Friday, April 27, 2007
The Visa Arrived!
After much pain and suffering and confusion about how many blank pages were needed in my passport to get a visa for India, my bike-courier friend finally delivered my passport with the visa. Hurray!! Now, it's finally almost time to travel. t-15 days!!!
Saturday, April 7, 2007
The participants
The optimistic adventurer
The wise one (who's going home before the monsoons)
Belaku's rural worksite (inspecting newly donated animals)
Friday, April 6, 2007
new blog intro
Hello and welcome to my new blog! I'm here at work, thinking of anything to do besides work, and realized that a blog would be the easiest way to keep in touch this summer. The plan is to spend three months in India working at a local nongovernmental organization (ngo) called Belaku Trust that focuses on the health of women and children. I'm so excited, just one month and 6 days until the journey begins!
In response to lots of questions that have been coming my way, here's some background info about how I scored the internship and what I'll be doing:
A professor at Hopkins, Mike Koenig, put me in touch with a colleague of his in India, Saras Ganapathy. She's an Indian woman who went to medical school at NYU and is a pediatrician. When she went home to India she started a research organization with other like-minded women, Belaku Trust, to improve the health of women and children. As time passed, they began to use their research to implement projects and now run numerous programs.
I'll be working primarily on two projects with Belaku. The first is a research study on the quality of obstetric care and the second is an evaluation of an income generation program. The income generation program is somewhat like the famous microfinance schemes and the Grameen Bank (http://www.grameen-info.org/) - Belaku teaches crafts, such as printing fabrics and handmaking notecards, to poor women and the products are then sold. Income from the sales helps the women to better provide for their families. I'm particularly interested in microfinance because it requires a holistic understanding of health that goes far beyond 'the absence of illness' as its definition. I believe that health and economic development are linked, though certainly it is possible to have one and not the other. Either way, I value the broader vision and look forward to working to improve health outside of a clinical setting.
Where is Bangalore? I like to think of India as diamond shape (it's not really, but it helps me to picture where everything is). If you're looking at the diamond, New Delhi is towards the top point, Calcutta the right point, Bombay the left point, and Bangalore near the bottom point. The CIA actually has a good map and info about India: (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html) The only way most people know about Bangalore is through the high-tech industry and outsourcing. Chances are, if you've called a 1-800 number you've spoken with someone in Bangalore. From all the added income of high-tech and outsourcing, Bangalore has a reputation as one of India's swankier cities. I'm not actually sure what that means considering I've never seen any other Indian cities, but I'll be able to tell you soon. Just a sidenote about outsourcing - even though it makes people furious in the U.S., numerous people have told me that Indians love the outsourced jobs. Even though the salaries are much much lower than the job would command in the U.S., they are still typically more than three times an average Indian salary, which means that the people who get these jobs end up relatively well-off. Rumor has it the Indians also have an affinity for George W... I'll have to keep my mouth shut.
What else can I tell you? Well, I'll be starting off the trip with a very relaxing two weeks in Thailand! Matt and I are leaving two days after the end of my fourth academic term, which is probably not the smartest idea, but I'm too impatient to wait. So May 12 we leave for London (including a nasty layover at Heathrow) and arrive in Bangkok on May 14. We'll head pretty quickly out of Bangkok and down the west coast to the beaches. (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/th.html) We'll be near Phuket, but right by (in?) a town called Krabi. We'll be staying right around Railay, which is famous for having world-class rock climbing right on the beaches. I don't think a better place has ever been designed to suit both Matt and me. I anticipate many of our days will look something like this: eat, climb, swim, eat, nap, climb, swim, eat, drink, sleep.
This is getting absurdly long, but I just wanted to share the details and let you know where you'll be able to find information about my trip. I probably won't post much between now and when I leave for India, but I'll send an email to let you know when things are up and running in Asia. I'm also working on getting pictures up so hopefully you'll be able to see everything in one place soon.
love you lots, more soon from Asia!
In response to lots of questions that have been coming my way, here's some background info about how I scored the internship and what I'll be doing:
A professor at Hopkins, Mike Koenig, put me in touch with a colleague of his in India, Saras Ganapathy. She's an Indian woman who went to medical school at NYU and is a pediatrician. When she went home to India she started a research organization with other like-minded women, Belaku Trust, to improve the health of women and children. As time passed, they began to use their research to implement projects and now run numerous programs.
I'll be working primarily on two projects with Belaku. The first is a research study on the quality of obstetric care and the second is an evaluation of an income generation program. The income generation program is somewhat like the famous microfinance schemes and the Grameen Bank (http://www.grameen-info.org/) - Belaku teaches crafts, such as printing fabrics and handmaking notecards, to poor women and the products are then sold. Income from the sales helps the women to better provide for their families. I'm particularly interested in microfinance because it requires a holistic understanding of health that goes far beyond 'the absence of illness' as its definition. I believe that health and economic development are linked, though certainly it is possible to have one and not the other. Either way, I value the broader vision and look forward to working to improve health outside of a clinical setting.
Where is Bangalore? I like to think of India as diamond shape (it's not really, but it helps me to picture where everything is). If you're looking at the diamond, New Delhi is towards the top point, Calcutta the right point, Bombay the left point, and Bangalore near the bottom point. The CIA actually has a good map and info about India: (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html) The only way most people know about Bangalore is through the high-tech industry and outsourcing. Chances are, if you've called a 1-800 number you've spoken with someone in Bangalore. From all the added income of high-tech and outsourcing, Bangalore has a reputation as one of India's swankier cities. I'm not actually sure what that means considering I've never seen any other Indian cities, but I'll be able to tell you soon. Just a sidenote about outsourcing - even though it makes people furious in the U.S., numerous people have told me that Indians love the outsourced jobs. Even though the salaries are much much lower than the job would command in the U.S., they are still typically more than three times an average Indian salary, which means that the people who get these jobs end up relatively well-off. Rumor has it the Indians also have an affinity for George W... I'll have to keep my mouth shut.
What else can I tell you? Well, I'll be starting off the trip with a very relaxing two weeks in Thailand! Matt and I are leaving two days after the end of my fourth academic term, which is probably not the smartest idea, but I'm too impatient to wait. So May 12 we leave for London (including a nasty layover at Heathrow) and arrive in Bangkok on May 14. We'll head pretty quickly out of Bangkok and down the west coast to the beaches. (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/th.html) We'll be near Phuket, but right by (in?) a town called Krabi. We'll be staying right around Railay, which is famous for having world-class rock climbing right on the beaches. I don't think a better place has ever been designed to suit both Matt and me. I anticipate many of our days will look something like this: eat, climb, swim, eat, nap, climb, swim, eat, drink, sleep.
This is getting absurdly long, but I just wanted to share the details and let you know where you'll be able to find information about my trip. I probably won't post much between now and when I leave for India, but I'll send an email to let you know when things are up and running in Asia. I'm also working on getting pictures up so hopefully you'll be able to see everything in one place soon.
love you lots, more soon from Asia!
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