Visit to Chittorgarh and Project Updates

Hello all,

I am happy to say that I am finally getting a day of rest during this busy summer. In fact, I laid in bed until 11:00 this morning!! I can't remember the last time that happened! It was wonderful to say the least. I also just noticed that today in the 20th of July, which means I will be headed home to NC in a month's time. Hard to believe yet another month has flown by!!

Yesterday my friend Mercy and I took a day trip to see Chittorgarh Fort, which is both the largest fort in Asia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We hired a guide for a two hour tour and proceeded to drive through the complex and stop at different sites. The area of the fort covers 700 acres and we were told it would take three days to see everything by foot!! I have found a good website which explains more about the fort's history and significance (as well as some of the best known structures which you will see in my pictures below): http://www.chittorgarh.com/tourism_at_chittorgarh.asp

As for work, everything is moving along with my research project. I finalized the guide I will need to lead focus groups and I have selected the villages I will be going to. Now it is a matter of coordinating with the different blocks that I will be visiting and seeing when they can help us set up the groups. I am also in the process of trying to find a translator to come to the field with me each time and to also help me with document translation. The NGO introduced me to a male student who seemed very excited for the opportunity, but totally balked when I sent him the document for translation. Still don't know what that was about. So now it's back to the drawing board on that. Luckily, I have mulitple friends helping me out with this, so hopefully I can find someone soon! The NGO has people I can use if nothing comes together in the end, but they can't guarantee the same person every time so that means more work for me in the terms of training each new person. If nothing ends up working out before the week is over, I will just have to go with that option.

The monsoon weather was worse last week than it had been, meaning that electricity and internet were being knocked out on a regular basis. This was a bit frustrating for me as my computer is getting old and does not last long without a battery hook-up. There were a few times I had to abandon my work for an hour or more until the power came back on and I could resume what I was doing.

Depending on how quickly we can get things together in these next few days, I just might be heading to the field again later this week (Thurs/Fri). However, I am hoping to make some time to go and see other sites around Rajasthan in the coming weeks! I might even make a trip to Jaipur :) Will keep you all posted ... for now, enjoy the pics!

Food for Thought

I'm headed to Chittorgarh Fort tommorrow (hopefully), so I plan to update with pictures and stories later.

In the mean time, I wanted to share two things with you all ...

1. Recent NY Times article on Poor Sanitation & Malnutrition in India: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/poor-sanitation-in-india-may-afflict-well-fed-children-with-malnutrition.html

2. My favorite academic/statistician, Hans Rosling, presenting "the best stats you've ever seen" (and it is): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdJgEwMinM

Xoxo,

Alec

Picture time!

Here are a few pictures of what's been going on around here lately.

The first are of Hatipole Market and downtown shopping with girlfriends. Then there is Badi Lake (absolutely incredible) and a couple from the last day of class - me and two of my team members, Manuj and Pallavi.

Enjoy!

The monsoons have come!

Dear Monsoons,

So glad you are here, truly! The rain is much needed and I know the farmers are rejoicing. If you could just please stop dumping bugs everywhere, I would be much obliged.

Love,

Alec

(After I just murdered 15 flying ants that are invading my room at the moment)

All joking aside, the monsoons have come to Rajasthan!! You all must think I am crazy to celebrate, but this actually is a good thing. The weather is finally starting to cool down and Udaipur will rapidly become lush and green. It's beautiful as it is, but I can only imagine how beautiful it will look in two more weeks! Not to mention, it is truly something to behold when the rain comes down SO hard for such long stretches of time. It sounds amazing bouncing off the tin roof. Mother nature at her finest!

In other news, the summer school program has finally come to its end. I have said goodbye to so many people over the last 3 days ... its been bittersweet to say the least. There are only four of us left and by tomorrow there will be only three. Luckily for me, the other two are staying until mid-August so I will have friends in Udaipur up until almost a week before I leave!

Tomorrow I will be officially starting my research project with the NGO. I have already been in talks with them to try and set up the few things I need from them. They seem to be very excited about my project, which is great because it makes me feel excited too! This is going to be a big learning experience for me, and I would be lying if I didn't admit I was a little nervous. I will be holding a series of focus group discussions with people from many different villages to assess demand for three water and sanitation technologies: (1) a ceramic filter (which you all heard about in earlier posts), (2) community level chlorination tanks, and (3) a composting latrine. All of these actually build off of the project I have been working on for the last few weeks, and I am feeling happy to know that I get to go back to the same block I have been working in, even though I will be in different villages.

As far as our project goes everything ended up very nicely in the end. My team and I had some issues with how the work was split, and one of my team members completely checked out near the end and didn't do much of anything. Come to think of it, this person didn't do much of anything for the entirety of the program, but I was willing to overlook it thinking things would improve with time. NOPE! Oh well, all is done with now.

During the last field visit we took two samples back to Udaipur (on ice) to analyze for fecal contamination. Turns out, there was a low level of fecal coliform in both samples, one was from an open well (no surprise) and the other was from a household vessel that contained water from a hand pump. This, coupled with the results of our household survey (granted, we only surveyed about 8% of the population due to time constraints) which showed that 62% of monthly health expenses were going towards the treatment of diarrhea and stomach issues like vomitting, abdominal pain, gastritis, etc. I told you guys about Potters for Peace a while back (whose office is actually out of Greensboro, NC - go figure) and we were really interested in bringing the technology here. Anyways, once again, due to time constraints, we ended up going with a similar option that is available here in India. The product is called Terafil and it is also a clay filtration device of sorts that can be locally produced and sold. The training to manufacture the device and the liscensing agreements have already been sorted out by the government, so we figured this option was more viable in the long run.

From what I could tell, the NGO was pretty happy with our results. I even got an off-hand "well, I might just have to hire you and let you figure out how to bring the technology here," although I'm not entirely sure that was serious ... That said, I have been talking a lot with my friend Siri about some of the issues I have been seeing (she worked extensively in the same block that I have been in) and I am starting to seriously consider coming back to do water and sanitation work in India. There is so much to be done and so many great organizations working on amazing projects. I'm not saying anything for certain, just keeping an open mind about the future. Working here has reaffirmed my passion for what I have set out to do, at Duke and otherwise. I really do believe the world would be a better place if everyone had access to clean water and toilets, and the need for those two things is very great here.

So yes, I have felt equal parts frustrated, excited, tired, happy, hopeless, and hopeful during my time here. It is difficult to see the potential these people hold and not want to do everything in your power to help them! These first six weeks have been an incredible introduction to development work and I am so glad I was able to participate in the program. I hope the next five weeks are just as rewarding.

On that note, I need to go and get ready for bed. Wish me luck on my first "official" day at work!

Planning to post pictures tomorrow. xoxo

Field Visit 3 & the Last Week of Summer School!

Hello to all!

Apologies for such a late posting ... I came home from the field last Wednesday and promptly started organizing and analysing the data from our household survey. Then, I was working with my group members to turn in a draft report to our academic mentors, which was due yesterday. We've already received comments and we are now in the last and final stretch: final reports and final presentations are due on Friday! Whew!!!

I will admit this program hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies (as much as I do love it here). Although, I will save my true reflections on the program and my experience until next week when the program is actually done. I'd really like to keep this as a short update post for now.

Back to field visit 3 .... it was actually a very laid-back time for me. In the interest of time, we decided to delegate tasks this go-round so we could make use of each person's skills and be ready to leave earlier (we needed to get back and start the report writing as we have no internet in the field). So, my teammate Anita and I stayed back at the health center and did data entry as Pallavi and Manuj went to the field and administered the surveys. The survey was quite long, so it was better to do it this way so we wouldn't have a back log of data to enter in the end. Due to this fact, I didn't get as many pictures of village life. Although, I did take pictures of the health center and I will also post a picture below of my team and I with the cook. He was awesome!

Most of the group went out for a big dinner last night, so I also have a few pictures from that as well that I will post.

I will be in hibernation until Saturday when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that this project is over. I will be sure to write an entry again soon to tell you all more about what we have decided to do :)

For now, I am exhausted and heading to bed.

Reflections on Week 4

I can't believe I'm at the one month mark already!! Time is flying by lately (like it always seems to do).

So, I updated you all when I got back from the field last weekend, and guess what?! I'm leaving for the field again tomorrow! :) The last week has been a whirlwind of class, interim presentations, and preparations for the next round of data collection.

My team and I have had meeting after meeting with our academic and NGO mentors to try and figure out how we can incorporate what we've already learned with something measurable (after last weeks test results didn't leave us any direction to go forward with). We finally decided to try and link waterborne disease to high health expenditures. We heard during many of our focus group discussions that health issues like diarrhea and vomitting are common during the monsoon and summer seasons. I will have much more concrete information after this next round of questionaries, so I will be sure to share the numbers with you all.

The question is what can we do about it? We are planning to conduct very basic demand assessments of a few water treatment options that we might be able to implement in the community. The trick here is to make the options sustainable, so that the community can take on whatever project we suggest with very little assistance from Seva Mandir. We are hoping to work with the women's groups and gauge interest in a business initiative where they could possibly construct the filtration devices and sell them for income. We know they have the capacity to make the clay tiles that they put on their roofs and they also make big clay water containers, so we are thinking some clay filters could be a good recommendation that could be locally sourced. I highly recommend you all check out Potters for Peace if you are interested in learning more about what I am referring to by as a clay filter (Google: Potters for Peace Clay Filter Project).

Anyways, we've gotten really great feedback from all of our mentors and we did very well on our presentation. I am feeling good going into these final weeks that we can come out of this with a solid project report and recommendation for our NGO!

Other than that I have had some free time to enjoy the company of new friends and a few chapters from my latest book (I'm reading the Outlander series and loving it!). We have spent quite a few of the past nights watching the World Cup games. Unfortunately we get a bit screwed over with some of the times being 10 hours ahead of Brazil, but we can usually catch the 9:30pm games. Speaking of that ... GOOOO CHILE!!!! They play Brazil tonight :)

Sorry I don't have much more to say ... my week has been relatively boring compared to past weeks.

I hope you all are well! Will update soon with reflections from my final field visit.