tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-159029812024-03-07T12:16:17.743+04:00Rants and ramblesLife/travel/work. Eco-green stuff. Social Entrepreneurship.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-64037373603069098202011-10-01T13:02:00.001+04:002011-11-20T13:05:10.843+04:00Pause.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have graduated from the Masdar Institute. I'm living in Ghana right now, one day I'll start posting updates again...</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-44581134117912689582011-04-13T13:20:00.000+04:002011-04-13T13:20:37.750+04:00Masdar's first community event<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Masdar has recently announced the inauguration of a reoccurring public community event "The Market@Masdar City." The first one will be on Friday 29 April, from 10 am - 5pm. A recent email I received promised the event will "bring together artists, organic producers, food stalls, spas and entertainment." Spas. Not exactly what I think of when I think of markets or community events, but the rest sounds exciting. <br />
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The event is completely open to the public, everyone is welcome.<br />
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<a href="http://masdarcity.ae/en/75/resource-centre/press-releases/?view=details&id=84">More info about the event here.</a><br />
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<a href="http://masdarcity.ae/eshots/the-market/location-map.pdf">Location map here.</a><br />
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It's been very interesting to see Masdar open itself up to the public. When my brother visited in January, he asked if he could blog about how other people could find their way to Masdar to explore it. At the time, I told him no because it wasn't really clear whether Masdar was open to the public or not. I suspected that security would likely turn away random people showing up to just look around. However, shortly after that, at the end of January, random families started appearing on campus all the time. I'd walk out of the library and dodge around toddlers playing around the fountain, or see couples lugging grocery bags from the Organic food store, families relaxing at Caribou Coffee or enjoying dinner at Sumo Sushi.<br />
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By the time my brother came back through the UAE in March after some epic traveling, I told him it was fine to blog about directions to Masdar as random families were showing up all the time, which seemed to be encouraged as they bring a lot of support for the businesses here which would otherwise have to rely on less than 300 students/faculty/admin who work and reside on campus.<br />
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I'm glad the campus feels more open now. It's nice to have signs of life other than grad students toiling away in labs.</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-69299400227543539632011-04-03T17:44:00.000+04:002011-04-03T17:44:30.502+04:00Best class *ever*<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Last week, I went to a giant extravaganza educational student conference dinner at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, and there of all places, I met someone from Southern Utah University. She described to me basically what sounds like the most awesome class ever.<br />
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It's called PAM for "Passion Action Media", it's meant to be the little sister of TED<br />
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Lectures involve watching a <a href="http://www.ted.com/">TED talk</a>, with some additional input added by a visiting speaker in the classroom who can comment on the subject from their own expertise. <br />
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For homework, students choose any topic they want related to the topic and then research it on their own.<br />
They turn in a 2-page paper that is graded pass/fail.<br />
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Then everyone discusses what they found in class. If you did not turn in your paper, you are not allowed to participate in the discussion.<br />
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At the end of the semester, everyone presents their own PAM talk.<br />
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Another one of my favorite parts is that students are required to make a "concept map" that draws links they've found between all the TED talks, presentations, and discussions.<br />
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I would love to see this class model be copied in other places.<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;"><li> TED provides some excellent learning material that is incredibly engaging</li>
<li>The course enables students to pursue what they want to learn.</li>
<li>Furthermore, students have excellent opportunities to learn from each other. All too often, this aspect is quite limited in classes. </li>
<li>I think this is the type of course that maximizes the learning, inspiration, and understanding that students can get out of a course while requiring minimal input from the instructors. (It's been my experience that many times awesome courses require an unsustainable amount of work from instructors.) </li>
</ol><br />
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Here's a link to the <a href="http://www.suu.edu/honors/TED/tedsyllabus.html">syllabus for PAM</a>.<br />
And <a href="http://www.suu.edu/honors/TED/ted.html">PAM's course website</a>. <br />
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</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-62017350134794166382011-01-05T17:03:00.000+04:002011-01-05T17:03:13.820+04:00One more to goI didn't intend to imply in my last post that sustainable energy should be for the elite only. Far from it, just the way that Coca-cola is an aspirational product and everyone can take part, it's a very accessible product.<br />
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I'm a bit sad that the fall semester is over. It was my favorite semester at Masdar thus far, mainly because I loved my classes. One was Distributed Generation, which teaches some of the basic electric power engineering principles behind adding renewable technologies to a grid in a decentralized way. I've wanted to learn this stuff for so long, I'm really happy that I finally had a chance.<br />
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The other is Technology Strategy, where we studied a series of case studies about companies on the cutting edge of technology, particularly their successes and lessons learned. For example, we looked at E-Ink (technology behind Kindle e-readers) and Apple. During one of our assignments, I found this awesome paper by a couple of business professors at NYU that predict that wind and geothermal energy are on track to become less expensive than energy from fossil fuels within the near future. They make a strong case that wind and geothermal are now a better R&D investment than fossil fuel technologies. <br />
<br />
There's a magazine article about this paper <a href="http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2009/december/S_Marks_Spot.cfm">here</a>. The original paper is <a href="http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0301421509000111">here</a>. <br />
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The reading assignments for class were fantastic, and really changed the way I think about start up companies. In particular, I found "Crossing the Chasm" to be super useful. The main premise is that there's a large gap between your first wave of customers and tapping into mainstream buyers. This transition is not smooth and companies need to fundamentally rework the way they sell their product. Although the book is tailored for "high technology" industries, I thought its explanations were particularly fitting to <a href="http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/06/0608_socialentrepreneurs/8.htm">Global Cycle Solutions</a> and their bike powered corn sheller and cellphone chargers for Tanzanian farmers. I was really excited to tell Dan and Jodie about this book, but a mentor from Echoing Green beat me to it. =)Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-45720002119209139652010-11-24T23:30:00.003+04:002010-11-25T00:31:24.279+04:00InaugurationYesterday was the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/foster-partners-inaugurate-solar-powered-masdar-institute/">official Masdar inauguration</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktMU8gCmYcJiJG4ayE8MvYwED-E58HvJ-bt_fLjLcLDTvWeQ0_C-qlWQX37dFms2MSHIIZCen3prGUf8j22xZS_I1c0BLjvOYD5MDq5fNfioOJNrhjVpPOnvWbJl01dyIszaQdA/s1600/IMG_8968.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktMU8gCmYcJiJG4ayE8MvYwED-E58HvJ-bt_fLjLcLDTvWeQ0_C-qlWQX37dFms2MSHIIZCen3prGUf8j22xZS_I1c0BLjvOYD5MDq5fNfioOJNrhjVpPOnvWbJl01dyIszaQdA/s320/IMG_8968.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lab building by night. I recently learned that the long bubbles on the outside walls are filled with argon, a non-toxic, odorless, clear gas that makes a good insulator to keep outside heat from entering the building.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>My favorite part is that the organic foods store just opened on campus! I've had various adventures trying to find organic food around Abu Dhabi, and now it's ridiculously easy, 1 minute of walking from my door. Other new additions include a sushi restaurant and a coffee shop.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiSVdZt9Pq7h0o6Fvj4bPZ6UeG9GxJsmTC9I4jKOQ9VDmhpNeD6SbQ-leZoQlp_BBOKFMPQu_Je7Aru-VLHPhX2MMuYCWkHGV5EFmAfs5Jc-w9DUfO6EsCblM0YRsihyphenhyphenmk2ZFXg/s1600/IMG_8970.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiSVdZt9Pq7h0o6Fvj4bPZ6UeG9GxJsmTC9I4jKOQ9VDmhpNeD6SbQ-leZoQlp_BBOKFMPQu_Je7Aru-VLHPhX2MMuYCWkHGV5EFmAfs5Jc-w9DUfO6EsCblM0YRsihyphenhyphenmk2ZFXg/s320/IMG_8970.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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</tbody></table><br />
One thing I've been thinking about a lot recently:<br />
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Renewable energy/sustainability has a major marketing problem.<br />
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Melinda Gates (yes, Bill Gates' wife) gave an excellent TEDtalk where she decribes <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola.html">lessons nonprofits should learn from the way Coca-Cola does business.</a><br />
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One of the main lessons - aspiration sells. Gloom and doom doesn't.<br />
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For example, many organizations try to help developing communities prevent water-borne disease with improved drinking water sources and hygiene programs (washing hands, better latrines.) These type of programs are dependent on changing behavior, which can be tricky. <br />
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Telling people that they'll get diarrhea and die if they don't wash their hands or chlorinate their water is not very effective or appealing. That would be like Coke trying to sell by saying "drink sugar water, and maybe you won't feel sad."<br />
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Just like the sustainability movement is saying "reduce fossil fuel use or the whole world is going to burn and die."<br />
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Recently, researchers at the UC Berkeley found that such doom and gloom climate messages can backfire. Instead of pushing people into taking action, negative messages can push people toward <a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/fear-doesnt-work-as-climate-change-message.html">not believing the evidence for climate change is real</a>. <br />
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On the other hand, Coca-cola uses an aspirational approach - they associate their drinks with the kind of life that people want to live. They know that happiness means something different in every country, so they tailor their marketing messages to those aspirations in each location. Coke ads are full of dancing, singing people, happy families, beautiful women, dashing young men, etc. <br />
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People complain that renewable energy is still too expensive, but I don't think that's the heart of the problem.<br />
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Does a Rolex provide anymore functionality than a cheap, plastic $1 wristwatch? Why do people buy Rolexes? <br />
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What if, instead, renewable energy and sustainability were associated with the highest quality of life? <br />
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I've worked on a few projects in Zambia and many of my friends there live on a few dollars a day, they face many challenges. If you ask them what their dreams are, they talk about lots of cars and large houses, hoping for the environmentally disastrous lifestyle that Americans live.<br />
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Imagine if part of the viral American dream was low-impact living, and the whole world was instead straining to achieve the social status of a carbon-neutral life.<br />
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Likewise, the United Arab Emirates also has one of the highest per person carbon footprints in the world. Perhaps one of the most significant contributions Masdar can give is to change the marketing message here. Make sustainability synonymous with a better life. Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-15741428750471890652010-09-25T22:14:00.003+04:002010-10-02T10:20:54.330+04:00I live in a spaceship in the middle of the desertStudents have been living in Masdar City for about a week, so I've had the chance to settle and form some impressions.<br />
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The first day felt like culture shock. The buildings are beautiful here, and they look so different from anything I've ever seen, anywhere. My brain really struggled to believe what it was seeing. Is this real? What reality am I in?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AUIDWtnCgU18bsKYjInWubxb3iOfC17QeIkubOeA7xMPs3vRKRMacmQg94b1Bg2Hurxy62J4txdTYRSNSsRYubXvM_XX5DNdS85mfg6uhweJ3PQOGcThF4SKr4759rTTufPvWQ/s320/IMG_8416.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Masdar student apartments. See the solar panels peeking out over the roof?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AUIDWtnCgU18bsKYjInWubxb3iOfC17QeIkubOeA7xMPs3vRKRMacmQg94b1Bg2Hurxy62J4txdTYRSNSsRYubXvM_XX5DNdS85mfg6uhweJ3PQOGcThF4SKr4759rTTufPvWQ/s1600/IMG_8416.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTT1lMsDaGSvMAkTap16bkXgkxyH-yJiPIWpdhyphenhyphenf8z0gqYy7rtuOA_87NpbvA3EX6qprbm3Xf3dqJOjZOkotGwk2wnLmGfedyOVSmLvBWCWyOxtzr2li-M4VRrI-c52QkHkQQ9A/s320/IMG_8635.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A computer generated graphic of the original vision for a part of the city.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTT1lMsDaGSvMAkTap16bkXgkxyH-yJiPIWpdhyphenhyphenf8z0gqYy7rtuOA_87NpbvA3EX6qprbm3Xf3dqJOjZOkotGwk2wnLmGfedyOVSmLvBWCWyOxtzr2li-M4VRrI-c52QkHkQQ9A/s1600/IMG_8635.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXHGQVgBoNBAl1Lg1pC9YWQyef4lWumMwMqYbIZ2aYVmHCuWoaldmg3gAy4F1yLX1g_cFZVEoTmcSOhFwJ6fryB5iwUoNqTKYn8alwD96niHFgfUOXGgDoIUPMzxHNLPW2ki10pg/s320/IMG_8478.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend Ilham moving in.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaidTQAtzAY1n1dnwoA1XkuWSwQVJBcbrrlf1fM31bDKTf5NNuAm8-vie-2av4zYZufxswHDvKaSPM384K6ha2b0zXeEAJwtrnx_SuGN5DUhsp9EI7lM8eNPFpHbLFZewwzHCgyg/s320/IMG_8637.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Students walking toward the library</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaidTQAtzAY1n1dnwoA1XkuWSwQVJBcbrrlf1fM31bDKTf5NNuAm8-vie-2av4zYZufxswHDvKaSPM384K6ha2b0zXeEAJwtrnx_SuGN5DUhsp9EI7lM8eNPFpHbLFZewwzHCgyg/s1600/IMG_8637.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>The first night of living in a Masdar apartment was hilarious. I didn't understand how anything worked: the stove, the lights, the bathroom faucet, the cabinets, and I couldn't figure out how to turn off the AC. Most of the cabinets and closets everywhere here don't have handles on them, so they look like flat plain wall panels. The secret way to open these secret doors is to press into them, which releases a catch and the door swings out. I also thought I would do some laundry the first night, but in the laundry room I couldn't figure out how to turn on the machines. And of course, the user manuals in the laundry room were written in Russian and Polish.*<br />
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</tbody></table>[*Apparently, the power had not been connected to the laundry room for the first few nights. After the power was connected, turning them on became obvious, but I still was relieved to receive an English user's manual to wade through all the settings on the laundry machines.]<br />
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I keep telling people that it feels like I'm living in a psychology experiment. Every time I flip a light switch in the living room and the faucet in the bathroom starts running, or I desperately push all buttons on the stove to try to turn on a burner, I can't help looking over my shoulder and wondering if there's a scientist observing my behavior and reactions in this strange environment. Especially when I go around pressing all the walls to see if there are more secret doors, or I stare up in bewilderment at the kitchen cabinet shelves that are so tall and far off the ground that I doubt the tallest human on earth could use them effectively. Or the time I was working in the lab, a short alarm went off on the loudspeakers, and a male voice said something official-sounding in Arabic with a French accent.<br />
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The Masdar Institute is the first part of the city to be completed, it includes the library, laboratory buildings, and the student residences. And all these buildings fit together in a cube. And this cube is located in the middle of what is still a giant, flat, dusty, deserty construction site as progress on other phases of the city continues. It's quite a mind flip to be in such a strangely beautiful environment, then look a window and see flat dusty landscape stretching out to the horizon. It really feels like I'm living in a spaceship in the middle of the desert.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE11t1pVYwsu9RKFnGDWNDEjaF4SfykX57FwzS1XHFRioiC2m9Hb-UCHmpmBhYaIdjzNU7UOjAQONom94gR1GIhWjE8egYSxu4xtIznYyNXTM_5KCJE6QZBbnk4yCsDas7twdwWw/s320/IMG_8514.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Masdar from the outside. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgDDKvKOgrDalQqbdCdajs2E5V2yKlODZNrv-YU-XbPjDosfzGSW4QPKd8B59kZQ9SdQpUvjgW59Wzop4ausBPbmLfPE5Pxc3PhCiR4_15_jDZPPunR7e4K9DDOUoJmXv5vezyg/s320/IMG_8644.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The library is on the right, student residences on the left.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgDDKvKOgrDalQqbdCdajs2E5V2yKlODZNrv-YU-XbPjDosfzGSW4QPKd8B59kZQ9SdQpUvjgW59Wzop4ausBPbmLfPE5Pxc3PhCiR4_15_jDZPPunR7e4K9DDOUoJmXv5vezyg/s1600/IMG_8644.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcDyqC-dKqKKW1DeWFw88bEgXmdAiAVbpW4yzbCR3toEHqVhuEq1BoXoZ0QskXvo6JFm7gHHO65y6cH45xT3pobgtGmv7It_4suGA8lEGfagaB9b1WAmjodmrcCNQebm5yI_16g/s320/IMG_8549.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bedroom in my apartment. See? It looks like a spaceship. Actually, this is quite a lot of space for a bedroom on a spaceship.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>So we are finally taking our classes in Masdar city, and the faculty and students are working to get the labs set up and running. But it definitely feels like the students, faculty, and staff are far outnumbered by the security guards and construction crew on the site. This place is a non-stop hive of activity, construction workers are everywhere in neon yellow and orange vests, fixing wiring, testing systems, installing fixtures. On my way to class or the labs, I dodge neon-vested work crews carrying tables and climbing ladders to tinker with pipes and wires in the ceiling.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Workers outside at night. I swear I can wake up at any time and look outside and see someone working on something.</td></tr>
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In fact, the barrenness of the landscape contrasted with the lush architecture inside, plus the whole vision of building a completely renewable energy city makes me feel like I'm living in a science fiction novel.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nOyyiFnLPLC-hzKziMR-nkaETPo6y7X6bNC8Tehv3Wsn-JSzIBdW0omDPluc2WZevZVKMrAcy1qWcHarJuPlKKR0IYejD8vlpc5aZlbeduD7N3BN1ejLBcCj83CdXy_ghVU92A/s320/IMG_8627.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The library by moonlight. I swear I took this picture myself.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nOyyiFnLPLC-hzKziMR-nkaETPo6y7X6bNC8Tehv3Wsn-JSzIBdW0omDPluc2WZevZVKMrAcy1qWcHarJuPlKKR0IYejD8vlpc5aZlbeduD7N3BN1ejLBcCj83CdXy_ghVU92A/s1600/IMG_8627.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqEgoBhG2jX0PjQjdE1uDGohyphenhyphenDgJon_Gs4hQAHBjOvivMN7OF456ZnM6zhTd-gfW8w76Hd9U0LKYB5dSMssMa8gFxwAQXPgwGRa4br1cWllPhrcu0538sj44yRkc5uzqLu5F-JJQ/s320/IMG_8539.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from my apartment window. On the right is the 10 MW solar photovoltaic array. On the left is the site where all the construction waste is carefully sorted into piles for reuse and recycle.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqEgoBhG2jX0PjQjdE1uDGohyphenhyphenDgJon_Gs4hQAHBjOvivMN7OF456ZnM6zhTd-gfW8w76Hd9U0LKYB5dSMssMa8gFxwAQXPgwGRa4br1cWllPhrcu0538sj44yRkc5uzqLu5F-JJQ/s1600/IMG_8539.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-RjM09jJvBloeygXpiGwK3dVZ3XtNe8-owjzBHw2Go3QxzIhyphenhyphenqULLSAEvnJm2RM8n3Veksy3vFSnzDWB6Xln92jMiGaA-C0p2rCfvYjLbiij4XSi50Pox0l1zq3PHXtj2OZFOA/s320/IMG_8633.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes this place just doesn't seem real.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NpMlGIlGtMA0GZz3COJsJsV4R4Uut62wQjaj1QK6XQZHavn_eVAI6ttzZKuYv6K8WWgQ0yra-kGw3hiFrPw0hYIhYysdgJLd3Bk8L8QQLE9UZ45y7VsCBPjR_xw-GU_Z8WJisg/s320/IMG_8646.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the library window. Construction materials and wasteland.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NpMlGIlGtMA0GZz3COJsJsV4R4Uut62wQjaj1QK6XQZHavn_eVAI6ttzZKuYv6K8WWgQ0yra-kGw3hiFrPw0hYIhYysdgJLd3Bk8L8QQLE9UZ45y7VsCBPjR_xw-GU_Z8WJisg/s1600/IMG_8646.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>On the second day I was sitting in my apartment when I heard a noise. "I swear that sounds like a landspeeder," I thought. Turning and looking out the window, I laughed out loud. There was some sort of elongated construction vehicle cruising down the road. Not quite a landspeeder, but the sound is really similar.<br />
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Here's the construction vehicle:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyxLtQr7V6zIl3VGUVFOmKYV5Plwh8y-S41hruX10cjaJW-5Ojv6QlwsPZQpPAsAZZ29gosO0tbabU' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
Compare to the following. (At least the lab environment here is a bit more civil than Mos Eisley.)<br />
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<object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7yZp5hNjoIQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&start=55"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7yZp5hNjoIQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&start=55" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-9186471608881915852010-09-14T20:03:00.003+04:002010-10-02T10:20:01.080+04:00India: Sukna stole my heartI finally know what I want to be when I grow up: an old, wrinkled Kumaoni woman!!! Let me tell you why...<br />
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One week into my research trip to India, I followed Chanchal and Harish hiking up the muddy mountain path for about an hour. Occasionally, a man with a line of donkeys and pack horses ringing bells around their necks would pass us going down.<br />
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We sat down to rest near the top. Cows and goats grazed on the slope above us, tended by a band of children and a delicate wrinkled grandmother who crouched in the grass, looking off into the sky. Someone had a radio (I thought) because there was music trickling down the slope. The kids were laughing, twirling their umbrellas, and dancing in a carefree, energetic, Bollywood kind of way. <br />
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Wow. Welcome to Sukna. <br />
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(I later figured out the radio was a mobile phone. Wow, Nokia knows their users pretty well.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rTZ4RHktArAt5LWKtUNXdvp1zFxyP7V8RXAz59X1sPjLVozA5taPZc-oVSMnxiLTwCPeAftCwLPXmbwbIac1bNziM2Kpt38IxDHGv_brGor4p9V5mjmkQ9SIWPzEyQM3EVtdEg/s320/sukna.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A glimpse of Sukna on the path up. You can barely see the white houses in the middle.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rTZ4RHktArAt5LWKtUNXdvp1zFxyP7V8RXAz59X1sPjLVozA5taPZc-oVSMnxiLTwCPeAftCwLPXmbwbIac1bNziM2Kpt38IxDHGv_brGor4p9V5mjmkQ9SIWPzEyQM3EVtdEg/s1600/sukna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
Another 10 minutes down the path, and we arrived at the Sukna branch of Avani, a mini-building where women from the village weave and spin.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgJ0-xgPoWKZ1gBpUJI3dqARojnXhRlwWMdRXQiif12H_SASBhzizOO6aOruqiL2-BYREiSn0vACQlq3HKo2TqgpWE6_eJVENc8qXVcJ7XkZOKq7bHdH4ClF6iGDkgCv1pzyXsA/s320/avani1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Avani mini-campus branch (just one building) only reachable by foot and donkey. Of course, this one is solar-powered, too.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgJ0-xgPoWKZ1gBpUJI3dqARojnXhRlwWMdRXQiif12H_SASBhzizOO6aOruqiL2-BYREiSn0vACQlq3HKo2TqgpWE6_eJVENc8qXVcJ7XkZOKq7bHdH4ClF6iGDkgCv1pzyXsA/s1600/avani1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Kumaoni women are beautiful beyond belief. Bold, humorous, strong, absolutely amazing. I don't speak Kumaoni, and they barely knew more Hindi than I did. But as I sat and watched them work, they would talk to me, teasing me, asking me questions. Sometimes it was obvious what we were discussing, like they would point to their eyebrow and make a pained look. I would shake my head, shrug, say "No pain," point to my earlobe, my nose, "Same. Same." Most women here have their ears and nose pierced, I'm surprised that so many of them asked if my eyebrow piercing hurt.<br />
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Other times the conversation was not so obvious. They would chatter and laugh and talk at me as if I understood. Sometimes I made up my own conversation in English to talk back at them, because it was just too strange not to reply.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Avani employee carrying dyed hand-spun silk yarn.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The woman on the right is taking a break from twisting the tassles on stoles. Mina, the little girl, just sat and watched or would run outside to play with the other kids.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEialYt5BcvAfv_U-JaqQ6FL5q9nR3TLVxOOHMmPfiqWNox3XdD3V5JV-LJvJraXvZtnUfta5YqRy1qP08JA4R5YiEZ_D_ewC_7yO4k3RYpQzuJ1MtlSdX4LZtVD0VW7eKq9ok-zPQ/s1600/pausingwithdaughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilsN4Y8ooLI8sFXEL7HNegqrDCMNxSC7_yQkqg2LDQw4sjMlO0WCpHE7u55OvoGeICmQDL8PK5rG8Iymm6oLXKhVVliTnzRB-FbJ81P25ktiuj6DAFEbrqI28WigglkUAd67PBXA/s320/office.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's really quite amazing that Avani opened a branch out here in this remote village so that these women can continue to live with their families while they earn an income.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilsN4Y8ooLI8sFXEL7HNegqrDCMNxSC7_yQkqg2LDQw4sjMlO0WCpHE7u55OvoGeICmQDL8PK5rG8Iymm6oLXKhVVliTnzRB-FbJ81P25ktiuj6DAFEbrqI28WigglkUAd67PBXA/s1600/office.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlv2AdNezk2OenUDH98yH4ccztHcHjX_PkIwRkh_ffm32rU9M77SR6AQaprJFE6EcuQI0V7-rqx25SEdpdPUvKX697RsAUZ2cW9hYlaLvQ0X2CpDvoaF_wbYtVG0UkRLu39DLiQ/s1600/chanchal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlv2AdNezk2OenUDH98yH4ccztHcHjX_PkIwRkh_ffm32rU9M77SR6AQaprJFE6EcuQI0V7-rqx25SEdpdPUvKX697RsAUZ2cW9hYlaLvQ0X2CpDvoaF_wbYtVG0UkRLu39DLiQ/s320/chanchal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chanchal is basically the most amazing person ever. He's one of Avani's lead technicians, and he is really sharp, humble, and gentle. I really appreciated his Kumaoni translating skills. I originally met him at <a href="http://squidskin.blogspot.com/2009/07/crazy-mind-able-hands.html">IDDS in Ghana</a> in 2009. </td></tr>
</tbody></table> I watched women weave and finish the scarves, again little kids running around everywhere. Outside, a troupe of women passed by periodically, carrying rocks. They were working on a government program to improve the path to the village. The men dug up and broke the rocks apart, the women carried them up and down the path, and more men on the other side put the stones in place.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The hardcore rock-carriers. The woman on the far left had such a strong personality, I was blown away by her presence.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKCrQX0-4UNZJHkP-lVpxreN_gWrG4xU9SjW4kqtJzsyU9-cAZIRmTUDtSxwLcwJ1jMtipncxPI4lQ_pbfUJXnWMekbM_x3yDYv3Fs2ON93FiphRy3wFXgM3INA2BRLmRlgGTHw/s1600/rockwomen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sukna women sure know how to do hard labor in style.</td></tr>
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I was a little shy, but finally I worked up the courage to ask for a head cloth from Chanchal and I tried carrying rocks with them. It was hard, but it was fun. The women were laughing, chatting, the sun was shining, we jumped from stone to stone on the path to avoid the mud. <br />
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They wouldn't let me carry stones that were too big. Once, when a man was loading the stones on my head, I convinced him to let me carry three, almost the same load as the other women. Then, of course, I ruined all chances of that ever happening again when I slipped in the mud and fell over. The rocks slid off my head and cut my hand. Laughing with embarrassment, I told them,"No problem. No problem," put the rocks back on my head and finished the route with them. On the way back I stopped back at the Avani branch to clean up the blood on my hand - it wasn't bad at all, just some larger than usual paper cuts on some of my fingers. <br />
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Then I tried to go back and carry more rocks, but the women refused to let me carry much at all. And teased me endlessly about falling down. It was really hilarious. <br />
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At night, Chanchal and Harish took me around to some of the houses to watch people cook. An important part of my Master's thesis concerns the indoor air pollution caused by traditional biomass fires used by literally billions of people to cook. The smoke from these fires is really dirty, and it gets into women and children's lungs, making them very vulnerable to respiratory diseases. The UN estimates that 1.6 million people die every year from chronically inhaling cooking smoke.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lightbulb hangs in the doorway of a smoky kitchen. This house has an electrical connection, but electricity is far too expensive and unreliable to use for cooking. Most of the houses in Sukna have some electricity, either through Avani's solar program, or the grid connection that the government installed later.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiV-W8Zp23IxYo6_Ofe9N7mt_gxT-MIwdutOX08ky1rik9QpLRpZ3PqD6wFu9AMWBKd2cBx1hb7Hja5shRlaZfqDF-p_l63aN9uVv24EKAPDDYT4WUVgLLBoWGtEhx1IZ3xOG8Wg/s1600/lightbulb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
As we walked around, the people were absolutely lovely, inviting us into their homes, showing their kitchens, chatting as they stirred, rolled, boiled and chopped. The kitchens were super smoky, my eyes teared up and I kept coughing. Although now I understand a little better why most cooking happens on the ground, and not on a counter or table - there's much more smoke the higher you stand, the lower to the ground you are, the less smoke there is.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFLR-DV9uRgWjL_C2Ra9lE3n1ibU_ieE3xVpDd-BibfK3Vi7O_CHjYw1VDLo2CbyWlG0suQ0GqZZR53glnAuVXXJOWuqA1KPDiWS5nZACJSKK116ULjJMPG9d01NiMR-BR_8mMg/s320/family.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chanchal asked if I could take pictures of the kitchen, and the father agreed, so I started snapping shots. Then the mother came. I showed them some of the pictures, and then the kids started jumping in the shots, too. I'm going to print out a lot of these photos and send them with the D-Lab India trip that's going back in January so that people that are in them can have them, too.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Niq1ZnS1VzKPJKoLiNRtvbn9sxK8O7f8GN56SxuapcF_dwwQctlwYhp88nDu1ItleODE6oQMFZUEgGHLdgXPWu59Xrx-5X9v3uqpkxJJgHue4NuA7PBakJ__V8qh1_ymEM4w3A/s320/fire.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This woman brought a solar light into the kitchen when we came as guests. Here, she's in the middle of making some chapati.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Niq1ZnS1VzKPJKoLiNRtvbn9sxK8O7f8GN56SxuapcF_dwwQctlwYhp88nDu1ItleODE6oQMFZUEgGHLdgXPWu59Xrx-5X9v3uqpkxJJgHue4NuA7PBakJ__V8qh1_ymEM4w3A/s1600/fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhxZx9caNkmlz1JSBiapuJ2UN9obdWodlYCz_sQ2lTC6zMY9mh_PJtawsmTwBa_17cfXc0L8HLAlapvqePiUV7C1OpnEc-4TvGhPkCg41H4Tjsc3HNRijPU9ivLXHdElOGBAReQ/s320/chapati.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mmmmm...whole wheat chapati, my favorite.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhxZx9caNkmlz1JSBiapuJ2UN9obdWodlYCz_sQ2lTC6zMY9mh_PJtawsmTwBa_17cfXc0L8HLAlapvqePiUV7C1OpnEc-4TvGhPkCg41H4Tjsc3HNRijPU9ivLXHdElOGBAReQ/s1600/chapati.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQNGScxB3zS6-CRFJRGtc0DwTCV7HhpqwIPIDw4piBnaeyfHnGm3d-m1LRE2S_HffKWsNjeMnN1wkifuwaoe8Nm1RVPcd4IEXz5Ag4hFZC_GSszvb3jOXSy1ORfHO3Iw575xpBw/s320/light.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love this photo. There's a type of wood with more sap that people use for lighting. This woman posed with the light and asked me to take her picture.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQNGScxB3zS6-CRFJRGtc0DwTCV7HhpqwIPIDw4piBnaeyfHnGm3d-m1LRE2S_HffKWsNjeMnN1wkifuwaoe8Nm1RVPcd4IEXz5Ag4hFZC_GSszvb3jOXSy1ORfHO3Iw575xpBw/s1600/light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggg5m-dmgjq4-rVBtUxC4rmE5mB0CjhFKtFrHpGc7szhueTSIkL5UEkZMVu59ScKGRqngMLIduO6z2hbEAqkh2nYPTvD4_4vHWD86mWHsvI5gfXo3MelV5WL45GK_KGljfvjxy9A/s320/smoking.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And this guy *really* wanted me to take a picture of him smoking. I think there's enough smoke in this kitchen already, buddy...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggg5m-dmgjq4-rVBtUxC4rmE5mB0CjhFKtFrHpGc7szhueTSIkL5UEkZMVu59ScKGRqngMLIduO6z2hbEAqkh2nYPTvD4_4vHWD86mWHsvI5gfXo3MelV5WL45GK_KGljfvjxy9A/s1600/smoking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
The next morning, we went out again to the houses. <br />
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Here's what one row of houses looks like. They are traditionally constructed with stone and slate, but Chanchal says that these days people usually pay for concrete to be carried up the mountain on the donkey trains.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETBS3lFJqQJcGZ8PddiV5Tj9LLR1BpddXsQ6pPALVpO9b6LpZlFxlZEDbCA6flMMA93Agv1x6CBCCke6ima6cLgni5WOt3SHcxMcugQ1ONly-geVeVpb14Xmok1a-Rvvl7LZQ4Q/s1600/emptyhouses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETBS3lFJqQJcGZ8PddiV5Tj9LLR1BpddXsQ6pPALVpO9b6LpZlFxlZEDbCA6flMMA93Agv1x6CBCCke6ima6cLgni5WOt3SHcxMcugQ1ONly-geVeVpb14Xmok1a-Rvvl7LZQ4Q/s320/emptyhouses.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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We spent maybe an hour at this row of houses. It started pretty empty, with a person appearing every now and then out of a window or walking through the year. We sat at the side, chatted, and drank chai with a grandmother.<br />
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After some time, women came out of the houses and started bringing out livestock. Notice in the first picture, the very lowest doors closest to the ground? This is where the animals are kept. Little did I know that each practically harbors a whole zoo. This is what the yard looked like after some time, filled with goats, cows, and buffalo.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a50DykcO3Jf3UWQl4sdDpqT_bdHkvGwDdKfpZuDXhzUx71dPc0kLF4GEsIm_vCbJmXyyC6PcAIVr6V17XUoTZl9Plrh95e8oN_EE2tONMKkX_xxmHFy1FO62jh0RBqnC_VSf1w/s1600/livestock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a50DykcO3Jf3UWQl4sdDpqT_bdHkvGwDdKfpZuDXhzUx71dPc0kLF4GEsIm_vCbJmXyyC6PcAIVr6V17XUoTZl9Plrh95e8oN_EE2tONMKkX_xxmHFy1FO62jh0RBqnC_VSf1w/s320/livestock.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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I *love* the buffalo the villagers keep for milk. Chanchal explained to me that people take very good care of these buffalo, treating them "like their own children." A woman must hike up and down the mountain to cut grass to feed the buffalo, which she carries back in giant bundles on her head. I also watched as women carefully washed their buffaloes, which were munching on the cut grass in the morning sun.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwxSUfDmv6uNfCydmrybSh72XoaWfuRj2W77Pmw-OC8Z1o4Qfxs1jR55mwL3LKynBLrlGCindtes4hAN4GVL0HYb0gH-FqKAL-xOyAZWYXVe3VswWB3z9gZfd-sxl_1OVwTBOZA/s320/buffalo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buffalo!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwxSUfDmv6uNfCydmrybSh72XoaWfuRj2W77Pmw-OC8Z1o4Qfxs1jR55mwL3LKynBLrlGCindtes4hAN4GVL0HYb0gH-FqKAL-xOyAZWYXVe3VswWB3z9gZfd-sxl_1OVwTBOZA/s1600/buffalo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
Rajnish later explained to me that Avani is also working on a biogas cooking program in these villages, but it's very slow going. With a good biogas system, families with livestock take the manure and put it into a biogas digester, as the manure anerobically decomposes, it produces methane (natural gas), which the digester collects and the family can use for clean, odorless, smoke free cooking. One of the problems is that during the winter, it becomes cold and the reaction slows down, so there may not be enough gas during those months to cook with.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9HLXd7pG8dwwBF38irSIXfTJHnamlP-J-SUhUTr7_IurWQA5BYI58awmV-Ldeo6wwrPQnwD3aesPpkRHIeaBziO33alo3Qgh857zf9kU0qkU2m8MNXtEXI_adfrpypnMznfxrg/s320/oldschool.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grandfather pauses to relax with a hookah in the kitchen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Sukna feels like a very vibrant community. Chanchal helped me translate a little with some of the women, I asked them to elaborate on what the best parts of Sukna are and what they wish were different. The women themselves began talking about how strong the community is. They all help each other out, when someone needs to build a house, everyone else pitches in. They mentioned that they felt other villages further on down the road were in a worse state because they didn't have the same strong community. I don't know if it was lost in translation, but the women couldn't think of anything they wanted to be different about Sukna.<br />
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Finally, meet my hero, Rubesi Devi, 80 years old.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSniEJmu7N04Td-UIpK7n4YKe27GI1GUQOL50VCz2U5xYUCP0ZZ8eiu18KT_zC07QpLBJGpI9PxwutyUq7jqDN-39WM5aLoVdBUwD45S9r2zCus-MOzVBw9K7pZh4uX961fZAL5Q/s1600/rubesi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSniEJmu7N04Td-UIpK7n4YKe27GI1GUQOL50VCz2U5xYUCP0ZZ8eiu18KT_zC07QpLBJGpI9PxwutyUq7jqDN-39WM5aLoVdBUwD45S9r2zCus-MOzVBw9K7pZh4uX961fZAL5Q/s320/rubesi.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I met her walking back, she was sitting outside, spinning yarn by hand for Avani's textiles. I fell in love. She is so bubbly, every other sentence is a laugh. Very sharp, she kept teasing me, and then she firmly insisted I come to her house for lunch, and grabbed my hand to take me there. Here's a short shaky clip of Rubesi laughing and spinning yarn:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxhLeGg6jikWW_lKxjheKhqBnHDkoGn17tBHcAn_aAGRrPITro4DstspLJ28XjwonwNWDlumxy6MHs' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
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I've spent a lot of time thinking where I want to end up. What is the end goal, where is it that I'm headed anyway? And now I can't think of anything better than a wrinkly smiling 80-year-young woman, sitting in the hills, spinning yarns, and laughing at visitors.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-44002978379958693802010-09-04T08:42:00.005+04:002010-09-18T09:27:26.987+04:00Uttarakhand, India: AvaniI leave at night in a autorickshaw, careening through puddly narrow roads. There are stages with lights, music, and performers everywhere along the dark streets, I wonder which festival it is and what people are celebrating.<br />
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Old Delhi train station. Deep dirty puddles on the smooth floor. I stride quickly past crowds and long lines of tired men waiting, moving, sitting. <br />
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Push my way up the stairs, through flows and walls of mothers, men, children, porters, teenagers, vendors, grandfathers, down to the platform. <br />
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One overnight train ride north from Delhi, Ranikhet Express 5013, in sleeper class. God bless ladies quota, I sit in a cell with all women, one middle aged mother, one grandmother, and four teenagers on a trip to visit friends.<br />
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I climb up into my bare upper berth, curl around my backpack and sleep in starts and stops. The conductor never wakes me to take my ticket.<br />
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Arrive in Kathgodam at 6 am, only the grandmother is left, sleepily fixing her hair. Step off the train in the pale light, whisked away in a car further north on a road where the steep curves come in endless waves. I am so very very lucky not to be prone to car sickness. The road is wet and muddy.<br />
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It's customary for drivers to honk at every curve, at every oncoming car, passed car, at goats, donkeys, cows, monkeys, and people in the road, and at any other time when it feels right. <br />
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Hooooonk, turn, honk honk, swish, hooooooooonk, turn, honk, honk, honk, hoooooooooooonk.<br />
I doze off in fits and starts. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGlhFKryns1qszwkBsOnzCuI27ANkRxXXUXuydkXM0B53jQQCg1eq1hgHT7rTHqU4usZRg0N4is5vDAu7bN2bqNL5_y7o2v7BURXmYJurfWYta1uWeCdOfQCkjlo7D2YLTMCuu3g/s1600/cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGlhFKryns1qszwkBsOnzCuI27ANkRxXXUXuydkXM0B53jQQCg1eq1hgHT7rTHqU4usZRg0N4is5vDAu7bN2bqNL5_y7o2v7BURXmYJurfWYta1uWeCdOfQCkjlo7D2YLTMCuu3g/s320/cows.jpg" width="320" /><span id="goog_1230788919"></span><span id="goog_1230788920"></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iLnffoLofgJWwbMfnbUl6SPAJ1YO6-SUMAGhXoEAOy-w_wxBZOVSinjl3ZkuJhFDqLAjBM7C4xLecNB6Uv_eBXIqO91KLG1ceE3EUxy-txBEG3_-67PU53PdzZfMXI7gBZ1ZZQ/s1600/IMG_8221.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iLnffoLofgJWwbMfnbUl6SPAJ1YO6-SUMAGhXoEAOy-w_wxBZOVSinjl3ZkuJhFDqLAjBM7C4xLecNB6Uv_eBXIqO91KLG1ceE3EUxy-txBEG3_-67PU53PdzZfMXI7gBZ1ZZQ/s320/IMG_8221.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuSBxCTRBQe3CzhoBRYIf33SsMRGkEcoCX_eu-mpWR0RL_Ow9giowCke1MYBC9CVIdouAGKvYt5S2x77m4cdD4S9nG62V_K7KR7PazpPOaoEERW2ba8Yx9uUG2rK5vhXsMlXfSg/s1600/IMG_7958.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuSBxCTRBQe3CzhoBRYIf33SsMRGkEcoCX_eu-mpWR0RL_Ow9giowCke1MYBC9CVIdouAGKvYt5S2x77m4cdD4S9nG62V_K7KR7PazpPOaoEERW2ba8Yx9uUG2rK5vhXsMlXfSg/s320/IMG_7958.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YNxDn7NbPm4tS1fh2uwMD2RyB0xehvfeW7nx1bpUuCftrvDsWkqUulpR7h0_x7UxGbmbVe1ZmMcevE7MHpSuTtC3kBMVj7mupGpN5aHDUjsOS2XEQKgFRF1eDKU8563kZFnuAQ/s1600/IMG_7960.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YNxDn7NbPm4tS1fh2uwMD2RyB0xehvfeW7nx1bpUuCftrvDsWkqUulpR7h0_x7UxGbmbVe1ZmMcevE7MHpSuTtC3kBMVj7mupGpN5aHDUjsOS2XEQKgFRF1eDKU8563kZFnuAQ/s320/IMG_7960.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Four hours later arrive at Almora, welcomed by Rajnish and Rashmi, and their precocious toddler Tanwii in their cosy mountain forest home. <br />
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Rajnish explains that the monsoon rains are much heavier than usual this year. Many of the mountain roads are blocked from landslides, so I had been taken on an alternative route longer than usual. <br />
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The food is absolutely delicious. Whole wheat chapati, daal, and curried green beans. <br />
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It begins to rain hard again, and I worry that I'll never make it. One hour later, it lightens, and Rajnish shoos me out of the house, also afraid it will rain too hard if I don't leave soon. <br />
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The direct road to Tripuradevi is blocked by landslides. Fortunately there is one much longer alternate route still open.<br />
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Five more hours of steep curves, fog, and car horns. But we do stop at a roadside stand where thin brawny Uttarakhand mountain men laugh and eat from shiny steel trays. White chapati this time, beans, curry.<br />
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I see the landslides now. Piles of rubble running into the steep road. I am suprised and impressed they have been cleared to the side so quickly, that giant pines fallen across the road have been cut through already. The closed roads must be in absolutely terrible shape if takes so much more time to clear them. <br />
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Dodging around large trucks, weaving on narrow streets past jeeps, bikes, and motorcycles. The air is chilly and wet. We fly by towns and houses with banana trees, gutters overflow with trash, pigs wander in the alleyways, smiling people talk at fruit stands, sit drinking chai.<br />
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Trilling truck horns, curves, fog, rain, goats, deep green valleys spotted with light stone houses, steep hills lined with towering pines with fire scarred trunks. More car horns, we lurch up and through the forest.<br />
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At last Tripuradevi! I recognize the gate to <a href="http://www.avani-kumaon.org/">Avani</a>, my heart fills my whole chest. <br />
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There is so much good here, it is contagious.<br />
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Avani headquarters, perched on a mountainside, looks out over a valley and across to the Himalayas. This is the beating heart of one of the most beautiful industries I've ever seen.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5tj6A7ijXEShVHoSN9uVV-8rYS6E9TOb-kQeNyTYmhSWsN5Z5QnzYKUaC1oOy_0RWAIzSjHewcL0WZ7OF4AAORrAaQgazOEbSndoTxZ1ApBnksqr0WBa3HQ5MG4ick0QtasBURg/s1600/toddler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5tj6A7ijXEShVHoSN9uVV-8rYS6E9TOb-kQeNyTYmhSWsN5Z5QnzYKUaC1oOy_0RWAIzSjHewcL0WZ7OF4AAORrAaQgazOEbSndoTxZ1ApBnksqr0WBa3HQ5MG4ick0QtasBURg/s320/toddler.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A toddler running through Avani's campus.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gkvTHT2Od-kL_M6Js8aBxDczmklzSKJcl2NxAuaitLKrd0Pc30L9Mpf11LH7VM20Bh_bJ0uNobPA4V___7KUwQhHDyUQxF5NOz5UhuBE8_-X1jxaje80DhKaG2APgLw6kuvRtA/s1600/avani+campus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gkvTHT2Od-kL_M6Js8aBxDczmklzSKJcl2NxAuaitLKrd0Pc30L9Mpf11LH7VM20Bh_bJ0uNobPA4V___7KUwQhHDyUQxF5NOz5UhuBE8_-X1jxaje80DhKaG2APgLw6kuvRtA/s320/avani+campus.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Avani campus above looks out on the view below<span id="goog_1230788933"></span><span id="goog_1230788934"></span></span></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyIYpRvD-csaOYVeAmquG9YO1mX302QOUAUwSNwS469zLLVNEsPsJG1-cscLO1Ohg9_aCldDsRL59PpHFTAp8R_GzQnO7PW2Fliq4DUYdIbJr4n2tK4nfQ_1M6c0y3_qhxXvpLBQ/s1600/IMG_8213.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyIYpRvD-csaOYVeAmquG9YO1mX302QOUAUwSNwS469zLLVNEsPsJG1-cscLO1Ohg9_aCldDsRL59PpHFTAp8R_GzQnO7PW2Fliq4DUYdIbJr4n2tK4nfQ_1M6c0y3_qhxXvpLBQ/s320/IMG_8213.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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There is a solar workshop where local women and youth build solar lanterns to sell to village homes, a place where locals are trained to become solar technicians.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7TjoRNb4mj48_5fQqf9yNFF67dxA94CVYbtQAlPp0X40IAM8gn5OwbXmKVAQ7u3sKdoWXutTZ_oe3XobfP6w98TsjBEEzgjgSchb-tx0JmiR9Ukq0r_0-DVs6lkEx_oLqZHpQw/s1600/lantern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7TjoRNb4mj48_5fQqf9yNFF67dxA94CVYbtQAlPp0X40IAM8gn5OwbXmKVAQ7u3sKdoWXutTZ_oe3XobfP6w98TsjBEEzgjgSchb-tx0JmiR9Ukq0r_0-DVs6lkEx_oLqZHpQw/s320/lantern.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Troubleshooting and repairing a circuit for a faulty solar lantern.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMQ_hF35A_glyr8WXPfCa0-FQ2vwjkgjkdj1QH9d-5iKpdVBJFt5IIWqI1s-57BBqCFcPdE92a6bLxVkgWIoxNlqj0sIN2TeykFqkV14TzL78nCkZllBSpuUuBY9eIEKuKE5OXA/s1600/testing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMQ_hF35A_glyr8WXPfCa0-FQ2vwjkgjkdj1QH9d-5iKpdVBJFt5IIWqI1s-57BBqCFcPdE92a6bLxVkgWIoxNlqj0sIN2TeykFqkV14TzL78nCkZllBSpuUuBY9eIEKuKE5OXA/s320/testing.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Avani sells and services a range of solar products from lanterns to larger home systems</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjns-KXxyAZTMnqAunTqocEOR9NwijeZyIWmV8qWuk6Y4RKPljgPkI_aFajS7Vcg7-fmlme_6MofS8OUN3a4xdLFZ-vNxuViRbpiGe0DtqNb__Ecy4dJtiSrenQpfh3s8nxaKNwKA/s1600/training.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjns-KXxyAZTMnqAunTqocEOR9NwijeZyIWmV8qWuk6Y4RKPljgPkI_aFajS7Vcg7-fmlme_6MofS8OUN3a4xdLFZ-vNxuViRbpiGe0DtqNb__Ecy4dJtiSrenQpfh3s8nxaKNwKA/s320/training.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sudna is a new trainee learning the skills she needs to be a solar technician.</span></div><br />
Avani has also built a thriving industry of local craftspeople who create hand spun, dyed, woven textiles sold to boutiques worldwide. Avani has built this network and brings thousands and thousands of dollars of income to an area where employment is very scarce for villagers. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0nbWw6YM5jvQeBEo7vWiKEa9wi09PiTIciOmwYe2sxKbeLU5QNA8QhcH4i2HxdmmcaN3saoKRtD4Gejk2zyPZbxxukSWafPgmCwLbza2TrznP8oeXOr4zUwzGMziDjzXDPaiK0Q/s1600/dye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0nbWw6YM5jvQeBEo7vWiKEa9wi09PiTIciOmwYe2sxKbeLU5QNA8QhcH4i2HxdmmcaN3saoKRtD4Gejk2zyPZbxxukSWafPgmCwLbza2TrznP8oeXOr4zUwzGMziDjzXDPaiK0Q/s320/dye.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Avani uses natural dyes to add color to wool and silk yarn. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd9m46eGIKvFw3rBPNXlaon7ZS0_Uxko3WNGNmwYMDOuGTFqqrjRTcOisz3uv0a5peKrFaCO0LFv3_VHGFwLJw44zQPj5gHK_3OWmPUkICLsl8bIxcThJgm-OGuQ_JL92zC6Oww/s1600/break.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd9m46eGIKvFw3rBPNXlaon7ZS0_Uxko3WNGNmwYMDOuGTFqqrjRTcOisz3uv0a5peKrFaCO0LFv3_VHGFwLJw44zQPj5gHK_3OWmPUkICLsl8bIxcThJgm-OGuQ_JL92zC6Oww/s320/break.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of the weavers takes a break to chat.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZtvVm8AIT2VvTHT8LrLlNpPT4qPpeGJ_MpuO5hC29mZteqS9zDB7QoA9MQeJbCR2wYpuPqcgiPl33HDA-rA8jgh17ScO6Aa21EMaAyQZaSJac60cFFIE5om8skqlCmgOdNCElNQ/s1600/twist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZtvVm8AIT2VvTHT8LrLlNpPT4qPpeGJ_MpuO5hC29mZteqS9zDB7QoA9MQeJbCR2wYpuPqcgiPl33HDA-rA8jgh17ScO6Aa21EMaAyQZaSJac60cFFIE5om8skqlCmgOdNCElNQ/s320/twist.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Twisting the tassles on a scarf by hand.</span></div><br />
Avani headquarters is full of beautiful people, laughing, working at their job. Electricity comes from solar, water is harvested from the rain. There are children running everywhere. <br />
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Perhaps one of the most impressive signs of health is that everything is running without Rajnish and Rashmi being there. They are the founders, they built this place from scratch, and now they can work at their other home hours away as Avani continues to pulse. <br />
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And the food, of course, is exquisite. Whole wheat chapati, vegetables, daal, cold clean water. We all sit together and eat at wooden benches, smiling faces pile more food on my steel plate, even as I refuse, laughing.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-65451536954796024062010-08-29T20:00:00.007+04:002010-09-15T15:18:58.692+04:00Delhi rocksI love the crazy parts of Delhi. <br />
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I love the chaos in the winding, falling, jam packed streets. <br />
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Autorickshaws pushing through rivers of people dodging motorbikes and cars. Dogs, trash, flowers, bananas, dirt, hardware.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Delhi_Old_Delhi_Ulice2001.JPG/800px-Delhi_Old_Delhi_Ulice2001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Delhi_Old_Delhi_Ulice2001.JPG/800px-Delhi_Old_Delhi_Ulice2001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo from: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delhi_Old_Delhi_Ulice2001.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></div><br />
Old Delhi is a man kneeling on the cracked, dusty pavement with an air compressor, filling air into the tires of a cart harnessed to a hulking white placid bull. <br />
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And the food, of course, is amazing. My stomach is smiling non-stop. <br />
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I find myself wanting to live or work here for a little while. <br />
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Quite a turn-around from, oh, 5 years ago when I went to study in Bangkok and completely hated it for the first two weeks. <br />
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Now I drop into a gritty, chaotic city and want to stay longer? Not sure if I'm improving or deteriorating.<br />
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I'm here for thesis research. First stop, <a href="http://www.teriin.org/">TERI</a>, then <a href="http://www.avani-kumaon.org/">Avani</a> and finally <a href="http://www.huskpowersystems.com/">Husk Power</a>. But TERI doesn't open until tomorrow, so I went to visit the Red Fort, but really, it looks much more impressive from the outside than the inside. The best part was the ride there and back in autorickshaws. If you go to Delhi, definitely see Humayun's tomb and Qutab Minar, but you can just drive past the Red Fort and you'll see the best parts. <br />
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Here you can see this from the outside:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVvnW_zDvZLA3f79XFlrooGglBfUk50XXIvh47xUI_pKSJj1wJ9vQBcBYuv97J_UOorw_lNKxFhw-N-UFwF1AOx2bHC6vXwzp11ior_meFxuhh0nd0PiwAyYOuPp46sCWPt_q_w/s1600/IMG_7903.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVvnW_zDvZLA3f79XFlrooGglBfUk50XXIvh47xUI_pKSJj1wJ9vQBcBYuv97J_UOorw_lNKxFhw-N-UFwF1AOx2bHC6vXwzp11ior_meFxuhh0nd0PiwAyYOuPp46sCWPt_q_w/s320/IMG_7903.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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And I'll save you the trouble of going inside. It's a mostly open area and hordes of people with different buildings erected by different kings.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxfpSmICaTaoKBkcvrYtK36ZWML965Erz5DHzj7mzRzKn3CwvQYGvKCKOIHvu3Jvq3c6NY2haevGWVNpzRqn-kCJEuoj8-OyRzuBqkwUr0wYblArfVZkPnqp8DS1UE-h4YBE109w/s1600/IMG_7898.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxfpSmICaTaoKBkcvrYtK36ZWML965Erz5DHzj7mzRzKn3CwvQYGvKCKOIHvu3Jvq3c6NY2haevGWVNpzRqn-kCJEuoj8-OyRzuBqkwUr0wYblArfVZkPnqp8DS1UE-h4YBE109w/s320/IMG_7898.JPG" /></a></div><br />
I think photo below is where the king would meet privately with people. Can't remember if this is the building that had a man-made stream running through the middle.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxfpSmICaTaoKBkcvrYtK36ZWML965Erz5DHzj7mzRzKn3CwvQYGvKCKOIHvu3Jvq3c6NY2haevGWVNpzRqn-kCJEuoj8-OyRzuBqkwUr0wYblArfVZkPnqp8DS1UE-h4YBE109w/s1600/IMG_7898.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0TJp5i1BWDy5ogH-jcufSxoy7K9vx55_T6ruzD9wTCKs_XEI7VumB4NvmIUD9M_iU7xvLQ7l2oE-8DkBO0fxsXq3loiaP-ZJI9ZUO5j7vTChbW1MjZtWfOJoTqeEhyphenhyphenHkUojbOmg/s1600/IMG_7893.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0TJp5i1BWDy5ogH-jcufSxoy7K9vx55_T6ruzD9wTCKs_XEI7VumB4NvmIUD9M_iU7xvLQ7l2oE-8DkBO0fxsXq3loiaP-ZJI9ZUO5j7vTChbW1MjZtWfOJoTqeEhyphenhyphenHkUojbOmg/s320/IMG_7893.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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And some cool-looking windows that I liked, but that was about it.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRgt3ioXdArioQgrsTdHgSB0nkg5jTxyptG0t6fwlguqxf9xxea2XmTU8eUCRT4w5TtWlyr4Ci6vsA-zBZkAABnnP6PYEhaFswJPEN_KvqugVtcQaix4J_AzLyprB-CjvA9HTljw/s1600/IMG_7899.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRgt3ioXdArioQgrsTdHgSB0nkg5jTxyptG0t6fwlguqxf9xxea2XmTU8eUCRT4w5TtWlyr4Ci6vsA-zBZkAABnnP6PYEhaFswJPEN_KvqugVtcQaix4J_AzLyprB-CjvA9HTljw/s320/IMG_7899.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Someone who knows Delhi monuments pretty well mentioned that while the Red Fort may not be as visually awesome as Humayun's Tomb or Qutab Minar, if you get a tour guide the stories behind the building are fascinating. Oh well.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-18594524848115030752010-08-23T09:53:00.001+04:002010-08-23T23:28:44.894+04:00What every family of 9/11 should knowDear families of 9/11, I wish you could see the caring and the pain that Muslim families around the world felt with you on that day.<br />
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<u>Three Cups of Tea</u> is a book that tells the true story of an American mountain climber named Greg Mortenson who nearly dies but his life is saved by a poor Muslim village near Mount Everest. He promises to come back and build a school for them. Thus begins his epic quest to build schools for needy Muslim communities all over Pakistan and Afghanistan.<br />
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On 9/11, he is traveling to the opening of another remote school in the mountains. There is an opening ceremony, with the keynote speaker Syed Abbas, a "supreme religious leader" of Shiite Muslims in Baltistan of Northern Pakistan. Abbas says,<br />
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<blockquote>"We share in the sorrow as people weep and suffer in America today... Those who have committed this evil act against the innocent, the women and children, to create thousands of widows and orphans do not do so in the name if Islam. By the grace of Allah the Almighty, may justice be served upon them."<br />
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"I request America to look into our hearts," Abbas continued, his voice straining with emotion," and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education..." <br />
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Mortenson says, "By the time Syed Abbas had finished he had the entire crowd in tears. I wish all the Americans who think 'Muslim' is just another way of saying 'terrorist' could have been there that day. The true core tenants of Islam are justice, tolerance, and charity, and Syed Abbas represented the moderate center of Muslim faith eloquently."<br />
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After the ceremony, women from the village lined up to offer condolences to the Americans, pressing gifts and eggs into their hands "begging them to carry these tokens of grief to the faraway sisters they longed to comfort themselves, the widows of the New York village."</blockquote>The true tragedy is that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30zadroga.html.">all but 12 Republicans in the House voted against health benefits for 9/11 responders last month</a>. <br />
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WAKE UP AMERICA! Don't allow politicians to cloud your knowledge with slimy arguments against the mosque two blocks away from ground zero. The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, and these hateful arguments only spread ignorance. The politicians speak out against the mosque are only strengthening Osama bin Laden's power, a power that thrives on ignorance and fear. The more America screams hate, the easier it is to recruit terrorists. As Americans, we must fight back against this ignorance.<br />
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Forbidding this mosque is like forbidding the construction of a community church near a site where the Ku Klux Klan held a massive hanging and murdered lots of people. The Ku Klux Klan consider themselves Christian. Do they represent Christianity? Not by a long shot. Would the average Christian even consider the Ku Klux Klan to be a part of Christianity as well? <br />
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It's the same type of fear that made Americans think it was okay to send Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II and the fear that fueled the Communist witch hunts during the Cold War. <br />
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Know your enemy. The enemy is not peaceful Muslims. The Qur'an promotes peace, education, and women's rights. The enemy is the terrorists, an entirely different breed. <b>As Obama said, "The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics--a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam."</b><br />
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Oh, wait.<br />
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<b>George W. Bush said that, not Obama. </b><br />
<a href="http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/8/398253/Document-George-W-Bush-Declaration-of-War-on-Terrorism">See his full speech here.</a><br />
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But I disagree with Bush's words. Terrorists are not following an Islamic extremism, because they are not following Islam at all. Just as the Ku Klux Klan is not following an extremism of Christianity, their horrible acts against humanity make it impossible for them to be truly Christian. <br />
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The mosque, called Park51, is a community center with a basketball court and cooking classes. It embodies peace, it embodies religious harmony as its board of directors is full of Christians and Jews as well. The founder, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a peaceful man who has been sent on numerous speaking tours by <a href="http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/18/4921522-fact-check-who-is-the-new-york-imam">both Bush and Obama</a> to promote tolerance in Arab and Muslim nations. <br />
"Islamic extremism for the majority of Muslims is an oxymoron," <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/ground-zero-imam-helped-f_n_685071.html">Iman Feisal says</a>. "It is a fundamental contradiction in terms." <br />
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The outrageous arguments against Park51 are just a smokescreen. Politicians are manipulating our emotions to buy votes for this fall. Don't be fooled. <br />
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And don't sit quietly, either. Stand up, speak out, talk to your friends, family, and neighbors. Don't let manipulative politicians drive America toward a hateocracy. <br />
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Required reading:<br />
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<a href="http://j.mp/aMSC6F">There is No "Ground Zero Mosque"</a> <br />
<a href="http://j.mp/d9NPF6">How Fox Betrayed Petraeus</a><br />
<a href="http://nyti.ms/defObf">Taking Bin Laden’s Side</a> <br />
<a href="http://j.mp/d9NPF6"></a> <br />
<a href="http://j.mp/dBsteJ">Quotes from 9/11 families who support Park51</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/16743239">Build That Mosque</a><br />
<a href="http://j.mp/cg8drR">Three Cups of Tea (on Google Books) </a>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-52201145743287922512010-05-19T23:17:00.001+04:002010-09-15T15:25:45.974+04:00Masdar: building progressHere's a few photos of what the new Masdar campus looks like: <a href="http://jennyperkinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/masdar-institute-green-university-is.html">http://jennyperkinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/masdar-institute-green-university-is.html</a><br />
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Masdar students finally had the opportunity to tour inside Masdar in April. Before, I had a picture in my mind of a big empty construction site waiting to be lived in. But when we were tromping around in boots and construction helmets on site, I felt like I had wandered into the Emerald City in Oz as we navigated through streams of people. Masdar already is a living, breathing, city as there are construction workers moving everywhere, working on everything. I've heard that it's 24 hours of non-stop activity as different shifts cycle through. I wish a proper historian could document this building process, because it's incredible. I know everyone's excited about the buildings, but in 50 years time it will be a shame if they don't have photos like this one of an awesome old timer bolting a skyscraper together:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIgIp7NPRzr9dHIdbPEDVT6DZME5wx43j2MAfw0Y8z9brex_V1l-tX866fVZRV0W6CTd3o_xDehCOG9EuZpfkCOuAt3Lkf8Fv6NrEWlQvT6IzFO0XdduW44tfRrrGQ2zmOTXw7g/s1600/old+timer+empire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIgIp7NPRzr9dHIdbPEDVT6DZME5wx43j2MAfw0Y8z9brex_V1l-tX866fVZRV0W6CTd3o_xDehCOG9EuZpfkCOuAt3Lkf8Fv6NrEWlQvT6IzFO0XdduW44tfRrrGQ2zmOTXw7g/s400/old+timer+empire.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(photo by Lewis Hine)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Or these cool dudes on lunch break:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtbBnV9vp7UK1aKVm3JDIAHoy3xq2yNIYeqLqaGVBjW91KvRmm4FPw9uAGbSOfu0otUT6DbPPF78Pk1BJa53rEBO-ebwk6NLLc-BhtX44rODBEdASaW45ETIC6jIW4UXAoSKAaA/s1600/inarow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtbBnV9vp7UK1aKVm3JDIAHoy3xq2yNIYeqLqaGVBjW91KvRmm4FPw9uAGbSOfu0otUT6DbPPF78Pk1BJa53rEBO-ebwk6NLLc-BhtX44rODBEdASaW45ETIC6jIW4UXAoSKAaA/s400/inarow.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(photo by Charles C. Ebbets)</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-35729637516301578592010-04-18T20:51:00.000+04:002010-04-18T20:51:55.804+04:00Borneo: no leechesI posted a brief update on Masdar's D-Lab Energy trip to Borneo on the D-Lab blog: <a href="https://d-lab.scripts.mit.edu:444/news/d-lab-energy/masdar-trip-borneo">here</a>.<br />
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We had initially been warned about all the leeches we would face (I didn't know they could <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMci6O--1wY">follow you!</a>), but it was so dry that we didn't see a single one.<br />
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I'm pretty sad about how Kaiduan dam is threatening to displace our new friends in Terian and Buayan. It's frustrating to feel so powerless.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-88904136097030587662010-02-25T15:22:00.002+04:002010-02-25T15:38:10.055+04:00Steven Chu is the man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3jIB-3r5RDR1dt3MYD4aDWD1N0VY60MPCFNGqQSa-eQI1g5Ky3VXLCXeRvxlYl6hkCwjA_sgONAxJv4QLWuVGWQfgjayyrHVPlIR9xCpIPJx4QrF-x4CypiqdN0NJzGT4kGECg/s1600-h/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+113934+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Steven Chu, the US Secretary of Energy (and Nobel Laureate), came yesterday to visit Abu Dhabi and Masdar yesterday. He gave a speech at the <a href="http://images.google.ae/images?rlz=1C1GGLS_enAE318AE318&sourceid=chrome&q=emirates+palace&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=LiuGS-PtJcK2rAeKt6GhCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCsQsAQwAw">Emirates Palace</a> at a Masdar-sponsered event. <br />
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Although I knew that he has an extensive science background, I automatically expected a politician's speech. Instead, he gave this really delightful slide show and I learned a lot. (Found a <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Calion/meeting-the-energy-and-climate-challenge-a-tale-of-two-countries-usa-china">similar slide show that he gave in China last year</a>. All of the following figures are stolen from that slide show.)<br />
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He presented a riddle: How is a Boeing 777 like a bar-tailed godwit? The bar-tailed godwit happens to be a bird that looks like this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3jIB-3r5RDR1dt3MYD4aDWD1N0VY60MPCFNGqQSa-eQI1g5Ky3VXLCXeRvxlYl6hkCwjA_sgONAxJv4QLWuVGWQfgjayyrHVPlIR9xCpIPJx4QrF-x4CypiqdN0NJzGT4kGECg/s1600-h/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+113934+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3jIB-3r5RDR1dt3MYD4aDWD1N0VY60MPCFNGqQSa-eQI1g5Ky3VXLCXeRvxlYl6hkCwjA_sgONAxJv4QLWuVGWQfgjayyrHVPlIR9xCpIPJx4QrF-x4CypiqdN0NJzGT4kGECg/s320/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+113934+AM.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The answer is that they can both fly 11,000 miles non-stop without stopping to refuel. (Bar-tailed godwits migrate from Alaska to New Zealand every year.) Similarly, when they begin their journey, roughly 50% of their mass is fuel. Which leads me to this neat graphic that compares body fat to fossil fuels and batteries:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxDqqM7OM4KK8XJtszEyjarFP78hVXt8gwdQSJrEPk711Lh2Lm00kdRgbFH8boXUUMWvYkiDFqz2G5ZCUPVLEIMy9A9EzmHV4qyVFH1BL3Z5DY0wl-NC8TWwOmeOkOmQ-kMEAfQ/s1600-h/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+114410+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxDqqM7OM4KK8XJtszEyjarFP78hVXt8gwdQSJrEPk711Lh2Lm00kdRgbFH8boXUUMWvYkiDFqz2G5ZCUPVLEIMy9A9EzmHV4qyVFH1BL3Z5DY0wl-NC8TWwOmeOkOmQ-kMEAfQ/s400/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+114410+AM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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I've heard so much about how batteries are pretty terrible at storing energy, but this is the first time I've seen them directly compared with body fat. That's pretty incredible how energy-dense nature is. <br />
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Someone better figure out a battery break through fast, because so much renewable energy depends on storage. The wind isn't always blowing, the sun only shines half the day, if that, and those pesky humans like to use energy all the time. Maybe those Matrix robots were onto something with using humans as a power source... although why you would feed nutrients into humans instead of just using the nutrients directly for energy is beyond me.<br />
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Other interesting things:<br />
The last ice age was only 6 degrees colder on a global average. Most of the US was covered in an ice sheet. Under a "business as usual" scenario, the earth will become 6 degrees warmer in the next century. 6 degrees is a huge deal.<br />
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He also said, "It is our [the US and other developed countries] responsibility to reduce carbon emissions to allow developing countries the headway to grow." Wow.<br />
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Refrigeration efficiency is a nice little success story from the US. In the following graphic, the red line is the average refrigerator volume. The blue line is the average energy use per refrigerator. And the green line is the price of a refrigerator, adjusted for inflation.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0y2V5Y8SimutsiRIBSvoSHpfkNOBqJo4AtPIxopti3jluxhaCSbSxZeIrxyMmcirxTuZxVsWr39iEmx4GVl4VYi_0S5doPvOQxYTHWh-tECnM4L14-dTHQMTbKWqxX_kvaKkiRw/s1600-h/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+120352+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0y2V5Y8SimutsiRIBSvoSHpfkNOBqJo4AtPIxopti3jluxhaCSbSxZeIrxyMmcirxTuZxVsWr39iEmx4GVl4VYi_0S5doPvOQxYTHWh-tECnM4L14-dTHQMTbKWqxX_kvaKkiRw/s400/Fullscreen+capture+2252010+120352+PM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Basically, following California's lead, the US adopted standards for refrigerator efficiency. Manufacturers grumbled at first and said it was possible, but the refrigerators would be more expensive. Nope. Refrigerators have become more efficient and less expensive while expanding in size. <br />
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The amount of energy saved from refrigerators from this policy is greater than ALL the renewable energy generated in the US. That is both sad that we have so little renewable energy and impressive that efficiency improvements can do so much.<br />
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He also mentioned pumping water up to a reservoir as a way of storing energy. (When you need the energy again, you run it through a hydro plant) I've heard some vague stuff about this before, but generally that it isn't very efficient. Steven Chu said it's 70-85% efficient, which surprised me. Anyone know anything else about this?<br />
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Also, he mentioned another reoccurring theme I've been hearing a lot over the past year concerning agriculture.<br />
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The Haber-Bosch process is arguably <a href="http://www.nano.dtu.dk/upload/centre/nanodtu/nanoteknologiske_horisonter/supplerende%20undervisningsmateriale/kap3/detonator%20of%20the%20population%20explosion.pdf">the most important technological advance of the 20th century</a>. The world population could not have quadrupled from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000 if not for the Haber-Bosch process, which produces ammonia for fertilizer, which won a Nobel prize in 1931. Without this process almost two fifths of the world's population would not be here.<br />
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According to <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/7988931/Saul-Griffiths-CRV-Annual-Meeting-Slides">Saul Griffith</a>, 21% of the world's energy consumption is for agriculture, and I bet that ammonia production plays a large role in this. <br />
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Also <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574411382676924044.html">Norman Borlaug</a>, aka the father of the Green Revolution, is believed to have saved more than a billion lives by developing a strain of wheat that produces more food per acre and is drought-resistant. <br />
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In 1968, a famous book called the "The Population Bomb" argued that global starvation was unavoidable because food production was not keeping up with population increase in developing countries. Borlaug and his colleagues turned that around. For example, they worked in the middle of a war to spread the high-yield grain and took Pakistan from famine to self-sufficient in wheat production 3 years, and India from famine to self-sufficient in all cereals in 6 years.<br />
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Towards the end of his talk, Steven Chu also briefly mentioned a <a href="https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2006/NR-06-05-06.html">carbon nanotube technology that will take 30-50% less energy to desalinate water</a>. That would be a huge deal for places like the UAE, but also a huge deal for the world in general, as water scarcity is probably going to be a major challenge in the upcoming century.<br />
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He also mentioned <a href="http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/2607">a liquid battery being developed at MIT</a> that uses molten metals that dissolve into an electrolyte as they release energy, and then reseparate when the battery is charged again. This is an exciting technology because the batteries can absorb very high electrical currents and you could potentially make them the size of swimming pools (according to Chu.)<br />
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At the end, during the super brief question/answer period, Josh asked the following: The Obama administration is putting $80 billion towards the renewable energy industry. Obama has also stated that "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." However, China is putting $440 billion towards renewable energy. How can the US hope to compete when China is going to vastly outspend us?<br />
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Mr. Chu's response was along the lines of $80 billion is a start, and once the innovation economy gets going there will be more force behind it. <br />
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Hmph. Not the most reassuring answer ever. But I'm glad it's $80 billion and not zero, which is where it would probably be if Bush was still president.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-69818870894735816782010-02-12T08:42:00.001+04:002010-02-12T08:53:40.673+04:00MzukaAnother installment from my winter trip... <br />
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The last few days of my trip I spent exploring Nairobi. Bernard and Woon also were flying out of Nairobi around the same time, so we all took the bus up together from Arusha to Kenya. <br />
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In Nairobi, Bernard took us to Kibera, Nairobi's most notorious slum. He worked there before with a <a href="http://www.worldbike.org/">World Bike</a> project, so he had friends that he wanted to visit. I'll admit I was nervous about going to Kibera, despite hearing repeatedly that it's one of the neatest (but perhaps also dangerous) parts of Nairobi. Anything with "slum" in the name just sounded like a scary place that I probably shouldn't be going. But it was absolutely amazing. <br />
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Daniel M^2 was right - Kibera slum is full of smart, enterprising people. The type of people that would leave their village and migrate to the city looking for work, only to find that there aren't enough jobs to go around. <br />
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Before I went, the picture I had in my head for a slum included lots of sketchy, scary men slouching on street corners, smoking and drinking, waiting for their next chance to mug someone. (Funny how my mind reflexively makes these half-formed pictures of places I've never been before.) Of course, the picture I found was much different.<br />
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Here's some first impressions:<br />
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Life. Everywhere. People moving, breathing, talking laughing. Kids. Everywhere. Women selling vegetables, shoes, shampoo, everything you can imagine. Houses. Everywhere. Patchwork of woven corrugated tin sea of roofs, mud walls, some concrete. Narrow little turning twisting muddy fractal alleyways. Doorways. So many doorways. The dirt road and branching alleyways are practically carpeted with plastic bags and trash stamped into the mud. So many home made TV antennas leaping up into the brilliant blue sky.<br />
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Hygenic nightmare. Murky muddy channels running everywhere with waste water. Many alleyways are filled with nasty-looking water, we need to tip toe at the edges and scrape by the walls. Maze. The first time Bernard's friend came here, he rented a room, left to get his stuff, and when he returned, he couldn't find his alleyway or room. He searched for hours before he went to find the landlord to show him where it was again.<br />
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Here's some Kibera photos I stole from this <a href="http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2005/07/kibera_africas.html">blog</a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ogi6wfKipHgJubAm8KJF4-Zws_bc0_BoTGe8B3niX8MQB7MT9L1A3hsFo_VnEsIIgHLRI3eU23as51T1kGhnXIa4YuJ7S-EKwgKGWpPCvfMSCFBuF_pmrrmA1lRX5WH2m4taXQ/s1600-h/Asowetoalleyway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ogi6wfKipHgJubAm8KJF4-Zws_bc0_BoTGe8B3niX8MQB7MT9L1A3hsFo_VnEsIIgHLRI3eU23as51T1kGhnXIa4YuJ7S-EKwgKGWpPCvfMSCFBuF_pmrrmA1lRX5WH2m4taXQ/s400/Asowetoalleyway.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />
Actually what's interesting about the above photo is that it was taken about 5 years ago. When I went in January 2010, it seemed like every house had a homemade TV antenna shooting out the roof made from a pole, a frying pan, and old fluorescent lightbulbs. I have no idea why that particular combination works, but they were everywhere. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT9x_NLSYO2ppldSRKU8kqI25OQ1O9_ouKhHCN3tZlk4XpuYZ5wg2Ct5HzrHdA6Uphhi1ByO1jQTxN-kypGGDarkuQGlrwJjejFXI1fo3UvPDT7uRHz6JJX6Ir4F3G53qsxTd2A/s1600-h/Aseamster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT9x_NLSYO2ppldSRKU8kqI25OQ1O9_ouKhHCN3tZlk4XpuYZ5wg2Ct5HzrHdA6Uphhi1ByO1jQTxN-kypGGDarkuQGlrwJjejFXI1fo3UvPDT7uRHz6JJX6Ir4F3G53qsxTd2A/s320/Aseamster.jpg" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Tons of enterprise. This guy may not have a roof for his shop, but a sewing machine is enough to start a business. Check out the <a href="http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2005/07/kibera_africas.html">blog</a> these photos came from for more examples of all the businesses to be found in Kibera. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh5Zlkg8FdtkyHNHUoPM4B0Lde5qZ2AWFRRsAm7-ODB6q1Ljs-JpdX3ZN2HVTE5UbVRjxl0oQTkQK3iuLfv6Ucv8ygU_mWZ6lA5GXymM7ntDcQ4ISSLKN0GQ6ZikaQV1K177w1DA/s1600-h/akids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh5Zlkg8FdtkyHNHUoPM4B0Lde5qZ2AWFRRsAm7-ODB6q1Ljs-JpdX3ZN2HVTE5UbVRjxl0oQTkQK3iuLfv6Ucv8ygU_mWZ6lA5GXymM7ntDcQ4ISSLKN0GQ6ZikaQV1K177w1DA/s400/akids.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Kids everywhere. Plastic everywhere. </div><br />
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The day I flew out of Nairobi, I took a matatu downtown in the morning, spent the whole day walking around town. Nairobi feels very modern. It's worlds away from Lusaka in Zambia, and even feels more polished than Accra, Ghana. I saw only a handful of other muzungus the whole day in the crowds. And you know what? Practically no one hassled me. I walked past thousands of people, I think only two asked me if I wanted a safari, only one said something like "Hey white boy!" (My hair is still short.) Whereas, if I walk in downtown Lusaka, Arusha, or Accra, it feels like a nearly constant hassle, everyone's got something to offer or yell at me. <br />
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In the early afternoon, I decided to head back, and grab my bags for the airport. All I had to do was find the place where the matatu dropped me off in the morning. <br />
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No problem, I know right where it is, right? Eh, rather, my brain decided it would be hilarious to remember the matatu stop as being in a place where it wasn't. It was a strange kind of being lost. I knew exactly where I was, but where I wanted to be wasn't there. <br />
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I had probably been circling around the same streets for about an hour, looking for my phantom matatu stop when I received a phone call from World Bike Dan. <br />
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"Which part of town are you in?"<br />
"The east side. Kind of towards your house."<br />
"Oh. Good. There's a riot on this side of town. You probably want to stay over there. In fact, you should probably get out and go home. I think they're moving in your direction."<br />
Blink.<br />
"Oh. Great. Thanks."<br />
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The day still seemed normal. Everyone around me in the street still seemed normal: happy, bored, walking, talking, sitting.<br />
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It felt like my nightmares. There's something looming, something coming. I can't see it, don't know where it is, but I've got to get out. Keep moving, keep moving. Same street. I've been here before. It's not here. Not here. This is so weird. <br />
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Finally, I mustered the courage to ask a shopkeeper where I could find the matatu stop. (I'm really really bad at asking for directions, especially in Africa. Admitting I'm lost kind of feels like painting a target sign on my back.)<br />
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He looked worried. "Well, it's a bit far from here. And you can't go around asking everyone for directions..." But he pointed me to a street and told me to walk straight. <br />
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After about 15 minutes of walking, I suddenly recognized a building, and took a few turns and found a familiar line of matatus! Jumped on, made it back in time to catch my flight, no problem. Yipes. Never saw the riot. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8461425.stm">Read an article about it later</a>. It's hard to fathom that was happening and the other side of town seemed normal. I mean, it logically makes sense, but I suppose whenever I read about "hundreds of stone throwing protestors" I automatically imagine the whole place being shaken up.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-54114667000218194692010-01-30T22:14:00.000+04:002010-01-30T22:14:07.843+04:00WutheringI did it! I took two steps in a handstand on Friday at parkour practice. Wahoo! New Year's resolution #1 mission complete. Still working on New Year's resolution #2: more awkward.<br />
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In other news, Abu Dhabi is expanding its public transportation offerings. <br />
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This is great. I came back from winter break to find two new bus routes that could get me all the way down town without taking a taxi. Awesome. I had silently, fervently hoped in my wildest dreams that this might happen sometime during my stay here, but never did I imagine it would happen so quickly.<br />
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Abu Dhabi is also installing a ton of <a href="http://www.arabianbusiness.com/560693-abu-dhabi-gets-its-first-air-conditioned-bus-shelters-">air-conditioned bus stop booths</a>. Okay, fine, it jumps up to 50 C (122 F) in the summer here, air-conditioned bus stops are probably necessary.<br />
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BUT.<br />
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The weather here is lovely right now, 23 C (73 F). I sat in one of those bus stops recently (the air conditioning was off) and it was SUPER HOT inside. You know why? The bus stops are big glass boxes, i.e. small green houses. ARGH. Perfect. Trap heat inside a glass box and then air condition it cool again. I bet any carbon saved by people riding the bus will be quickly gobbled up by the air-condition greenhouses scheme. Did no one think of insulative glass? Did no one test them out before they starting installing them everywhere?Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-34791617289480286252010-01-23T06:04:00.000+04:002010-01-23T06:04:44.240+04:00There is no spoon.Jodie Wu and her team at Global Cycle Solutions are doing some pretty neat things in Arusha. Jodie is a <a href="http://d-lab.mit.edu/">D-Lab</a> alum who spearheaded the development of a mobile bicycle cornsheller for Tanzania, building from the work of <a href="http://www.mayapedal.org/">Maya Pedal</a> in Guatemala. <br />
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A couple of summers ago as a student volunteer in Tanzania, Jodie built a pedal-powered cornsheller, then made back the money spent on building materials in a week by renting out to people who biked it to farms to shell corn. If you know D-lab, you've probably heard this story a thousand times, my apologies, skip the next paragraph. If you don't know D-lab, you may be asking "What's corn shelling?"<br />
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Millions of people across the world eat maize as their primary staple food. Usually, this maize is dried out in the sun, and then all the kernels are removed from the cob by hand. ("Shelling" is the process of removing corn from the cob.) It's a time-consuming, tough process. Another common method is to put the corn in sacks on the ground and beat them with sticks until all the corn comes off. Not very efficient. <br />
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Turns out there's an antiquated and neat farm tool that uses rotational motion to shell maize pretty quickly. It's super neat, I wish I had a video to show you. At any rate, GCS is making it easy to power these shellers to normal bikes. It looks something like this:<br />
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</div>Based on how popular the first one was, Jodie decided to move to Tanzania and start a business after she graduated from MIT. <br />
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Another super awesome product GCS is developing is a cell phone charger, which Arusha resident inventor Bernard Kiwia designed completely from bike and radio parts. (Well, in some models, he also uses part of a clothes hanger.) It's a wicked elegant design, and it's meant to passively charge a cellphone while the rider is biking around. Villagers are REALLY excited about this one. (Mobile phones are a HUGE deal in <a href="http://eprom.mit.edu/whyafrica.html">emerging economies</a>.)<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bernard shows off the charger he designed.</span><br />
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</div>New Year's in Tanzania was fun. Jodie made a New Year's resolution to learn to drive the GCS pickup truck, A very stubborn, finicky manual truck with no power steering. In the words of Woon, "That truck handles like a corpse." And Arusha roads/traffic aren't exactly the friendliest of places to learn.<br />
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So we all jumped in the truck, Jodie took the wheel, and Woon coached her driving all the way to Shaibu's house for his New Year's party. Jodie had completed her first resolution within a few hours of the New Year. Jodie is basically a rock star. <br />
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Whereas the Christmas party at Jodie's place had been full of kids, cooking women, Maasai grandmothers, and a few local police, the New Year's day party at Shaibu's place was basically just young Tanzanian males feasting on goat, beer, and dancing the day away to loud music. I figure Tanzania's got to be the most awesome place for being a bachelor. <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRcXOJAgNelxYqv5clw0Lv-3Mw1oM80ppDgV4Vw5p-FQG5dvOzU6-L4EqFooUG-wI7tEr0E5zlOn_Sf6aaZb2RIVOzccat0UuKLpVeLAj90_zGM3sFLjofZiODzhiR-SkwtCqVA/s1600-h/IMG_6836.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRcXOJAgNelxYqv5clw0Lv-3Mw1oM80ppDgV4Vw5p-FQG5dvOzU6-L4EqFooUG-wI7tEr0E5zlOn_Sf6aaZb2RIVOzccat0UuKLpVeLAj90_zGM3sFLjofZiODzhiR-SkwtCqVA/s320/IMG_6836.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Shaibu's hardcore Tanzanian bachelor stove. Food, soda, matchbox, side of goat.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dancing the day away. </span><br />
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Shaibu really knows how to throw a party. And you know what? He's a rockstar, too. He knew that Woon and I don't eat meat, and he made a veggie dish just for us. I was so impressed. What a bro.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Shaibu grilling goat.</span><br />
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Shaibu's also a manager at Tumaini Cycles. That kid is going places, he's amazing.<br />
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We also attended the Mama Afrika circus in Arusha, it was outstanding. Acrobats, contortionists, a polished female magician, it was all pretty nifty. The highlight was the last act: three young jugglers who did this mind-bending hip hop hat juggling routine. I'm sure they broke several fundamental laws of physics. <br />
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New Year's resolutions: 1) Be able take two steps in a handstand without falling down. 2) More awkward.<br />
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Resolution #1 is fairly self-explanatory.<br />
Resolution #2 I've been thinking a lot about.<br />
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I ask a lot of people different types of questions. One of my favorite is: "Would you rather know many languages or how to play many instruments?"<br />
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Originally, my own answer was many languages. It just seemed so useful, I could travel more places, be eligible for more jobs, understand more people. But then I thought about it some more, and realized that even in English-speaking places, I'm a pretty awkward person. Knowing more languages would just enable me to be multi-culturally awkward in different dialects. When I framed the options that way, it suddenly became much more appealing to know many instruments.<br />
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Several hundred turns of thought later, I believe that being comfortable with awkward is loads more useful than being multi-lingual. In a way, being "awkwardable" can be substituted for language fluency. <br />
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And the more I travel, the more I realize that it's often not about language fluency, it's about being comfortable in awkward situations. If I'm comfortable in awkward situations, then it doesn't matter if I need to make funny hand gestures to communicate what kind of food I want. It doesn't matter if I don't immediately understand what's going on, as long as I can go with the flow. <br />
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Yes, learning other languages is still very useful. But actually, being awkwardable is a prerequisite to achieving language fluency. It's fairly straightforward to learn a language in a classroom or from language tapes, but fluency doesn't come unless the learner practices a lot with native speakers. This involves making all sorts of embarrassing mistakes over and over again. The more open a person is to awkward situations, the easier it will be for her to practice, and thus the faster she'll learn a language. (This is why it's easier for kids to pick up languages - the have a social pass to make mistakes, while making the same mistakes is much more embarrassing for adults.)<br />
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Easier said than done. But at any rate, I think it's worth working on...Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-13081096090971507542010-01-16T11:12:00.000+04:002010-01-16T11:12:28.018+04:00Beware the tangawizisSo much stuff on my mind, I'll try to spit it out a little at a time.<br />
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A few days ago I was in Arusha, Tanzania for winter break, visiting and trying to be helpful to Jodie Wu, co-founder extraordinaire of <a href="http://globalcyclesolutions.com/">Global Cycle Solutions</a>.<br />
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Here's a a few highlights:<br />
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Christmas - Jodie threw a proper Tanzanian feast, goat and all. I tried to make it through watching Joseph Kisoky and a few other locals perform the goat slaughter...I nearly passed out instead. Wrapped up a long day by dancing the night away with some tipsy Maasai grandmothers.<br />
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Jodie's neighbors - Jodie lives in a small house off a dirt path from a dirt road that is not exactly the pinacle of modernization or security. When she said she had a couple young Tanzanian males as neighbors I'll admit I was a bit wary.<br />
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But hey, it turns out her neighbors, Mic and Mas, are really great guys. And break dancing semi-celebrities. They're members of Contagious, the Arusha bboy crew. Went to one of their shows, very impressive. When they're not performing or practicing, they get together and...roller blade around town. Oh, and they're completely sober. What upstanding young role models. Jodie basically has the best neighbors ever.<br />
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Woon opened the new year with a new haircut. We waited patiently for 5 Tanzanian grade school boys ahead of us to get their heads shaved. Then, after some confusion and mangled Kiswahili, he paid the full haircut price of $.75 to the barber, put the clippers in my hand, and I shaved a mohawk. "No, it's really a very old haircut," he explained to Matayo. "Hundreds of years ago in America, there was this tribe..." Walking down the street, he got tons of smiles, laughs, and various call-outs, including "Hey Mr. T!" But the most common definitely was "Jogoo!" aka rooster in Swahili.<br />
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The Christmas goat slaughter was a religious experience. Intellectually, it was something I really wanted to do. Humans kill animals all the time for eating. It's a process I should know something about. I tried to watch, to be logical, I really did, but my body had other plans. My mind started swimming, my stomach fell into a black hole, I almost passed out, so I sat down instead. Logically tried to reason myself through why I shouldn't be on the verge of fainting, stood up after 5 minutes and nearly passed out again. Continued the process throughout the morning -- went to watch the preparations for as long as I could until I got too dizzy to stand. Turned away and sat down until I could stand up again, went back to watch. <br />
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I was really quite surprised my body had such a strong reaction. One of those interesting paradoxes where one part of my mind very clearly wants to do something, but another part clearly does not.<br />
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If my genes had made me a carnivore, there would not have been a problem. It's pretty funny that I'm a creature who clearly has some difficulties watching another creature die, but acknowledges that other dead creatures are tasty. (Just because I'm vegan doesn't mean that I deny meat tastes good...and oh, wow, there's a whole other can of worms to discuss there about botched vegan attempts in Tanzania, but maybe for later.)<br />
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Anyway, the whole experience put me in another plane of existence for a day, pretty hard to describe.<br />
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Mic and Mas took us to the church (aka club) to listen to the pastor (aka DJ) preach. Three of the crew and three of us jammed into a taxi for a few minutes on the rutted dirt road. Masaai camp. Saturday night, where everyone in Arusha goes. Good mix of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzungu">wazungu</a> and Tanzanians. And so much dancing. I felt like I could go on forever...but oddly only when I was surrounded by dancing strangers...then just felt limitless, like I had escaped myself, very trippy. I swear I was stone cold sober. Yay mob psychology?<br />
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Oh, also, Mas has a new name. Bboy Babu. Babu = grandfather. According to Mas, when he was in middle school in Dar Es Salaam, he was among the first 3 people to break dance in Tanzania. You should see his crazy freezes. Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-78089486552288311442009-12-06T19:37:00.000+04:002009-12-06T19:37:13.658+04:00National DayOn Tuesday 2 Dec, the United Arab Emirates turned 38 years old. Celebrations are still going on. Local custom: decorate cars like crazy, drive down to the Corniche and honk jubilantly. Makes sense that cars would play such a big part in the celebration of a country that has made such huge progress because of oil.<br />
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Car decorations get pretty creative. Below are some illustrative random samples.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmH6Zcq0uu9DV4cGV0BUfAGuvq12pdq5mYipsU0VSaCKRF-dwn0t8E2qH1a4smLjF_6HtB68qttu5ftUH1aYRUgdTg1apy6hqwJnNshAhBOdpgJlBw4-MH1WE7TrgZ1KEp74Z2w/s1600-h/IMG_6581.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmH6Zcq0uu9DV4cGV0BUfAGuvq12pdq5mYipsU0VSaCKRF-dwn0t8E2qH1a4smLjF_6HtB68qttu5ftUH1aYRUgdTg1apy6hqwJnNshAhBOdpgJlBw4-MH1WE7TrgZ1KEp74Z2w/s400/IMG_6581.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Can you see the passenger? He's wearing a red-checkered ghutra (traditional head wear), as many of the local males normally do here. Car says: "EMARATY" "UAE." I have no idea where all these huge decals come from. The UAE flag is red, white, green, and black. <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxcFxgdLibUgy_As6LX7wELhwR1NgMXzaZS_8EnMxJqCrf1dgPyrtg3rNxg09eAtv55LVaWV58TF_3dQPgOI4O3n-ud3fxExoEt_EoOErIWDertAbLt_BBllZyDAATBPTg80Nlw/s1600-h/IMG_6582.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxcFxgdLibUgy_As6LX7wELhwR1NgMXzaZS_8EnMxJqCrf1dgPyrtg3rNxg09eAtv55LVaWV58TF_3dQPgOI4O3n-ud3fxExoEt_EoOErIWDertAbLt_BBllZyDAATBPTg80Nlw/s320/IMG_6582.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"> Hearts! Red, white, and green hearts. A very common theme. I'm not accustomed to seeing young Emirati men driving around with their cars plastered in hearts, but apparently love for the UAE runs very deep here. I also saw flower shapes.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3UvYO-MN6wwYp1vbzdb9Q2LuXCvEW6KoA8qFZdjOd-cM8wZjrgrq3iF8Pqqkwe8zT_V1_Y7dtZ_et5h_ENlgX78HTW_x_6QjaozN3Nc2TB1vheZHmnqmDm9TrBcrmiusyxmyiQ/s1600-h/IMG_6583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3UvYO-MN6wwYp1vbzdb9Q2LuXCvEW6KoA8qFZdjOd-cM8wZjrgrq3iF8Pqqkwe8zT_V1_Y7dtZ_et5h_ENlgX78HTW_x_6QjaozN3Nc2TB1vheZHmnqmDm9TrBcrmiusyxmyiQ/s400/IMG_6583.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">Lots of cars went all out. I wish I had photos of them for you here. Huge pictures of the Sheikh everywhere. This one has the Sheikh, the UAE colored lik the flag, and some nice sand dunes. Other common themes included giant teddy bears tied to car roofs, and people leaning out of car windows spraying silly string everywhere.<br />
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</div>Of course, if everyone jumps in their car and drives to the same place, it creates a jovial traffic jam. As Brian later remarked when we tried to find a cab home, "What is this? National traffic day?"<br />
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In other news, Sherry and I grew a TON of basil. Here's Sherry hiding in our basil patch before we harvested it to make pesto for Thanksgiving:<br />
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</div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-75640965981422660652009-11-23T09:32:00.000+04:002009-11-23T09:32:04.959+04:00ConcreteI've been training with a group of people who do <a href="http://www.timeoutabudhabi.com/sportandoutdoor/features/5205-run-for-it">parkour in downtown Abu Dhabi</a>. I'm probably the worst jumper they've ever seen, but it's still the highlight of my week to show up and sweat through their grueling conditioning routines. <br />
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I'm astounded how great I feel during and after exercise. It was a tough week. My time log says that I spent an average of 12 hours working every day. On Friday, I drag myself to parkour, and after a few sets of push ups, suddenly the whole world is beautiful. I notice the sky. For the first time I see the birds soaring around the skyscrapers. All my insides are smiling. Yay, endorphins. <br />
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After parkour, we walked to the skate park (I knew there was a skate park somewhere Abu Dhabi, I just didn't know that it was that close.) There was a competition going on -- skate boarding, roller blades, and bmx bikes. Two things happened that were very interesting.<br />
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1) There was only one girl in the competition. She was on roller blades and she was AWESOME. She would fly up these high ramps, flip through the air and land on the other side, or she would float, dive into a hand stand, pose, then continue skating. As a girl who is frustrated by her lack of innate ability to jump, it was really inspiring.<br />
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2) The skate park was full of teenagers, and fights kept breaking out in the audience. Whoa. It was really out-of-place. Never seen anything like it in Abu Dhabi. They keep stopping the competition to break up the fights. They called in the police, who arrived right when I was leaving. Somehow the fights made Abu Dhabi seem more real. It's not just a giant bubble of sterile skyscrapers and malls. It has angsty teenage kids who get into fights. One of the many parts of Abu Dhabi I know nothing about.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-27329721991805727502009-10-14T06:31:00.050+04:002009-10-20T10:18:14.123+04:00Certified Abu Dhabi Ramble<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">After residing here for about 7 months, I present you with a compilation ofAbu Dhabi random facts.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Abu Dhabi literally translates to "Father of the Gazelle." It is the name of both an Emirate and a City. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country. An emirate is kind of like a state. So, it's like the United States of America, just substitute "Emirates" for "States" and "Arab" for "America."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Emirate of Abu Dhabi takes up something like 80% of the landmass of the UAE. It's a big emirate. Dubai is the next door emirate. Dubai is the place with the tallest building in the world, the man-made islands in the shape of palm trees and countries, the indoor ski resort. All the stuff you've probably heard of. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thus, Dubai is at the edge of everyone's tongue. "How's Dubai?" They ask. I say, "Abu Dhabi's great." I don't think most people notice. Dubai's the one that gets all the world press. They have better PR. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">[Abu Dhabi/Dubai confusions don't bother me. Just don't conflate them if you're arranging airplane transit...]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Besides having all the land, Abu Dhabi also has the large majority of the oil money. About 95% of the oil in all the UAE, which is about 9% of the world's oil reserves. Crazy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Abu Dhabi's economy is built on oil. Dubai's economy is built on tourism, finance, and real estate. Thus, Dubai screams louder for world attention, because the success of its economy depends on the world noticing it. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi relaxes in its pool of oil and money. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To be fair, Abu Dhabi realizes that its pool of oil and money will not always be there. They are working towards muscling up their tourist attractions and also building a "knowledge economy" instead, like Boston (biotech central) or Silicon Valley. <a href="http://www.masdar.ac.ae/">Masdar</a> (where I am) is a large part of this master plan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Abu Dhabi has the highest per capita energy use in the world. And the highest per capita carbon footprint. (Yes, they even beat the good ol' USA.) Not to mention the highest per capita water consumption. (It's all linked, really. All the water here needs to be desalinated, which requires lots of energy.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I wonder if I get points for being a fuel locavore here--all the petro-fuel in the buses I ride around in was produced only a few miles away. Local consumption, right? Hahahaha...I'm just kidding...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">You'll also be happy to know that the city of Abu Dhabi has over 2,000 mosques. I swear there's one every block, which makes sense because the majority of the population prays 5 times a day. (I really like hearing the call to prayer ring through the streets...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Less than 20% of the population are local. More than 80% are expatriates. From the Filipino cashier to the Pakistani taxi driver, and the Ugandan security guard, it's quite apparent this is a major destination for people who want to make money to send back to their families. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But perhaps the most fascinating facet of Abu Dhabi is that it didn't exist 40 years ago. Rather, there was a village of grass huts and about 1,500 residents. It became a ghost town during the oppressive summer heat - residents would ride for days by camel to Al Ain, a nearby town with cooler temperature and more shade. (It takes an hour to drive to Al Ain today.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Today, Abu Dhabi is a gleaming city of skyscrapers thick with six-lane rivers of traffic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The fascinating part is that so much of the oil wealth was distributed throughout the local population During the early oil wealth years under Sheikh Zayed, bundles of money (literally) were given to locals to help infuse the local economy with the wealth rolling in. Apparently, <b>"it was not uncommon to see local people walking out of the banks carrying cardboard boxes full of cash on their heads,"</b> according to Mohammed Al-Fahim, who wrote an autobiography about growing up in pre-oil Abu Dhabi and the changes that came afterward.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Actually, the giving away bundles of money thing happened more than once. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Al-Fahim notes that each time it led to a "frenzied buying spree fueled by the oil wealth." Some people invested wisely - built a nice house -- others blew it all on few flashy cars that became worthless in a few years. Some people were really smart and opened car dealerships. In fact, Al-Fahim's dad was in the car business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To give you an idea of the kind of explosive growth Abu Dhabi has experienced, imagine this: in 1966 his father sold about 200 tires. The next year he sold 10,000 tires. A 5000% increase. Al-Fahim himself took on the family business and described what it was like to import cars and have them snatched off his hands when they rolled off of barges onto the still undeveloped sandy coastline. If a buyer wanted a vehicle, "they would stuff bundles of cash into my hands, slip into the driver's sear and drive away in their new car."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Between describing the hardships of living in the desert and how the locals worked hard to scratch out a living, Al-Fahim off-handedly mentions, "Naturally, there was no domestic help as there is today."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In what other country has the local population gone from walking miles for brackish water to hired help as the norm? I would bet that in the overwhelming majority of countries that discover oil, the wealth only reaches the wealthiest, most powerful top sliver of the population. In this case, it reached everyone, who then turned into the wealthiest, most powerful sliver as the population boomed when more people arrived.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The government of Abu Dhabi certainly looks after its locals. Sheikh Zayed was known for his generosity and compassion, and I think he's left an admirable legacy. If you're local, and you get married, the government gives you a house. If you want to study abroad, the government will pay for your tuition. (And it's common to hear people say, "There's no such thing as a poor Emirati.")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I first arrived here, I resented a lot of the laws that favor the local Emiratis - double/triple salaries for locals over foreigners doing the same job, only locals can own land here, if you want to open a business, you need a local partner. Not that I want to buy land or start a business here, -it just seemed like an uber elite high society making rules to maintain its own eliteness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But now I'm impressed by how Sheikh Zayed set up regulations like these to ensure that the wealth benefited the locals, that the money from oil circulated in the local economy and didn't go straight to the pockets of foreign businessmen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It was really smart at the beginning, but these days, if Abu Dhabi really wants to become a "knowledge economy" they'd be wise to be more supportive of immigrants. In my personal opinion, immigration is a huge plus for innovation. The US is arguably the most innovative country in the world (the oil industry, electricity, the internet all have their roots in the US) and I think that a significant reason is because the US is a nation of immigrants. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When different cultures mix, it becomes a more fertile ground for innovative ideas to break forth. (For more details, read The Medici Effect. Also, here's a Harvard paper that explores the links between immigrants to how innovative cities are--hat tip <a href="http://bopreneur.blogspot.com/">BoPreneur</a>. "Immigrants are very important for US invention, representing 24% and 47% of the US scientist and engineer workforce," while the rest of the US workforce is only 12% immigrants...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Finally, this ramble post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0aEtNH1NyY">robots are an important part of camel races in the UAE</a>. Once, camel jockeys were lightweight, starved children, but the UAE outlawed this practice and the children have been since replaced with robots that are essentially a remote-controlled hand drills attached to a riding crop. Technology to the rescue. <br />
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</span>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-84204521155608388812009-10-13T10:37:00.006+04:002009-10-20T10:41:50.728+04:00Tick tick tick<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Huh. There go my empty zen days. Guess I'm a student again, grinding out problem sets. I feel like a lower life form. <br />
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</div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have no time for thesis research. GROWL.</span>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-8225861557318073172009-10-01T18:14:00.000+04:002009-10-01T18:23:55.651+04:00Alternative Energy Myths<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Tim recently sent me an awesome article from Foreign Policy: <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/12/seven_myths_about_alternative_energy">Seven Myths About Alternative Energy</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Several points stood out for me...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Nuclear is super expensive and take a long time to implement. Amory Lovins estimates that nuclear costs 3 times what wind power does.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There's a lot of people running after developing sexy new technologies (sigh...biofuel...), while focusing on unglamorous efficiency has the potential to cut 20% to 30% of the world's energy consumption by using technology that's already widely available. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Efficiency</span> also does not ask people to change their lifestyles -- it finds ways to do the same activities with less energy, as opposed to <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">conservation</span>, which asks people to cut back on activities to preserve energy. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">For example, power companies make more money when consumers use more electricity and they need to build more power plants. However, California has implemented measures to decouple consumer electricity use from the energy company profits. Thus, companies have been enabled to work with consumers to reduce energy consumption.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">As a result, electricity use per capita in California has remained flat over the past 3 decades, while in the rest of the US, it has jumped 50%.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Here at Masdar, there's lots of plans afoot to experiment with different techniques of enabling people in the city to use less energy. I think an important part is giving a clear signal to individuals about how much energy they are using. For example, imagine a small number display next to each appliance that displays the energy use/cost.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I think that most people want to use less energy, but there's a wide range of how far out of their way people are willing to go to use less energy. If the default option is "use less energy", if it's the easiest path, then the majority of people will take it. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The sustainability movement needs more <a href="http://boranj.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/persuasive-technology/">persuasive technology</a>, or rather, persuasive applications of the technology we already have.</span>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-26214079411489236042009-09-28T19:57:00.000+04:002009-09-28T20:39:21.180+04:00Imli!<div style="text-align: left;">DOUBLE BACKFLIP AWESOME TRIP. We managed to check off quite a number of typical India experiences:</div><div><ul><li>Filled out lots of paperwork. India sure likes paperwork for every occasion. And tea. Chai and paperwork at every turn.</li><li>Traveled by rickshaw, taxi, train, car, foot...dodged cows, goats, dogs, and monkeys</li><li>Leafed through dusty books at the IIT Delhi campus library</li><li>Visited Humayon's tomb (wow...), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_Minar">Qutb Minar</a> [jaw hits floor] and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi">iron pillar</a> (modern day mystery, it's been standing 1600 years and hasn't rusted...supposedly scientists have been unsuccessful in duplicating the alloy)</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFvlW_38sq1Ji6L-QVHq0KRICI0f_MUKhP_XoM53Vqkdx1Xr45_CcfTgfBJgFmvczB3uc2lDm8CM51YXUYjoYDFU-8CC3icDGVaWZslcchVg8pnU31VsDDMP7zU2fT5y65Iq6Ajg/s320/96-HUMAYUN'S+TOMB.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386549861837071890" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Humayun's Tomb - didn't have camera, image stolen from </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><a href="http://blogtrotta.blogspot.com/2009/01/humayuns-tomb.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">here</span></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjANrzmYauNVUklAz0ayXAQUq1HFlYBs4foqZYhgXYYoDf3KnBO_K5bZaE9XBB6dtNk_oKuNTS2g4ZRp9LatXzf7jP5QgLQkT0AV3jN8K1R8u9SoQY5-GNm_fSE5n8nzpUI4pYsVg/s320/qutb_minar.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386552989536246514" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Qutb Minar, I took 7,000 photos, it's absolutely stunning. And apparently attracts more visitors than the Taj Mahal</span></div><div><ul><li>Talked shop with some incredible social entrepreneurs</li><li>Met a Bollywood Star (Shilpa Shukla from Chak De! India)</li><li>Ate lots of home-cooked Indian food</li><li>Ate lots of Indian food in roadside stalls (Chantar Mantar Dosa Wala in Delhi is fantastic)</li><li>Ate in an American Diner</li><li>Visited urban tuberculosis treatment micro centers in Muradabad</li><li>Journeyed north to visit villages in the Kumaon region - foothills of the Himalayas</li><li>Yoga (of course)</li><li>Saw grassroots silk worm farming in action</li><li>Received surprise aura healing by an Indian gentleman who earlier took two seconds to go from talking about uber-accounting to the importance of opening one's self like a flower to other people</li><li>Followed our Sikh rickshaw driver on a tour through a Sikh temple</li><li>Quested out to buy some tabla</li><li>Dropped in on a surprise birthday party</li><li>Swung through a night Bengali festival</li><li>Decided that airports are always the worst part of the trip</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>Our trip originally had three main purposes:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Meet up with <a href="http://www.avani-kumaon.org/">Avani</a>. Avani does great work. For my Master's thesis, I'm working to help them with their plans to use pine needles to create electricity and high quality cooking fuel to mountain villages.</div><div><br /></div><div>2) Meet up with <a href="http://www.envergenttech.com/">Envergent</a>. Honeywell is developing a flash pyrolysis process to convert biomass to electricity. They're interested in rural applications.</div><div><br /></div><div>3) Meet up with <a href="http://s01.opasha.org/">Operation Asha</a>. My advisor, Scott, volunteers with a foundation that works on fighting tuberculosis and they recently partnered with Operation Asha, a fiesty, innovative new tuberculosis organization.</div><div><br /></div><div>wow. wow. wow.</div><div><br /></div><div>Avani is incredible. They do so many things right. Imagine a <a href="http://www.barefootcollege.org/">Barefoot College</a> Campus in the foothills of the Himalayas, 100% powered by renewable energy. Water is collected from rain and stored in multi-thousand gallon tanks. Local women dye silk and wool with natural colors and weave them into breathtaking patterns that are marketed and sold to wealthy consumers. Avani workers "leave their caste at the gate" and live, work, eat together. Extraordinarily delicious local ingredient food for every meal. It has all my favorite elements: </div><div><br /></div><div>1) AWESOME people</div><div>2) Cash flow from outside into a rural community (usually money only trickles out as the poor by products, it's hard to find good examples of good cash flow coming in)</div><div>3) Renewable energy, eco-conscious (goes straight to my eco-puritan heart) </div><div>4) Heart-stopping scenery </div><div>5) Great food</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm way too excited about the pine needle gasification project to stop and type about it now. It has so much potential I think about it non-stop these days. </div><div><br /></div><div>I feel so blissfully lucky -- I met Rajnish (co-founder) and Chanchal (lead technician) at <a href="http://www.iddsummit.org/">IDDS</a> this summer. Then everything fell into place, almost of its own accord. It felt like one day I was bubbling to Scott about how great it would be to work with Avani on their gasification project, I blinked and we were riding up the twisty roads into the mountains of Uttarankhand.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdOA1zyZWrmB1rgKWIowjRezANS3YV8B1q2wptiFq_Pt1w1oFwVLwhXlHJiURgP3JVuN9-6vph8OmKOEZxmSXSCGzC0i5nJs_LDGLJsFfQkf4PnCBBRkKIjnz7_jegXzsYvwxVug/s320/IMG_4186.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386553009061946466" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Beautiful lady - all the women I saw in the mountains were stunning, especially the old ladies</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHPbv-AZoInVRifNbzldlT9Z3szHwYgeEC5iARsa1Uoc7CT1RfO7kPjkof4SQ_5Horv6VgjnJSLij8M3Tx00J4nG7AmSD9ZUF2b94f-uqE39ej3eWMAsqoqFVouKSl8lUx8g40uw/s320/IMG_4205.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386553018882436514" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Rice paddies on steep slopes</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8ObOx8IGX_ai1jfylnfU6if-c5rf2wB4zuSw_orvqWzhpvUbcXr8G1VlmkQxrBbhbFt3FBKGEAiCNw0edPlkl1Kx-9FU69yCys0ZCfnSfhqYF2BdlPK55whRPRcDYaBTuE6K4g/s320/IMG_4172.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386552994980204466" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Avani silk worm farmer. All the leaves inside are crawling with silk worms.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://s01.opasha.org/">Operation Asha</a> is also beyond words. We met Sandeep and Shelly, the founders, and friends of SK. Incredible, wonderful, determined people. Thought it was about time to take a common sense approach to tuberculosis (TB) and they're producing impressive results after only a few years. They build up a network of treatment micro-centers that are accessible and open for long hours so that it's easier for TB patients to come by and take their medicine every day. It could be in a shop, or someone's home. It makes it much easier to reach patients in a cost effective way -- other tuberculosis programs typically spend $300/patient while Asha does a better job for $15/patient. I'll describe the Operation Asha strategy more in depth in a future blog entry, it's quite fantastic. (Their website is a bit clunky at the moment, but trust me, they're phenomenal.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, I liked India a lot. </div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-91969773561476192262009-09-19T05:36:00.000+04:002009-09-28T07:14:37.777+04:00Deviations on a theme<div style="text-align: left;">Today I woke, sat up, and found myself staring at ancient stone tombs, a wide lake and [gasp] greenry everywhere. I probably should not have accepted that drink from that weird guy by the boat docks last night...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi2ue5pTAH_R9-zAD4KrFfLe6vYgntGDKISBleKYXzMO4y_oLNActJliGuWDn35g4ypN9LJHKR3_9d3bop-RYEfUxmLcxrOnnG_u855WmO_Umsz4_mTvSAIIoZ3Feg19oZ8yexdQ/s400/morning.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386336383156863778" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Errrr, rather, Ramadan is ending soon, which means that there's a school break for Eid, the end of Ramadan. Scott Kennedy, a Masdar professor who's my thesis advisor, and I thought it would be a good time to travel out to India to set up some projects. Visas, tickets, paperwork all came together at the last moment and much earlier this morning we arrived in New Delhi (only a 3 hr flight from Abu Dhabi) jumped in a taxi, then managed to scramble on foot through some twisting alleyways to find the apartment of one of Scott's old friends. It was still dark, so we all fell asleep again, and woke up to one of the best apartment views I've ever seen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Delhi has a talent for whirring modern traffic life around solemn ancient monuments. I suppose I expect ruins to be out in the jungle somewhere, not cosying up to apartment complexes. </div><div><br /></div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15902981.post-41019888870678888142009-09-02T09:02:00.000+04:002009-09-02T10:24:50.174+04:00I chew fufu<div>IDDS 2009 is over. I can't believe we pulled that off. Definitely the craziest venture I've ever been a part of. More participants this year, more organizers, less funding, we moved to a foreign country for the first time, added in 3 sets ofvisits to 10 different villages, my hat is off to the people who were muscling the logistics this year.</div><div><br /></div><div>This year's list of projects include:</div><div><ul><li>Batteries made from aluminum cans, salt water, charcoal, and copper wire (they powered a 12 LED lantern or a radio from a six pack of batteries!)</li><li>A device for producing chlorine from table salt and water with pedal power (for clean drinking water)</li><li>Various tools for making it easier for rural women peanut farmers to remove peanuts from the roots of the plant</li><li>A rice threshing wheel of doom </li><li>A novel way to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables by absorbing their rotting gases with corn cobs</li></ul></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div>I'm in charge of posting all the project reports on Appropedia. I'll post here when that's done if you feel like browsing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I'm back again in Abu Dhabi, where it's quite clear Masdar and IDDS are at opposite ends of the spectrum.</div><div><br /></div><div>Abu Dhabi is empty. In Boston, every night there were at least 7 different tempting options to choose between - talks, dances, bike rides, late night meetings, music, theatre, capoeira, drumming. In contrast, there is little to do in here Abu Dhabi, I spend a lot of time alone in my room...which can be very pleasant, in a Zen way. <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html">Limited choices = happiness.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>In Abu Dhabi there is more time for reflection, for thinking about where I've been and where I want to go. I'm better at keeping in touch with my parents, and I'm working more on my music-reading skills and learning bits of new languages like Arabic and French. At the Masdar Institute, I spend all day doing self-directed research on renewable energy in developing regions. I love it. My advisor is amazing, and I have a ton of control over which direction I go, which means I have tons of room to learn things I've always wanted to know. I also exercise nearly every day, which balances the zombied feeling caused by spending all my working hours staring at a laptop. I sleep well, I eat well, I breathe a lot. I suppose I have more time and space to balance myself overall. </div><div><br /></div><div>IDDS is fullfullfull. Chaos, merriment, frustration, triumph, mad wild excitement, exhaustion. When I'm at IDDS, I don't have a self anymore, there is only IDDS. </div><div><br /></div><div>No time to talk to parents, my eating habits are horrible, exercise is infrequent, and sleep comes in snatches where I can grab it. I also have very little control over what I do or where I go -- it's all determined by IDDS or what needs to be done to help IDDS happen. It's hard to take care of myself, but the tradeoff is working intensively with so many awesome people on amazing projects. IDDS people are incredible.</div><div><br /></div><div>A random sampling: Patricia Tarwali started a school in Sierra Leone, and now she also teaches welding to girls. Bernard Kiwia is a bike mechanic-turned-inventor from Tanzania. Gago Cadan is a yak herder from Tibet, who has also started his own school for nomadic kids (and likes to sing Tibetan songs while wandering through the hall.) Benjamin Dankwa is a farmer from central Ghana. <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/eva-foam-art-accessories-carla-tennenbaum.php">Carla Tennenbaum</a> is an internationally recognized artist from Brazil who makes art with EVA waste. And of course, Suprio Das, an inventor from India who was my co-conspirator on our IDDS team this year, it was awesome to be able to work alongside him. (These photos taken by Nathan Cooke.)</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6NqCi7Dp-YI5pWZiFL2ArnFLTlRUYeYuHypQZOQzenkp2J_YYSDcQad7pEPRmHI1wlWNm0ucuqmUekPp4fr9bHXBeiCQNmKdtUyfgs0IXyyw4_ruGjYl_ME2OKk5bd8OUkcTCg/s1600-h/20090707_Errands_004.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6NqCi7Dp-YI5pWZiFL2ArnFLTlRUYeYuHypQZOQzenkp2J_YYSDcQad7pEPRmHI1wlWNm0ucuqmUekPp4fr9bHXBeiCQNmKdtUyfgs0IXyyw4_ruGjYl_ME2OKk5bd8OUkcTCg/s320/20090707_Errands_004.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376742471721243762" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></a><div style="text-align: center; ">Bernard, IDDS veteran</div></div><div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2gDARI_QuZAOdGvoon7Hq0jkhD1zt67DhFJS34Abf2LuiwBLj61O0lrI3ixhOCSvTgoXlTrM4CmGhpN-ejZ-bNjz3PG4EAlD80nMQdVm1HEzTqwFaC_y4RTnF2IHf-zlMIc6yIw/s1600-h/20090804_AdumkromGoodbye_002.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2gDARI_QuZAOdGvoon7Hq0jkhD1zt67DhFJS34Abf2LuiwBLj61O0lrI3ixhOCSvTgoXlTrM4CmGhpN-ejZ-bNjz3PG4EAlD80nMQdVm1HEzTqwFaC_y4RTnF2IHf-zlMIc6yIw/s320/20090804_AdumkromGoodbye_002.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376745683395270610" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Suprio, as himself.</div><br /></div><div>It is essential that I take a moment to share a few of my favorite Suprio quotes:</div><div><br /></div><div>"Hello, my name is Suprio. I like animals. Humans, too." </div><div><br /></div><div>"I look like a bacteria."</div><div><br /></div><div>Even though this is the third year I've gone through IDDS, I'm still surprised by how much I've learned. Every year it becomes richer. After the first year, I was ecstatic. After the second year I was depressed and burnt out. (More responsibilities, more stress.) After this year, I feel burnt out, but content, and excited about the future of IDDS. In summer 2010, IDDS will be in Colorado, collaborating with <a href="http://bopreneur.blogspot.com/">Paul Hudnut</a> and Brian Wilson at the <a href="http://www.biz.colostate.edu/gsse/pages/default.aspx">Global Social & Sustainable Enterprise</a> program at Colorado State University. The focus will be to take technologies developed over the past 3 IDDS's and build business plans and strategies for dissemination to take them forward. In 2011, IDDS will likely return to Ghana.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, a few more random stories about Ghana:</div><div><br /></div><div>On the first village visit, the Offuman group arrived late at night, crawled out of the vans after a tightly-packed, bumpy, 4-hour ride, and was immediately attacked by army ants. Army ants like to run up your legs as high as they can before they bite you. Which is both hilarious and tragic. It's happened to me once before...when I was in the middle of presenting to Peace Corps Zambia volunteers about drip irrigation and standing in the wrong patch of grass.</div><div><br /></div><div>The chief of Asampu said our IDDS group was "bringing fun to the village!" That is so cool. We spent a lot of time running around, trying to learn as much as we could by helping women pound fufu, or shell corn, or carry firewood. And playing with kids. Hopscotch, itsy bitsy spider, and learning neat things like this game that all the kids all over Ghana know that involves jumping, kicking, and clapping. I had a lot of practice carrying things on my head, but I'll never be as graceful as a Ghanaian woman.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPOrckg5JB7g5tRc8RnV6KbLbQ2-bdvGjQUxhnAaW9bBp6EVapX65fgzVwGrk2IgNJdat71RkPHLvnrrRnRwIPrhqM3pEi8dOpVVS_CeaN13msE8BdD_PBOsGEXU2DLjvWeqHjeQ/s320/DSC_0268.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376750296645836498" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Amy Smith named me as a co-founder of IDDS during the opening ceremony. That's very generous of her. I was mostly in the right place at the right time to help out when IDDS started forming in her mind. The incredible vision and talent to find the resources to make it happen were 100% Amy Smith. This summer I realized that Amy is an entrepreneur right down to her bones-- she builds these grand visions of what she wants to do, and then she has an incredible talent for exciting people to be passionate about building those visions with her. Amy also has a knack for convincing anyone to cheerfully do anything. "Hey guys, I know you want an opportunity to practice your hands-on skills, there's going to be a great easel-making party in the parking lot in 15 minutes!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Ghana has a high degree of entrepreneurship. Seems like everyone and their grandma is selling something by the road or in the markets. There's also a high number of packaged products made in Ghana -- tomato paste, peanut butter, yogurt, water sachets, etc. I was also delighted to find that it's a Ghanaian practice to "dash" - add in something extra. For example, if you agree to buy a bag of tomatoes for 1 cedi, it's very likely that the vendor will also throw in a few extra free tomatoes after you close the deal. </div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmTkKkP2BKAuUWhg0jFiQd5fqzYlELvJsSTmK1_7Kql-9E1eRadD2wM0yZjN2ywFWCrO9VzgaWgNFUhwSTppaG1Z7dJ7bBTZ21E7rnFNu_7x5wWLyqEfKB1vixjFgzkpGDc7skw/s1600-h/IMG_1452.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmTkKkP2BKAuUWhg0jFiQd5fqzYlELvJsSTmK1_7Kql-9E1eRadD2wM0yZjN2ywFWCrO9VzgaWgNFUhwSTppaG1Z7dJ7bBTZ21E7rnFNu_7x5wWLyqEfKB1vixjFgzkpGDc7skw/s320/IMG_1452.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376745687241503138" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Lady selling 7 different kinds of cooking oil made from palm nuts, ground nuts, coconuts, vegetable oil...</div><div><br /></div><div>Everything is late in Ghana -- it's common for hired buses or catered meals to be 1-2 hours late. All the time "wasted" while waiting for things that should have happened hours ago has the unexpected benefit of tons of casual conversations with other IDDS folk. I feel like I met more people and know them a little better than I have in past years.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the villages, I was quite surprised to see a high number of LED flashlights, powered by cheap Chinese batteries. I've always heard "The poor use a lot of kerosene. They should be using LED lighting, which is cheaper and has better quality light. But kerosene is more available and fits their cash flow better, so that's the most popular option." I actually saw very little kerosene use in villages, although it seemed to be a more common choice among street vendors in the city. Turns out 1 coke bottle worth of kerosene (300 mL) costs 1 cedi (about US $0.75) and lasts for about 3 days in a kerosene lantern. However, 4 cheap D-cell batteries cost 1.2 cedis and last for a month. Light for 3 days vs 30 days for roughly the same cost. </div><div><br /></div><div>When visitors come to Ghanaian villages, it's customary to greet the chief, who will always ask "What is your mission?"</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Medase - the Twi word for thank you - literally means, "I lay myself before you."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05771450900786731642noreply@blogger.com0