SECMOL

SECMOL - Students Educational & Cultural Movement of Ladakh

Well, I’ve been at the SECMOL campus for more than a week now and haven’t been asked to teach any quadratic equations yet, thankfully! I have been trying to teach the Juniors how to add fractions though, which has been quite a challenge for us all - for me to explain fractions in simple terms and for them to understand not only my English but also the concept.

At SECMOL at the moment there are two groups of students plus a few staff and some volunteers, along with a few cats, 3 cows with 2 calves, and a decreasing number of chickens as the local stray dogs seem to have a taste for them and an ability to get into their cage!

There are 7 ‘Seniors’, all girls, who are studying for a BA in Arts/Humanities at Leh University but are living at SECMOL. At the moment it is their summer holiday, so they have been here all day taking extra lessons. They all speak quite good English and asked me to help them with their Political Science classes, which luckily just involved explaining what the terms in their book meant, since I know nothing about the subject. However, we all agreed that it was so boring that we dropped it until they get taught it at Uni. Once term starts I think they will commute every day (which is no mean feat) but choose to live at SECMOL because they get extra help with their studies and it is a safe and cheap environment for them to live in.

There are also about 30 Juniors, about 2/3 of whom are girls, so the boys are outnumbered on campus but don’t seem to mind. The Juniors are all 16 or 17 and most have failed two or more subjects of their Matriculation Exam, so have come here for a ‘foundation year’ to basically get them through these exams. They are only allowed to fail one subject in their matriculation exams to progress to High school to do the equivalent of ‘A’ levels - tougher than in England I think! Most have failed at Maths or Science or English, so the lessons concentrate on these subjects.

There is a variable amount of volunteers here at any one time - at the moment there is Adi from Tamil Nadu in Southern India, Navine from Mumbai / Bombay, and Catherine from Quebec as well as me. Luckily they all speak very good English, although sometimes I don’t catch everything they say first time due to their accents. Another fluent English speaker is Becky, an American lady who has been here 15 years and is married to the Ladakhi Director. She seems to be overall in charge, although there is also a General Manager, Norboo. Other staff are a Technical Manager, Norgay, and an Administrator, Youdon, plus Thukjay a blind lady who answers the phone and manages to get around the place remarkably well.

The SECMOL campus is 3 km down a dry, dusty track from a junction on the main road, and 4km from the nearest village. It is on the side of a hill about 100 foot above the Indus river, in a very dry and barren landscape. They hardly get any rain all year, but have lots of sun and wind -Windy Wellington is nothing compared to here!

So it’s just as well that SEMOL is pretty much self-sufficient both in terms of food and energy. It is built in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. The buildings are built into the north side of a hill, from thick walls of rammed earth. They have big windows on the south side, and smaller ones on the east and west, which allow them to be warmed by the sun. However, the good thermal insulation from the thick walls means the insides stay remarkably cool in the day, despite the sweltering temperatures outside, and are warm at night even when the temperatures drop due to cloudless skies. In the winter they roll clear polythene down at a 45 degree angle to cover the windows and form a ‘greenhouse’, which allows the sun to warm the buildings during the day and maintains the heat inside during the night. In the summer they use holes in the top and bottom of the walls to let the hot air out at the top and the cooler air in at the bottom (they block these up in the winter) - all very clever yet very simple. The floors are made from stone and covered with rugs and the ceilings are insulated using waste paper and plastic. So there is no power requirement for heating/cooling the buildings at all - and they are remarkably pleasant inside in daytime temperatures of high 30s without any air conditioning.

Hot water for washing is generated from solar heating system on the roof of the wash house - basically just a big black tray filled with water and covered in polythene which heats up in the sunlight. The only downside is that the best time to wash is in the middle of the day, which takes a bit of getting used to! (I’m trying to persuade them to install and insulated tank). However, I’ve discovered that on a hot day the water is still warmish at 7pm, so I wash then after my evening walk (in an effort to keep fit). Washing is a bucket and scoop job in one of the tiled cubicles which I’m getting used to.

Hot water for cooking is generated by two solar cookers. These consist of large concave mirrors (made from lots of small flat mirrors) which reflect the sunlight onto a second reflector that directs it up to a pot sitting on top. It is very effective as you discover if you put your hand in front of the rays - it can boil 15 litres of water in about 45 mins! They have an oven powered by wood, rubbish, etc and use a gas ring as well for the big pots.

So the only electricity needed is for lights and computers, etc. This they generate from a couple of banks of PV cells and have sufficient capacity in the battery to run for 3 days without charging if the weather is bad. They also have a diesel generator to act as a backup and to drive a three-phase pump they use to pull water from the Indus to irrigate the land. They have some ‘solar’ pumps which are single phase and can be powered by the PV panels, but these are not working at the moment.

The toilets are long drops and are remarkably fly and smell free. They use half the toilets each year and seal off the others so that the waste has time to compost and can then be used as fertilizer on the garden. After each use you shovel some dirt over your business to keep the flies away. Toilet paper in the form of old newspapers is provided, although I am still using the ‘proper’ stuff. Hand-washing facilities are provided outside.

As much waste as possible is recycled or reused - dry paper and clean plastic and crushed plastic bottles are saved for insulation, cardboard and wood are used for the oven, food waste is given to the cows and the small amount of non-useable waste is buried in a hole on a nearby hill.

They grow a lot of their own vegetables, although mainly in the winter, as the local produce is very cheap in the summer and the amount of water required in the hot weather is excessive. In the winter they use specially designed green houses to grow some crops such as tomatoes, and grow the rest of their crops in the green houses created around the outside of the buildings, plus some outside. They grow root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cauliflower, onions, cabbage. They also have apple and apricot trees and some grapes, although they don’t use these for wine - it is a dry site.

The students pay a small amount for their board and lodging, as do the volunteers - I’m paying 200IR a day (just under £2.50). I have my own room which is very compact but OK (no ensuite though!). It is as wide as a king-size double bed and not much longer and contains a single bed. Even though it is very small it stays reasonably cool in the day and warm at night - so far I’ve just been sleeping under a sheet. It has a shelf across the width at the end and a light - what more would I need? I am getting used to sharing it with various different types of insects and so far don’t seem to have provided a meal for many of them!

The internet at SECMOL is very slow and often doesn’t work, so I’ll try to down load a few photos, but don’t hold your breath… (Downloading of photos is not allowed at the fast broadband internet in Leh). My mobile phone does not work at all here - so much for Virgin telling me they had complete coverage in India. Thanks for all your comments and messages on this site and apologies for not replying to them in person but I haven't worked out how to do that yet, and tend to run out of time.

Off to see a horse polo match in Leh now…

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