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Finally found some American-ish pizza! Yay for giving our tummies a little break from Indian food. At this restaurant, Snow Ball, we ordered pizza, expecting to receive what we got last time we saw "pizza" on the menu, which was some type of bread with some type of ketchup tasting sauce and a little bit of grilled peppers.


As a environmentalist, it is hard for me to live in a place where people do not have respect for their surrounding environment. I went on a run this morning past a lake and saw an awful lot of trash floating in brown water. I also had the pleasure of seeing two different people pooping in an empty lot and on the side of the road. I am going to add a lesson plan to our curriculum here about the health and overall benefits of respecting the place in which you live.

Back on the Bus

June 20, 2009

Today I 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 Holon, the bus into Tel Aviv took up to 40 minutes and I commuted at least twice a week. 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. Yesterday 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 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 oddly 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 10, 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!


Boys we met downtown who were playing cricket in an alley way. They tried to teach us the rules of the game in broken english and invited us to play with them!


Girls who I hung out with while we watched the boys play cricket.


Cows are everywhere and they are BOSS - they can chill in the middle of the street and no one will touch them. I saw one hanging out right in the doorway to a store downtown, completely blocking the entry way, but he is a cow, so it doesn't matter. :)

My Morning Schedule

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 small city of Hubli wakes up, we walk from the Ladies Hostle to the boys Guest House. This has come to be my most favorite time 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 our “counselor,” Rahul leads us in a relaxing session of yoga.
The empty street on my morning walk:


After the early morning I have some down time before the Indian work day starts (usually 10am). I make oatmeal for breakfast and read or go online. I often find myself with nothing to do, which I am definitely not used to. I don’t think I have ever really had a designated block of free time everyday. I think it will be relaxing and good for me.

The arrival

June 3, 2009

After about two days of travel time and time change, I have finally made it to my destination: Hubli, India.

This India is very unlike the India I remember from last year, and to those who know how my trip went last year, that is a very good thing. Hubli reminds me much more of Uganda than it does of Mumbai or Delhi. People walk along dirt lined streets scattered with motorcyclists, buses, trucks, and rickshaws. Unlike the big cities I was in last year, Hubli is not too crowded; there is room for personal space and less poverty stricken children roaming the streets. The climate is quite tropical – although it is very hot, there are light winds that relieve some of the heat. The air is heavy and it is obvious that monsoon season is approaching.

My dormitory is mostly what I expected. I live in a small room with one roommate and we have our own bathroom. The women’s hostel does not allow men into the building and requires its residents to be back in the building every night at 7:30 – yup, I have a 7:30pm curfew! And no internet to go with it. But this might be the catalyst to the start of a new schedule for myself. I can go to bed early and then wake up with the sun and meditate and do yoga with the local Indians.

The Women's dorm is pictured above (my mom said welcome to a country where women are 2nd class citizens, true true).

The boys dormitory, on the other hand, was just finished being built. The rooms here are spacious and there is a lounge with free wireless. The walk over here is about 15 minutes from the women’s dormitory, so I have a feeling that I will be spending most of my free time during the day here instead of at the women’s dormitory.

The Boys guest house is pictured above.

The orientation for my program is on June 8th, so I have the next few days to adjust to the time difference, which is 12 and a half hours later than California time, and get to know the city of Hubli. That being said, the rest of my team is supposed to arrive tonight, so starting tomorrow we are supposed to get started on our project.

I think that is enough of a little introduction for now. We are headed out into town this evening to look around a bit, so I will soon have a sense of what Hubli is like.

I have arrived

I'm here!
more to come!

Time To Travel Again

This summer I will be spending ten weeks in Southern India working on a water quality and health project. In February 2009, several USC students submitted various grant proposals to the Deshpande Foundation in India (associated with the Stevens Institute for Innovation at University of Southern California). The proposal that I wrote along with 1 other student was chosen for funding (flights, living, program expenses are paid for).

Here is some information on what I am doing, and more info to come:

USC Hubli Water and Health Project: Mission
This is a compiled work put together by the USC Team. We hope that it gives our support team better insight to what we desire to accomplish during our time in Hubli.


The World Health Organization has reported that 88% of the 1.8 million deaths resulting from diarrhea can be attributed to unsafe water or inadequate hygiene or sanitation. Unfortunately, a significant population in the city of Hubli, India is victim to these causes, and isn't even aware of it.

The USC Hubli Water and Health Team is in Hubli this summer to continue a project that was started last year with aim to improve the previously mentioned statistics in the community. Their team of three members (Nina Gordon-Kirsch, Alex John, and Bronson Chang), visiting from the University of Southern California in the United States, has evaluated last summer’s work and is ready to improve and expand the project to help the under-served community of S.M. Krishna Nagar. Over the course of the next year the Team will employ local college students to maintain the program and monitor the efficiency of the Team’s water purification technology. Subsidizing the cost for those living within this community, the Team will be providing state-of-the-art purification systems at affordable prices, creating an important sense of ownership and empowerment for the owners of these important devices. The Team will also train a resident(s) of Hubli to be able to order new filters and replacement parts, as well as provide information about the water filters to the local community.

The Team likewise desires to build awareness within the local community about the need to drink purified water. While the source of water they currently receive from the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) is filtered, sewage leakage or the poor management of waste often contaminates drinking water on its way. While the water from these pipes or the bore wells may look clean, it can be hazardous to drink. Even water contained in holding tanks on vehicles which visit the community is by no means guaranteed to be of sufficient, purified quality. The tanks carrying the water are rarely cleaned and the taps through which the water is dispersed may easily be contaminated. Families must be aware that the water they are provided is harmful to their health and is also a catalyst for breeding mosquitoes carrying malaria and other transferable diseases. Local reports have proven this, as communities in the past have fallen victim to water-related illnesses as a result of their consumption of unclean water. The USC Team hopes to shed light on this threatening issue, as confronting the challenge of dirty drinking water is a "gateway" step towards achieving measured, sustainable improvements in a wide array of serious health related issues. Through education at key points of community influence and the measured introduction of new technologies that encourage responsibility over simply charity, the Team will use its time in Hubli to affect change that is both scalable and sustainable.


India here I come!

Goodbye

June 3, 2008

Saying goodbye sucked. The whole time I tired to think about the quote in my ring, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I thought and thought and thought about it while tears streamed down my face.

There were a bunch of different buses that came one after another to take kids to the airport. I was on the very last bus because my Olami flight (with a layover in Spain) wasn’t until the morning. The first few buses had my close friends Aliza and Haya as well as my first and best roommate Stacy. A little later I had to say goodbye to my closest friends Hayley and Ilana; this was the hardest. When we go back to the US we will not be able to just hang out. I want to be able to see them whenever I want, but I wont be able to. Saying goodbye was truly challenging because we would really never see each other in the context of this year ever again. Saying goodbye to high school friends last August was hard, but we all still live in Berkeley and have summers together. I would have to pay hundreds of dollars for flights to visit all my new friends who live spread out across the US.

After all the regular buses left I had a few hours to get myself together before my bus would come. My Olami friends and I ate a dinner salted by our own tears. How different it will be to return home again. How devastating it will be when we have a memory from this year and can’t turn around to find a Year Courser with whom to reminisce.

It’s over. What will life be like back home? I don’t even remember what it’s like living in America. I dream of luxuries such as my house cleaner and a free washer/dryer. I cant wait for the moment I feel clean in my own home and don’t have to worry about cleaning someone else’s dishes.

But I am also dreading the day that I cant run downstairs to the Macolit (a corner store, literally on every corner) to buy an ingredient I am missing or to please a chocolate craving. I am afraid I will miss the calmness of a Saturday in Israel and the short bus ride away I lived from the amazing city of Tel Aviv.

I have found independence this year that I am afraid will be suffocated once I live under my parent’s roof again; not necessarily by my parents, but by my returning home and falling back into routines of the past. Some kids on the program are moving back to their home city, but into their own apartments in order to stay as independent as they were this year. We had the freedom to cook whatever we wanted with the groceries we bought for ourselves. We could come home whenever we pleased with no ones words hanging over our heads. We had to come up with solutions to our problems on our own.

Will going home be a relief, to finally live a life that I am comfortable living and that I know how to live? Or will life back at home be boring, not challenging me to live in a new city with new places to explore? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

June 10, 2008

Fitting back into American culture was far too easy. It was like how you never forget how to ride a bike. There were definitely a few things that I forgot about at first, but once exposed to them, it was all normal again. However, there were a few things, that seemed normal here that I had a bad feeling inside about. Like having more than what is necessary. I brought two very large suitcases with me this past year and I had way too many clothes; I could have gone with out some of the stuff I brought. When I came home to my room I looked in my closet and was completely disgusted by how much I own and don’t use. The kids in Africa that I visited have three outfits to last them a year. I immediately cleaned out my whole closet and donated the clothes.

My biggest piece of culture shock when I got home was my first trip to target. I needed to buy a big thing of lotion so my mom and I went to the toiletries section. I was standing in a row that was full of only lotions. I couldn’t believe how many lotion options I had to choose from! There was “with aloe,” “for dry skin,” and all sorts of scents. It was completely overwhelming and I didn’t like it. In Israel, and in other countries I visited, there were no choices, or there were very few choices; it was easy. That being said, options create more freedom and individuality, which is something that makes America so special.

America is great, and the lotion is a perfect example – there is something for everyone here. And in fact, you can buy more than one lotion for different occasions. But this ‘great America’ also invites the question, ‘ is it necessary to have so much?’ After seeing how people live in other places, I would answer no. Americans consume way too much – we are 5% of the world’s population, yet consume 25% of the world’s resources. In America, people are way less conscious of how their actions affect the greater world. I think that in other countries, people are more worldly because they want to be somewhere else in the world to have a better life, so they care about the rest of the world – its their destination. We are narcissistic here because we don’t dream about being in another country, we want to be here.

I am happy to say that I am keeping India in mind, even while I live life in Berkeley. I have made a point not to consume as much (in the materialistic sense) because it just isn’t necessary. I really have made a distinction between want and need, except every once in a while when I treat myself to something I want. For instance, I’m not buying any new things for my college dorm room – I am just using all of my brothers old stuff.

Coming home and finding out that Berkeley now collects compost made my homecoming amazing. I think that is very exciting news! It shows that there is hope about Americans caring about the world.