Sum Res Cogitans – I think, therefore I am.

We sat in a large circle in the seminar room of the DCSE building. It was my first day in Hubli. “Desh” Deshpande was there with his wife, Jaishree, too. For most of us, this was our first time in India and we didn’t know quite what to expect. The room was starting to fill with anxiety and it was apparent from our faces. Desh sat a few chairs down from his wife in a seat directly in front of the stage– it was the perfect spot. He was the boss, the one running the Deshpande show. Softly smiling and examining the room, he looked around and asked us three simple questions: What is your name? Where are you from? And, why are you here? One by one, we went around the room. The first two questions were simple. But surprisingly nobody answered his third question– nobody! Most answers to the third question sounded something like this: “The project I’m working on this summer is…” Maybe it was the pressure of being in a large room full of people or maybe it was that no one had anything powerful and provocative to say, but we all defaulted to a question he never asked– What are you doing here? Looking back on it now, the best answer to his third question was just as simple as the first two– to learn.

And that’s what our team did this summer. We learned and saw a lot- that, by far, was our biggest success. The fact that we were able to experience India through four different sectors provided us with a well-balanced and fair understanding of some of the biggest challenges faced in this country. The raw information we collected in the areas of Education, Agriculture, Health, and Livelihood was captivating, eye opening, and at times shocking. With that information, we were able to accomplish the following tasks:

• Interviews: six NGOs, three government officials, two journalists, four doctors, and one politician
• Field visits: five village visits, three school visits, and a visit to Karnataka University
• Footage: 20 hours of footage
• Videos: two videos completed (education, agriculture) and one in process (health)
• Documents: Developing Challenge Videos Manual, Sangha Process Flow Diagram

There were many obstacles along the way. From delayed and postponed interviews to illnesses within the team, we experienced a range of impeding challenges that constantly tested our ability to stay poised. Initially, our biggest challenge arose when we discovered we didn’t have a way to offload video from the camera and onto our hard drive for editing. After a week of getting the run-around at local tech shops with faulty and nonexistent computer equipment, we discovered that a colleague had the ability to transfer the data via his laptop. Challenge #1, solved. The next challenge, and undoubtedly the most significant challenge, was getting our web platform developed. The feasibility of our project’s biggest component was essentially an unknown for weeks until we were able to develop a relationship with a qualified web developer. After making a connection through a DF staffer, we were able to make a trip out to Bangalore, meet with the development team, discuss our design, and create a timeline for final delivery. I’m happy to say the website is now in the process of being built.

Even with all the setbacks, the experience this summer was incredible and full of many lessons gathered along the way. My time in India has taught me just how important patience and communication are when working in a foreign country. And working with such a diverse group of people from many different backgrounds has exposed me to others' talents, skills, experiences, and knowledge. And if I can be remotely honest with myself, I know there’s still a lot more to be learned.

-Zlatan

India kills creativity and collaboration–both mentally and physically

The Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship or DCSE (pictured above) has –over the course of the last six weeks– become my home away from home, my office, and the reason I and nine other USC students have come to India. Started in 1996 by Gururaj and Jaishree Deshpande, the Deshpande Foundation is one of the world’s foremost philanthropic organizations dedicated to social change through innovation, entrepreneurship, and international development. As “innovators” for the Foundation’s 2010 Global Exchange Program, my university colleagues and I have partnered up in teams to design projects we are currently implementing this summer in the “Sandbox” region of Karnataka.

Given the Deshpande Foundation’s vision for development and innovation through global exchange, it should be by no surprise then that the DCSE building itself is innovative– architecturally speaking. Located at the southern end of the BVB College of Engineering and Technology, the home of the Deshpande Foundation utilizes unique form, expanding space, and a varied palette of construction materials. Don’t get me wrong, the building is by no means an architectural wonder. But with its distinct design concept and construction methodology, along with its 10,000 liter rainwater harvesting system and extensive stormwater management, the DCSE is by far the most innovative building on campus.

What does this have to do with anything, you might ask? Well, first let me ask you this. Do you think it’s a mere coincidence that the organization most preaching innovation is the one with the most innovative building? It’s no coincidence. The Deshpandes clearly had a vision. They understood that physically taking an individual out of a literal “box” building was the first and most important step in helping that person to start thinking outside the box i.e. thinking innovatively or creatively. Quite simply, they “encourage” us – whether we know it or not – to be innovative by making the environment around us innovative. Think about it, it makes sense! With that said, very few things exist outside of the Deshpande Foundation in India that encourage creativity, imagination, or innovation.

I have just briefly discussed this issue from a physical perspective, but let’s take a look at it using both categories: mental constraints vs physical constraints to creativity in India.


Mental Constraints

Take India’s primary education system, for example. Like education in the U.S or in other western countries, India rewards its students for memorization. Like us, they too have quizzes and exams that test their students’ ability to memorize things they have either read or learned in class. But unlike the U.S., India doesn’t offer subjective learning- mainly in the form of art. Drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and many other creativity-demanding activities don’t exist in India’s primary school curriculums, whether public or private. Walk into a classroom here and you won’t see any of the children’s artwork hanging around the classroom. Why? Because they don’t do it.

“Why is it that no original research is being done in India?” asked Dr. Sanjeev Kulkarni, a practicing gynecologist and founder of Baala Balaga, a progressive Indian school located in the nearby city of Dharwad. Dr. Kulkarni decided to start his own “school” – from the front room of his house– for his young son after seeing the limits India’s education system places on students. Now in its 14th year, Baala Balaga (www.baalabalaga.org) has grown into a legitimate school composed of three building complexes and roughly 500 students. Here, the belief is in learn by doing, where activities like drawing, cooking, and sports are an integral part of the curriculum just like mathematics and science. For Dr. Kulkarni, these types of nonconventional activities sometimes offer the same value, if not more value, over the course of child’s life than traditional school topics.

Baala Balaga is not the only school with this type of unique philosophy. The Blue School (http://www.theblueschool.org/) in lower Manhattan offers a similar approach to learning where creativity, collaboration, and play are vital to a child’s learning process. In a similar story (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html), Ken Robinson explains the limits traditional schools place on the imagination and how they kill creativity in children rather than foster it. Mental constraints aren’t the only killers of creativity. Physical constraints are there also.


Physical Constraints

I’d like to talk about physical constraints for creativity in India on two levels, the building level (individual) and the city level (societal). I talk about these constraints from the perspective of human collaboration–the foundation of our team’s project this summer. To understand this, we’ll first have to agree on two things: human interaction is a prerequisite of human collaboration and human collaboration advances human imagination.

Individual, or building level constraints apply more to small groups, such as families or classrooms of students. Going back to India’s education system, the physical design, or lack thereof, of schools and classrooms greatly puts students at a disadvantage to be imaginative and interactive. If you can recall my earlier argument about the design of the DCSE building and how literally being inside an actual “box” presumably traps a person from thinking outside the box…..then you’ll understand my problem when I say the design of nearly every public and private classrooms that I’ve seen in India- with the exception of Dr. Kulkarni’s classrooms- is in the form of an enclosed box that isolates students from one another. With steel bars on the windows, the rooms look more like prison cells than classrooms. Where’s the creativity in that?

Moreover, public schools don’t provide the basic infrastructure for children to learn, let alone be creative. About three weeks ago, my team and I did a ride-along with the education NGO Agastya to a local government school. To my surprise, the children had to sit on the concrete floor because there weren’t enough chairs. There weren’t enough tables or books either. We later learned that the children neither had a suitable toilet nor clean drinking water; to use the bathroom, they had to go to nearby fields, and to get water, they used a pond across the road. As they later told us, all they really wanted was a proper playground to play with one another.

Have you (referring to my USC colleagues) ever asked yourself what purpose the courtyard in our Scholars House serves? Is it just for natural light and ventilation? Is it simply a garden for plants? Or was it meant to be something more? If you haven’t noticed, our Indian neighbors on the second floor have placed plastic chairs around the perimeter of the courtyard; they sit there and talk. Why? Because they want to use the courtyard. They want to be able to sit and interact with each other and the other people living here. They want this to be their playground. Think about it and ask yourself this: does the design of this courtyard- or the schools that we’ve visited for that matter- encourage interaction?

The physical design of the city is just as unresolved when it comes to human interaction in my opinion. Like our courtyard, the major issue with Hubli lies with the use, or nonuse, of its streets and public open spaces. Wait, let me back up for a second. Public open spaces don’t even exist in Hubli! Other than the one public park that I’ve been to in this city–which was, keep in mind, so warmly inviting with its six foot tall steel gate blocking pedestrians from freely coming in–the closest thing you’ll get to a public open space in Hubli is the crowded downtown market. Yes, the surrounding streets support high levels of pedestrian traffic, but it’s chaotic and there’s nowhere to sit. I have to stand to drink my coconut or eat my ice cream, while keeping one eye on the road so not to get run over by a bus. Streets here, and in most other Indian cities, rarely offer spaces of stasis–areas to just sit and observe the human experience, the daily routine, or the “social drama” of the city as Lewis Mumford so eloquently once put it. Time spent in this city seems more like a constant scatter of empty experiences, waiting to be realized. Interaction on these streets is sparse and swift at best- often with little or no substance. Even with all the curiosity and interest that I and my friends attract, we rarely interact with people on the street. Can you remember the last time you had a fruitful conversation with a stranger on the street? With 1.2 million people, the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad offer some of the densest and least pedestrian-friendly streets I have set foot on. And from what I've seen, quality human interaction is missing here. Yet we wonder where the community involvement is? Where is the collective living?!

Hypothetically speaking now, just imagine for a second what Hubli could look like if streets connected activity-rich public spaces that actually brought people together for a purpose, like well-planned parks or plazas. Imagine outdoor shops and restaurants that incorporated dance performances, festivals, and Indian weddings, bringing different parts of the community together. Who’s to say it's not possible? I’m not saying I have the solution. But what I do know is that Hubli’s current physical and mental formwork suppresses the two most essential elements of growth: creativity and collaboration.

Albert Einstein once famously said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” Unfortunately in Hubli, imagination is rare and difficult find. But luckily for my teammates and I this summer, creativity and collaboration shouldn’t be our issue. Because if Wikipedia is our model for collaboration and the rest of the world is our imagination, I can’t wait to see the attractions life has in store for Hubli!

-Zlatan

Metaphor...ish

I am from Cleveland. Recent sports media events have increased the relevance of this fact from “negligible” to “immensely personal.” The impact of Lebron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers has devastated my home town. But, to understand this and its implications for our work here in Hubli, you must first understand what it means to be from Cleveland.

Cleveland, OH is the junkyard dog of cities. It’s been deemed “The Mistake By the Lake.” It experiences roughly 300 cloudy days per year. Depression and obesity rates are unquestionably high. The city’s economic peak was in the 1930s (saw it on a PBS special), and it has subsequently suffered from sprawl and hosted serious racial unrest. It was the first city to enter default since the Depression. Even the mighty Cuyahoga River, dumping ground for the city’s industrial giants, famously caught fire in 1969. But, with a ragged tenacity, the people of Cleveland have hung on to an eerie sense of optimism about the city they call home. Although Cleveland has been plagued by a history of economic, media, and sports mishaps (read: The Drive), it was united by a single hope in 2003. That hope was 18-year-old Lebron James, first round draft pick for the Cleveland Cavaliers. I’ll spare you the details, but over the past seven years, he has become a symbol for the the city, brought the Cavs to four playoff appearances, one NBA Finals appearance, and brought some much-needed respect back to the city.

Most Clevelanders felt the stinging pain of rejection and anger at Lebron’s decision to play for the Miami Heat and the arrogance of his media spectacle. How could he turn on his own city? Where was the sense of legacy, of class and team play (see: the Jordan years). Where was the passion for a team victory over individual career advancement? Granted, he is now much more likely to get a ring with Wade and Bosh...but I firmly believe that not all victories are created equal.

My point is this: Disappointment comes in all forms; the strength of a team, of a community, lies in its ability to cope with change, manage expectations, and appropriately assess its long-term goals. And, while it’s much easier to put individual interests ahead of team objectives, true success is measured through overall impact. An ideal victory is a situation in which the outcome is greater than the sum of its parts. This doesn’t happen easily or quickly.

As a team, we have met with a host of unexpected and at times, unfortunate events. From the beginning, we have had to revise our focus. We expanded from initially documenting the DF’s Innovator’s Challenges and are now investigating the most deeply-rooted challenges in each of the Foundation’s program areas. This has meant broadening the scope of our interviews and documentaries... long story short, more work for us. When it came time to actually begin our work, we encountered a healthy amount of red tape to navigate before obtaining our recording materials. We have also had to deal with a lag in our timeline for meeting and working with our web developers. We even lost a teammate for a week due to illness (thankfully, he’s made a full recovery). So, how do we continue to recover from these setbacks? We stay calm, we revise our strategy, we communicate. We cut back on our expectations from others and focus on the work that sits in front of us. We remind ourselves that our team goals come first.

Malleability allows a team, a city, to move forward. Like Cleveland, we have to regroup, adapt, and remember that no success comes without some setbacks. We have to balance long-term outcomes with short-term decisions. We’ll get there... we just have to stay positive, make smart decisions, and maintain that dawg-pound tenacity that defines us.

The City Life

As the weeks dwindled down, the list of things to do is becoming daunting. We met with the web developers in Bangalore. Even though they made the development sounds simple, we fear that we would not be able to see the beta version of our web platform before we leave Hubli. There are also additional issues with the websites. Two important topics arose: a ranking system for the proposals and the Sangha's target audience. We struggled with the question of adopting a ranking system similar to the YouTube and Amazon. Since the proposals are not static reading material and changes will be incorporated through the wiki-platform, how can we develop a fair method of allowing the public to judge the proposals. Moreover, my team and the Deshpande Foundation have not clearly communicated the target audience of these challenges. Although the idea initially branched from the existing 9 innovator challenges, we have been aiming to include experts in the fields to contribute proposals and ideas but not necessary the execution of the proposed idea. We are now beginning to put together manuals to ensure the sustainability of our project.

In addition, we are currently in the process of wrapping up our

education video. We are struggling to frame our agriculture video. The information gathering period for agriculture was much shorter than the time we spent interviewing individuals in the education sector. But the information on agriculture sector has been more varied. No clear challenge has presented itself. Now the decision laid with our team. How should we frame the challenge? What are the implications of our video? The sandbox region has a high level of biodiversity which poses a challenge to any standardized way of thinking about the challenges faced in this region. There most viable option was to present water as a challenge since it is an issue faced by all farmers but to different extent. A collection of reasons guided us to the decision to create a video to present water as the most pressing issue. Although the farmers face a web of interrelated challenge that stemmed from the lack of awareness and education, our project aims to create video that allows for participation from a wide variety of individuals. We hope through this challenge we can engage in experts with technical backgrounds in agriculture as well as engineering and farm management.

On a more personal side, I have grown attached to Hubli -- the simplicity of a small town and the regular routine. After spending a weekend in Bangalore, I'd have to sadly admit that I am happy to return to Hubli in spite of the plethora of non-Indian restaurants and coffee shops readily available in the IT capital. There is a level of serenity (reminder: Indian scale) being in Hubli, which is a more of a town than 2nd tier city. The bus system is easy to navigate. There are only few places to go here: Koppikar Road, Dharwad (the next town over), the more store, the milk man, the thali man, and the Scholar House on B.V.B. College. To many, it is a very boring lifestyle but there is comfort in eating at the same little shack, saying hi to the thali man, and eating street food from the same corner. Bangalore, like any large city, was difficult to navigate and was a shock to my system after spending a month in Hubli. As much as I love being able to eat Western food and the availability of Western toilets in restaurants, I miss the familiar faces of Hubli. There is some sweet familiarity with the routine. It is a bittersweet feeling as the program comes to a close and we have 2 weeks left in Hubli.

However, I am sad to report that my stomach has not fully recovered from last week. I have been eating everything from street food to drinking water in unsavory restaurants and have been fine. Last Monday, I was hit with a fever probably due to the my meal at the Tibetan refugee colony I visited with Saru and our translator, Subhash. Being sick definitely put a

damper on being in India especially now I can't just eat whatever I like.

Day by Day

I came to India to get experience developing and executing an entrepreneurial idea and to gain international exposure to NGO work. My experience in the US had quickly taught me that a nonprofit organization's approach to working in one city required a different approach to working in another city. I knew that regional differences played a significant role and anticipated that India's would only be magnified, but to what degree and to what dimension I had no clue. In my nearly five weeks working in India, I've quickly learned what I came here seeking. Entrepreneurship is no doubt difficult, but doing it in rural India requires twice the input and gets you only half the output. Never had the words, "you will soon appreciate the small wins," rang so true.

Everyday is a new day and never like the one before. When we first arrived we focused heavily on meeting with foundation staff to begin understanding the challenges in the area and develop contacts throughout the region. When not in meetings, we were discussing our web platform and wireframing the webpages to pass along to our web developers.

As we began developing our local sea legs, we soon became all too familiar with "the runaround." The runaround is everywhere. A task that should take five minutes takes five days. Things that are promised are rarely delivered without persistent pressure. Good communication (not to be confused with translation problems) is hard to come by and passing the buck is standard operating protocol. These are all part of a culture, which for thousands of years has tolerated with great patience bureaucracy, a sense of individualism, and in my opinion, a lack of trust, which I think is at the heart of why you can never find the decision maker when you need a simple task completed, and why when things go wrong everyone wants to point their finger to the next person. Without accountability the job is always harder.

Having learned to recalibrate expectations we have continued to pursue our work in the field, meeting, interviewing and filming NGO leaders, government officials, journalists, professionals, farmers and villagers. If logistics are the tortoise of our project, then getting an interview is the hare. When people hear you are a student from the US, it becomes your VIP pass to speak with whomever you want, even without an appointment. And they have no problem opening up their mobile contact lists to you either. Whether it was the Commissioner of the Municipal Development Corporation, who overseas 1.2 million people, or the most successful businessmen in the region, getting their numbers, speaking to them on the phone, and setting up a meeting was no problem - in fact, almost too easy.

With already 15 hours of footage, we split our time pursuing new leads and editing clips to help frame the challenges we seek to present. Beyond all the day-to-day operations, this has been our biggest challenge. There are no shortage of problems to be solved, for example in the education sector, but determining which issues are systematic and which could have potential to be addressed by the general public with a sustainable, scaleable solution is always a debate. And ensuring our time is spent wisely is a guessing game. When we travel four hours to a remote village to interview farmers about their involvement in their child's education, it's a total crapshoot whether the information we gather will be pertinent to our project's objectives. Some days require so much time and energy, yet provide little reward for the project, beyond the personal experience we can take home with us.

Beyond the personal challenges of work are the personal challenges of maintaining proper health. After four weeks of eating in the local restaurants, in villages and transitioning from bottled to filtered water, my stomach and I felt most invisible, with the exception of the minor discomfort from time to time. But as soon as I thought I had begun developing an immunity to the spices and dubious cleanliness of food preparation, I was knocked off my feet, admitted to the hospital with a food-borne virus. Right when I thought I was in a good zone with respect to my body and my project, everything nearly came crashing down. If it weren't for the support of my team, our project may have been derailed while I lay incapacitated.

India is a challenging place to work. And where I am, in the rural enclaves, life is much slower and more conservative. On one level, I can't say I would want to work in an environment like this again. I must acknowledge that I am biased by the struggle of being away from my fiance for so long, but there is more to my sentiment that resides here in India. I have accepted my new temporary home, but I often find myself fighting the cultural norms. I know change is slow, and I'm not expecting to change the world overnight, but its the small things, like getting a computer cord, which require four visits to the computer shop after four separate promises that it would arrive that evening, and the next, and the next and the next. It's arriving at a meeting, and waiting five hours for it to get started. It's meeting with a doctor and asking him a question about your test results and receiving a look of contempt as if it was an affront to ask a question of such an educated man of status. And the gender disequalities, while not oppressive, are disheartening.

But when I pull back and see the forest from the trees, I come away more optimistic from this experience. There has been a lot of amazing things about working with the people in India. Most are gracious, friendly and willing to help. They have taught me so much about their culture, and through the process, have educated me of the challenges of international development. I haven't even finished my project and yet I know that grown through the richness of experience, which has made the journey all the more satisfying.

-Jesse

Outsourcing Anti-Privacy from India

It was like any other night, a disagreeable stomach, a case of the voms and a session nerding out to NPR's podcast of Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Alright Ira, lay it on me - are we heading down the path of the metphase karyotype of microchromosomes into heterochromatin (oh, i think i just vomited again), or are we entering bush league territory, where a set of ears and a pulse gets you admission? Fortunate for me and my temperamental GI system, the science gods had coated me in their pink bath of pepto bismol compassion. Tonight's topic: maintaining your privacy in the world of social networks. Flatow please, I dream in tweets; I eat digital facebook gifts for breakfast; Mark Zuckerberg and I share the last four letters in our names. Consider it cake.

So here I am, not even a minute into the podcast when Ira starts talking about how the US Library of Congress plans to archive every single tweet. Come again?

Look, I know that I made some privacy tradeoffs when I entered the realm of Facebook and Twitter. Heck, I'm sure there are some NSA brass trolling my accounts right now, questioning whether my post on the superiority of Middle Eastern and Indian food is a legitimate culinary critique or a reason to ship me to Gitmo.

But what the Library of Congress is doing is far more intrusive, almost creepy. They're grabbing my information - without permission - and parading it around town with impunity, giving every wingding, dumbbell and lawyer (love you, honey!) a field day. Even if I erased my account, I could not escape the Library's archived history of my snarky comments and links, like this regrettable blog post you will soon see on my twitter page.

So will this change my social media ways? Never.

If I've learned anything in India, it's that our concept of privacy is evolving towards greater openness. As we begin to understand the full ramifications of our online social presence, we'll soon realize that we are already behind the curve. Walk into any village in India, ask them how much they make, ask them how educated they are, ask them if they are able to afford to put food on the table. It doesn't matter if 30 other villagers of differing incomes or social strata are listening in, there are no secrets - none. Sit in my room for a day and wait as one of the house staffers walks in without knocking, or an Indian compadre comes to greet you only after walking around to see what's on your computer screen. Hop onto an overcrowded bus, where shoulder-shoulder standing is sometimes replaced with lapsitting, or on the street, where boys and men of all ages, walk hand in hand, or arm-around-shoulder, sometimes spanning four bodies in length. Witness the abundance of conversation happening all around you among people who met only minutes ago. Even with the remnants of a disappearing caste system, there are no self-imposed barriers here, there is no privacy.

For a civilization dating back nearly 9,000 years, maybe India is on to something. Maybe our relationship with Facebook and Twitter is just a realization of our own inevitable societal journey from the breaking of privacy blockades towards an embrace of openness; we're just 8,766 years behind.

I believe our civil liberties are our most cherished rights as Americans - I was once a card carrying member of the ACLU. And I'm not about to give up all the comforts of my American privacy lifestyle, but if the Library of Congress wants to take my cherished tweets away from me and my 36 followers, fine, they can have them. If India is any indication, the Library of Congress is the one already behind the curve.

Any other Library of Congress types out there interested in archiving my tweets can do so using my Twitter handle: @JPGberg

-Jesse

Educating or Imposing

This week we have been gathering information on the agriculture sector. Jesse and Saru have been awesome in going through our 7 hours footage of the education sector and putting together the documentary with iMovies. We have been splitting our team to better use our resources and maximize the time we have in Hubli.

Site visits are always an eye opening experience. It is amazing how many people are willing to speak to us because we are students hosted by the Deshpande Foundation. Yesterday, we visited BAIF and Digital Green. BAIF's projects are mainly in agroforestery which is the technique of growing trees along with crops. Digital Green focuses on the dissemination of agriculture techniques to farmers through cost effective video tutorials and interactive viewing session with a local resource person. One particular issue I find interesting is the cultural implications of using human waste as fertilizer. Although farmers are comfortable with using animal feces such as cow's urine and dung, there is a cultural mind block against the handling of human feces. There is a huge public defecation problem in this region. Not a single day go by where I do not see a man urinating in the fields, on the sidewalks, and by buildings. There are unmarked area of defecation grounds that are simply understood by the locals.

It seemed natural to link the two issues together -- health and agriculture. The usage of human waste as fertilizer has been used and proven to be nutritious. However, even an agriculture expert was hesitated to promote this method. Yes, there is always a necessary level of education in spreading best practicing but when does it become outsider imposing outside techniques to the local farmers. It is a difficult line to tread. We have been trying to focus on need-based by speaking to the people we want to impact -- the marginal farmers (who have less than 1 hectare of land).

However, it is difficult. Do they know what they need? When I asked one marginal farmer for his vision for his farm, he looked blank and did not know how to respond. Can we be effective in helping him when he has no future in mind? I think it is a challenge that development work constantly faces. We want to be able to help the ones who need help the most and make the largest impact. However, from our site visits, the ones who need the help are often paralyzed by daily problems to think of sustaining solution to their challenges.

Oh India...

I can't believe that it is already July. We just wrapped up the education sector and currently trying to put together a documentary that would give a comprehensive context to the issues with education in this region. It has been a long and arduous process but, often time, very rewarding experience. Through this project, I was able to interact with the beneficiaries of NGOs -- students, village members, farmers, and parents. Those interactions add a whole new dimension to my Indian experience. The India one experience as a passing tourist is dramatic (like everything in India) but it pales in comparison to the the holistic experience of being in a village home of a family. We were having conversations about their struggles, their pride, and their concerns for their future. There is a definite disconnect in priorities. This family was clearly struggling financially but they took out marriage loans to finance the daughters' wedding. Because of wedding expenses, they would not be able to take out loans for agricultural equipment when farming is their main source of income. These little insights into the minds and lives of villagers would not have been available if I was not in India, in the village, in the family's home. Trying to bring forth the intricacies of this country will be one of the main challenge of our project. For example, the sheer difficulty of working through the language and cultural barrier.

The culture of "passing the buck around" is pervasive in this country from booking a conference room through Deshpande Foundation to the government education system. No one is willing to take on the responsibility. When we interviewed a government primary school teachers and headmistress, any shortcomings were blamed on the government or covered by in a very

nonchalant everything-is-just-peachy manner.

The school teachers did not feel adequatel

y prepared to be effective teachers but they could not identify the necessary training needed to be able to teach. Then we went to a private secondary school, the teachers placed the lack of fundamentals on primary school teachers. The parents placed the responsibility of their children entirely on the teachers. In this broken cycle of blame-relaying, where is the source of the issue? How can we break the cycle and focus on the children who (in the end) bear the weight of the troubled system?

India faces systematic problems not too different from United States. Teachers are not accountable to the children. There is a lack of infrastructure and resources for the children. Parents are not fully engaged in their children's education. Those are the same problems we face in certain parts of the United States. Some of us are just fortunate enough to live in the right part of town and go to the right schools -- because our parents cared enough to live in a good school district and they have economic resources to live in that specific district. Ideally, we would be able to find a solution that can be apply to the education systems worldwide.

Travelling through Southern India - Alleppey, Kochi, Ooty, Mysore, Bangalore

By the time we got to Alleppey, It was still hot and I was exhausted from all the travelling. The next morning we met up with Anthony, a local man who gave private boat tours of the Kerala backwaters. He first took us to his village for breakfast where we met his wife, saw his house, and heard stories about his children. After breakfast, the three of us put on silly little umbrella hats and hopped into his wooden canoe for a tour of the canals. We crossed the main river from Anthony’s side, where his house and village was, over into neighboring villages via the network of canals. On the tour, I saw men and women bathing, washing dishes, cleaning clothes, and throwing pieces of trash into the water. Not to mention, I saw a few dead snakes in the water as well. I couldn’t understand how people could so blatantly disrespect a part of nature they so desperately depended on. After three long hours and a huge circle around the villages, we finally made it back to Anthony’s village where we had lunch. After lunch, we took a nearby ferry back to our hotel and packed.

After leaving Alleppey, we arrived in the coastal city of Kochi where we mostly spent the day shopping and exploring the Chinese fishing nets. Here, fisherman had built large wooden claw-like structures along the shore that could be suspended into the water in order to catch fish. We also visited a local restaurant, called the Tea Pot, which had a lot of international food and drew in many tourists. After Kochi, we headed back into the hills to Ooty where the weather was a little nicer.

Ooty was very similar to Kumily in terms of geography and climate. Like Kumily, we stayed in Ooty two nights instead of just one. We arrived to Reflections Guesthouse and immediately met a young woman from northern California who was travelling with her boyfriend. They were also with another girl, Jenny, who they had previously met in Southeast Asia. After settling in, we rented a couple horses, a tour guide, and hit the mountains for a little horseback riding.

After getting back from our ride, we played cards, performed amateur magic tricks, shared travel stories with our newest friends and relaxed by the fire. The next day I did a little sketching and went into town for some shopping with the girls. The rest of our time in Kumily was mostly spent relaxing and enjoying the cool weather. We then left Ooty with Jenny, who wanted to come with us to Mysore.

Jenny, Crystal, Candice, and I arrived to Mysore after a really long bus ride from Ooty. Finally in the state of Karnataka, we were that much closer to our home for the summer- Hubli! Although I was still exhausted from the constant travelling, I was happy we were almost there. The four of us then decided to go into the local market to explore and buy some gifts. There we found a small oil/perfume shop where Crystal, Candice, I bought a few boxes of rare east Indian oils. We then left the market place and headed for the Mysore Palace. On our way out, I was shocked to not only see beggars, but also cross-dressers- grown men with obvious facial hair wearing colorful saris and makeup- asking for money. It was something that completely caught be off gaurd. We managed to make it to the Palace of Mysore after an interesting walk there.. Built in the late 19^th century for the Wodeyar royal family, the Palace was in amazing shape and open to visitors. Although we were allowed to go inside, we couldn’t take any pictures so we just observed; it seemed as though each room was crafted to the highest of detail and with the most lavish materials. Gold and marble filled the interior, while a large exterior garden wrapped the property. After our visit to the Palace, we went back to the hotel and got ready for a fancy dinner at a nearby restaurant. The next day we went to Bangalore, ate some real western food (KFC) and got on a plane for Hubli…our south Indian adventure was over!

Travelling through Southern India - Kumily

Everything about Kumily was amazing! The scenery was amazing, the weather was amazing, and the people were- yeah, you guessed it- amazing!

We arrived to Kumily in the later hours of the night and were instantly greeted by the locals. Abbas, a nearby resident (above), offered to take us to a well known guesthouse where we stayed the night. During the next two days we took a jeep jungle safari, a jungle trek, a boat ride on a lake, an Indian spice tour, and a tea plantation tour- each being an adventure in and of itself. For me however, the highlight of Kumily was connecting with Abbas and the local Muslim community. After finding out I come from a Muslim family, Abbas, a Muslim himself, became extremely excited and asked me to join him for prayer at a nearby mosque the next day. I accepted his offer although I felt a little hesitant about going because I wasn’t sure how the local Muslims would respond to a white westerner coming into their place of worship. The moment I walked into the mosque the next day, all the anxiety I had previously felt went away. I was immediately welcomed with smiles and handshakes by not only Abbas’ closest friends, but also by the Imam, an Islamic religious leader. It seemed as though they were that much more thrilled that I was actually Caucasian. The warmth and happiness I felt radiating from every person I met that day was so welcoming. I felt more at home here than I did anywhere else in India!

After finishing up the afternoon prayer and having a deep spiritual conversation with his friends, Abbas and his closest friend Abdullah offered to take me to a nearby Islamic school where I could talk to someone the Muslims in Kumily considered ‘very important.’ I was having such a great time at the mosque that I couldn’t refuse, so we got into a rickshaw and left.

Driving over, I couldn’t help but wonder who they were taking me to. I wanted to ask, but the engine was too loud and the view was too amazing to ignore. As the road took us up the mountain, it curved along the contour lines of the hills, offering breathtaking views of the tea farms below. I could see green, my favorite color, everywhere. After about 15 minutes, we stopped at the side of the road and got out. I noticed a narrow pathway leading up to what I assumed to be the school- it was perched up on a small hill overlooking the entire valley below. A group of young men (Muslim students who came from all over India, as I later learned) greeted us at the door and directed us towards a larger common room in the school. It was a very small and intimate school; probably less than 5,000 sq ft of actual building- about the size of an NBA basketball court. The common room was a little dark as I first walked in- an open door with a view to the valley below was the only source of natural light. I walked towards the door not because of the light, but because I could see the dark silhouette of a man sitting against the doorframe. I didn’t have my glasses on, but from a distance I could see that his legs were crossed, that he had a long beard, and that he was facing us.

“Please have a seat,” he said as he gestured to the space on the floor directly in front of him. I sat down Indian style (no pun intended) less than three feet away from him. Abbas, Abdullah, and the rest of the students sat down in a semi-circle around us, with the two of us being closest to the door and the light. I could now see that he was an older man, probably in his mid to late sixties. His dark skin contrasted his white, yet not-so-dense beard. But unlike his beard, he looked short and heavy-set. He introduced himself as Muhammad, an Islamic teacher, world traveler, and servant of God; he explained that he goes around the world sharing God’s message. He then asked me a few general questions, in nearly perfect English, about where I come from, whom I was travelling with, and what I was doing in India. The whole time I was there in that room, I felt a sense of peace and quiet unlike that I felt anywhere else in India. There were no sounds of car horns or city traffic. No animals on the street. No street vendors trying to sell you the next thing you really didn’t need….maybe it was because we were in a smaller town or that we were up in the hills and away from everyone. Whatever the reason, there was something about being in that school at that moment that felt exactly right. I can’t say for a fact if it was God, but the energy in there was undeniable. I felt relieved for some reason- And I was happy.

After talking for about 10 minutes, Muhammad asked if I could join the students for lunch. We left the common room and went into a smaller room to eat. Once again sitting on the floor, we circled around a large plate of food- four to five people per plate. They could obviously tell this wasn’t something I was used to. My legs and feet were starting to hurt from sitting on the floor for so long, and I was making a mess trying to eat with my hands. One of the students mentioned that sharing food from a common plate helps you feel compassion for those you are eating with. And it made sense. We were sharing food with one another in a very personal and communal social dynamic. We finished eating, cleaned up, said our goodbyes and were gone just like that. Everything that happened that day, happened for a reason I believe. Leaving Kumily with Crystal and Candice that afternoon felt different from the previous towns we had visited. For the first time, I felt a little sad about getting on the bus for the next city. I wanted to stay a little longer but we didn't have time; we had to keep moving. We needed to be in Hubli in less than a week and we still had five other cities we wanted to go to! So towards Alleppey we went…

-Zlatan