Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Fright before departure

I found myself asking a strange question today...what do most people do the day before they leave the country for a month?  I considered the people I am traveling with and their most recent e-mails.  I'm pretty sure someone was fretting over a converter.  Someone else was probably sitting on her suitcase trying to get it to zip, and at least one person was looking though India guide books to figure out what to do during free time.

What did I do?  I woke up and thought, "Oh my goodness, I have to clean my house."  My cousin is house sitting for me while I am gone, and he's not that particular about cleanliness, but there is a possibility that some relatives from up North will need to stay a night or two in late July.  So, I spent six hours cleaning my house, and I didn't get done.  I had driven my animals to my Mom's house, so I took the time to do some deep cleaning knowing that my animals wouldn't mess it up.  In retrospect, this may not have been the best idea.  It was 3:00 in the afternoon before I even started running the errands I needed to do.  I needed to get cash, run to REI for non-scented shampoo (to keep bugs away), run to the mall for last minute make-up, etc.  After those errands, I was meeting friends for dinner, and then finally I could come home and pack.

I began to feel a little stressed, and when I get stressed I don't always pay close attention to detail.  Take today for example, I started my errands by driving through the ATM for some cash.  While the machine was processing, I was planning my route for the rest of the errands.  Naturally, they were all over the city rather than conveniently located near one another.  Once the machine popped out my cash, I grabbed it and took off.  It was 20 minutes later that I realized my ATM card was still in the machine.  This is where the "fright" of the day occurred.  In the 21st century, ATM cards are the way to travel.  Just get to your destination and find an ATM.  You don't have to worry about standing in line, showing passports, or conversion fees (although there is an international fee from your home country and the visiting country).  I immediately began to panic.  I don't have my credit cards set up to give me cash, so how was I going to get cash while in India...for a whole month?

I drove back to the bank, and talked to some really nice Bank of America employees (shout out) who very calmly and efficiently helped me out.  They canceled my old card, and got me set up with a temporary card.  They even activated it for me before I left the bank.  I immediately took my cell phone out in the parking lot and called to notify the official record keepers that I will be in India, and it appears that I am all set.  It was two hours later before I calmed down enough that my hands weren't shaking and it no longer felt like someone was wringing out my intestines. 

Needless to say, I was ready for some drinks with friends over a great dinner.  It was a great dinner, and the drinks were welcomed!  They only nagged me a couple of times for not being packed, and the evening ended when someone said, "In 13 hours your cousin will be picking you up to take you to the airport, shouldn't you go home and pack?"

It took me a little less than two hours to get everything packed, weighed, carry-on situated, and snacks shoved in every spare nook (I'm not wild about Indian food...Delhi belly scares me).  I needed my big bag to meet domestic weight limits since we will have three domestic flights while in India.  I currently meet that if I eat a few snacks, and don't buy a single souvenir until after all the flights.  My carry-on is packed to the brim, so that won't be any help. I did pack extra duffel, so I may just have to eat it and pay the fees for an extra bag.  We'll see how that turns out.

I still have the kitchen floor to mop, the office and the guest bedroom to clean, but I figure they can wait until the morning.

My next post will be from India, so stay tuned!

Monday, June 20, 2011

The non-itinerary

Hello all!  I have had a lot of people (mostly family) ask me some questions:
  1. Where in India will you be going?
  2. What sites will you see?
  3. If you do not get to tour, what will you be doing?
Simple questions right?  The answers are actually not so simple.  Since Fulbright is a government organization, for security reasons we are not allowed to announce where and when we will be going places.  I can tell you after I have already arrived.  For example, I will not get to say, "tomorrow we will be going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal."  Instead I will have to wait until the end of the day and say, "today we got to go to Agra and see the Taj Mahal."  That can be frustrating to both you and me.  So, what I have done below is create a list of places we will be visiting in alphabetical order.  Since the list will mean nothing to most of you, I have also included a map that marks these places.

We will be visiting:
  • Agra
  • Chennai
  • Chittur
  • Fatehpur Sikri
  • Hyderabad
  • Kanchipuram
  • Madurai
  • Mammallapuram
  • New Delhi
  • Vellore
  • Yelagiri Hills
One of the things I have learned about India recently is that spelling differs between people and sources.  So, the spellings I have used are the ones my program director uses.  You may know of these places by different spellings.  I have come to realize it is normal for India.  You have traditional names and spellings of places that families have been using for generations, you have the British names and spellings from their colonial rule, and you have the new "free" India names and spellings.  I just go with it; situation to situation.

Now, on to the next question:  What will you see?.  I will be able to do some touring while we are in India.  For example, in Agra we will see the Taj Mahal.  In Madurai we will see the Meenakshi Temple (very famous), and in both New Delhi and Hyderabad we will be visiting museums and forts.  However, we are not going to India to tour.  We are going to India to explore India's experiences with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  So, that brings up the last question:  If you do not get to tour, what will you be doing?  Well, most of the time we will be making site visits to different non-government organizations (NGOs) designed to meet the MDGs.  Again, I am not allowed to tell you specific details of this until after the fact, but what I have done is comprised a list, separated by MDG, of what we will be doing.  See below:

MDG 1:  Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
  • Site visit on providing care, protection, and adoption of orphaned or abandoned children (tear)
  • Lecture on impacting social issues through citizenship action
  • School visit whose mission is to impact social injustice and economic poverty in urban India
  • Site visit to an organization that works to eradicate poverty in vast areas of the country
  • Site visit to an organization that raises funds to donate to schools to protect children from classroom hunger and address malnutrition
  • Site visit to observe efforts to feed poor children (tear)
MDG 2:  Achieve Universal Primary Education 
  • Visit an organization that works with children of women construction workers, listen to lecture on the program overview, education, health, and nutrition
  • School visit whose mission is to provide quality education for children that will transform them into community leaders
  • Site visit to an organization devoted to promotion of voluntary action research, training and documentation in the overall domain of child development
  • Lecture on a program that works with homeless street children, providing them with shelter and primary education (tear)
  • Site visit to a women's group that promotes development in primary education
  • University lecture on children's educational programs
  • School visit with objectives of increasing school enrollment, attendance, and improved socialization among children of different castes
MDG 3:  Promote gender equality and empower women

  • Site visit and lecture on the development, promotion and dissemination of knowledge about women's roles in society and economic trends that effect women's lives and status
  • Lecture on the Anti-Dowry scheme (although illegal since 1961, this practice is still prevalent and often has cruel consequences)
  • Site visit to a women's group for empowerment of rural/tribal areas
  • Lecture on tribal women and self-help groups
  • Site visit to women's centers for industry
  • University lecture on empowering women through academic excellence, employability, and leadership with social commitment.  Includes women's issues, culture, and development
  • Site visit to an organization with social empowerment through provision of employment of women
  • Site visit on women's entrepreneurship - overview on training women to create business ventures and meet with clients
  • Lectures on historic and cultural roles on women in India and efforts to promote equality
MDG 7:  Environmental Sustainability
  • Lectures on history, preservation, and conservation attempts of historic monuments (will have some touring involved and these will be done in several locations)
  • Site visit to a center for environmental improvement and protection in India
  • Site visit to an organization for sustainable agriculture
  • Visit several World Heritage Sites (sites that the United Nations mandates preservation for their cultural or natural heritage that is considered to have outstanding universal value)
  • Visit a bird sanctuary
  • Site visit to a state department and lecture on projects undertaken to ensure environmental and ecological stability of the state
  • Site visit to an organization for organic agriculture and sustainable living
  • Site visit to a pollution control board - overview of water quality, emission standards, air pollution, and public awareness programs
MDG 8:  Develop a Global Partnership for Development
  • United Nations lecture - success in achieving the MDGs
  • Lecture in which Indian scholars speak on economic development
  • Embassy lecture on activities in India and discussion of development
  • Site visit to an organization promoting rural development
  • Site visit to a center for an overview of initiatives undertaken to manage socioeconomic ventures that help local communities
  • University lecture/discussion on Indian development in the past 50 years
Are you tired of reading yet?  It just took me over an hour to type all of that (of course I also had to flip though papers to find everything).  As you can see, our month in India will be jam packed and intense. We will have free time in a couple of the bigger cities like New Delhi and Chennai.  So, I will be bringing my trusty Frommer's guide to help me pick the additional places I want to see (note to my brother - the bookstore did not have a Rick Steves guide).

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Mission

This is the second post that is not actually about my experiences, but is instead background information about the Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad program (F-H GPA).  It has taken me so long to post this because, frankly, I had know idea what the trip was really about.  I knew the sponsors, I knew I was going, and I knew I had to design a curriculum project.  Beyond that, the trip was ambiguous.  I didn't even know where in India we would be traveling.  In otherwords, it has been very difficult to answer questions about the trip.  I have grown a little older and wiser in the last two months, so now I have a little bit of knowledge about the trip.  Let me begin with information that leads to our mission.

Background of our Mission
In September 2000 at the Millennium Summit, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration.  This document committed to a new global partnership in three major areas, human rights, peace keeping, and sustainable development.  It set a series of time bound targets with a deadline of 2015, which have become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Goal 1:  Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2:  Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3:  Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4:  Reduce child mortality
Goal 5:  Improve maternal health
Goal 6:  Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7:  Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8:  Develop a global partnership for development

Our Mission

As mentioned in "The Program" blog post, our trip is highly customized for a F-H GPA.  This is because we have 3 different collaborator that came together to propose the grant to Fulbright.  Therefore, our particular trip had charged each Fulbrighter to develop a project around selected Millennium Development Goals.  Our time in India will be spent on MDGs 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8.

My Mission

For anyone interested in my particular cirriculum project, I will be designing digital story-telling lessons surrounding three MDGs in particular (1, 3, and 7).  You may remember that I am an Environmental Science teacher, so it makes sense for me to focus on MGD 7, environmental sustainability.  So, why then am I working with eradicating poverty and hunger, as well as promoting gender equality and empowerment of women?  Here is brief lesson:

Hunger, poverty, and empowerment of women are essential parts of the world population issue.  If India's fertility rate reaches 2.1, then it will have achieved "replacement level."  This means that each generation replaces the previous generation, but the population as a whole is not growing.  Once population is stable, then a nation can really look at the amount of resources they use and begin to get them under control as well.  In essence, I believe population needs to be stable before environmental sustainability can happen.

Okay, so now on to your next question:  What does story-telling have to do with that? 

Background:  I am a big fan of Alan November of November Learning (he is a teacher guru for 21st century skills). He states that American students often lack global empathy, which happens to be one of the most important skills for 21st century workers.  Basically, American's are not so good at being able to see things from the prospective of non-American's.  "We" American's often think our solutions work in every part of the world, and because of that thought process setbacks have occurred in other nations (even though we set out to help with the best of intentions).  

Therefore, I will be working in India to develop opportunities for American's to be able to tell stories from an Indian perspective in a digital setting.  Stories could be things such as a day in the life of a South Indian farmer, a child living in a slum, a politician making decisions, a typical teenage woman, etc.  My hope is that cultural differences and perspectives can begin to be realized through these stories.  Once this global empathy has been reached, then I will introduce MDGs and have students brainstorm strategies that could help meet the MDGs of hunger, poverty, empowerment of women, and environmental sustainability.  In theory, the strategies that students come up with will bear in mind India's culture and practicality for India, not how America would address the MDGs.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Program

The Program

I will try to keep this blog about my personal experiences in India as much as possible, but I feel I must spend a couple of posts giving credit to the program that is making it all possible (Fulbright-Hays).  So, here is the first post along those lines, and it aims to explain Fulbright in a little more detail.

Program Name:  Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad:  "Exploring India's Experiences with Selected Millennium Development Goals"

Program sponsor's: 
  • Fulbright-Hays  
  • Richland College
  • Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District
  • World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth
What it Means to be a "Fulbrighter"

Our trip is a very customized Fulbright trip.  Information about it cannot be found on the Fulbright website as other Group Projects Abroad can be.  In fact, the closest thing to our trip describes a project that focuses on elementary teachers in India, and it goes to 6 major cities (4 of those our group doesn't come near).  More information our customized agenda can be found in my next post called the "The Mission." Nonetheless, we are a Fulbright trip, and with it comes a certain meaning.The following information is shared with you from the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Handbook, appendix VI.

Becoming Fulbrighters means that we have joined a group of more than 250,000 alumni in approximately 140 countries.  We have been awarded a Fulbright grant not only for our academic and/or professional excellence but also because of our leadership potential.  What each grantee has a specific teaching, research or professional project to pursue, it is important to recognize that all Fulbrighters ultimately promote mutual understanding and respect between the United States and other nations.  In this sense, Fulbrighters are "cultural ambassadors" to their host countries and active and involved members of their communities upon returning home.

In the host country, Fulbrighters:
  • Meet as many people as possible in all walks of life by speaking and writing about their countries to interested groups.
  • Participate in a broad range of social and community activities in addition to pursuing their academic or professional objectives.
  • Continue to learn about the history and culture of their host countries.
Upon returning home, Fulbrighters:
  • Speak and write about their Fulbright experience as widely as possible.
  • Support the Fulbright program in their countries through various activities such as becoming involved with alumni activities, serving on selection committees, and hosting visiting Fulbrigters.
More information about our specific 2011 project can (eventually) be found at :  http://www.richlandcollege.edu/fulbright/index.php

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Greetings!


Hello!  This is me, Kerry, and this is my blog:  Karma and Kerry.  This blog is all about a trip I get to take this summer to India.

Let me begin by explaining why I named the blog Karma and Kerry.  Webster's dictionary defines Karma as "the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate reincarnation and to determine the nature of the person's next existence."

I may not be Hindu or Buddhist, but I do believe in a force generated by actions.  In fact, I believe it was this force that brought me to my current predicament.  In short, I believe it is Karma that takes me to India this summer.

You see, I love to travel, but I am a true American when it comes amenities.  I love driving everywhere I need to go, I love having all sorts of resources at my fingertips, and perhaps most of all...I love air conditioning.  India is not known for any of these things, so it does not seem that it would be my choice in travel destinations.  So, how did it come to pass that I would be spending the entire month of July in India?

The answer to this question includes a series of events that span quite a large amount of time.  Don't worry; I will spare you most of the details, but I do have to start by giving you some background about myself.  In order to make things as quick and easy as possible for all you readers, I have summarized everything for you below:
  • I am a teacher in Texas.  I teach AP Environmental Science to 11th and 12th graders.  
  • The district that I work for recently developed a partnership with a local University to create a course for teachers called "Global Education Leadership."  I was asked to take the course.
  • An employee of the Dallas World Affairs Council was also in this course, and she announced several opportunities for travel.  Our Global liaison for the district (a course developer) then sent out an e-mail with the link to the application.
  • Knowing that I need/want more global experiences, and knowing that India is a case study in almost every area of Environmental Science curriculum, I clicked on the link just to see what the trip entailed.  However, I must say that I was hesitant because I have always heard about the pollution, disease, and poverty in India.  Did I really want to spend 30 days in a developing country exposed to those things?  I didn't know, but I did notice several things that made the odds of being accepted rather low.
    • The application required rec letters (and you never really know how those will turn out).
    • Fulbright had not yet approved the grant, so the trip might not happen.
    • There is an interview process with several people, which means that many will apply and several won't make the cut.
  • Therefore...I applied thinking it would never become a reality.  I felt safe in taking this risk applying to a place that in my mind is categorized as scary.  So, on a whim I did it.
  • I went through the process, and got accepted.
Why did I tell you all of these things?  Well, I guess that's because I still don't know how I feel about traveling to India.  It is still a scary place in my mind, and I am still apprehensive about the whole thing.  However, I also know that I believe in what this Fulbright trip is doing, and it appears that an unseen force has guided actions to get here.  I get it, Karma wants this to happen.  It seems that Karma and Kerry are intertwined.

I hope you continue to join me throughout this journey to see where Karma takes me.  I don't actually leave until June 30th, but I will be posting more about the trip before then.  So, stay tuned...