afternoon I felt noticeably better. Most likely (and hopefully) my sickness was due to basic case of food poisoning based on its short duration.
All in all, as terrible as this cloudy experience has been, it has brought with it many benefits through recognition of its silver lining. And by seeing the value through the struggle, it definitely helped me maintain a more optimistic attitude to the course of things.
Through the ordeal, I've learned and reflected on the health care system in rural/low-income India by going through it first-hand. Overall, I witnessed the system's lack of service capacity and its barriers to entry for the community's poor. As an illustration, I waited two hours past my scheduled appointment time for a simple four minute check-up; financially, the check-up billed at 80 rupees and the prescription at 90 rupees, a hefty sum for any low-income family in India especially just for treating a mild illness. It's now much clearer to me how and why a family would pass up receiving medical help from professionals. And sadly, in severe cases, such bypassing of simple help and intervention often leads to preventable long-term health problems and the crippling financial problems.
Finally, through this experience I have literally felt the problem and pain that I will be spending my summer trying to alleviate here in Hubli . Through my two days of suffering, I have developed an even stronger motivation to tackle the problems of poor sanitation and contaminated water which are causing similar illnesses to what I felt. Experiencing the overwhelmingly averse effects of bad health that completely upends life, I've grown a deeper connection to the real value of the impact I hope to make in the next eight weeks.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Summary of Our Project
This is a short summary of what our team plans to accomplish this summer:
The Hubli Water and Health Project strives to accomplish three distinct initiatives that collectively aim to improve the water quality and health of the S.M. Krishna Nagar neighborhood in Hubli. The first initiative aims to maintain and expand education programs currently being taught in the school based on feedback from college volunteers and the school itself, as well as begin community water nights to disseminate information about water quality issues and water filter use. The second initiative aims to update and continue health/water/sanitation data collection in the community through our partnership with KIMS and expand the scope of the surveys to address the impact of the upcoming rainwater harvesting system at the Rajiv Gandhi Primary School. The third initiative seeks to launch a self-sustaining water filter kiosk (store) owned and operated by a local entrepreneur. The kiosk will be financed through a start-up subsidy and sustained through a partnership with a microfinace NGO.
- Nina
The Hubli Water and Health Project strives to accomplish three distinct initiatives that collectively aim to improve the water quality and health of the S.M. Krishna Nagar neighborhood in Hubli. The first initiative aims to maintain and expand education programs currently being taught in the school based on feedback from college volunteers and the school itself, as well as begin community water nights to disseminate information about water quality issues and water filter use. The second initiative aims to update and continue health/water/sanitation data collection in the community through our partnership with KIMS and expand the scope of the surveys to address the impact of the upcoming rainwater harvesting system at the Rajiv Gandhi Primary School. The third initiative seeks to launch a self-sustaining water filter kiosk (store) owned and operated by a local entrepreneur. The kiosk will be financed through a start-up subsidy and sustained through a partnership with a microfinace NGO.
- Nina
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
