Watching Uncle Ho watching us

As many of you know, I went to Vietnam two weeks ago for work. This was my second time to Vietnam, as my brother Ben and I visited the country for a few weeks back in 2011. I love Vietnam and highly recommend a visit!

I went to the Mekong Delta region--specifically, Can Tho and Soc Trang--to witness the launch of my organization's handwashing product, called the HappyTap, in partnership with the Vietnam Women's Union (let's be honest, without any Vietnamese language skills I wasn't doing much more than simply witnessing). The Women's Union has branches in every village in Vietnam, so partnering with them is a huge opportunity to raise awareness about the need for handwashing and create demand for our product in every corner of the country. It's a bit unclear to me if the Women's Union is a government institution or a wing of the Communist party or if the government and the party are one and the same, but I'm pretty sure that's how the Women's Union has access to every village.

I traveled from Phnom Penh to Can Tho, and then back to Phnom Penh from Saigon. I took buses between Vietnam and Cambodia (the distance from Phnom Penh to Can Tho is approximately the same as Washington DC to New York and to Saigon approximately the same as Philadelphia to Boston). The difference in the landscape at the border was striking. As soon as I crossed into Vietnam, the potholes in the road disappeared and I found myself surrounded by bright green rice paddies and lush banana plantations. The Mekong Delta is the most productive rice region in Vietnam, and because rice is one of Vietnam's most important exports, the government has invested a lot of money to ensure that area is irrigated and can produce rice year-round. In contrast, Cambodian farmers cannot afford to irrigate their fields and only grow rice during the rainy season, so the countryside was pretty brown. (Sound familiar?) It was incredible to me that Vietnam's economic edge over Cambodia was immediately apparent.

(To be fair, I crossed back into Cambodia at a different checkpoint, and there was pretty much no difference other than language and a bunch of casinos on the Cambodian side. [I guess gambling is illegal in Vietnam so people cross the border to play? not sure.] But that checkpoint was not in the Delta.)

A funny note about my Vietnamese coworkers (who are probably sick of foreigners thinking this is funny): they are named Ai and Quy, pronounced "I" and "We." And Ai's sister is named My, pronounced "Me." I love it. In the Phnom Penh office we have to refer to Ai as "Miss Ai" otherwise it gets too confusing and everyone thinks you are talking about yourself. Ai and Quy are wonderful people and the best part of my too-short trip to Vietnam was hanging out with them. Ai grew up in Can Tho, and she and My (who is still in high school and thus lives in Can Tho with Ai's parents) showed Quy and me around the town.

Quy and Ai eat soft tofu in jasmine water.

The rest of my Vietnamese coworkers were field staff and spoke pretty much no English, with one exception. That one exception told me that most of his family lives in San Jose, California. His father was on the wrong side of the war; he had worked as an officer of some sort in the US-backed South Vietnam government. At some point after the war, his father was sent to a Communist reeducation camp and upon his release sought asylum in the US. Since my coworker was over 18 years old at that point (he is now about 40), whether to go or stay was his decision. He chose to stay in Vietnam since he was already studying at university and wasn't confident that his English was good enough to succeed in an American college. He was the only one to stay. His younger siblings and mother joined his father in the US. My coworker hopes to one day move to California to reunite with his family and provide his children with an American university education.

I often feel like I'm running into American history that wasn't quite taught in my high school history class. And not only in Vietnam. I went to Laos during my Khmer New Year vacation in April. The US dropped more than 270 million bombs on Laos during the "secret" carpet-bombing campaign from 1964 to 1973--that's more than all bombs dropped everywhere by everyone during WWII. Laos still suffers from this everyday, as people inadvertently step on unexploded ordnance. Walking through Luang Prabang's night market, I came across several stalls of vendors selling utensils and bangles made from melted-down bombs (I bought chopsticks; the proceeds fund demining efforts and support the metal artisans). Much of the advertised tourism in northeast Laos involves trekking to "bomb villages" (I didn't go). I met several Laotian people, usually belonging to the Hmong tribe, whose relatives had fled to the US (mostly Minnesota) after the war. The CIA had financed and trained Hmong tribespeople to fight an insurgency against the Communist Party in Laos. The Hmong lost and the US granted asylum.

During the war the US rained bombs on Cambodia as well, in an attempt to oust the North Vietnamese from the bases they had established on the Cambodian side of the border. After the coup of Prince Sihanouk created the Khmer Republic and triggered the Cambodian Civil War, the US provided air support to the Khmer Republic to fight the Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge insurgency.  To be honest, the American legacy is not nearly as apparent in Cambodia as it is in Laos and Vietnam (at least not to me), since the Khmer Rouge genocide following American withdrawal overshadows pretty much everything else. There might still be unexploded ordnance from the American cluster bombs, like there is in Laos, but I'm under the impression most landmines were planted by the Khmer Rouge.

Despite the brutal history of American involvement in Indochina, it seems that people don't really feel any animosity towards Americans. As Ai and Quy explained, these days Vietnamese people actually like Americans. Americans are open and friendly, and interaction with us is an opportunity to improve English language skills, which are necessary in today's globalized society. Their beef is only with the American government. People in Laos and Cambodia have told me the same thing.

While I appreciate the differentiation between people and the government, it's not totally legitimate, since in a democracy supposedly the people are choosing their government. Should American citizens not be held accountable for the actions of the American government? As an American, should I not feel some sense of responsibility and guilt for what transpired in Indochina? Does the fact that the US government actually withheld information about the carpet bombing from the public (and of course the fact that I wasn't born yet) relieve any of this responsibility? And what does it mean to be an American living in this region today, a few decades after the war?

When I mentioned to Ai and Quy that I really need to read up on the history of Indochina, especially American involvement here, Ai told me that she hated history in school. She said that schools feed children the Communist party's version of Vietnam's history and students are not allowed to question it. Even at university students could not engage in discussions and debate about various perspectives on history. Of course, in the US children are also taught certain mythologies about our history, but I do think in higher education debate is encouraged.

I found all the Communist propaganda in Vietnam amusing. I know it's not funny, but I couldn't help but laugh at it (I realize this reveals how very American I am). A bust of Ho Chi Minh, accompanied by a gold star, a hammer and sickle, and banners with Communist party slogans in Vietnamese, watched over every meeting and event we held (and in one location Marx and Lenin watched us, too). I found it a bit unsettling that "Uncle Ho" was always watching. Quy joked that, in fact, we were watching Uncle Ho watching us (especially because I kept taking photos of Uncle Ho). To me, it was particularly weird to be holding sales events--decidedly capitalist endeavors--in spaces decked-out with Communist imagery.

A sales event, with Uncle Ho, Uncle Karl, and Uncle Vlad watching from the stage (Ho Chi Minh is the bust to the left, and Marx and Lenin are in the oval picture to the right).

Uncle Ho is a very powerful man. Physically, too. That must be why he's in a government ad to promote exercise.

It was a bit difficult to tell what my coworkers thought about all this in-your-face propaganda, but my impression is that people mostly shrug it off. It's just a part of life in Vietnam. They don't think about it any more than I might think about a US Army recruitment commercial. People seem satisfied enough with the country's economic development, and the government isn't nearly as repressive as the Chinese model of Communism. (Facebook is blocked in the country, but one of my coworkers joked that the government was helping people develop their computer skills, as everyone figures out how to circumvent the restrictions.)

Communist propaganda aside, the sales events were fascinating. We held two events, one led by my organization, and the other led by the Women's Union. The idea was to learn from each other's strategies to inform a stronger sales pitch for the future. Our presentation emphasized the negative health implications of handwashing negligence, and the Women's Union's presentation mentioned heath briefly before launching into a demonstration of how to properly wash hands using items commonly found in a rural Vietnamese home. Interestingly, their demo required two people to wash one person's hand--someone else was needed to pour the water. The convenience of our product, basically a standalone sink with an attached water tank, stood in stark contrast. Women had reacted somewhat lukewarmly to the previous day's health presentation, but they loved actually seeing the convenience of our product. Many more women were interested in the product after the second presentation (we did the presentations with different groups of women).

The Women's Union demonstrates proper handwashing technique using objects already found in the home. Using a bucket and pitcher require the help of a second person.

Our product, in comparison, does not require a second person to help and it saves water. Plus it's adorable.

It was interesting, though not surprising, that illustrating convenience makes the product more appealing than focusing on health benefits. After all, who likes to get lectured at about how they're doing everything wrong for their families' health? And it's not just handwashing. Traditional cookstoves emit pollutants that give their families respiratory diseases. Open defecation poisons their water and food and gives their children diarrhea. Not boiling or filtering their water will inflict typhoid and more diarrhea on their children. Everything women do in rural Asia seems to be bad for their health, right? While of course knowledge of health impacts is vital, during a sales pitch it makes sense to put greater focus on something else for a change. As my coworker Lindsay, our resident behavior change expert, can tell you, knowledge of healthy practices doesn't necessarily drive change. For example, everybody knows smoking is bad for you, yet millions do it anyway.

People all over the world love convenience; it's human nature to do what is easy and fast and avoid what is difficult and slow. If I did not have access to plumbing and water flowing right out of my tap, I probably wouldn't wash my hands a lot either. This lesson is not new to our organization. In fact, our product's Vietnamese name translates to "Convenience." I think it would be wise for us to integrate the Women's Union's traditional handwashing demonstration into our presentations before introducing our product. It would also be great to have the women actually try out washing their hands with both the household tools and our product. Seeing and experiencing the difference between the two handwashing methods would have a powerful impact and, hopefully, boost our sales.

After our work was done, Ai, Quy, My, and My's boyfriend Giang (...not pronounced like an English pronoun) and I visited the floating market of Cai Rang. Ben and I had visited this same market almost three years ago, and it was interesting to see how the market had changed in a fairly short time period. The market was noticeably smaller. There were fewer boats and less activity.

Ai explained that the Vietnamese government had been taking measures to move floating markets to land. Traditionally, living and working on a boat in the Delta made sense. There are hundreds if not thousands of canals and boats were the fastest way to get around. These days, though, there are roads (and trust me, those roads are beautiful, especially compared to Cambodia's roads), so there is little need to depend on rivers for transport.

The floating market communities face many difficult problems, and the government believes moving onshore can improve their quality of life. They bathe, do laundry, wash dishes, drink, poop, and pee in the same water. The mobility of a boat means they do not have an address or residence. With no address, they are denied many social services. Their children, until recently, were not allowed to attend school without a permanent residence (though they are now admitted into schools, the families might still travel the canals between villages so that their children are not in the same place everyday and cannot attend school). Teen pregnancy is also a huge issue, as people live in very close quarters and do not have access to sex education. If moving these communities off the water really would have an impact on improving their health and wealth, I can see why the government has been pushing the move. However, they'll have to do a lot more than simply beach the market to tackle water, sanitation, education, and teen pregnancy. Even landlubber communities face these challenges!

Children of floating market families who do get an education often look beyond the river for economic opportunity. Those who go to college want to become office-bound professionals rather than boat-bound produce wholesalers. They want to provide a more comfortable, healthier life for their own children. The floating market communities are shrinking even without government prodding.

All this being said, people continue to live and work on these boats today, even with the roads. So some people do care about preserving the floating market way of life (either that, or they see no other options). The floating market is just one of many worldwide examples of a traditional lifestyle struggling to survive and thrive against the mighty wave of modernization. But culture is dynamic--today's particular snapshot of their culture is not the same as a snapshot of their culture from three hundred years ago--and ultimately improved health and education are good things.

Boats in the Cai Rang floating market

Pumpkin wholesaler in the Cai Rang floating market. The giant eyes were traditionally painted on the boats to scare away crocodiles, but these days there aren't many crocodiles left in the Mekong Delta.

We took a selfie on the boat. Front to back: Giang, My, me, Ai, Quy.

Finally, I end this absurdly long post with a shout-out to my brother. Ben, I saluted Can Tho's giant Ho Chi Minh statue again for you:

June 2011

April 2014

Ai and Quy, if you guys are reading this, I apologize if anything I said about Vietnam was mistaken. Please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll fix it!

I love my new job.

I've been a real slacker on this blog, and for that I apologize. In fact, I apologize for my last post complaining about apartment hunting. I'm embarrassed that I sound like an American brat, but it seems to be tradition on this blog to bitch about apartment hunting when I move to a new city.

I ended up finding a great place with a wonderful landlady. She often welcomes me home at the end of the day with a snack and, most recently, a whole bag of mangoes. While she doesn't speak a word of English, her children (who are about my age) speak English fluently and have even studied and/or worked abroad in the US and Japan. One of them studied in Boston on a Fulbright! We sometimes hang out on the ground floor of the building. They are wonderful people.

So, what am I doing in Cambodia? I work for an NGO transitioning into a for-profit enterprise (or are they just starting a for-profit wing? I'm a bit unclear on that). My organization approaches water and sanitation challenges with market-based solutions. Basically, we sell toilets, water filters, and handwashing devices to rural consumers. (People tend not to value--and thus not to use or repair--a product they receive for free.*) Therefore, a lot of our work involves creating demand for water and sanitation products; we are actually among the leaders worldwide in what is called "sanitation marketing."

*I recognize this statement is an oversimplification and not always true but I don't feel like getting into all that right now.

The products we sell were designed in collaboration with a famous design firm in San Francisco, but now my organization wants to build an in-house design team rather than rely on external consultants. I was hired to build and lead this team. I'm in the middle of recruiting Cambodian engineers, and it's really weird to be on the other side of hiring so soon after going through the job hunting process.

I will be working on a number of products. Our flagship product in Cambodia is a simple pour-flush pit latrine, since approximately 80% of rural Cambodians do not have access to toilets and must practice open defecation. We've already sold over 70,000 latrines nationwide. However, the primary obstacle to widespread toilet adoption is the high price of the latrine shelter that is attractive to consumers (cheaper shelters are available but people don't want them and prefer to have no toilet than a toilet with the cheaper shelter). My first challenge is to come up with an affordable latrine shelter that meets the consumers' needs and desires. In the future I will be working on "infant and young child feces management" products (a.k.a. potties), a larger version of our handwashing device for schools, health clinics, refugee camps, etc (our current device is household-size), and a household rainwater harvesting kit.

I love my job. I get both the engineering and the social science, the physics and the field work. I have already been traveling a lot. I've been out in "the provinces" three times (people say "the provinces" when they mean anywhere but Phnom Penh; usually it refers to rural areas) and to Vietnam--and it's been only 5 weeks. I will be working closely with manufacturers, which is the biggest hole in my experience, so hopefully I will learn a ton and gain new useful skills. And my coworkers are lovely. I mean, how could I not love a job where my boss pretends to poop?

This is my boss.

My life is a little boring outside of work, because I don't have any non-work friends yet. To be honest though, I'm really enjoying the alone time right now, burying myself in books about Indochina and watching my favorite TV shows. But I think soon I might go a little stir-crazy, so I should probably start trying to meet people. I learned about a Hindi/Urdu conversation group recently, so I might join to meet other people interested in India (I would be lying if I said I didn't miss India every day) and of course to brush up on my Hindi.

Speaking of languages, I have started Khmer lessons. In some ways the language is difficult--the pronunciation is pretty much impossible for my American tongue--but in other ways it's not so difficult. For example, there appear to be no tenses or verb conjugation. So vocabulary is hard but grammar is easy. My tutor is fantastic and classes are pretty fun.

And now for some photos:

The edge of a market in Kampong Cham province

The infamous fried spiders. Cambodians started to eat spiders and other bugs to fend off starvation during the Khmer Rouge when there was no other food available. I'm not sure why people still eat them. Apparently the legs are the tastiest part.

Adorable family in a village in Kampong Cham province.

Another adorable family in Kampong Cham province.

This guy climbed a tree to pick some coconuts for us to drink.

Volleyball is the most popular sport in Cambodia. This surprised me, since I didn't realize volleyball was popular anywhere.

A typical village home in Cambodia sits on stilts. A typical poor family's home is made of palm leaves rather than wood. Rural households typically store their water in giant jugs like these.

In rural Cambodia, iced coffee comes in bags. Lindsay (pictured) and I love Cambodian iced coffee.

This is where village women give birth--if they come to the clinic at all. It was even more terrifying in person.

Napping in a hammock is a favorite pastime in the hot season.

Children play on a mountain of scraps from the nearby garment factories in Kampong Speu province.

Mai, Lindsay, and me with our host family in a village in Kampong Speu province

In Vietnam we held meetings under the watchful eye of Uncle Ho. (That's Ho Chi Minh, in case that's not clear.)

More posts coming soon. I have so much to catch you up on!

Research findings from my thesis work

In my last post, where I shared my thesis, I promised you a short summary of my research findings. Here they are. (Well, some of them, anyway.)

First, a quick reminder of the research issue: In eastern India, ~85% of farmers irrigate their land using fossil fuel-powered pumps because they do not have access to electricity. Diesel and kerosene pumps have very expensive operation costs that farmers cannot afford, so they often choose not to irrigate outside monsoon season. With few other livelihood options, they migrate elsewhere for work. When they migrate seasonally, their families often cannot access social services such as health and education. I sought to address this challenge by developing an alternative off-grid pumping solution.

(Please do not confuse this with the opposite irrigation problem in western India, where free or near-free electricity for agriculture has led to unlimited pumping and severe over-exploitation of groundwater resources. The water table is not falling at a dangerous rate in eastern India. In fact some people argue that increasing groundwater extraction would reduce the incidence of flooding during monsoon season, because the soil would not be as saturated.)

For more about irrigation economics, see an earlier post here.

And now for my favorite research findings:

1. Rental costs are greater than fuel costs. This one actually surprised me. Everybody loves to talk about dirty fossil fuels and how the high cost of diesel (or in this case, kerosene) is what's keeping poor farmers from irrigating their fields. But I tested the actual performance of some pumps owned by farmers in Gumla and found that the flow rates were so bad that farmers needed to rent the pumps for an absurd number of hours to soak their fields--and hourly rental rates are fairly high. The implication? The focus of designing a new pump should be on increasing the flow rate more than fuel efficiency. The faster the flow rate, the less time it takes to irrigate a field--and the fewer hours required to irrigate, the less a farmer spends on renting a pump.

costs to irrigate one acre of land with 2" of water with a 12 year old Honda pump

2. Eliminating, or at least significantly reducing, suction head can reduce operation costs by up to 44%. I ran an experiment to test the hypothesis that eliminating suction head would increase efficiency and flow rates--and the experiment verified this hypothesis (see chapter 2 of my thesis). I then spent a great deal of time during my master's research trying to come up with affordable ways to run a submersible pump with a surface engine (see chapter 3 of my thesis), only to be outsmarted by the farmers (as usual): see #3.

3. Farmers already know #2. It turns out that farmers have already figured out that reducing suction head increases the pump's efficiency and flow rates (apparently, they experiment with lowering their pumps once the groundwater level falls beyond 7 m, the suction capacity of a pump, during dry season). Some lower the pump into the well with a rope, while others dig a trench next to the well:

4. Indian pumps are super leaky, but farmers know how to deal with it. I couldn't get an Indian pump to suck. Period. I tried a million ways to plug the leaks and just couldn't do it. That is, until I met a bunch of farmers who laughed at my teflon tape and showed me how it's done: slash an old bike tire and wrap those strips of rubber around all pump connections and hose fittings. Jugaad at its best! (But seriously, this is a problem the Indian pump industry desperately needs to address.)

5. Farmers claim Chinese pumps are more efficient than Indian pumps. Nobody knows why or if this is even true. Unfortunately I was unable to test a Chinese pump (I couldn't get them to work at MIT, and the villages I visited didn't use them--I would have had to go to West Bengal, and I did not have time). By taking them apart, I learned that they use a 3" discharge hose, rather than the 2" hose that Indian pumps use, and they have a smaller impeller-to-chamber volumetric fill ratio. The larger hose diameter makes sense to me: larger diameter = fewer pipe losses = higher efficiency. But I'm not sure how impeller-to-chamber volumetric fill ratio might impact efficiency, and I would be interested in exploring this issue further in the future (especially because I'm fairly certain Chinese pumps are going to take over the eastern Indian pump market).

6. Women don't touch engines. This one is not surprising. I heard from both men and women in the villages that "machines are for men" (though one women did pull me aside and asked me to show her how to start a pump engine when her husband wasn't looking). Women came up to me while I was testing the performance of their husband's pumps and asked, basically, "What about us? We're stuck with a bucket and rope. Our husbands may use a greater volume of water with their 'paani ki machine,' but we use water more frequently." To be honest, I had considered domestic water supply a completely separate issue from agricultural water supply, and I thought improving irrigation would increase the wealth of the entire family and thus benefit women too. But if I'm working on water supply anyway, why not think about a multi-purpose pump?

7. Manual rope pumps intended for irrigation end up utilized for domestic uses. Manual rope pumps have been installed all over the world as part of various water programs. In many cases, such as in rural Orissa (in eastern India), the pumps are intended for irrigation. Well, it turned out that in Orissa, the pumps were not used for irrigation. Irrigating a field requires a huge amount of water, and manually pumping that volume of water is time-consuming and exhausting, especially in the heat of the dry season (temperatures can soar to 50 C/120 F). Instead, it turned out that women used the pumps for domestic purposes: drinking, cooking, washing. The women love the rope pumps because they are way easier to use than throwing down and raising a bucket. Plus, children and the elderly can use a rope pump; otherwise they need the women to fetch water for them, since they are not strong enough to raise a heavy bucket of water.

8. Farmers like the color green. This is maybe a silly one, but farmers associate green with agricultural productivity. PRADAN, the grassroots NGO I worked with, told me that whenever possible they use the color green in their products and services, because the farmers respond better to it.

So, what did I do with all of this? I designed a dual-mode rope pump. The pump can be used in motorized mode for high-flow applications such as irrigation and in manual mode for low-flow applications such as domestic uses. The engine is removable, so it can be safely stored at home (farmers expressed concerns about theft) and one engine can be shared by or rented out to several wells, as is done now with the regular centrifugal pumps. Plus the men have no problem allowing women to use the pump in manual mode (the hand crank is removable so it doesn't injure someone when the pump is operated in motorized mode). And yes, I painted the pump green.

Below is a video of the pump in action, being tested by users. I got pretty good feedback from the users, and I have some ideas for future modifications.



Speaking of user testing, I employed human-centered design methodology throughout my research process. Here's a video explaining what I did:



Ok, so maybe this post wasn't a very short summary.

HUGE thank you to PRADAN and Swastik Engineering Works for their support. I could not have done this project without them.

My thesis

I completed and submitted my thesis about two months ago and, finally, earned my master's in mechanical engineering! I very ceremoniously received my diploma in the mail, so it's official.

If you are interested in reading my thesis (or parts of it), please click here. Warning: it's a 15 MB pdf file. I will soon post a summary of my findings, if you don't want to read the thesis but are interested in my work. You can read a bit about the problem I focused on in these posts.

So what's next? Well... I don't know yet. I'm in the process of applying to jobs. If you know of any awesome opportunities in international development/energy/water/all-of-the-above, please let me know!

Green Pune, Clean Pune

"Green Pune, Clean Pune" is one of several slogans painted on walls and concrete barriers all over the city. Pune is famous for having one of the most, if not the most, organized and effective waste systems in India. As part of a project my advisor has me working on, I investigated Pune's waste cycle.

"Green Pune, Clean Pune" painted on a wall, ironically next to trash. Photo taken from Google Images.

In Pune, there are several different avenues municipal solid waste (MSW) can follow. Each housing society is served by two waste pickers who belong to the Solid Waste Collection and Handling Cooperative (SWaCH), an enterprise founded by the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat, the trade union of waste pickers. Each home pays a monthly fee of Rs. 10 to 30 (depending on the area) for waste pickers to directly pick up trash from their homes. This miniscule monthly fee is not how waste pickers make their money, though. They earn cash in the scrap market. They sort the waste and sell the very valuable recyclables to scrap dealers, who in turn sell scrap to larger dealers or wholesalers. Some of these wholesalers then either sell the scrap to "super" wholesalers or process the scrap into usable plastic pellets for manufacturing. 

Perhaps the most interesting recycle-cycle is plastic bags, which are slowly being banned by cities around the world for being non-recyclable. World, take a good look at Pune. One large wholesaler mechanically cleans these bags then processes them into pellets, which are sold to an irrigation company to be melted and molded into drip irrigation pipes. Since the recycled plastic bags are an absurdly cheap material--there is no competing demand for them--the drip pipes are among the cheapest in the world and can be sold at affordable prices to smallholder farmers.

(Actually I still think banning these plastic bags is a good idea. But for cities that are still using them, don't give up hope on them being non-recyclable!)

Waste that does not end up in home trash cans likely ends up in dumpsters or in the streets. This more public garbage is taken care of by the Pune Municipal Corporation, which employs safai karmacharis (cleaning workers) to sweep the streets and empty the dumpsters and then sort all the waste. Organic ("wet") waste is sent to either biogas power plants to supply the city of Pune with electricity or to fertilizer production plants. Recyclable waste goes to recycling processing plants. Non-recyclables mostly go to incinerators or landfills, but Pune has been experimenting with using the waste as syngas fuel for electricity generation.

Large commercial entities such as malls have their own custodial staff who take care of the waste in various ways. Some shopping complexes sell their waste on the scrap market to wholesalers while others send the garbage to major recycling plants.

This whole process is illustrated in the figure I made below (click on the image to enlarge). I'm sorry it's confusing and busy; this is the first time I've attempted to create such a diagram. Two caveats: (1) that process is what ideally happens and (2) that figure excludes the non-unionized waste pickers who go to the landfills to scavenge. A lot of trash slips through the cracks of the system, and the non-unionized waste pickers try to recover some of the valuable recyclable waste that has slipped through. This figure might imply that 100% of recyclables end up recycled, but that's not true. In Pune, almost 50% of plastics end up recycled. But keep in mind that is still extremely high: in the US about 8.2% of recyclable plastics get recycled. (Source.)

Pune's waste cycle. Click on image to enlarge.

Whenever I talk about waste management in India, I like to recall a story from December 2009, when my brother Ben and his friend Joel visited me in Delhi. We went on a trip to northeast India, and on our way back we passed through Kolkata. Ben ate a banana and could not find any trash can to discard his peel. After having seen tons of garbage in the streets (Kolkata can sometimes be particularly dirty), he decided to simply drop the peel where he was standing, in the middle of a plaza. An Indian man came over to Ben and started yelling at him not to throw his trash on the ground. Ben, of course, was exasperated: "Have you seen your streets? You have no right telling me not to litter when you treat your streets like landfills. Everyone else in this filthy city is littering. What am I supposed to do with my trash if there are no trash cans?"

But if you looked around more carefully, you would realize there was not a piece of garbage in the plaza itself--but tons of trash piling up in the streets lining the plaza's border. Street sweepers, like those safai karmacharis in Pune, pick up the trash in the street, but not in the plaza. Thus, Ben should have added his banana peel to an existing pile in the street, rather than dropping it anywhere. However, this is not obvious to an outsider who doesn't know anything about India's waste system and sees waste strewn about in a seemingly indiscriminate way. And really, Ben was right in a sense. It is unhygienic to allow trash to pile up in streets, even if street sweepers or waste pickers will come by later to collect it. Not to mention that it's far from aesthetically or aromatically pleasing.

So yes, the streets of India often appear filthy. When you walk around, you have to watch your feet lest you step in garbage (...or cow dung). But it's important to keep in mind that this littering is part of the waste system, and in fact, putting waste into the hands of professionals, rather than hoping the average citizen can sort his or her waste properly, results in higher recycling rates, as witnessed in Pune.

As I have learned again and again, nothing in India (or anywhere, really) is as it seems on the surface. It's too easy to judge and make assumptions based on first impressions, especially when those impressions are as strong as smelly piles of trash in the street--but those assumptions will almost always be wrong. We have to delve deeper to understand what's actually going on (and we probably still won't fully understand; I certainly have much more to learn!).

Open source rural technology?

I don't know much about intellectual property law. Especially not in India (other than, perhaps, as it pertains to pharm re: the recent Novartis case). But something IP-related has been bothering me the last few days.

I'm working with an organization that runs a vocational school of sorts for school dropouts. It gives the students technical training, but I don't know if you would necessarily call them mechanics at the end. The curriculum encourages creativity, and the students are involved in designing new, affordable technologies that address problems they face in their villages.

In 1983, students developed a low-cost, low-power tractor suitable for smallholder farmers--a very large group of farmers in India who cannot afford big tractors. Then in 2002, some students significantly improved upon the design. The organization decided to make the design "open source," with the idea being that any farmer anywhere could take this design and build himself a tractor.

But that's not what happened. Instead, or so the story goes, Mahindra, the largest tractor company not only in India but in the world, took the design and now manufactures and sells it, making millions of dollars in profit. (I have no idea if this is true or not. It's very possible Mahindra also came up with an affordable small tractor without any knowledge of this organization's tractor, since it seems fairly obvious that there's a large market for such a product.)



The organization's tractor

A Mahindra tractor

  

This organization views this story as a huge success.

I view this story as a huge lost opportunity.

If this story is really true--if indeed Mahindra just took (I would like to say "stole," but it was open source) and modified the organization's design rather than coming up with a similar design independently--then this organization lost out on a lot of money. Not that they have the capacity to mass-manufacture, or that commercialization is their goal. I understand that their primary focus is educating their students. However, had they patented their design, they could have sold it to Mahindra and made some royalties off of the profits. That money could have been invested back in the students by improving facilities and programs, without (or with less) dependence on donors.

This organization does great work educating their students, and their students come up with clever solutions that would improve the quality of life in rural India. I understand that this organization wants to remain non-profit, but it would be really fantastic for the students to see their technologies become a reality, to see their products being sold in villages around India. And maybe these students would earn some money from the royalties and start climbing out of poverty.

Honestly, I don't see how open source technologies could work in rural India. At least not yet. How would smallholder farmers even learn that this new tractor design exists? The organization did zero knowledge dissemination, other than to post some photos and specs on their website (which a poor farmer would never see). And if the farmers did learn about the tractor, how would they go about building it without the necessary resources and mechanical expertise? I guess rural mechanics could make the tractors and sell them--but again, how would they know about the tractor?

If this organization wants to see the technologies their students develop reach the people who would benefit from them, they should consider engaging in partnerships with major manufacturers who have large distribution networks. That way the organization doesn't actually have to do the scaling-up themselves; they can continue to focus on the education. I just think that working with established manufacturers is likely to be a more effective way to disseminate technology than to make the technology open-source.

Besides, people copy products all the time in India without any consequences. Knock-offs of every type of product are super common. (Case in point: I bought a gym bag in Lajpat Nagar that has the word "Reebok" on the front and a Nike swoosh on the side.) The organization could patent the product, sell it to or partner with a company to manufacture and sell, and the product would still effectively be open-source. What's to stop a village mechanic from copying a Mahindra tractor if he wants to?

Back in India again. And behavioral irrigation economics.

I'm back in India. Bet you didn't see that coming! It happened extremely quickly. I literally bought my flights two days before I took off. Highlights of flying Swiss Air through Zurich: free Swiss chocolate and amazing views of the Alps. Highlights of returning to Delhi: catching up with old friends and drinking mango shakes.

Two days ago, my first day back, I met with an agricultural economics researcher. He researches irrigation in Bihar and Gujarat, which is why I was meeting with him. He is interested in the groundwater economy and pumping behaviors. Like me, he finds irrigation fascinating because it lies at the energy-water-food-livelihood nexus.

I learned a lot from this meeting. For one, I learned that economics is really a study of human behavior. I guess that's obvious, but for some reason I never thought of economics that way. This makes econ a lot more interesting than what I had imagined it to be.

As I may or may not have explained before on this blog (I honestly don't remember), in eastern India where pumps are ~85% diesel- or kerosene-run rather than electric, pumps are not installed on a well. Instead, a handful of people own pumps and rent them out to their neighbors on an hourly basis, and pumps are transported on bicycles. These pump owners essentially run an oligopoly. They seem to agree on high rental rates. Interestingly, as more farmers purchase their own pumps and enter the rental business, increased competition has not driven down hourly rates, contrary to what one might expect. This researcher thinks he has learned why: the costs to the pump owner are so high he doesn't have any particular motivation to actually rent out the pump to more customers. He must deliver the pump to the well, which is a pain in the ass. A pump is a pretty heavy thing to strap to your bike. Then, the farmer who is renting the pump may or may not know how to operate the pump, so the owner has to start up the pump for him. Someone has to hang around near the pump to make sure operation is going smoothly and to add more fuel when necessary; sometimes, this someone is the pump owner and not the renter, if the renter is inexperienced with diesel engines. A pump is usually run for several hours at a time, and if the pump owner must babysit the pump for that time, he is losing out on hours that could be spent more productively (in most cases, the pump owner has his own farm to tend to). His time is pretty valuable, so he keeps rental costs high, and often he would rather have that time to do other work than rent out to another customer. Therefore more competition does not reduce prices.

Because of these high operation costs that do not even include fuel cost, according to this researcher, advances in efficiency of the pump would not make much difference to the pumping behaviors of farmers. I'm not taking into consideration all costs involved in operation. Yes, the farmers would spend less on fuel. But the time cost would remain high. Maybe if farmers are getting more water per liter of fuel or per hour, they would be able to irrigate more. But if the farmers want to translate the fuel savings into more hours of pumping, that puts a bigger burden on the pump owner. It is possible that the pump owner would raise hourly rates in response. So even if I make the most efficient pump ever, I might not have any impact on reducing operation costs. (But this doesn't mean a more efficient pump is a bad thing!) In that case, my hope should be that the farmers would get more water for the existing amount of time they irrigate. However, this increased efficiency in operation hardly matters if the pump has a higher capital cost than the cheapest pumps on the market (which, at least at this point, it certainly would). Capital cost reigns supreme over operation costs in financial decision-making. Though all the renters would benefit, the pump owner sees little advantage to his rental business to have a more efficient but more expensive pump--more demand for his pump means more work in renting out the pump, and the rental business is not his only source of income. So why bother spending money on a more expensive pump?

...I really need to learn more about economics.

In addition to enlightening me about pumping behavior and economics, the researcher confirmed something I already suspected: farmers lie about everything when surveyed. (Ok, "lie" might be too strong a word. Stretch the truth, maybe?) But I did not understand the whole picture. I had always thought that I couldn't fully trust people's answers to my survey questions because they were trying to give me the "right" answer. I thought they were trying to come up with the answer they thought I wanted to hear (for example, a woman might lie about keeping her child away from the stove while she's cooking, even if the kid sits right next to her, because she knows I would think the smoke is bad for her child's health). This is true in some cases. However, in many cases, especially when you ask about earnings and expenditures, people exaggerate to make themselves seem poorer. Says the researcher, "They see you, a white woman, or me, a city guy, and they think 'this person works for some NGO and is going to go back to Delhi and write up a report about how we need more subsidies or government assistance.' So they exaggerate how poor they are in order to get more money." Even if a fellow villager is taking the survey, the fact that the survey is taking place at all alters people's answers.

This is a very cynical point of view, and I assume this isn't true for every single person interviewed, but I can believe this does happen sometimes. Probably this behavior stems from a history of NGOs advocating for more government assistance based on field surveys. Like how kids in Kerala constantly ask white tourists for pens because about a decade ago an American group donated supplies to local schools there. (This researcher does not deny that these people are indeed very poor or in need of assistance, by the way.)

So how does this researcher deal with the untrustworthiness of survey responses? "Just add error bars. Uncertainty is part of the fun of social science! See, you want accurate numbers. That's why you're an engineer. You like precision. You don't get the same precision in social science, and you have to be willing to work with that." Well, we use our fair share of error bars in engineering, too. But I guess I see his point.

(To be fair, his research is not all wishy-washy. He gets real numbers when he can: he acquires irrigation data from electricity meters, flow meters, pressure gauges, etc. like an engineer would. But questions of income and costs are a lot trickier to answer in a village where people don't have good records. No receipts, bills, paychecks, etc. Without any paper trail, you have to take people at their word.)

I have been thinking recently about switching into the social sciences (maybe economics or public policy) (this is a topic for another post). But as someone who has training in engineering, will I find the fuzziness frustrating? Or will I find it to be an exciting puzzle to be deciphered, the way this researcher does? I have a lot to think about re: my future.

(As a side note, this researcher got his master's at Princeton and his PhD at Harvard. To those of you interested in studying public policy with a focus in international development, he recommended Harvard over Princeton.)

In other news, I noticed in my blog stats that I get a lot of traffic from a seemingly random blog out there in cyberspace. Apparently, a blogger named Vikram Garg called my blog "the best American in India blog." Thanks for the shoutout, Vikram. Shouting right back at ya! Check out his blog at http://vikramvgarg.wordpress.com/.  

Red is not the only color in Gumla.

I'm making up for my recent boring, all-text posts with some photos from a week of field work in Gumla District, Jharkhand:

On my first day I visited some villages in Raidih block. It turned out many villages were almost empty because Monday is the weekly haat, or market. People from every village in the area flock to the haat, which sees about 5000 people every week. Adivasi haats are famous for having a party atmosphere and a lot of drinking. I did not witness that here, so I guess that reputation comes from another adivasi region. Here are some photos from the haat:

And photos from my village visits, during which I held group discussions about irrigation:

For some reason the self-help group thought it would be funny if I pretended to be their accountant in the photo.

That man in blue is covering his face because he was sneezing.

Drawing a map of their village.

This house was painted for a wedding back in April. The doorway says "swagatam," or "welcome."

 There was a solar panel store in the district headquarters. Or more accurately, an electronics store that also sold solar panels so that you could actually use the electronics you purchase--because what good is a TV if you don't have reliable electricity? The solar panels are fairly cheap (and maybe secondhand?): Rs 1800 for the small ones, which are rated at 20 W and can power 2 light bulbs for 4 hours (the store also sells light bulbs, of course). 

There are missionaries all over the adivasi regions of India. This village is one of many that has converted to Christianity.

It may be hard to tell in this photo, but this woman has tattoos on her face (note her forehead). Many adivasi women in this region have tattoos all over their bodies. The heaviest tattoos I saw were on women's forearms. I didn't want ask about the tattoos because I thought it might be a sensitive issue. Luckily, I didn't have to: sometimes the women would ask me where my tattoos were! I took advantage of this and asked them why they have tattoos. They believe that the tattoos are required to allow their spirits to leave their bodies after death; without the tattoos, their spirits would be trapped. However, this traditional practice seems to be on its way out, as many of the younger generation do not have tattoos (perhaps because of the influence of Christianity in the region?).

 carrying wood to be used as fuel

typical village house, with an awesome jackfruit tree

And some agriculture/scenery:

animals grazing on land that hasn't been tilled yet

People are finally sowing!! (See this previous post to understand why this is exciting.)

rice paddies--that actually have rice, despite the poor monsoon! here's hoping the yield is alright come harvesting time.

forest near Palkot

forest near Palkot. the terrain was very bouldery, not unlike Hampi in Karnataka.

mango on a tree

 I got around on a motorcycle. See, Mom, I wasn't lying when I said I wear a helmet.

 

...and yes, "red" in the title of this post is referring to the Maoist presence in Gumla. Don't worry, they have given permission to the NGO to operate in the area and do not bother them. Because I was with a Maoist-approved NGO, I was safe. (To clarify, this is not a rebel NGO. They are also friendly with the Indian government. They just do what they need to do in order to get work done in these communities.) To be honest, nothing seemed out of the ordinary and I never would have known I was in a Maoist area if the NGO hadn't told me.

Community Destruction Day

I was looking through my old posts, and found this little gem from back in January that for some reason I forgot to publish:

Electricity goes out quite frequently in my office in Shanan. The power outage usually lasts anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 or 3 hours. But one time, back in October, the power went out for the entire day. During a power outage, we cannot do work because, obviously, the computers are off. Instead of working, this is what happens:

some people read the Hindi newspaper

others sit around looking badass

and some people gossip (shh! don't tell!) and laugh

and others pretend to do work (here, Harsh and Mudit are translating something into Hindi that has already been translated)

and some go crazy with the boredom

but really, I have no idea what's going on.

On this particular day, our boss decided that if we couldn't do work, we might as well do something else useful: Community Clean-Up Day. People in Shanan litter, so we should pick up the trash. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

I knew something odd was up when a coworker grabbed a box of matches before going outside. Matches meant fire. And why was fire necessary for picking up litter? Oh no, I thought. They're going to burn the trash! Because that's environmentally-friendly. I grabbed my pollution mask in preparation. And it was a good thing I did, because my suspicions were right: people threw the trash they had picked up into an ever-growing fire.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my coworker Dinesh came running toward us wielding a machete. Where did he get a machete? And why did he require a machete in the first place? To my horror, I watched as he started hacking at a tree.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled in English, too shocked to think in Hindi.

But Dinesh could not hear me over the roar of the fire.

"I think he's cutting down the tree," Shatabdi explained.

"Yes BUT WHY?!" I cried.

"I... don't know."

Then Harsh and Negi explained, "there is a lot of trash in that tree."

So let's get this straight. Instead of picking out the individual pieces of trash from the branches, Dinesh decided it would be more efficient to CUT DOWN THE TREE.

Wait, I think we need to back up even more. The goal of the day's activities was to clean up the environment. Instead of helping the environment, we were KILLING it. Oh, so that tree has a lot of trash in it? I have a brilliant idea! Let's just get rid of the tree altogether! Then surely the trash will be gone too! ...I guess that logic makes sense. Except that I thought we were ridding the environment of trash to save the trees?! Cannot. Comprehend.

Now, cutting down the tree was not enough. As I have mentioned earlier, the standard way to dispose of garbage is to burn it. Since there was trash in this tree, naturally the tree must also be kindled. The tree that never should've been cut down in the first place. The tree that, if it must be burned, could have been at least utilized to fuel a traditional stove.

The tree, though small, is still a tree. The fire grew quite large and probably threatened the surrounding houses, fields, and natural vegetation, hence threatening not only the environment, but also people's shelter and livelihood. But the worst was the immense amount of smoke. The entire village became enshrouded in it. Even my pollution mask was rendered useless as the smoke from the forest-and-trash fire penetrated through its filter and into my lungs. Great for people's health. Basically, Community Clean-Up Day had very quickly become Community Destruction Day.

Dinesh pushing the tree down the hill after his final chop, amid the smoke from burning trash

burn, baby, burn! felled tree on fire

final scene of destruction: trash and tree burning

All this turned out not to matter, because a construction project that started in December has completely leveled that hill. Nothing is left but a pile of brown dirt. [NOTE: Since January, that pile of brown dirt has become a paved parking lot for bus servicing and repairs.]

At the time, I was furious. Like tomato-red-face, steam-coming-out-of-ears (or was that just smoke from the burning trash?) furious. But now I cannot retell this story without laughing like a crazed hyena. Seriously. I could barely type this post I was laughing so hard. I'm sure there's some lesson to be learned from all of this, but I'm not quite sure what that lesson is.

Follow-up to previous post: labor, farmers, and stigma

Molly, both in a comment on my previous post and on her blog, added a third suggestion as to why the quarry workers don't want to return to agriculture:

"in nepal, anyway, there seems to be a stigma associated with traditional agricultural and husbandry livelihoods among the younger generations. even when other factors might make agriculture a more viable option, it is viewed as undesirable and "backward" to continue the backbreaking labor of your parents' and grand-parents' generations."

I'm honestly not sure if this theory could be applied to this particular situation or not. In many regions of India, there is a stigma associated with labor--exactly the kind of work in which these quarry workers are engaging. That's why many states, including Himachal Pradesh, must import laborers from other states, usually Bihar (but sometimes Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal).* In fact, this quarry employs Biharis in addition to local people, because although many local people do work in the quarry, there are still not enough laborers. I was a bit surprised, actually, that any Himachali (ok, these people are culturally Punjabi) would partake in such labor. Even MNREGA, India's national scheme to provide paid employment through village construction projects (for instance, the government will pay villagers to work as laborers to build their own roads), has not been successful in these villages due to their aversion to labor. So it is quite an anomaly, at least to me, that they are willing to work in the quarry. My only explanation is they've somehow determined that this "stone-crushing" labor is different in nature from the MNREGA labor, or that perhaps they view this as a stable job opportunity, whereas most construction labor, government-sanctioned or otherwise, is contractual.

Ok instead of addressing Molly's query, I went off on a labor tangent. So is there also a stigma associated with the traditional agricultural vocations? I'm not sure. In some circles in India, there seems to be a concept of the "noble small farmer," largely thanks to Gandhi (as in Mahatma, but perhaps some of the other Gandhis as well), who famously declared that "India lives in its villages." True to this statement, these circles of Indians view the villages as the strongholds, and thus the villagers as the guardians, of traditional values, the threads that hold the sari of Indian society together.** These circles, it should be noted, probably do not include the small farmer. (Farmers may very well believe that traditional values are better upheld in their village than in a city. What I mean is that farmers may not be among the circles of Indians who subscribe to the "noble small farmer" notion.)

Life is no piece of cake for small farmers. Sure, some lead successful farming businesses and can support their family, but for many life is extremely difficult, as evidenced by the very high and ever-rising suicide rate among small farmers in India. Droughts can wipe out their crops (and thus their income) for an entire season, middlemen between the farmer and the buyer cheat them out of a huge proportion of their money, incredible debt accumulates, etc. My bet is that many, if not most, small farmers would prefer wealth (at least enough to support their families) to "noble" poverty.

I think that, in the words of my friend Jhanvi,*** young people's "dream is to go urban and go big" mostly because they've seen the suffering of their parents and want out. We all want better lives, right? So agriculture is "undesirable," yes, because it means a life of struggle. But do young people stigmatize agriculture as "backward"? I think that depends on the region. In Himachal Pradesh, for example, the apple crop has made farmers relatively wealthy. Apples are a newish crop, first introduced by an American in 1916, so in a way they represent agriculture moving forward. Plus the wealth apples bring results in less dissatisfaction with the agricultural profession. Meanwhile, my coworker Shatabdi, who is from West Bengal, says that in her state, agriculture is "out of fashion" among the youth because of the struggle associated with it. She thinks there is a stigma against these traditional professions in regions where crops have been failing, but that no such stigma exists in areas with successful farming businesses, such as in Punjab. Really, it's a stigma against poverty more than against agriculture.

But what about the concerned villages in Nalagarh? These villages, which straddle the Himachal Pradesh-Punjab cultural and geographical divide, have not seen as much agricultural success as their neighbors on either side of the divide, due to lack of water for irrigation (remember from my previous post, the quarry has pretty much dried up the river). Thus it is likely the youth do indeed have a stigma against pursuing agrarian professions--maybe animal husbandry could become a more viable option than working in the quarry, but these young people have never witnessed that.

Speaking of small farmers, check out Digital Green. My friend Indrani has won a number of big awards for her fantastic work in both this organization and with her research at Microsoft Research and for her PhD at IIT Bombay. Her work focuses on empowering farmers, many of whom are illiterate or low-literate, through text-free cell phone applications, some of which could cut out the cheating middlemen mentioned above. If she sees this blog post, I'm sure she'll criticize it for having a very Western perspective (which, obviously, it does. I am Western, after all!). Perhaps I should ask for her opinion on all of this, because she has significantly more experience in development than I do, has a much better grasp on Indian attitudes than me (she is Indian, after all!), and would be sure to have better insight.

*Migrant labor within India is a whole other can of worms I'm too lazy to open right now, but it certainly warrants further discussion.

**Personally, I believe that values are maintained by individuals and families, so place, urban or rural, has little to do with how people stay true to their traditional values or not. Sure there are outside influences, but those exist in both urban and rural areas, and it's up to the individual how to incorporate these influences (or not) into their value system. However, it's probably true that outside influences are less strong in rural areas, so perhaps that is why many Indians believe villages are the support beams of Indian society.

***While I'm pimping out Indrani, I might as well pimp out Jhanvi some more too. Check out her films (a different link than above). Jhanvi is an aspiring filmmaker who can beautifully depict any story, from fashion to education, from Stanford to South Asia (she also taught some of her tricks to young filmmakers in Bhutan). She's even on IMDB!! You should also know that Jhanvi specifically asked me not to link to her stuff. That's how humble she is. Jhanvi, I know I just deeply embarrassed you, but I do so because I love you and think everyone should see your great films. So stop blushing.

The New Jersey of Himachal Pradesh

I just returned from a field visit to two villages in Nalagarh Tehsil, Himachal Pradesh. Nalagarh is an industrial area and looks like that section of the Jersey Turnpike with all the smokestacks and polluted air and general nastiness. This was my first visit to industrial India (as opposed to rural and urban India, though I guess this is still technically rural). While Nalagarh's situation is probably not nearly as bad as the steel plants in Jharkhand or the mines in Orissa, it wasn't pretty.

One village we visited, Baglehar, is home to a "stone-crushing" operation. Turns out this means a quarry. The other village, Melheni, does not host any industrial projects, but its residents participate in the "stone crushing." Basically, villagers go to the quarry, cut out large rocks from the earth (I didn't catch what type of rock), fill up tractor-pulled truck beds with these rocks (I didn't actually see any crushed stone), and deliver these rocks to cement companies, who I suppose are the real stone crushers. The main road in the area is clogged with tractor traffic going to and from the quarry.

This quarry has caused a number of problems in Baglehar, Melheni, and surrounding villages. The quarry appears to sit on a riverbed, and the river has all but dried up. What little water does remain is heavily polluted and unusable for drinking water or even irrigation. Therefore these villages have no water, which is, obviously, a tremendous problem. I was shocked to see the toilets at Melheni's primary school were locked. Apparently they have no water to flush the toilets, so they cannot use them--better to lock them so people don't try to. Instead, children must practice open defecation and urination. Melheni gets water delivered by large tanker trucks every few months, and this limited water supply has led to many conflicts among villagers. While Baglehar utilizes ground water, it is not enough (not to mention far from clean), and when tankers come some women must wait for 3 hours or more to collect their share of water.

In addition to the water problems, the workers are exposed to all sorts of harmful chemicals and will probably suffer from (and possibly die young of) some avoidable respiratory disease, like at any quarry or mine. Plus much of the quarry activity is illegal and run by a cement cartel that exploits the workers. All sorts of health and human rights issues. The cement cartel, like all cartels in India, wields its power through big politicians, and this corruption means stopping the cartel is next to impossible, unless India can successfully eradicate corruption from its political and bureaucratic systems--a very, very difficult task in this country.

One coworker was particularly distraught over the situation. "We need to protest!" he proclaimed. "We need to stop these illegal, harmful operations!" Well, it's just not that simple. This quarry has been successful in providing much-needed income that the villagers have thus far been unable to earn otherwise, as evidenced by the relative wealth in Baglehar (this relative wealth incited another coworker to comment, "Why are we even here? Look at these houses! This village is wealthy and does not need our help!") If one were to protest and shut down the quarry, who would really lose? The villagers. The corporations would simply move the operation elsewhere and still make their money (and harm other environments and people), while these villagers would lose their jobs. But I don't think the villagers would support a protest in the first place, and if they don't support it, then the protest could not be successful.

The upset coworker went around asking villagers if they would leave the quarry if provided with additional buffaloes so that they could sell more milk. After all, they only make Rs 150 per day at the quarry, and they could certainly make more than that selling dairy products--plus they wouldn't have to suffer the health costs. Their answer? No. And I do not find this surprising at all. Why?

1. They don't understand the health costs. Sure, it may seem fairly obvious that if you're being exposed to harmful chemicals that you will have to seek expensive medical treatment. But (a) they don't know about the effects of the pollutants and (b) many will not seek medical attention anyway. (This is a big problem in the cookstove world. We say "hey all this smoke is killing your lungs" and they respond "well, everyone has a cough.")
2. They don't want to go back to agriculture and animal husbandry. Yes, breaking rocks and loading them onto a tractor is very labor intensive. But so is taking care of buffaloes. You need to feed them, bathe them, clean up their excrement, milk them, take them to a veterinarian when they fall ill. And caring for animals could cost more than going to the quarry--for example, you need to buy fodder (there are no forests in the area, and while the fields provide some fodder after harvesting, that is only once or twice a year, and it is not enough). Plus agriculture and animal husbandry can be unpredictable, whereas the quarry provides a stable source of income.

So how could you convince villagers to leave the quarry? Devise an alternative livelihood opportunity that provides them with a stable income greater than Rs 150/day. And that is quite difficult--new ventures come with a great deal of uncertainty.

To me, this problem is similar to the global oil problem, or the deforestation problem in Madagascar. You can only stop these environment-degrading activities if you cut the demand. As long as there is demand for cement--and as India continues to develop, pave more roads, and construct more buildings, and upgrade its infrastructure, this demand will not be declining any time soon--there will be quarries and the associated environmental and social damage.

The Most Awkward Office Party Ever. EVER.

Today was the last day of work for a coworker, Tarachand. I think he found another job somewhere else, so he's leaving after a year and a half here. To thank him for his service and contributions, our organization threw a farewell party for him.

I had assumed this would be like TERI parties. There would be food and drinks laid out on a desk or table, and we'd all stand around in small groups schmoozing. You know, like a normal office party.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

Everyone walked into the conference room (which is where I work because it's the warmest room in this freezing building) and sat down around the table. And everyone was completely silent. They didn't talk to me or each other. Not even a hello or namaste. This is strange, I thought. It's like they're coming to an execution, not a farewell party. Then the director and his wife walked in, and everybody stood up. Well, this is oddly formal for a party. Is this a meeting now? Or are we paying respects to the executioners? The director gave some brief farewell speech that lasted no more than 20 seconds. Everyone continued to sit in silence. You could taste the tension. Finally Bhim, the office cook, brought down some chai and pakoras (check my glossary if you don't know what this is), which taste significantly better than tension.

But the tension did not disappear. After 6 minutes of complete silence--no, I'm not exaggerating, I checked my watch--the ridiculousness of the situation hit me (a party of endless awkward silence sitting around a conference table?! qlwkasjdoarslkcs!!) and it took every fiber of my being to control myself from bursting into a giggle fit. I took my tea cup, though it was now empty, up to my face in an attempt to hide my toothy about-to-laugh grin. I had trouble breathing, it was so difficult to control.

Shreshtha, who was sitting next to me, noticed my suffering and passed me the plate of pakoras, just so that I would have to move the cup away from my face. I glanced at him and shook my head, keeping the cup in front of my mouth. "Kuch lena [take some]," he whispered, his voice dripping in sweetness. Switching into English, he continued menacingly, "You know you want to." It was a cruel joke. If I put down the cup and reached for pakoras, I would lose all control and crack into obnoxious cackling! And that would be beyond embarrassing in this room of deathly silence! Luckily Harsh saved me and broke the silence by posing a question to Tarachand about his experience at our organization and what his next step in life would be. Once Tarachand started talking, the awkwardness decreased slightly and I could regain composure. Sort of.

As soon as the "party" ended (by the way, it lasted all of 15 painful, painful minutes) and everyone left, I finally let the laughter pour out of me. I'm fairly certain my coworkers in the next room heard my chortling.

This story was probably neither entertaining nor funny to you. BUT THE AWKWARDNESS WAS SO INCREDIBLE. A new feat of awkwardness has been achieved today, and I think we should all be proud of ourselves.

emilyinshimla: שנה ב / साल दो / Year 2 in India!

I just accepted a new job in India! A different job than the one alluded to in a previous post. That first job fell through, but luckily I found another one! This means I'm officially embarking on שנה ב / Shana Bet ("Year 2" in Hebrew; what some Jews call an American Jew's second year in Israel, usually between high school and college) (I guess it would be more appropriate if I said Year 2 in Hindi: साल दो / Saal Do).

I will return to India in early September to work in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh and the former summer capital of British India (so yeah, it's pretty colonial). It's a town of ~160,000 people at ~7,000 feet in the Himalayas. Sure it's not the village I've been dreaming of, but at least it's not 16 million people like Delhi! [Anyone else notice that I always live somewhere with a population of 16 * 10^n? 16 * 10^0 households in Gangzur, 16 * 10^6 people in Delhi, 16 * 10^4 people in Shimla.] [Actually I'm not 100% sure on the numbers in Delhi and Shimla; the populations seem to vary by source.] I'm hoping to do some field work in villages, so hopefully I will get some rural experience.

"A" marks the spot of Shimla - thanks Google Maps!

I might change my blog a bit (new title, new picture, new color scheme), but I will keep the same URL so it's easier for everyone to keep following. So stay tuned to emilyindelhi.blogspot.com!

See you back on the subcontinent in September!

Kerala, here I come!

I am finally going to തിരുവനന്തപുരം / Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), the capital of Kerala. I leave Tuesday, April 13. (Yes, I was told this only 3 work days in advance. Typical.) I don't know how long I'll be there, but I've been told a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks. I'm ready for some change--and some excellent dosas--so I'm very excited!

What will I be doing in Trivandrum? Well, I have sort of been told, but things always change, so I'll post about what I'm doing later when I've actually started doing it. ...if that makes any sense.

Splishin' and a splashin'

Today I went to IIT-Delhi for a meeting (TERI is collaborating with some professors there on the cookstoves project). I can't share what went on in that meeting (which is unfortunate because it was quite dramatic), but I'll share a funny pre-meeting story.

When we arrived at IIT, I had to pee. Like really badly. So I asked the only female in the room (a research assistant to one of the professors) where the ladies' bathroom was. Because the hallways of IIT are a little confusing, she escorted me to the bathroom rather than giving me directions.

There were two stalls, one Western and one Indian (squat). I looked around and couldn't find toilet paper or even paper towels anywhere. Unfortunately, I didn't have any toilet paper on me (I usually do) because TERI's bathrooms provide toilet paper and I didn't expect to be leaving TERI today. So I asked the woman if there was somewhere I could get toilet paper.

She didn't seem to understand what my problem was. "Do you not need the toilet anymore?"

"No, I do. But I need toilet paper. Is there somewhere nearby I can get some?" (I noticed a toilet paper holder nailed to the wall, so I thought maybe there was a supply closet somewhere or a custodian we could ask.)

The woman leaned in very close and whispered, "are you having... [pauses, shifts her eyes back and forth to see if anyone else is around] ...the period?"

Trying not to laugh: "No, no. I just... I wipe. I never figured out the splashing technique."

The woman just stared at me and looked totally confused. She clearly had no idea what to do.

"It's ok. I can just hold it in."

"But that is very... [struggling to come up with the right word] ...uncomfortable."

"That's ok. I'll be home soon."

On the way back to the conference room, the woman suddenly blurted out, "did you mean that napkin-type paper that wraps around a cardboard roll?"

It didn't occur to me that she didn't know what I meant by "toilet paper."

"Yes, that's toilet paper. I'm used to using toilet paper. That's how we clean up where I come from."

"Oh. See, we must have a German toilet. You're used to the American toilet."

I had absolutely no idea what she meant by this. "What??"

"Yes, the Germans splash too. But they splash in a different way than us Indians. See, that's why we don't have those napkin rolls. It must be a German toilet. You must splash."

Any Germans out there: is this true? Do you splash rather than wipe? If I ever go to Germany, should I carry around my own rolls of toilet paper?

Why am I a poor blogger? + Jhanvi's solution

Since some people (ok, by some people, I really mean Jhanvi) have been bugging me to update my blog more often, I thought I should give an explanation for my bad blogging habits.

There are not enough hours in the day. I work for 8 hours a day, and then I have a Hindi lesson three evenings a week. If I don't have Hindi lessons, I have Hindi homework. And if I'm not doing Hindi homework, I'm running errands, hanging out with coworkers/friends, planning travel, reading books (that's new! haha), or looking up opportunities for next year. I don't ever sleep.

Blogging is hard. Have you ever tried to select approximately 10 pictures from 400? It's difficult, and extremely time-consuming. This is much harder than actually writing the text of a blog entry. Selecting pictures for my blog can sometimes take up to 5 hours.

Jhanvi suggested that I write brief tidbits rather than long posts like I've been doing, so here it goes:

The number of foreigners at TERI has doubled; we went from 3 to 6. Joel, my hero, left (so many tears), but Michael from the US, Sas (short for Sasanka) from Australia, and Mirjam (pronounced Miriam) from Germany joined us. Michael and Sas live in Jangpura, so I have new neighbors!

Katrina and her fiance Kris are leaving in three weeks. Katrina, don't leave me!! I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without her.

I switched Hindi tutors. My new tutor is able to meet me in the evenings, so no more early morning classes! Yay!

I went to my friend's wedding in Hyderabad. Angela, who is a friend from Pondicherry University, was a gorgeous bride. A few friends from Pondy Uni were there, and I hadn't seen them since leaving over two years ago. It was a nice little reunion. And I wore a sari! Hyderabad was a cool city, and as always, it was nice to be back in South India.

Alice's mom and aunt are in town, as are Sam's parents. Both sets of relatives brought bagels, so I'm pretty happy right now. I even found Philadelphia cream cheese (at The Cheese Ball) and Norwegian lox (in Khan Market)! Yummm. :)

On Saturday night, Alice's mom and aunt took a bunch of Alice's friends out for dinner at Chilli Seasons, a Southeast Asian restaurant in Defense Colony. I ate fish in Thai red curry. My first Southeast Asian meal since... Stanford?? Double Yummm.

For Sam's birthday this past Sunday, her parents took a bunch of her friends out for lunch at a restaurant called Gunpowder in Hauz Khas Village. It was impossible to find, but the food was soooo gooood. If you've never had pumpkin curry, you have to go here. Pumpkin curry is incredible. Triple Yummm.

After Sam's birthday party, I went to Safdarjung's Tomb and Lodi Gardens with Will. We lost my wallet in Lodi Gardens, and that was deeply upsetting. Good bye credit cards, ATM cards, driver's license, keys to my apartment, Stanford student ID, Buddha gift from the Bhutanese monks, and Rs 2000 ($43)! Ugh. Still unclear how this happened. I thought I gave my wallet to Will to hold while I took my camera out of my bag, but he claimed he never had it. I think there was some confusion in the exchange, and the wallet went missing. Then Will and I went to the Lodi Colony police station, but they told us to go to a different, farther station. Will and I wandered around Central Delhi for a really long time in search of this mysterious second station and eventually I filed a missing wallet report. I doubt I'll ever see it again. The only good thing to come out of this was that I learned some Hindi. The Hindi word for wallet is बटुआ/batuaa, which Will mispronounces as बटवा/batvaa (as an English/Konkani/Portuguese-speaking Goan, Hindi is not his native tongue, and I love to give him shit about his Hindi, even though it's infinitely better than mine). Also, I noticed that Will kept using the verb घूमना/ghoomna to mean "lost." This word actually means "to travel" or "to wander" (of course I know this word, haha), so I thought it was interesting that Will was literally saying "the wallet wandered." I asked my Hindi tutor about this the next day, and apparently this is a common way to say that something got lost.

Upcoming travel plans: This coming weekend is Holi and I have Monday off, so I'm going to Bikaner, Rajasthan. My parents are coming in March so I'm going to take two long weekends, one to Bhopal and the surrounding area (Bhimbetka, Sanchi, etc) and one to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj (I know, I know, it's shameful that I haven't been there yet). I'm also considering going to Jaipur in March, mostly because I feel like I should explore more of Rajasthan before it gets too hot, but I haven't decided yet.

I have a 3-day weekend in April for Good Friday. This is my last 3-day weekend of the year. Where do you guys think I should go? I'm open to all suggestions.

I might write longer blog entries about some of the things listed in the previous entry, and I definitely intend to write about Angela's wedding. Sorry for neglecting my blog, but at least now you understand my negligence.

Jhanvi, I hope you are happy now. ;)

An update about work

It's been a really long time since I wrote about work, so here is an update:

Today I finished a 40-page report. Well, this is technically the second time I wrote it, since my boss asked me to rewrite the first version (a result of miscommunication). So we'll see if I'm really done--I'm guessing I'm not.

Ok, let me back up a second and tell you what this report is all about. Women in rural India use traditional cookstoves, called "chulhas," which are very inefficient, consume a ton of fuelwood, and emit smoke within the house. So women spend hours collecting wood from the forests, plus they basically can't breathe inside their own home and get all sorts of respiratory problems. Not to mention that the soot from these stoves actually contributes more to climate change than one might expect (see this NYTimes article from April. Note that Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, the director of my major and the professor of two classes I took, as well as Ibrahim Rehman, the director of my division at TERI and my current boss, are quoted in the article. In fact, my project is closely related to and involves many of the same people as Project Surya, which is mentioned in the article).

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) wants to have an "improved chulha" initiative. An improved chulha, or improved "cookstove" (I still don't understand why they don't just say stoves), is a more energy-efficient stove that consumes less fuelwood and emits less smoke or has a chimney so the smoke does not stay indoors. MNRE wants to disseminate these improved cookstoves to every household in rural India. Pretty ambitious. The Government of India (GoI) tried to do this in the 80's and 90's, but it was pretty much an epic fail. Only 7% of stoves disseminated were actually adopted, or something ridiculously low. Now MNRE has asked TERI to come up with suggestions for a new, more effective initiative.

My role in this project so far has been to come up with "delivery mechanisms" for the cookstoves. The question I'm trying to answer is: how can we effectively distribute (sell) these stoves to households and actually convince women to use them? This report I wrote was reviewing past and ongoing improved cookstove programs in India and the developing world (I also looked at China, Nepal, Mexico, and Guatemala) to figure out what lessons we could learn from their successes and failures. I also looked at other programs that distribute goods and/or services to rural India to see if the cookstove initiative could, to use my boss's word, "piggyback" on their distribution channels (if these programs would be willing to collaborate, of course). Finally, I had to specify the roles and tasks for all the stakeholders. This last part turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. My understanding is that my report will be part of a larger report to be submitted to MNRE.

The other project I'm working on but have yet to start is creating a "total energy plan" for the state of Kerala. The project should officially start in mid December. In January, I'm going to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, for an unspecified amount of time, probably a month to six weeks. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I will be going back and forth for large chunks of time between Delhi and Kerala. I've been promised a lot of time in villages, so I'm psyched about that. But I don't really know yet what my role in the project is.

In other, completely unrelated news: I went to the movies last weekend with Will and Anand. We all took separate autos home, and Anand's autowallah asked him if I was Kashmiri! According to Anand, he said something like "your friend is so fair. Is she Kashmiri?" He thought I was Indian! Never thought that would happen. I mean, it's not like I'm Nadeen, who is constantly mistaken for Indian. ;)

I am awkward.

I finally met Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Director General of TERI, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, today. It was super awkward:

I was meeting Dr. Leena Srivastava (executive director of TERI, second only to Pachauri, and PiA's contact with TERI) when Pachauri walked by and Leena said, "Have you met Dr. Pachauri? Introduce yourself. Go! Now!!" so I left her "cabin" (as they call glass offices) and awkwardly ran up to him to say hello. Super awkward. I was like "um Dr. Leena told me I should introduce myself before you get away, sorry if you're busy and I'm disturbing you." Because it was clear that I had run up to him and I felt I needed to explain myself. I of course should have said that I wanted to introduce myself, not that Dr. Leena wanted me to introduce myself, but it all happened so fast and I was flustered.

...I am the most awkward person on the planet.

In other news, the Prime Minister of Sweden visited TERI today (see this article about his visit). This meant that the Delhi Police was securing the building with a walk-through metal detector that no one actually pays attention to, a woman who giggles when her handheld metal detector makes a noise over my bra's underwire, and a man with a big gun and camouflage vest. Also, lunch was delayed by half an hour. Unclear to me why lunch was delayed. But everyone was pretty hungry.

"You look like shit today."

"You look like shit today."

"Wow, you look awful!"

"Why do you look dead?"

These were actual comments I got at work today. The only difference between today and all other days was that I wore my hair down, because it was finally cool enough to do so. Will told me my hair looked "unkempt," but really I had just let it air-dry and it looked the same as it always does when it's down. I guess Indians aren't used to seeing a little frizz?

The comments stopped when I put my hair up in a ponytail.

This is the opposite of what happens back in the US, where everyone encourages me to let my hair down!

emilyindelhiandtrivandrum

Solution to the problem in the last post: I am going to split my time between Delhi and Trivandrum. I will go down to Kerala a lot and stay for significant periods of time, but I will keep returning to Delhi. I'm hoping my schedule will be like one month in Delhi, one month in Kerala, one month in Delhi, one month in Kerala, etc. but I do not know yet. So I am officially moving part-time to Trivandrum! More information to come soon.

And don't worry, I'm not actually going to change the URL of this blog. That name is just too long to type. (Actually, if I were to use Trivandrum's full name, it would be even longer: emilyindelhiandthiruvananthapuram)