Updates from the Field
Group Update from India
Posted May 17, 2013
Intro
As we depart Banaras, this city, community, family – whatever you want to call it – where we have spent the past seven months, we reflect on what has been most valuable to us, what has challenged us the most, how we have grown, and how we will manage to keep our minds in the present as we hop on the train to Delhi, and then escape the sweltering heat to the awe-inspiring Himalayas in Ladakh. The meat of our year is indisputably here in Banaras: it is the city that has become all of our homes, the city that houses our beloved NGOs , the place where we have built our community. And now, as we find it time to leave, we all take a moment to reflect on how we have changed and grown throughout this year and what it means for us now, moving forward.
For more, click here.
Update from Avaneesh Narla - Peru
Posted May 09, 2013
Healthy Homes in Peru
Luz Maria, 19, of Cotohuinchu, near Urubamba, Peru, is studying to be a Primary School teacher. But she also has to take care of the family. Her mother, Margarita, is blind and weak and can barely do household chores. Her grandfather is a victim of age and bad health and needs someone just to take him out of bed. Luckily she has her older sister, and her cousin has come to help, but conditions are extremely tough. The family has a small house, but has let small rooms out to ten other people in order to survive economically.
As we enter the house, the smoke from the simple open traditional stove that the family uses fills the entire house, even the courtyard. As part of the Healthy Homes project that we work with families to build cleaner burning stoves (officially called qori qoncha or ‘golden stove’ in Quechua), made out of ceramic bricks and tiles, and mud. In this case, we work with Luz Maria and her family along with our Stoves Director, Ober Sallo, to build one such stove, but it promises to be a tough task.
For more, click here.
Group Update from Peru
Posted May 02, 2013
The seventh month of Urubamba marks the end of the rainy season. The mountains, refreshed from their season of rehydration, are a lush green, no doubt an expression of thanks. The rivers are louder, turbulent, coruscating through smooth boulders and waterfalls. Besides this, the town looks much the same. Mototaxis stolidly rumble their way along the narrow streets, the palm trees still flank the main church in the plaza, and homogenous groups of children in their respective uniforms dart along like schools of fish. But something feels distinct, and it isn’t just the blindingly bright days. Of all of the months, the start of April arrived, exalted. Perhaps it’s the fact that April was ushered in by Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Though Easter Sunday itself is very relaxed, the days leading up to it are filled by processions, the tradition of eating Doce Platos or twelve plates of food for each of the apostles, and elaborate alfombras, which literally means rugs, but in this case refers to huge designs that people make on designated parts of the plaza with colored sawdust.
For more, click here.
ALUMNI Update from Chhaya Werner '14, India
Where Bridge Year Can Take You
Posted Apr 15, 2013
When I decided to participate in the Bridge Year program, I knew that in those nine months I would go to a variety of places in India. And indeed, as well as living for seven months in the river-bound city of Varanasi, we travelled to the deserts of Rajastan, the holy city of Ujane, and the marble-crowned tombs in Agra. I also found myself in a range of places within these cities: standing at the front of a classroom packed with elementary-school students, crouched over a pot of rice on the floor of my homestay family’s kitchen, spinning in circles to Bollywood music on the roof with friends. I pressed into an underground temple crammed with worshippers from all over the country, and I sat alone on the steps of the ghats staring out across the Ganga River. I entered monumental stone forts and tiny mud houses, and everywhere I went I found bright colors and strong scents mixed with enduring strength and open-hearted welcome.
For more, click here.
Update from Adrian Tasistro-Hart, Senegal
Posted Apr 03, 2013
Since coming to Senegal, the concept of “development” has cropped up thousands of times. I’ve read about it in The End of Poverty, The White Man’s Burden, The Bottom Billion, and Dead Aid. I’ve heard it in speeches given by various Westerners. And I’ve spent hours talking to Babacar, one of my instructors and a first-hand witness of “development”, or more specifically, attempts at it. But what is it really? During these past six months, my eyes have opened to the complexity of an issue that I had never before thought about. I’m certainly no expert, however, and the limited reading and research that I have done have produced more questions than answers, but here are some of my thoughts anyway:
For more, click here.
Group Update from Senegal
Posted Mar 22, 2013
For our second group update, we created a video that focuses on our travels. After spending four-and-a-half months based in the advancing metropolis of Dakar, we spent two weeks exploring an entirely different atmosphere in Kedougou, a region in southern Senegal. For the first week, we trekked through mountainous forests and dusty grasslands. For the second week, we stayed with families in the rural village of Manthiankany. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of Dakar, we slept in straw huts and experienced the reality of life for the majority of Senegal's population. The video footage was recorded by each one of us and the background music was composed by Stanley. We hope this video gives others insight into our lives here in Senegal.
The students featured in this video are: Abigail Gellman, Nicole Marvin, Stanley Mathabane, Jeremy Rotblat, Jackson Salter, Adrian Tasistro-Hart, and Julianna Wright.
Group Update from China
Posted Mar 12, 2013
Introduction
We came to China for many reasons: to learn or perfect our Mandarin, to challenge ourselves, to be immersed in a new culture, to learn more about Chinese traditions, to commit ourselves to service, and more. Over the past five months we’ve learned so much, but perhaps the most important lessons have come, not in the form of a Chinese class, or a report written for an NGO, or even a celebration of a Chinese holiday, but rather from the relationships we’ve developed with those around us, whether they be with a host mom, a co-worker, an art teacher, or even a taxi driver. China can seem worlds away from our homes in the West, but when an NGO becomes a family, a village child becomes a little sister, or a taxi driver becomes a friend, we are reminded that even in a country half-way around the Earth, empathy, friendship, and family overcome cultural differences, language barriers, and country borders.
For more, click here.
Update from Nick Sexton - India
Posted Mar 01, 2013
Three mornings a week, I venture to the Muslim quarter for Urdu class. To get to my guru, Salman-ji's home, at around 7:15 in the morning, I bike past the local mall, IP Vijya, which houses the theatre that I frequent to get my fill of Bollywood; past the svaadisht -- delicious -- Kerala Cafe, which has secured a place in my mind as the best purveyor of chole-bhature (a native Punjabi dish) in Banaras; past BABA Black Sheep, a vendor of some of the finest cashmere scarves in Uttar Pradesh, and then a few meters later, my surroundings start to become more starkly Islamic.
The more familiar Hindi signs, written in Devanagari, which is always discernible by the severe straight lines that make each word one, start to transform into the swirls and light dots of Urdu. Instead of being surrounded by signs advertising the best shaakahari khaana -- vegetarian food -- around, I see chickens packed into wooden boxes, while butchers, the sleep having just fled from their eyes, sharpen their knives and cleavers.
For more, click here.
Group Update from India
Posted Feb 15, 2013
When people from home ask us what exactly we're doing in India, oftentimes it's difficult to explain. Of course, there's plenty of exploring, chai drinking, and Bollywood movie watching, but the bulk of our time is spent at our service sites. Five to six days a week, eight hours a day, each of us venture into our private Banarasi worlds: our work sites - the places where we've both encountered the greatest challenges and had the most fulfilling successes since coming to India. The experience we each have at of our service site is unique, but for everyone, it is an experience that greatly colors our time in India. The answer, therefore, to what exactly we're doing in India isn't in the chai drinking, the Bollywood movies, or the daily adventures we have. It's in our service sites and in the things we've learned from them.
For more, click here.