Monsoon season is here!

The rains started in June 15th. One of the members in our group went out and stood in the rain with their mouth open. Once they returned, our Indian counterparts remarked that the rain was most like acid rain since the first rain absorbs the air pollution...oops

The first day it rained 55 mm and it rained that might and the next morning our campus was flooded with water 8" deep in some areas. Surprisingly the sun came out and the water went away and Saturday was a lovely day. My impression is that monsoon season consists of very heavy rains lasting 1-3 hours 1-3 times a day. Here is a picture of the street from the entrance of our favorite lunch spot near the NGO.

On Friday the teachers at the NGO run school we are based out of asked us if we would help judge a poster/presentation competition between 5 groups of students doing vocational training on various themes ranging from infanticide to why cheating is bad. Here I am lighting one of the ceremonial candles on stage...our unexpected participation in this event was bewildering but fun.

On the way home, our autorickshaw (containing 3 girls) was followed by these two young men on a motorcycle who apparently wanted to come to our house.
NOTE: the record for most people seen on a motocycle stil stands at 5!


In

Weather and power outages

The weather has cooled off to about 40C during the day, but with an increase in humidity to 80% because the monsoon rains have started in the east. In this morning's Hindu Times there was a picture of the flooding in Calcutta where a rickshaw driver was pulling passengers through 2-3 feet of water. Unfortuneately, we are not even in 'pre-monsoon' season yet...I don't really know what that means, but I think it will stay hot for a little while yet. Because of the heat, Delhi is continuously breaking its own record for the most power ever used per day in the city (according to the newspapers), which is resulting in planned power outages in every community. The power goes out more than a dozen times in a day, but many places have generators that kick in after a minute or so. Typically, everyone goes about their business as usual through the frequent outages.

Today we visited a second slum community called JJ Camp. (JJ stands for a Hindi word that means thatched roof houses, even though most of the houses have tin roofs). JJ camp is not as well off as A-block (yesterday) and pretty much smells like human waste everywhere you go. About a quarter of the children have severe skin rashes either due to infections or 'medicines' administered by the mothers. (One child we saw yesterday had balding patches after the mother tried using something on his skin). In addition, most of them probably have lice because they were itching their skin and scalps like crazy. Here is most of a family with a mother and her six children. The room that they live in (right) is so small that some of the family members have to sleep outside the door.


The smaller boy in the black T-shirt has dark black makeup around his eyes (I have seen this on many young children and babies) because the community believes that it will improve the child's eyesight.

Lovely

The first day in the slums was about as successful and fun as we could hope for: our team (Jessica, Dhirani, Musheer, and I) accompanied the Deepalaya community health mobilizer, Kavita, on her daily round through one of the local slums, A-block. Jessica and I can only introduce ourselves in Hindi and say a few phrases so all the interviewing was done by Dhirani and Musheer. However, I think we were helpful in that we were able to draw quiet a rambunctious and enthusiatic crowd of children and potential interviewees. In 1.5 hours we obtained the family history and the options on health care through the local NGOs and government from 12 families.
Kavita, Catherine, Julie and Musheer at the Deepalaya health clinic.


Crowd of excited children from A-block. The dogs name was Julie as well.
The girl to the right of the mother in the yellow sari wanted to learn English and Dharani convinced me to sing Happy Birthday for the crowd and everyone joined in:)

After work we went to see this impressive Baha'i temple shaped like a lotus flower (Lotus Temple) - the four girls negotiated a fare back home by ourselves for the first time. This was a little challenging but we ended up paying only 10Rp. more than we should have (80Rp.) - therefore I deem our negotiating skills a huge success!

BAD MANGO

This morning I ate a mango. It was the firt piece of fresh food I have eaten since coming to India because I have been letting my system adjust. I threw up the mango half an hour later. Blast! My fruit eating has been foiled! I will try to do a better post when I get back from work: talking to people in the slums about their family health and satisfaction with NGO health services.

IST (Indian Standard Time)

IST = for all sorts of unforseeable reasons, most meetings start about an hour after they are planned to

Here is a blurry picture of the whole team:
Around the circle starting with Jessica (front in red), Dr. Sunaina, Sony, Dr. Miraj, Nupur, Yamilee, Julie, Dharani, and Mushir)...I took this awesome picture.

Today was our first full day of work during which we visited the two NGOs that we will be learning from duing the 4 week research period. It was another super-hot day (44C) and everyone had their low points during the day, but overall we are a tough group and I am very proud of all of us.

I liked this 'thought of the day' from a chalk board outside a "posh" 1-12 adademic school/vocational school run by Deepalaya that serves the surrounding slums:

Catherine's first rickshaw ride (bonus points for going against the flow of traffic
first bounty from the local market (each subdivision in Faridabad is numbered and has its own markets...these treasures are from 37 Market)

freeways are for people and cars

Apparently I have become veggie

First, let us review our hot weather conversions: 1. 30 min outside at 46 deg C = feel like crap 2. 6 L of water in (24 glasses) at 46 deg C - ~1 L of water out = 5 L of sweat and evaporated water! This morning I learned that monsoon season will start in about 1-2 weeks, bringing cooler temperatures...I have a new favorite season! (Pictures aren't uploading today..will have to save for tomorrow)

Fun Fact: "Brain freeze", like that experienced when eating ice cream too quickly, can be alternatively obtained by moving between outside and inside temperatures. Wooo!

Mera nam Catherine hai. Apka nam kya ha?

Day Two: Mission 'dont-get-sick' working excellently, although Mission 'dont-get-dizzy-from-dehydration' has proven more challenging. This morning we walked around the Rai University Campus (called Meadows) which seems nearly abandoned since the students are on leave...
Jessica walking along one of the tiled paths on the campus.
Our very own table tennis hut: table tennis table (minus net) included!

Jessica on football field with pretty bougenvilla plants...this is one of my favorite spots on campus so far.

First Day

Getting off the airplane in Delhi was like opening the door to an oven, and instead of closing the oven deciding to get inside the oven and stay for a while. The temperature at 11pm was 110 F and my crew was concerned about what the addition of sun might do to this situation. Our supervisor suggested we drink about 25 glasses of water a day (although it is possible I misheard) and I have already aquired a small army of 1L aquafina bottles. Im pleasantly surprised to discover how wonderfully everything has been organized for us (although the dispensation of these plans seems to come at a very measured pace that I need to adjust to), and am very excited about working with Prof. Miraj who teaches and does research/projects in the area of NGO management. (I lucked out!) We anticipated having Fri-Sun to recover from jetlag but it turns out Fri-Sun is actually our 3 day orientation. Monday we start fieldwork and research at specific NGOs. I will write more about the timeline for the summer tomorrow. Here is the team from MIT; soon I will get pictures of our supervisors and our Indian teammates.

Leaving (almost)

I leave for India in two days with my team of 4 other MIT girls: Yamilee, Sony, Jessica, and Julie. We will be the first team participating in a multi-year collaboration between MIT and the Rai Foundation in India. We will work with Indian students for one of three local NGOs. The organization that I am most likely to work for is HCRA (Handicapped Children Rehabilitation Association). The goal of this project is to improve health care access for disabled children in New Delhi. I will write more about the project mission and what we hope to achieve once I get to New Delhi. I have a visa and malaria pills...I think I am ready to go :)