Hawa Mahal, or the wind palace, in the Pink City of Jaipur. Where the ladies of the city would look out onto the town without being seen in times past.
The seat of power in Delhi. Lots of other cool stuff like the red fort in Delhi too.
The Taj Mahal. Not much to say here. The world's most famous monument to love. Very ethereal and beautiful.
Again, it's been a bit since I last posted. Since then some things have happened of note.
1) Rohitash and Gopal set up another bank account to which Shishir from NSS could transfer funds electronicaly, with no need for the dreaded month in transport via snail mail. The second quarter's funds reached them in 2 weeks, instead of 3 months, so this is an enormous improvement over the last transfer. The last transfer was particularly bad, but all transfers thus far have taken 1-2 months, so this is a very positive change. It will take financial stress off of Rohitash and Gopal, who are dedicated and hard working in the field, but nonetheless have families to take care of. It will also allow continuous field work with no interruptions due to funds not arriving. I am very happy that we now have a mechanism for quick and easy money transfer.
2) I am in preparation for going to India with Meg at the end of May. As a part of this I have set up a meeting with Shishir and Girish from NSS, the agency that directs our funds and makes sure our work is going through cleanly and transparently (this monitoring is basically required by Indian law for the first three years of operation). We will meet in Delhi to discuss how field operations have gone thus far and how we can continue to improve communication and the smoothness of our operation. We will also probably talk a bit about other funding sources, since NSS is actually a big organization involved in lots of nonprofit work in India and so have experience with finding funding. My goal is to have Rohitash and Gopal find at least half of their funding from funding agencies within and outside of India within, say 5 years. I know they are capable and will be able to set up the proper interconnects if I facilitate with some of my funds and English proficiency. I look forward to this agenda setting meeting. It will be interesting and fun.
3) Meg and I have our plan for India pretty well now. We think at the beginning we'll be in Delhi and will see a few things there (when I'm not meeting with Girish and Shishir). Then we'll go the Taj Mahal for one day, before heading down to Rajasthan. We'll spend around 10 days there, most of it in the village area monitoring the work currently being carried out. However, we'll also stop into Jaipur for a couple days to pick out wedding rings and see the host family I with whom I stayed 4 years ago. They are a wonderful and kind family and I greatly look forward to seeing them. I think Meg is also excited to see many of the wonderful things I have told her about, and I'm sure other things she has read and learned about in her study of history. I think it is going to be a great time, to be with friends in India and to imbibe the local culture, as well as to work on our work of microcredit and technology education. I am very excited by the prospects.
That's about it for now. I'll try to write at least one more post before we head out to India. Hope you all are well.
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