Hi everyone, Matt here, back in the US. I just wanted to remind you to take a look back at Anthony’s photo post, I just added captions. Social dynamics yet to come!
Compiled by Matt!
EWB Laptop
Flashdrive (2Gig)
Indoor Air Pollution Meter
Extra CO meter
Multimeter
Satellite Phone
2 Mosquito Nets (100% Deet bugspray, also!)
Tent
2 Lightweight sleeping bags
Blow-up pillows
2 Headlamps
2 Low-watt cooker Prototypes (with 1 dimmer box ;p)
2 BEAUTIFUL smokeless cookstoves
2 Packets comprised of Aprovecho essays (comprised by our own brilliant Anthony Yim)
Notebooks/Pens/Pencils
6 Nalgenes
2 Water-filters
Small backbacks for convenient schlepping
Lighter/Matches
Learn Oriya through English in 30 Days (thanks Hannah)
Carabiners
Beautiful D90/bag/charger/two batteries/15-85mm lens
iPod!
Malarone (all)
Antibiotics
Meds (immodium, motrin, asprin, Benadryl)
Medkit
Hey everyone! Sorry for the delayed post! We meant to post a few days ago with updates on our testing and other work, but we were swamped with many important tasks in the last couple days in the village. Sadly we have already left Purunaguma and have started our journey home. Honestly it feels very strange to be inside the mammoth glass structure that is the Dubai airport, sitting in cushioned seats and cold from air conditioning for the first time in a month. It’s hard to imagine that only 36 hours ago we were on a sweaty train ride to Bhubaneshwar, that two days ago we were in the village. Either way we already miss waving at the smiling children and providing entertainment at our attempts to explain ourselves through a combination of (very) broken Oryia and hand signaling (I must say it was I who most often made a fool of myself). It has been a real pleasure to stay in the village and to connect with these people over this summer and last summer. I am really sad knowing that this might be my last trip (at least in the near future) to Purunaguma. In spite of this I am still really excited with the progress we have been able to make in a month, especially in terms of the villagers’ participation and interest in the biomass stove. Now on to updates…
To start with the update I have some bad news. When we were conducting our fifth test* at Rashmi’s house, I accidentally dropped the IAPM as I was setting up before Rashmi’s mom startedcooking. I take complete responsibility for dropping it and wish we could have finished the last two tests at Rashmi’s house (for clarification: we tested with two other cooks and conducted 3 biomass stove tests and 3 traditional chullah tests with each cook). On the bright side, the data we collected at Rashmi’s house is still very useful since we conducted 3 biomass tests and 1 chullah test, allowing for a comparison even if it won’t be an ideal one. Also because of this error, it allowed us to test the low watt cooker in Rashmi’s house as he had expressed interest in it. As Matt mentioned in an earlier post we didn’t want to test the low watt cookers in any household for social dynamics reasons and for the excess power demand that a large number of these cookers would take from the Micro-Hydro system. But Rashmi, whose English is actually quite good, understands the reasoning behind our project and wouldn’t be motivated by status. So as far as testing goes, we were able to collect comparable data (i.e. the chullah and biomass tests were in the same room for each separate cook) with a total of 9 biomass stove tests, 7 chullah tests, and 2 low-watt cooker tests. Again not to confuse people, the way the testing was done was for each cook ( we tested 3 in total) we had them cook 3 times with the biomass stove and 3 times with their traditional chullah to give us a comparison on the CO, Particulate matter, time, and wood consumption between the stoves.
One of the other exciting updates is that Matt and I were able to locally purchase the materials necessary for building a couple of biomass stoves and actually started the process of making them. Even though we only tested in 5 different households, almost the entire village (all three hamlets, Purunaguma, Chudaguda, and Leinguda) knew about the biomass stove and were interested in the possible lifestyle improvements it can bring. In order for the project to be sustainable, we decided early on that our goal was to build our prototypes using materials obtained locally. By outlining methods of production that involved local capital, our project has the hope of continued success even after we leave. I think what really started the villagers to adopt the project as their own was when they saw Matt and I working at Rashmi’s house to construct a wooden mold for making the bricks that will comprise the combustion chamber. We were able to get the help of the village carpenter and other local villagers to build the two molds. Using these molds we dried 4 bricks getting them ready to be fired. I was excited when they started asking questions about how to continue building the biomass stove, and what technical aspects of the stove make it perform better than their chullahs. In fact, 3-4 of the village men came by Rashmi’s house to help/watch this process, which was exciting for us since it hopefully marks the begining of them taking ownership of this project. To help them do this, Matt and I wrote up a detailed procedure of how to build one a biomass stove from locally obtained materials based on a video released by Aprovecho Research Center. To make the procedure as informational as possible, we also gathered the prices of items that were necessary to build the stove (e.g. Tin vegetable oil can – 25 Rupees). Also, we continued our discussion with the machinist in Bhawanipatna and were able to see some of the work he was able to accomplish in a short period (e.g. strengthen the bottom of the tin can for added support for the weight of the brick and concrete). Sadly he wasn’t able to go to Raipur (a somewhat distant city) to get the cast piece done, but Matt and I have his e-mail address and plan to keep in contact with him to figure out the exact pricing of the top metal plate of the biomass stove. Finally before we left Matt and I were also able to get the procedure translated into Oriya for (we hope) added clarity. We hope the (literate) villagers can help spread the information so that they might be able to continue production on their own.
Overall I am really excited by village momentum and interest in the biomass stoves as a better alternative to their traditional chullah. To better assist the villagers build these stoves, Matt and I purchased an extra local tin vegetable can so that when we get back to Columbia we can go through the procedure ourselves and troubleshoot for issues the villagers might face. (Do they have the tools to cut this tin Can in the village?, Is a top cast iron piece really necessary?, etc.) I wish I had more time to describe in detail all of the stuff that has happened in the village, but as I have to catch a flight I tried to relate what I thought was the most exciting/important news that has been happening! There will be a few more posts soon to come!! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!!
Hey everyone. So we’re back in Bhawanipatna to do some internet-based work for the day. Unfortunately the computers in the internet cafes of Bhawanpatna are pretty slow, and the one I’m on now freezes everytime I try to caption the pictures on Anthony’s post. (Thanks for getting the pictures up Anthony!) Captions will be up as soon as technically feasible, and more photos to come, there are some great shots of the villagers that I’d love to share with everyone. Updates to follow as well, so please keep visiting the blog in the next few days.
This is a picture of a villager Siman, prounounced “see-mone,” of Purunaguma. This is the first time Peter and I got the improved biomass stove to use, as Siman eagerly grabbed some wood and got to cooking in the village daycare center.
Sorry for the glacial pace at uploading photos, but here they are. Enjoy! It’s so awesome to see our cook stoves in action (and our group’s name painted on the sign in front of the microhydro powerhouse). Here is a link to the full gallery (took too long to upload all too here and the files are too big to post of CUEWB’s Flickr account, will fix that soon). Below is just a preview =)
This is a picture of some of the village children outside of the daycare center as Siman cooked inside. The children are always smiling, and as you can see every one of them is absolutely beautiful.
Stovetec stove with aluminum skirt for increased heating efficiency. This is the stove being presented to a small group of village women, our first “community meeting.” Dipti started by asking them about the issues they experienced with their chullahs. They all unanimously voiced the health-related symptoms caused by the smoke and the massive amount of wood they use each time they cook. Small meetings like this really helped mobilize village interest, got them thinking and talking about the livelihood issues they face, and taught Peter and me a lot about the village dynamic.
Peter taking apart the stove (you can see the orange porous clay insulation inside the metal casing). This is during our first meeting with the machinist. That’s him in the yellow shirt, with Peter on the right and our driver, Pramod, on the left. We explained why the stove is more efficient by taking it apart, and we also clarified what parts we would enlist him to make, and what parts we wanted to keep to village production (the clay interior that you see).
This is a shot of one of the women cooking rice and dal (split peas) during our second test.
Here is the sign outside of the microhydro powerhouse next to where Peter and I camped.Check out EWB-Columbia under “Technical Support”! P.S. That wire you see in the background was hooked up to an outlet that the villagers hotwired for our tent. It allowed us to make our maggi every night using the low-watt cooker.
This is a photo of the kitchen in the 2nd household we tested with. Note the improved biomass stove next to the traditional chullah.
Here is a picture of Peter explaining how the Indoor Air Pollution Meter works (using pidgin Oriya coupled with Rashmi’s help), to the wealthiest villager, of Leinguda. If you recall, he was the one who ended up being less than helpful in our testing adventures. You’ll hear all about him in the upcoming village dynamcis post.
Above is a photo of a mother and son from Leinguda. Surprisingly, a lot of the villagers asked me to take photos of them, and it seemed to facilitate the testing process by maintaining good spirits with the villagers. Ironically, this boy didn’t smile once.
Below is a great shot of some of the village boys showering in this concrete structure, built by the state government, next to the powerhouse. Note the smiles! The village children generally disregard caste among their peers, although it is very clear which children are from higher castes. In this picture, you might pick up on the swollen belly of the boy to the far left, it’s a sign of malnutrition. All of the other boys, although thin (which is par for the course in the village), were generally well nourished. In other pictures I have, malnourishment is much more apparent.
So I’m still in Bhwanipatna, waiting for a few hardware stores to open so that I can bring supplies back to the village. With some extra time, I just wanted to do a little clarifying as Krishn’s (very helpful!) comment made some things apparent about what I’ve omitted.
In doing field-based cooking tests, we need to collect several data points for each person cooking, on each model of stove. Since there are so many variables in a controlled cooking test, a good number of data points is crucial. Wood usage depends entirely on the person cooking, indoor air pollution readings depend on weather conditions like wind and rain, particulate emissions depend on how they start the fire on individual occasions, and pretty much all of the data we are collecting depends on the type of wood we’re using…
In reality, the list of variables that affect our data collection is endless, and in turn Pete and I are conducting “sets” of tests with each family in order to reduce error. A set of tests is comprised of three meals on the improved biomass stove and three meals on the traditional chullah. Since the villagers generally cook twice a day, once at about 11 AM and another time at about 5 PM, we can finish two tests a day. What this means is that if all goes well with testing, we can complete a “set” of tests in 3 days. We are limited to this efficiency because we only have one indoor air pollution meter (IAPM) and cannot divide our efforts.
Scheduling wise, it looks like we’ll have to catch our train on June 23rd at 4:00 P.M., and we have only about 4 to 5 more (real) days working here. Alas, 4 testing sets might very well be the cap for this trip.
After a long phone conversation with Dipti last night, I got even more details about the “between-the-lines” village community interaction. So, in a future post, I’ll try to cover a lot of the more implicit village dynamics that we’ve encountered this month. There’s no doubt they have huge implications for the way we operate when we’re here, and the way we’ll operate in the future.
P.S. Feedback really helps–the specifics of our testing might’ve gone unmentioned had Krishn not commented on my last post. Keep it coming guys! Thanks for following the blog!
Hi everyone. So I was finally able to steal a day in Bhwanipatna after a 3 day camping stint in the village. Pete and I have a few important progress updates for you.
First of all, Dipti hasn’t been around for the last week, and it looks like she might be at Gram Vikas HQ in Berhampur until the 23rd. For the last few days we have had to utilize our limited resources—Rashmi, some village youth, and our driver Pramod–to get work done.
Last time we were in the city, Peter and I went to a local machinist that handles most of the village construction work that Gram Vikas requests, and it looks like he’ll be the one to handle local production of our improved biomass cookstoves. We brought the Stovetec model to him and explained some basic combustion principles–why we think our design will work to reduce particulate matter, CO emissions, and save time–and why we need certain parts to be made a certain way. We have great news on this front. Looking at the design, he was very confident that we could replicate something of the sort using local capital, and a home-grown prototype should be in our hands in the near future.
We’re starting with a standard rectangular vegetable oil canister made of tin as the body for the stove. (Pete and I bought two at a local shop at 20 rupees a piece, which is less than 50 cents in US dollars.) We bought concrete, and then got a big bag of saw dust for free from a carpenter in Bhwanipatna. As I type, Peter is in Purnaguma working with Rashmi and the village carpenter to get a mold made for the porous inner chamber that we will fit in the cans. As yet, we are waiting to hear back from our machinist. He is going to head to the nearest casting site, approximately 180 km away, to get a top piece made similar to the current model we are testing, but fitted to the vegetable oil cans. It seems that our demand for casting might even help his business grow at the same time. According to Dipti, he’s looking to start his own casting shop in Bhwanipatna. Perhaps that will happen if implementation of these stoves is our ultimate trajectory. As of now, things in that direction are looking pretty good. Updates to follow when the machinist contacts us–hopefully with good news!
Testing-wise, we are aiming for four full sets of data by the end of the trip. Two days ago we finished a full round of testing with our second family. They were excellent to work with for the most part. Living in Charaguda, the wealthier hamlet of the three, they generally understood the concept of testing and welcomed us into their homes. (The mother of the house was constantly asking us to eat because she suspected we weren’t doing so. One day she made us chai and these amazing crepe-like pancakes with sugar on top.Yum.)
At the same time, testing has had its frustrating setbacks. With the second family, we started testing in one of their kitchens with the improved biomass stove. (We had to do one test over because the mother started cooking on an outdoor chullah simultaneously and our data was skewed.) Yet upon completion of the three (good) improved biomass tests, they informed us that testing on the traditional chullah would have to take place on one they had in an adjacent room. Albeit one of similar size, our fear is that ventilation patterns in the room were different, and our data won’t be ideal for improvement comparisons.
Looking for more subjects, we solicited Rashmi’s help to find a new family for testing. Accordingly, he brought us to a man in Lienguda, the hamlet that is strictly tribal. One of the richest and most politically adept men of the village, the man’s appearance made us rightfully apprehensive. We definitely don’t want to associate our work with status and class dynamics, and testing in this man’s house would not be the best for preserving that intention. In the end, fate (or something) decided for us. On the next two attempts to test with the wealthier tribal villager, he played games with us, leaving his house with his family when he said we could test, and successfully avoiding us. The obvious solution was to find a new family, but as we’ve come to discover, no solution is obvious when you don’t speak Oriya.
With Dipti gone and Rashmi busy, Peter and I tried to make use of our time and approach a new family in Lienguda—we got a test in. But the next day when we came back, we were curtly rejected by the woman of the house, who did not want to test anymore. She brought the stovetec model out from her kitchen, and told us “nei randibo, nei testing.” (“I won’t cook, no testing.”) Alas, one more lesson on village dynamics. A recurring pattern seems to be that the only way to get a woman to cook under our watch with our testing procedure, is to ask her husband. The village women are exceptionally wary of making decisions for the household without their husbands present. Furthermore, getting into a kitchen is not as easy as it might seem. The villagers regard their kitchens as sacred, and although the men have been willing to invite us in to test a bit for the sake of practicality, the women are certainly unwilling to fudge the rules of their culture without their husbands present.
What looks to be the future for testing, is that we are going to get Rashmi to do a set with us in his house so that we can avoid scheduling setbacks. A few villagers still seem very willing to test with us, and there’s still unquestionable interest in what this testing will produce as far as a practical solution.
More updates to follow. Pictures also! In the next post we’ll try to include some of the feedback from the exit surveys we’ve given to the test subjects.
The last time I left off, Peter and I were headed to the village to officially start the conversation about our improved cookstoves. The first few trips to the village however, were pretty informal. We’d wake up in the morning, drive to Purnaguma with Dipti, and walk around with her as she got some things done. Although we didn’t have much agency as to what we did in the beginning, I’d say that watching Dipti interact with the villagers was the best way to get an initial feel for the social and cultural dynamics of Purnaguma. Starting with basics like how to greet people, in the last few days we’ve developed a much stronger understanding of the village structure.
And now for the details…
Yes. We actually held a village meeting. I don’t know that it was precisely what we had pictured, but it was a start. First off, for those of you who don’t know, Purnaguma is a pretty big village of about 300 people. It’s divided into three separate hamlets that each have their own unique characteristics–one is solely a tribal hamlet, and another is visibly more well-off than the others. After the structural divide, you can factor in things like caste to imagine how difficult it would be to organize a village-wide meeting. In turn, what I had originally envisioned to be a village meeting quickly turned into a gathering of women from about four households of one hamlet. (I know, kind of anti-climactic.) In reality though, our little meeting was a perfect transition towards testing our prototypes. Dipti translated as the women openly explained three glaring issues that exist with their traditional chullah designs. They explained that wood collection was a lengthy process and that their cookstoves required way too much of it. They also explained that their cookstoves were slow in preparing food. On the periphery, the women also agreed that their chullahs were detrimental to their health: the smoke burns their eyes, they don’t like breathing it in, and it makes them cough. They qualified these issues by explaining that the effects of the chullahs on their health almost never comes into discussion. The women seemed to shrug off their symptoms and stress their use of too much wood. So, while our “community meeting” didn’t incite the type of overwhelming interest in our designs that we expected, we got a lot of information out of a relatively brief discussion. (We also got to practice our Oriya, which has gotten a lot better as the week has progressed!)
Another interesting update from earlier in the week might really excite some EWB alums and current older members. The day after we held our meeting, Dipti took us on a 45 minute detour out of Purnaguma to another village she discovered last July, called Karnibel. It’s small, only 16 households and all tribal. Amazingly enough, the village is already more than 50% done with a microhydro system. The first day we visited, we hiked up to the site where they built their weir and silt basin. Here we watched as the men from Karnibel got into an argument with a few people from another larger village higher up on the mountain (about 200 households.) According to Dipti, the conflict has really only been caused by a select few villagers who seem jealous that Gram Vikas and the government are helping a small tribal village rather than a much larger one. They are arguing that the people of Karneyville are stealing water from their village. (In reality, the larger village is too far away from the site to be a candidate for microhydro.) While we didn’t have much of an idea as to what was going on at the time, we were able to deduce that some of the men from Karnibel were truly characters. (Dipti translated.) One very vocal villager kept shouting “Is this their water? Is their name written on it somewhere?.” They also seemed convinced that negotiations with the other village would go best if Dipti brought along Peter and me, because we’re “big.” (I don’t really know if thats so applicable to me–living on chewy bars, maggi, and roti with subji when we’re in Bhwanipatna, Peter and I are losing weight. By the end of this trip I should probably look like one of the villagers.) Inter-village conflict aside however, the progress Karnibel has made is truly amazing–their concrete poles are up, their site is all built up on the mountain, and yesterday they even started to lay the PVC piping to bring the water to the generator. They are trying to pick up the pace so that the upcoming monsoon season doesn’t hamper their progress.
As the week progresed, our schedule became a little bit more regular. Peter and I set up a tent in front of the powerhouse and have spent a few nights in Puraguma to be more efficient with our testing. (To be honest, staying in the village is much nicer–up by the power house, we stay cool, have constantly running water, and unwavering electricity at night. None of these can be said for the Gram Vikas office in Bhwanipatna.) We’ve completed our first batch of testing with one village family, and from the first day working with them it became exceedingly obvious that we would face a lot of challenges with testing. While we’ve had some pretty funny moments trying to interact with the villagers and explain the notion of “testing” with an “Indoor Air Pollution Meter” using about 10 key words, it is also very apparent that in approaching the villagers on such an intimate level (that is, in their homes) we are treading on sensitive grounds…
Trying to get our first test going using our Oriya skills was pretty difficult. The village women are generally wary to interact with two random men asking them to test a cookstove design without their husbands, but at the time we weren’t really aware of these behavioral norms. Peter and I were just generally excited that we were able to get two women to walk over to the daycare center and work with our stoves. Data collection went pretty well for our first run. Yet the next day Peter and I were thrown into understanding the village dynamic when Dipti translated for one of the women who cooked with us. Because her friend had come home late with her food, her husband, drunk at the time, beat her. Two things became apparent at once. Alcohol can be a problem in the village-it causes trouble, it slows progress, and people can get hurt when it’s not taken into consideration. Peter and I would have to approach our testing with much more sensitivity to these issues.
Yet despite the shock of the first day, about which Peter and I felt sufficiently awful, testing managed to accelerate therafter. The other husband, (aka, not the drunk one) happened to take a curious interest in the improved biomass stove. Whenever he was around, he helped with testing, rolling up his sleeves working with his wife to complete each test. It seems this man’s interest is examplary of the way mobilization happeens in the village. Dipti explained that the husband had taken absolutely no interest in the community center, yet upon seeing the way our improved biomass stove worked a seemingly spontaneous spark went off in his head. It turned out that instead of using a community meeting to instill some large scale action potential, the momentum for our cookstoves would be generated on a more local scale, working with individual villagers. (Everytime he sees Dipti, the man tells her to make sure he gets one of the first stoves! He and his wife immediately noted the improvement from their chullah–food takes a third of the time to cook, it requires much less wood, and there is much less smoke.)
Peter and I have also had to make some adjustments to our testing procedure. After a long talk with Dipti, we had to sit down for a bit and re-gameplan. Given the momentum generated by our first test coupled with some talking among the villagers, Dipti asked us to change up our priorities a bit in favor of Purnaguma. Peter and I are continuing testing for the biomass stove, aiming for three improved biomass tests and three chullah tests for each of four cooks. At the same time, we are going to be spending a lot of time working with machinists in Bhwanipatna to finish a prototype for our own improved biomass stove before we leave. We need to more appropriately gear the aim of our research in relation to the current developmental climate of the village, and so while data is crucial for the purposes of EWB, we’ve decided that the more tangible result of our trip should be to come up with a way to replicate the improved biomass stoves locally. We have a lot on our plate, but I have faith in our ability to get both tasks done.
You might be asking, and what of the low-watt cooker? Yep, we had to change our plans for that too. According to Dipti and Rashmi, showing the low-watt cooker to the villagers without being extremely tactful could do more harm than good. Apparently, there is a type of electric cooker offered in Bhwanipatna that outputs at 1500 watts. By making the general notion of an electric cooker a popular idea among the villagers, the wealthier ones will most likely go to the city and buy the model offered as a status symbol. Even if they won’t get proper use out of it, they will by it based on the pretense of status, turning what could be an excellent sustainable solution into a commercialized symbol of wealth. Accordingly, Dipti asked Peter and I to place low-watt cooker testing on “the back burner, no pun intended.” It seems we are giong to have to learn to cook some of the basic meals that the villagers make, and run our own efficiency tests so that we can have appropriate data for the low-watt cooker. We’ll update you on our progress as soon as possible.
Of late, we’ve started testing with another family in the wealthier hamlet of Purnaguma, that Dipti refers to as “Manhattan.” Having bonded with the village youth, it looks like the testing process will become much more streamline. The teenage boys, like the one of the current family we are working with, are more than willing to help us with our testing. In response, we went to a local computer lab in Bhwanipatna, and printed up instructions for testing and excel data sheets in Oriya. Today we’re going to head to the village to do our third improved biomass stove with this family. (We’re going to have to scratch one of the tests we already did because they decided to cook outside while they used the improved biomass stove to cook their rice.)
P.S. I apologize that the last two posts have been really lengthy. We’ve been in the village a lot and haven’t been able to post more frequently–hence the information-in-bulk. In the future we’ll try to update everyone more often!
Hey everyone! So we finally arrived in Bhwanipatna yesterday after a lot of travelling since you last heard from Peter and me. This post will be a long one–we have a lot to tell you. From Dubai, we took a five and a half hour flight to Kolkata airport. We weren’t allowed to crash within the airport during our seven hour layover between arrival and our next flight to Bhubaneshwar, so we ended up staying in the airports AC Dorm (air conditioned) for the night. I was initially apprehensive about this, but we really had no choice. Ultimately, it worked out–we finally got some sleep, and yes, the AC was a blessing. Then we caught our short flight (an hour and fifteen minutes long) to Bhubaneshwar. Dipti, our guiding light on the trip, arranged for us to spend our 14 hour layover in an office of ODAF (Orissa Development Action Forum).
Our first order of business in Bhubaneshwar: find food. For about two hours, Peter and I roamed Cuttack Rd. in search of seemingly edible street food, to no avail. So with so much time and such little food in our stomachs, we decided to cook our own meal. We broke out one of the low watt cooker prototypes and made food with it for the very first time. While we undercooked our maggi (kind of like an Indian version of Ramen noodles), it was really rewarding to actually see the low watt cooker in action. We also did some surgery on my pack, which had been systematically destroyed by Kingfisher air. I’m convinced they threw it in with the landing gear, because when I got it from baggage claim in Bhubaneshwar, one side of the waist strap had been shorn off. Bad news for someone who has to schlep 60 pounds worth of gear (including one of our biomass cookstoves at 20 pounds a piece). In turn, we also spent about an hour of our downtime fashioning a new buckle for my waist strap out of kite string, duct tape, and a caribiner. I give Peter credit for the ingenuity.
From Bhubaneshwar, we caught a 14-hour train ride to Kesinga. (No, we were not in an AC car.) In sum however, I was pleasantly surprised by the ride. When I first got on the train I was sure I was about to experience the most horrible travel experience of my life. It turned out to be a decent amount of fun though–we slept for the first half of the ride, and then spent a good deal of time enjoying the scenery and trying to socialize with our fellow passengers. (We met some pretty funny dudes on the train.) Upon arrival in Kesinga, we were picked up by a Gram Vikas driver, and taken to our final destination: Bhwanipata.
You might be wondering how I, as someone who has never been to a less developed country before, have been handling so much change. Really the first time I started thinking about my experience with adjusting was in Bhubaneshwar, as we walked around a city with cows, goats, chickens, and wild dogs roaming the streets. A city with exposed sewage troughs lining the streets. A city where in an instant you can see people using the sidewalk as a bathroom, next to an incredibly ironic adverstisement from a large western corporation like Coke or Kohler. Amidst so much stimulation, I came up with an analogy for what dealing with change has been like. Imagine yourself on a roller coaster–slowly clicking upwards to a visible fate. You get nervous, you are anticipating a horrible experience (if you don’t like roller coasters.) If I knew what to expect in India, all of this travel might very well be like the roller coaster ascent, but it isn’t like the at at all. Coming to India has rather been like an indoor roller coaster–one in the dark where at any moment you have absolutely no idea what to expect. Unable to brace myself, I’ve really just taken everything as it has come. It seems to be working. So far being in India has been an amazing experience, no doubt a rude awakening for someone who has lived in New York for all of his life, but unquestionably amazing.
Now for the part you’ve all been waiting to hear about. When we got to Bhwanipatna we were taken to Gram Vikas office where I finally got to meet Dipti. (She is an incredible person. Since the moment we met I’d say I’ve learned more about development work than I have in any class at Columbia.) After getting settled, Peter and I walked over to a really nice restaurant with AC and ordered tons of food. Given that we were so hungry, and hadn’t eaten anything substantial since our maggi, the food was nothing short of incredible. We ordered a lot. After lunch, we got in the GV Jeep and headed to the village, which is about an hour outside of the city. The ride was a lot of fun–a mixture of off-roading and cruisin’ USA (an arcade game where street lanes are non-existant, and you frequently dodge obstacles…like cows).
In the village we immediately got a sense of what Dipti goes through everyday trying to mobilize the villagers to get work done. Apparently, one of the very active villagers, Rashmi, who Dipti refers to as the village’s Obama, got offended by a comment the day prior. What ensued was a complete dismantling of hours worth of planning for a structure that will house a mill, a library, an office, and health clinic. It became very clear that the village dynamic is not something we in America are used to. Things get done, but it just takes much longer to motivate people into action, and expedite the process. (By the end of the day it was unanimously accepted that the village youth should be the ones to build the structure.)
Other exciting news: an update on the microhydro project. We visited the powerhouse, a red building that holds the generator, the turbine, and the ballast for the electrical system. According to Dipti, the system has worked very well–it has been consistently functional for about seven months now, with no significant problems. As the day came to a close, the lights came on while Peter and I got Oriya lessons from the village youth. (Peter cannot pronounce ”dhuaa” which means smoke. How ironic.) He was very excited to see the final result of the microhydro system: functioning power, lights in houses, and lights along the street. We even saw children huddled outside one household watching TV. It’s remarkable to see how far the project has come in only two years, starting as only an idea.
Today we’re headed to the village to try to organize a meeting with the women regarding our cookstove testing. More updates to follow!
Hey everyone, Matt and I are currently in Dubai en route to Purnaguma. Here is a map of the region and the closest city, Bhwanipatna.
Our flight into Dubai went without a hitch and despite a lack of sleep we are both really excited to make our way to India.
Also, we had a great phone conversation with Dipti, our Gram Vikas contact, right before we left. We went over basic travel logistics and secondary objectives for our month in the village. In addition to the controlled cooking tests that we are going to conduct for the biomass stove and low-watt cooker, we are going to be helping Dipti distribute anti-malarial bednets and set up a first aid unit amongst the village youth.
