Weather Update and my trip up north

On sunday we ventured out to a beach in a town called Malpe. We weren't expecting any good weather, but after a little time the sun came out and it was roasting. The sea was warm and pretty clean so we spend a while in the waves. Later we brought a lot of attention to ourselves by digging a big hole to bury Vidyut in...

We stayed the night in Mangalore and managed to watch some of the Olympics- even staying up til 2am to watch the 100m final. 

Since we got back to Ujire yesterday it has been raining. Non stop, seriously heavy, tropical rain. About 24 hours of it! There was some thunder and lightning last night too which was pretty impressive.

I now understand why everyone has an umbrella round here. I find it quite ironic that having lived most of my life in England and never having bought an umbrella, but on coming to India I've got one after less than a week!

So tomorrow I'm off to a place called Gulbarga which in in the extreme north of Karnataka. I'll be doing a needs assessment and observing cooking habits at a small institution. Should be interesting, though I'm not quite sure what to expect. I'll travel up there with Deepti who is doing some different work in the area, looking at trials of solar fencing, and Robin who's going to assist me (especially with translation!).

Its meant to be a 16 hour bus journey to get there, which isn't a particularly fun prospect, but is a true Indian experience :).

16 hours rattling around in an old bus

First week at SELCO labs

Its nearly the end of my first (6 day - yes we work saturdays) week at SELCO already. Quite a lot has happened.

The massive tree in the middle of the university building

Much of this week has been spent looking into the feasibility of designing an affordable smoke extraction solution for the rural poor. I guess I should give some background to this.

There has been a huge amount of investment into improved cookstoves around the world, it has even become a political issue in many places. Many companies and NGOs have attempted to create scientifically designed "rocket stoves" which burn biomass very efficiently and with reduced levels of smoke and harmful gases as well as supposedly reducing the amount of fuel required. However, there are several problems with these improved stoves and their distribution, which are often overlooked.

There has been a lot of field testing of many types of rocket stoves in urban and rural areas. The reason for differentiation is that cooking habits vary widely in different places and amongst different people groups. Any intervention means changing peoples habits which is incredibly difficult.This is one of many reasons that a "one size fits all" solution is not the answer. It has been proven many times that in real live, the stoves don't come close to their quoted efficiencies which have been measured in a lab or in controlled field tests. In some cases, people who have received these stoves have kept them to use only on special occasions- reverting to their normal 3 stone setup for their usual cooking needs. In some of SELCO's tests in urban areas, users have not understood how to use the stoves properly or their benefits and therefore not been keen to use them. 

After water and sanitation, indoor air pollution is the largest environmental threat to health in developing countries.It is an issue that effects women and children most, but smoke inhalation appears to be a minor issue in the minds of many women who are used to cooking indoors in thick smoke. 

There has been some efforts in the area around Ujire to put improved stoves to use, which have not been particularly successful- but there are still many, many people in this area breathing a lot of smoke.

I've spent a lot of this week looking into cookstoves, but have also been helping others with their projects- testing new solar panels with Vishal, development of some small scale agricultural machinery designs with Seb and looking at small scale biogas collection with Vidyut. 

Me on top of the roof with some solar panels

Seb working on the small scale rice dehusker

We have had time in the evenings to do a few fun things - and have been out for some fantastic meals. My favourite was at a local place called Sapna where we had a delicious 3 course dinner with mango juice for about Rs. 125 each... Thats about £1.50.

We went swimming in a nearby river (much to the upset of our auto-rickshaw driver who later tried to call Seb 3 times to check if we were OK), played a bit of cricket, and taught the Indian guys how to play (touch) rugby.

An evening swim in a nearby river 

Some cricket on the college campus

On monday or tuesday next week I should be going to a place called Gulbarga in the north of Karnataka to check out the cooking setup at a small institution which has asked SELCO to do some consultancy work looking at alternative fuels etc. Not sure how its going to work- and its meant to be a 15 hour trip each way!

Arriving in Ujire

It took 7 long hours of zipping along through the countryside to make it to Ujire where I'll be based for the next 3 months. It was almost impossible to sleep in my tiny bunk as the bus hurtled around corners and avoided brave rickshaw drivers on the bumpy road. I think I managed to drop off a couple of times. Unfortunately one of these times the bag containing my laptop was knocked off the bunk, landing on the floor... What I didn't know was that this had happened to it:

poor laptop :(

Whoops. 

So I arrived in Ujire to the shouting of the bus conductor at around 4:30am. I'd already woken up since I was worried about missing my stop. After I hurriedly got off, I hunted for an auto rickshaw to take me to the university where SELCO's lab is situated. Luckily my driver knew where I wanted to go and got me there nice and quickly so I could meet Seb who, bleary eyed, met me outside the staff accommodation where we are staying with 3 other guys from SELCO. 

The next day, after about 3 hours sleep we were heading off to the nearest city, Mangalore, so the others could pick up some supplies that are scarce in Ujire. I met the other engineering interns at SELCO- Vishal, Vijud and Nishal as well as finally meeting Sam who is a previous EWB volunteer who has now gone on to work as SELCO labs mechanical engineer. 

Mangalore is a bustling town with some big malls as well as small vendors lining the street. Its very different to rural Ujire but its good to know that there is somewhere less than two hours on a bus away   that has places to buy more "unusual" items like pasta, or toilet roll. It was another bumpy ride. 

One thing that struck me about arriving in the countryside was the change in climate. Its much warmer and far more humid than Bangalore, which is situated at about 3000ft altitude. Rains can start and stop very abruptly, and soak you through instantly. We've had a couple of days of good sunshine but I now understand why locals always carry an umbrella with them, just in case! 

Back at the apartment later gave me a chance to see around the University campus - SDM Institute of Technology. The students were on holiday when I arrived so it was quieter than normal. After a week here, its a fair assessment that this university is quite different to what I'm used to... and perhaps even quite different to other universities in India.

the view from the university buildings

My first few days in India

I arrived in Bangalore last Friday at 5am. Confident on the exterior but mildly apprehensive, I stepped out the airport, concerned about the high chance getting lost in the 3rd biggest city in India with only a few printed out Google maps, some contact details and marginally faulty British mobile phone. After failing to make it to SELCO's Bangalore office, I managed to get a auto-rickshaw driver to take me to the hotel I was going to be staying at that night. I crashed out when I got there due to getting no sleep on the plane and 2 hours later grabbed my maps and valuables and started to walk to the office, sadly too late to avoid a huge downpour of warm tropical rain.

My first trip on an auto rickshaw

I spent most of the day at the office, meeting people, calling Sam at the Ujire office, getting an introduction to SELCO and eating my first south indian meal: some kind of veg curry and rotis (like a thin dry naan). Tasty and spicy, but difficult getting the hang of eating with my hand.

Back at the hotel, I went out in search of something to eat and found a guy who made delicious kati rolls which are a street food which supposedly originated in Kolkata. I set my alarm for 1am to be awake to watch the Olympic games opening ceremony (with entertaining Indian commentary).

At the office the next day I met with Shruthi who was an architecture student doing an internship with SELCO looking into cookstoves. She shared plenty of information about cookstoves in both urban slums and rural poor areas. As it came towards lunch time I was invited to a celebration meal at a local temple which was being held by Harish Hande, SELCO's founder. I met an American guy called Headley who'd been in Bangalore for a year and a half and a girl called Surabhi who is from Bangalore and has been working at SELCO since she came back from doing her masters in London. 

It was my first visit to an Indian temple so I found it refreshing to have a walk around- it was extremely peaceful compared to the mad hustle and bustle in Bangalore (although it was situated in a very smart neighborhood). Later we were asked to come for food. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect - or what to do. As we sat down we were each given a large banana leaf, and the caterers promptly started to dish out many types curries and exotic mixtures of coconut milk, spices and rice onto them. It was both delicious and slightly baffling, but fortunately I was guided by Headley and Surabhi as to what to do and when! Fortunately Surabhi was there to correct us as I followed Headley into mixing my main course into a dessert bread. 

After lunch, Ananth (who heads up SELCO labs in Bangalore), Surabhi and I got ready to go out to a slum in the city where SELCO has done some work. We were joined by two girls, Danielle from the US and Emi from Finland, who were in Bangalore to look at related projects at another organisation. We were going to look at a SELCO Energy Centre (basically a small building with solar panels on the roof) from which two of the people living there hire out solar lanterns and can offer charging facilities for mobile phones. The energy centre seems to be having a fantastic effect on the slum community. It was interesting to hear that no one buys kerosene any more since they are able to use solar lanterns (although this currently means that they are using plastic bags to light wood fires - which is not ideal in an enclosed space!).We delivered some replacement lanterns and Surabhi spoke to the couple who run the energy centre. The wife demonstrated use of a three stone stove and an improved cookstove which she had help do field testing on. 

A standard 3 stone stove which most people cook on

We were able to understand better the problems with smoke that are encountered when cooking in a slum. The room filled with smoke which stings the eyes. Its hard to believe that people live with several hours each day in these conditions. We later had a quick coffee in a man's house, met lots of lovely smiley children (who mobbed our car as we left) and got pestered by a local drunk.

In a classy french café in UB city

In the evening we went to get some dinner at a place in the centre of Bangalore which had a photo of Gandhi and staff who dress up in old fashioned traditional clothes. To kill some time before my bus to Ujire, Surabhi and I spent some time in UB city, which is incredibly grand and featuring some classy French cafes. Its all owned by the guy who owns the Kingfisher brand - famous for its beer and, bizarrely, a failing airline.

I took an autorickshaw to the office of the bus company to wait for my bus... which was about 45 minutes late. Eventually it arrived and I clambered on to my top bunk of the "luxury" sleeper. It was definitley not long enough for me to lie down- especially not with all my luggage piled up. I got myself as comfortable as possible- ready for the 7 hour overnight trip to rural Ujire.

Flying tomorrow!

Tomorrow I will be flying from Heathrow airport to Bengaluru. The plane will touch down at 4:40am which will give me some time to get past passport control and grab my luggage and take out some cash before tracking down a bus which will take me all the way through the city to a district called JP Nagar. I'm hoping it will be relatively obvious which bus stop I need to get off at, and with lots of luck I will arrive at the SELCO offices at the beginning of the working day.

I'm staying at a hotel for the night not far from the offices, hopefully I will be able to book an overnight bus for Saturday evening and get on my way to Ujire then.On Saturday I should be able to arrange a visit to an urban slum- going with some Indian interns who have been working on improved cookstoves in the Bangalore area. They have set up some prototype stoves there which should be very useful for me to see before I crack on with my projects from the labs in Ujire. 

Currently I am furiously packing while at the same time moving out of my house in Cambridge.. Lots to do and little time to do it in!

Why am I doing this?

On request by one of my good friends, I am writing a post about why I have chosen to go to India on this placement... Which is a very good question. What are my motivations?

In no particular order, here are some of the reasons why:

• I'd like to use my skills in engineering to benefit people who haven't had the same opportunities I have 
• I believe that all people are equal and should not be disadvantaged just because they happened to grow up in a certain part of the world
• I love meeting new people from different cultures and getting some understanding of how they live
• I think that providing people with skills and opportunities to develop their own solutions to problems is a far better way to help the poor than simply dishing out aid.

I think that's a good summary of what motivates me to do something like this. What are your thoughts?  Does this make sense?

I'm interested to know how these ideas change and develop while I am away. I want to learn more about how I can combine the engineering skills I have learned with my passion to really practically help those less fortunate than myself. 

It's now just over a week before I head off so there's a fair few things to get going with. I'm back in Birmingham over the weekend to be best man at a friend's wedding. 

In general, I'm feeling quite prepared but also expecting to be challenged in all sorts of unexpected ways during my time away...

Now to get on with some packing..

Perhaps I need to get some more sun cream...

Not long before I go!

Today I finally got the chance to speak to Sam who is a British guy who has been working at SELCO labs for nearly a year now. He has been on holiday in the UK for a few weeks and heads back to Bengaluru tomorrow. It was great to have a chance to talk about some of the practical things before I go. Seb, the other EWB- UK volunteer has now arrived in India and should be on his way to Ujire now. Here is a link to his blog.

I'm going to arrive very early in the morning on the 27th July in the bustling city of Bangalore. My first task will be to find SELCO's offices and track down a man named Anath.

its in there somewhere....

I should be able to book an overnight bus to Ujire while I'm there (I think it takes 7-8 hours). I'm told that taking the night bus is better since they can be crazy drivers and its best to try and sleep though it than think about it too much!