July 5

It's interesting how life works and the way things come about. The past 2 weeks have been a little slow. I've just been doing research and getting a lot of background knowledge on Unnati and several different Indian governmental programs, called schemes here.

During my down time, I've been hitting the gym and helping coach some kids in boxing. And then sparring with them and some of the other coaches and getting my butt whipped! Oh, it hurts so good!

But, I've also been reading a lot. Yesterday I read "Please Look After Mom" and it really hit home for me. I spent the night and today doing a lot of introspection and then sent my mom a long email. I won't get into it, as that's a little TMI for this blog. But, needless to say, I came out of the experience a better person.

Part of my research today was on drought and drought conditions. It's sad how many villages in India get enough rain from the monsoon every year, but due to abuse of the schemes by people in power who are corrupt, people are still starving and end up dying even though the land they work produces great quantities of food. Some of the worst abuses are taken out on the dallit or harigan communities. You may have a water-lord that refuses to sell them water from a private well he has tapped. The catch is, he is tapping into the communal water table and has cut off the impoverished community's water source. In this manner, poor people end up in bonded labor when they have to continually borrow from the water-lord. They end up losing their land to him and then you have 1 person controlling all the water and all the land, while the poor are left to starve after they work the land for the land/water-lord and give him all the crops.

Anyway, tonight I started a book called "The Giver." Here's a brief description:

"The Giver is a 1993 soft science fiction novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of "Receiver of Memory," the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. When Jonas meets the previous receiver—the "Giver"—he is confused in many ways. The Giver is also able to break some rules, such as turning off the speaker and lying to people of the community. As Jonas receives the memories from the Giver, he discovers the power of knowledge. The people in his community are happy because they don't know of a better life but the knowledge of what they are missing out on could create chaos. He faces a dilemma: Should he stay with the community, his family living a shallow life without love, color, choices and knowledge or should he run away to where he can live a full life?" (Wiki)

So, I had just gotten to the part where Jonas is starting to question the sameness when it started to rain. I don't think I've ever appreciated rain so much. Between the hot days here thus far, the research, the emotional roller coaster from yesterday's book, and then today's reading, the rain was a very, very welcome sight and feel. The water hitting me was wonderful.

OK, so enough rambling! The rest of this week should be pretty mellow-until Sunday that is. Hopefully I can arrange it where one of the boxing coaches, who is also a teacher, is going to take me on a tour inside the slum areas so I can see first hand how some of these kids have to live. I've been counting my blessings daily since I got here, but I have a feeling, come Sunday, I'm going to saying a lot of thank you prayers!