Where I've been

In the slums people often say Jai-Bim instead of Namaste or Normaskar (which is Urdu not hindi i think), to honor Bhim Rao Ambedker, who is viewed as the hero of the dalit community (at least in agra).

Recently, I've had the rare opportunity to take time to not only ask questions that come up on my mind, but also spend more time looking up their answers on a decent internet connection.

What I've found is a lot of information - the internet is crazy when you think of it being such huge volumes of information but all contained in these enduser-managed 'websites' that are not necessarily linked to other websites beyond a certain point. The impact this has on my searching is that it makes it nearly impossible to ever track how much of the available answers out there I have actually accessed. As I look further, I find more information, search different things, and there is more information, and usually I start finding the same information more frequently but in the back of my head I think this is just because i am searching a certain set of words, and the rest of the answers i am looking for are still contained in other sites that are accessible under different logic and definition.

So essentially, here are a couple of sites that I found interesting over the past week or so that either contain something new and cool or a lot of recent compiled information on a given topic. They are all associated with development tech somehow i assume.

The Netherlands somehow has come to be home to people-centered development (cite me). The organizations I've found online give me the impression that they are focused on things that many approaches suffer from: lack of documentation, lack of time, lack of power-dispersion-and-acknowledgement, lack of facilitation. This is interesting as my discussion a few years ago with a a poet-boxer-btselem volunteer dutch-israeli concluded that the Netherlands is very self-centered and high-concept when it comes to development.

KIT SmartHygieneSolutions 2010 useful documentation by category on low-cost tech approaches - mostly for-profit products and distribution and/or local ownership models.

Stichting Connect International

Obama’s Innovator-Advisor’s Blog (this particular article is very accurate, tho I always question someone like this's on-the-ground experience. they understand well conceptually, but they live a nice articulate posh life talking about it and passionate policymaking but how connected is it with the actual real holistic livelihood effects in the end? - this can he understand?)

Think Change India

Kosovo Unicef Innovation Lab This is the only harvard student who i ever met who i liked right away - he will be a part of amazing things because he communicates outside of himself better than most anyone.

Sanitation Updates a simple blog i keep running into

If you ever want to access the center of science on tropical medicine and hygiene

CPU illiteracy a barrier to linkage

I lack the community interaction right now which is my motivation so that has caused me to focus more on researching different stuff at night and helping local ngo learn how to operate their cpu, install printers, and useful software.

The "office boy" as he is called is a freshman in college who has been studying for a couple tests in math and compsci so i've been helping him with that in exchange for an english hindi exchange. People are very computer illiterate around here because electronics are so expensive. This is something i noticed in peru too. The US really sets it up so that they have cheap cpus (and europe maybe i dunno) but big developing countries's populations are really restricted from access very effectively and quietly. I havent researched it much but maybe it has something to do with: immediate buyout by large developed companies of growing tech hardware firms in developing world, high export of electronics and low import of raw materials into us and in turn the other countries face such stiff competition from other developing countries for cheap labor they sign of since they at least get some jobs so they sign off on the deal.

Apparently a decent desktop around here is $1000 and big issue is that noone can fix their own machine so they depend on paying companies to fix any small issues related to their equipment. Printer not working, ok ask the manufacturer what is wrong, they say you should just buy a new one, ok we'll buy a new one. Mansingh (my college friend) is amazed that you can just enter something into google translator and it pops out hindi. Mostly he is mesmerized by the keyboard though, and won't touch it. He says he has no idea how to use it and doesn't want to break it. He said his college (agra university) has no cpus available for use, and if i understood correctly, that most profesors don't have cpus and only a handful of students.) I assume this is not entirely true, but I'm sure its not like the US where a laptop is essentially included in the cost of a freshmen's college education.

So I started some research and found some other options, many of the links from here would not open and it seems many are either not available or only in concept stages. This makes sense as they have not very effectively penetrated world markets - which is no easy task to set up that kind of supply chain. I just started, my search so i am looking for more information on this topic if anyone has any thoughts.

Low-cost computing & Low-cost laptops(2008)

Deepavali

Here is a picture of my first night in Agra, India (Oct 26ish). This is KD Hotel, and it cost me $11 for one night to go to sleep to this. Never stay at KD Hotel, because right nearby is a place called Tourist Rest House that is half the price for much nicer conditions.

Since leaving KD Hotel I've been sleeping on the floor of an NGO's office. Except for the 5 days I was invited to spend Deepavali (India's most important Hindu festival - equivalent of christmas but instead of gifts the men typically just give money to family members and saris and money to people less fortunate who you pay for any work (garbage, employees, maids). Many stories of the fame of Indian Deepavali were told to me before the event, how houses were covered in lights, and fireworks all day and night seem to be wistful memories of how it was before safety regulations have been enacted and somehow enforced to limit homemade gunpowder bombs and such.

The firework intensity was at about 50% Guate City on Guatemala's Christmas-New Year. I attempted to explain this to the family, but they were mostly just shocked that there was a country called Guatemala and that it only had 13 million people in the entire country. But, I assume that other places maybe more and Guatemala is probably behind India on regulations.

Deepavali is 8 days total, and very interesting in its roots. Read about the Lakshmi and her story above. Except for a day break in the middle, it has a nice mix of nuclear family, extended family, and return-to-home traditions. The family I stayed with has a very religious mother, Pooja. Pooja means worship in Hindi, and during the night of Deepavali is a very important nuclear family worship rite that has to be done according to family-specific motions handed down "since the beginning of Hindu religion, before people were around" according to my family here. (They adopted me after 5 days and are now in the process of arranging my marriage).

The Deepavali worship must be done to ensure family protection, happiness, and wealth in the following year by inviting Lakshmi Mata (Mother Lakshmi), a goddess, to come into the home. This is done through placing lights at both doorposts of every door in the house and lighting up the entryway to the doors with many candles (see candles on balcony rail in the pics). Also, they

worship their specific family god by preparing the right food for the Ahvan, which is their typical worship ceremony. Ahvan involves setting up a small fire fed constantly with ghee (Is fat free ghee good for you? India thinks so, but it looks greasy to me. Pooja prepares things with extra ghee and then ladles more ghee onto the rotis (tortilla like) before you eat them. I was turning them over to let the grease settle on plate until they asked me why and I stuttered and they explained that it makes you strong?) and first you burn things that have been taken around the house to collect negative energies, bad eyes, and any other harmful things that have gathered from people with negative energy coming into the house. Then there is a process of feeding the fire (god) certain prepared foods and sweets (their family god likes to eat 5 things, most of which I have never seen before. The only ones I recognized were cococut and raisins). There is also the inclusion of family ancestors who are remembered and prayed to for blessing.

And then you eat all the rest of the food that the gods didnt consume (they eat very little). My family was very kind to let me be a part of their worship. Here some post worship pictures. The little girl, Rose, is very frightened by fireworks and sparklers so after a few attempts the family gave up. Rose's parents say she doesn't like toys, and even in stores has no interest, she prefers small cardboard boxes to tear up and empty bottles and spoons to stuff the bits into.

A few days before a very reputable guru-ji (their holymen) had come by to do an unexpected Ahvan because he felt the gods wanted him to give extra blessing to the NGO office. Coincidentally correlated a short time after I had been staying there, but they say no relation. The guru-ji sat on my bed sheet and I was without one for that night because God was thought to be dwelling there till the next daybreak.

I have yet to find a workshop spot in the slums, but I am hopeful it'll be next week. I have been planning the pilot project slowly, as it is a very different approach to donor-ngo-community relationships that the ngo is used to, so it takes awhile to create understanding. I have spent quite a lot of time introducing the details of the pilot community design for clean hands project (website not fully functional yet) to the NGO director and working out budget and activities for the year long pilot. Then at night I draft up what we've talked about, so I've had some late nights but only because during the day everyone spends a lot of time just talking and drinking tea.

This is mostly due to language barriers, and I am to blame for that. Hindi is going slowly and it is not my priority right now as I have quite a bit of planning to do before starting up the pilot if I want it to be effective.

I have developed a good trusting relationship with the NGO director and office manager/get the director tea twice a day guy. People drink a lot of tea, and they are very amused that coffee is the low-cost drink of the masses and tea is eletist. "We are millionares in India!" (in hindi) is a daily line.