Preparing for the Big Day

Well, tomorrow is the big day! The culmination of our project here, and our chance to prove (mostly to ourselves) that we actually accomplished something useful. We've spent the past week getting our presentation ready, and we are anxious to have it over with. Our efforts to survey the bigger facilities have, unfortunately, been unsuccessful. It’s been difficult to find contacts at these places, and they don’t seem to have much time for us. It’s fairly disappointing – I think it’s really important that we get a good idea of the spectrum of services and facilities available, even if the majority of the people we’ve surveyed aren’t using the big ones. I’m really interested to see what a government hospital looks like here…and I’m dying to see Apollo. I think if we can’t get any appointments for an interview, we’ll just stop by next week to at least look around and mark them on our handy GPS. It’s funny…I’ve gotten so used to watching for facilities to map, that whenever I see a clinic, pharmacy, chemist, or water pump – no matter where we are – my automatic reaction now is to mark it. I’m ruined for life. I will forever be mentally noting health facilities and “dirty areas.”

Today, we presented for the New Concept/JMC/GRC staff. It was excellent preparation for tomorrow, especially since we got schooled. I’m endlessly impressed by the New Concept staff. They had great suggestions and pointed out some definite oversights on our part. We are learning a lot from them. Some final adjustments and our presentation will be much stronger tomorrow. Sarah said it, and it’s true – those ladies of New Concept (Vimala, Uma, Vidya, and Gita) could turn the UN around by themselves and fix the world's problems. They are incredibly brilliant, influential, and inspiring women. My main regret with our project here is that we didn’t get to work with them more closely.

It was a good turnout for our presentation today – Charu was there, Mitlesh came (I almost teared up when we had our goodbye hugs), Bobbi and Survesh from the GRC, even Vimala’s son and daughter, as well as several others from the various departments around New Concept. I wish I could have gotten to know all of them better. We were always in the field, and when we were at the office, we were always in their way.

I know this is really nerdy, but I get really excited being at New Concept and seeing evidence of all the projects they’re working on. You walk around people’s desks and see reports for USAID, manuals for youth health conferences, pamphlets being designed for various NGOs, books on children’s rights, India World Health Reports, and on and on. For me, this is exciting stuff. This is what I want to do, the kinds of things I want to work on – well, more the actual projects, rather than the documentation and reporting, but still. It feels right to be surrounded by it, like I’m in the right place, or on the right track. It’s a fantastic feeling to know you’re doing what you’re meant to be doing…and it’s equally fantastic to be surrounded by people who are doing the same thing. This is why I gush so much about New Concept, I guess. These are the kinds of projects I aspire to be involved in and the kinds of women I aspire to be like.

In other news, the monsoon has been flirting with us some more. We thought it had finally arrived (to those of you who have been under the impression that it’s been raining here, oh nononononono) after it rained for 8 hours straight on Monday. That’s usually a good sign. And there were all sorts of problems – flooding, water logging, pot holes galore, electrocutions, falling trees, an entire bus submerged in water. The paper said that Delhi got about 50% of its total rainfall for the season (maybe even the year) just on Monday. So, we were pretty sure that the rain was finally here to stay. It has rained once since then, maybe for half an hour. And it’s back to being hot and muggy. I think Delhi is actually the only place in the entire country not getting its monsoon. This really is the absolute worst time of year to be here…I will have to remember next time to come in the winter.

Wish us luck for tomorrow! Hopefully we’ll leave an impression.