Jaipur Foot

So just when you think you have finally hammered out your views on a specific development approach, something happens which throws it to the way side. Today, it was Jaipur Foot. Jaipur Foot is a compassion based organization which provides prosthetic legs ( and specially designed wheel chairs, crutches etc) to anyone who needs them. What more, they house and feed the recipient and their family and even pay for their return trip home. No small fee with patients coming from as far away as Orissa, India. All of this is absolutely free. In other words, charity. Now, here is my chance to go on a rant about what I previously thought I understood. Charity is not the way to empower to someone, charity is hand a out, it is crippling. Community and Capacity building is the true way to development. Yeah well, try telling that to Dr. Mehta, the current director, who has overseen over 1 million patients served and 35 years of service. Let me not forget to mention the "camps" they have set up in 10 different countries including Iraq and Pakistan. His response to the charity-is-bad critique is simply that it isn't true. He theorizes that if you truly meet the needs of recipients they will take care of what you provide.  This is further seen in the third of his staff who are limb recipients themselves. As he analogized to the large group of SIT and Mumbai students:
Dr. Mehta: "Do you use google?"
Students collectively: "yes"
Dr. Mehta: " Do you pay google?"
Students collectively: "No"
Dr. Mehta: "Do you appreciate google?"
students ( thinking) : "Yes"

and he's right. I do appreciate google, heck, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it this far in school without it. and I have never payed a cent.

Through an incredibly efficient and resourceful process Jaipur Foot is able to produce a leg for around $45. This puts the $10,000 prosthetic in the states to shame. While it obviously lacks the technological engineering and wiring which accompanies the american model it is a fully functioning leg which allows the recipient to run, jump, walk, work, bike, climb trees, the list could go on. This leads me to wonder at what point is technology just silly? Is sacrificing the mobility of someone due to exorbitant costs really worth a perfectly aesthetically pleasing leg?

Check out the website here for more information: http://www.jaipurfoot.org/. And shockingly enough, there is not yet a TED talk on his work, something that TED really needs to jump on in the near future. That is if I don't recruit him for TEDxSetonHall 2012 first. Anyone want to donate a plane ticket?!?!

Well need to do some serious work on this Independent Study Project Proposal due tomorrow. It's looking like Gangotri, India for November. Helllooooo Himalayan peaks!

Cheers,

Cassie

Mussoorie

So as great as Rishikesh was, 6 of us decided to head out after only a night for Mussoorie, a British hill station at around 6,500 feet. We were on the search for some respite from the car exhaust and noise in exchange for hiking and lots and lots of mountains. Absolute success, or as we like to call it "winning!"

The photos do nothing to capture the complete awe factor but here are some of my favorites.

Rishikesh

 Rishikesh, the "yoga capital of the India" and the place where the Beatles were supposedly inspired for their White Album, is a hub of tourists and Hinduism. From the saffron robes of the mystics to the westerners hanging out in their best hippy attire,  it is both an excellent place for people watching, and spending copious sums of time drinking really excellent coffee and brown bread from a cafe overlooking the Ganges. There really is something amazing and I hazard to say it, spiritual, about the Ganges. Maybe it's the mass of water moving through the green Himalayan hills coupled with the fabled sanctity of the place but I am so glad to have spent some time here. Even if I did miss the Yoga memo.

A quick shout out to Claire, who will be spending her spring semester here, it is absolutely beautiful. I have a few very excellent and cheap restaurants for you so let's skype soon!

Navdanya and Dehradun

Study trip meets travel trip.  There is so much to say about the past week spent in Uttarakhand.  From studying at Vandana Shiva's Navdanya to visiting a Van Gujjar village, a nomadic tribe who spend their time between the high himalayas and the foothills in Uttarakhand. I've weeded a field of organic tumeric, splashed in the Ganges river, explored British ruins on craggy mountain peaks and watched the sunset over the Himalayas ( and rise!)

I also am pretty sure I want to spend the month of November in the Himalayas most likely studying something with the glaciers and agriculture. Big topic I know, but many things to read ahead. 

I am going to stick to pictures for this post. The following are from two main places. The first is Navdanya (http://www.navdanya.org/), an org which is pioneering the conservation of both tribal knowledge and seed sharing while simultaneously combatting the destruction of food cultures by multinationals and industrial farming. The second is a combination of the Van Gujjar settlement and Dehradun. A few pictures are of our attempt to fix the diesel pipe on our bus using gum. The greatest part, it worked! 

I have finally found a word to describe my day to day. Cacophony! As in, the cacophonous noises you hear when you walk down a street, sit in a mall, or try to go to sleep. Though let me just say, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I generally love the rush of so many melding sounds, many of which are new. A peacock squalling in the air, Hindu prayers late into the night, even the honking of horns ( which is basically a language of its own) are nice!

Saturday, we had an adventure to the Taj. We slept over at the  SIT house and 10 of us headed out at 5am for the  5 1/2 hour ride to Agra, the former capital of the Mughal empire.  We went with a single minded purpose, to see the Taj and head home; and that is exactly what we did. The Taj was gorgeous. Looking back at the pictures it doesn’t look real and was absolutely worth the 11 hours of driving. In all though I wouldn’t necessarily go back, this is in contrast to Machu Pichu which  I would go back to in a second.   I fully recognize that any reservation I have on returning to the Taj is at least partially due to how much we were bugged. Melissa and I ( my red headed hair twin) decided to wear our hair down for twin pictures.  Well, that’s all fine and dandy except that gets us even more attention than normal. The result? A bunch of hilarious photos of us, the Taj, and 15 of our closest Indian brothers. And we couldn’t really sit down for the entire time we were there.  In general however, it’s pretty crazy that I can rank two wonders of the world.  I can only guess which one is next!

Finally, a brief list of things I love, with a few things I could still use some time to get used to:

The Love List:

Everything my host mother cooks

Bucket Showers

Chopti’s so fresh they are still filled with air

Chai ( which means Tea, not our American Chai, I still don’t like that)

Walking barefoot through the Taj Mahal

Camels ( and monkeys, and peacocks)

The Adhan 

Rickshaw rides

Hindi

Things that still need time:

The eastern toilet ( google it if you please)

Traffic circles ( and crossing streets in general)

The lake of water I currently have to wade through to get to school 

India

Hello! I apologize for the delayed posting, both internet access and time has been scarce but here we go!  I have officially been in India for 10 days.  I flew in to Delhi before moving to Jaipur. Since heading to Jaipur we have stayed at a guesthouse here in the city and finally on Saturday headed to our host family’s.  Classes are fully in session, Sustainable Development, Hindi and Field Research.  Field Research and Sustainable Development are guest speaker and excursion based, while Hindi takes up most of our formal class time. It’s a shame how much Hindi I’ve lost since Senior Year but I’m doing what I can to get it back.

                At the risk of sounding cliché, India is truly a country of amazing contrasts. The nicest neighborhoods will still have slums tucked between their alleyways, a BMW will zoom past an oxen  ( or camel!) drawn cart, Multinationals Headquarters will tower over tiny family stores. The traffic is incredible. I can’t even say horrifying at this point as walking between school and back I’ve noticed a definite pattern, squeeze as many vehicles as you can into a small space, charge fully ahead at all round abouts and honk, loudly, therefore signaling that you are going slow enough that more cars could probably move in. As a man at my hotel the first night explained, you need three things to drive in India. “Good brakes, a good horn, and good luck”.  Walking in India relies fully on the luck, and an aptitude for playing Frogger in traffic.

                So far I’ve managed to keep a pretty good head with everything, being continuously aware of how little I understand to even begin to pass judgment. On any given morning to school I encounter at least five beggars, three of the five are very small children in dirty clothing. The strict rule here is do not give to street children. They are often part of gangs of street children assembled by a leader who takes the profits for himself with little going back to the kids ( Anyone seen Slumdog Millionaire, yep,
just like that). Not to mention it makes their daily choice of school or money even more challenging.  Instead, it is encouraged to give a small piece of candy, a pencil, ignore them entirely or as suggested by a family friend who has spent extensive time in India, build a relationship. I’m working on the relationship thing. So far, after three separate occasions of introducing myself in Hindi to one little girl in particular and asking her name, I finally this morning got a response, a shy smile, and a handshake. We’ll see if this actually goes anywhere, it may lead to even more children following me and the begging may not let up but given my options of doing nothing and this, I’ll give it a shot. It’s funny though how quickly you can get used to stuff. Such as walking over piles of dirt and trash on my morning walk, or stepping around people on the sidewalks.

Ok Ok! Don’t want to bore you all so I’ll stop here. For the record though, I am having a great time. The daily comedy of life here, such as someone greeting me with “Good Morning Sir” as I walk to school, or walking next to a Camel drawn cart helps to keep things light. That and my host family is truly amazing.

I’ve included a few photos, the ones of Jaipur above is Nahgarwal, a Mugal style fort which sits on a hill over the city. Beautiful. And the sounds of Lord Ganesh’s birthday being celebrated below definitely helped.

This weekend, the iconic Taj Mahal. Reports to follow ( assuming the internet agrees) Cheers!