Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Getting Settled In

So it was a long day yesterday to say the least. We flew out of Evansville to Detroit at 1:00 p.m. which took around an hour and a half. We were at the Detroit airport for close to three hours, then had an eight hour flight to Amsterdam, where we had another two hour layover. Finally we made our last flight (around seven hours I think) to Delhi, arriving at about 11:00 p.m. local time, which is about 12:30 p.m. Evansville time. So needless to say after almost a full 24 hours of traveling, we were very tired, and by the time we got our baggage, went through customs and checked into our hotel room, it was about 1:00 a.m. before the three of us finally got to bed.

After spending a restless, jet-lagged night at the hotel (I hope this isn't coming off as too whiny, just wanting to give a full account of what's going on-despite the fatigue we're all pretty excited just being here), we woke up to have a pretty good breakfast by the hotel (none of us have any idea what we really ate, but it all tasted pretty good).

We traveled to the campus where SDS has their offices and spent the day brainstorming approaches with the head of this project, Dr. Vinay Lall and getting acquainted with what the organization does and expects from this trip. We found out we will be spending two days in Alwar (Sunday and Monday or Monday and Tuesday). Each of us will have a different aspect and angle to approach how to implement sustainable and resilient approaches to combating poverty while coming up with the best way to not only measure the outputs from these approaches, but the long-term outcomes. Basically the idea is to create programs or provide certain resources in a way that the SDS is not consistently providing these things, but can at some point discontinue while still having the intended growth remain under its own steam. We will be dividing up and focusing on different segments of the population in order to get a broader picture at the end. The first day will be spent interviewing families in urban Alwar, while the second day will be in the rural villages surrounding the city itself.

After all this, we took a brief tour of the campus, followed by going to some of the attractions Delhi has to offer such as the President's Palace and the India Gate (hopefully by the end of the night I can figure out how to get our pics on here). We went to the local marketplace close to our hotel were we walked through the enormously clustered crowds of people looking at some of the local wares. We are all very tired again so that will be it for tonight. (On a side note, I can hear the traffic outside the window as I type this, and in case you weren't aware, Indian drivers are some of the craziest drivers I've ever seen. Lanes mean nothing, even the ones dividing oncoming traffic, and everything is packed together with inches to spare at most. I don't know how there's not more accidents.)

Namastee

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Five Days and Counting...

Not many people (or perhaps not many I know) get to travel outside the United States. There are the occasional semesters studying abroad in Europe, the honeymoons to Mexico or the Bahamas and the family family cruise from Disney.

I am one of the vast majority of people who has never been outside the borders of home, and I've always wanted to see what else is out there in the world, to explore other lands and immerse myself in a completely different culture (I know this is somewhat romanticizing travel, but bare with me).

That is all going to change as of Sunday, when I fly out of Evansville, Indiana with two other University of Southern Indiana students, D.J. Horstman and Amy Brown. The three of us are part of a research project taking place in India. We will be spending the majority of our time in New Delhi, while the actual research will be conducted in the town of Alwar, which is in the state of Rajasthan. Alwar is about 160 kilometers south-southwest of New Delhi, and about 150 kilometers northeast of Jaipur.

While in Alwar we will be interviewing families who have used the unique approach developed by the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) the Society of Development Studies, and see if their approach did in fact improve these families' lives both materially and socially.

The trip has been funded by the Provost's office at USI, and is in an effort to expand the university's mission of outreach and engagement by establishing some solid foundations for further student trips to India.

I will be posting to this blog as often as I can, keeping you updated on the research and the culture shock of an untraveled American. Once we have some pictures they will be posted to gadget at the bottom of the page (for now, ignore the stock photos blogger has decided to provide me). Until then, wish us luck and stick around.

Namaste!

Chanse Ford