The story here is that Martino (who is from northern Italy but has recently been studying in Glasgow...) went to an international school in Singapore on a scholarship (one of those IB nelson Mandela run deals like atlantic college in Cardiff) and so knows everyone from the world. Rishi’s flat is quite a good deal as accommodation goes. Though we’re sharing a room it’s an air conditioned affair on the 8th floor. It’s free to live and eat (thank you Rishi! Though we need to repay you some how...) and we have the amazing Prakash who is... A helper? Servant? He basically makes our lunch and cleans up after us (and so makes Martino and me feel fairly uncomfortable and un-pc : )). Still, we’ll have to get used to it I think - on the first night we went out with another old school friend who we’ll call Viraj. Basically the areas of Indian cities, at least where we are, are Nagars and one of the ones in Pune may well be named after Viraj’s family. He’s rather wealthy, as I realised when he picked us up (with a driver along just in case we drank too much) in a brand new Audi a8. So this was our first day. Kind of makes your book recommendation all the more prescient Dave...
A day off to sort our lives out and then work! Work is in a 10 or so person office in an old flat near then centre of town. 10 til 6 and work every other Saturday too. At the moment it’s mainly GIS mapping stuff and if you’re interested in a fairly one sided depiction of what this might entail (and some shameless self promotion) please do click here. Later we’ll be setting up a server, improving a couple of websites and hopefully streamlining their data entry. I’d quite like to do some analysis but they’ve just done some new surveys of Nashik up the road so we’re dealing with that for now.
Basically there are two parts to what shelter does – data collection on slums to inform future development and impress the government who ultimately finance this, and actually dealing with construction – designing the apartments and getting the contractors. As these things go it’s not the worst slum redevelopment in the world – they try and keep communities together and the redevelopments rarely get above 4 stories but obviously there’s another side. Some of the slum land is government owned and among the most valuable - hence an incentive to clear it. Also many of the buildings that are eventually demolished are more than just shacks – painted, decorated and well looked after (though, you know, no running water and that). There were riots against one redevelopment in Nashik incited by a local political party (described to us by other volunteers as like the BNP but for Maharashtra) as shop keepers felt they were being closed down for good. It got pretty hairy according to the other volunteers – Adam and Wendy who are here until the end of this week. Still as we’re almost entirely in the office (they were only in Pune for 3 weeks of the 3 months) people who might worry don’t need to : ). Plus we’ll have Pratima (who is in the video) when we do head to Sangli for a day in a couple of weeks and she doesn’t mess around...
Birthday was good – I had cake smeared on my face twice (Indian tradition was the excuse). Saturday night we was robbed! Well not really - the valet stole a thousand rupees from our car and the moment you start that sentence you realise you probably deserve to be stolen from...
I write this as the internet comes back to Rishi’s place after a few days without and today we’re on strike! Yes, us unloved volunteers are finally standing up for our rights. Also we can’t go to work because everyone else is on strike (fuel prices) and they’re smashing up buses in the town centre but still. It’s been a nice couple of days off but itching to get out and as there are no Auto’s and Rishi doesn’t get up until 5 most days (so no car) it’s been quite dull doing dissertation stuff most of the day. I did manage to go for a wander earlier though, and met the guys in the picture below who are also on strike apparently and they asked me to take a picture. Anyway, strike off at 6 and back to reality!
Not much rain yet but hopefully monsoon soon? Turn down those thermostats guys and I’ll walk back...
Hope all is well and people got the results they wanted. Laters!
