Blogs from Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, Asia - page 3

OK then people - this is an uncharacteristic little blog - just thought I would do a short piece to catch anyone up who might be interested on where things are at right now. Sorry - no theme here - and not much in the way of pictures. Officially I have now completed 5.5 months of my placement - and when you add in the month I am allowed for leave within the 12 month commitment - that becomes 6.5 with 4.5 to do. It's been good but at times very slow and frustrating - but when I reflect on it all I think its been meaningful in terms of the work I have shared with the community based organisations I work with. There are some fantastic people there who have become friends (like Rinu, Subham ... read more

This will be a relatively short blog because I have to get back to eating mangoes! Put simply - I love the mango season in India (in fact I love a lot of fruit seasons but mangos are special). OK - so I am currently in Orissa - and I suppose the actual mango season varies slightly from place to place. But here in about the middle to late May and extending right through to at least middle to late July is MANGO season. The peak is in the first half of June. Indians call the mango “the king of fruit”. It has been grown in India since times immemorial and has also been described as the "Food of the Gods" in the sacred Hindu texts known as the Vedas. Mango is grown almost in all ... read more

On dropping in on the Enfield showroom back in April note newcomers - I have purchased a Royal Enfield 350cc motorbike - see picture and previous relevant blogs - to my delight my bike had arrived - sitting there on the floor just waiting patiently for it’s final check and for me to finalise my finances from Australia to pay the balance and take it. The dealer (who I would describe as ‘sterotype extra-ordinaire’ of everything you ever thought was dodgy about an old-style Australian ‘used car salesman’ quietly - actually there is nothing quiet about this man - tells me how lucky I am and how grateful I should be that he has put me ahead of others in terms of waiting list - that I have had priority etc. because of my limited time ... read more

Yesterday - as part of my “Organisational Development Advisor” role here in India (working in a Voluntary Service Overseas placement), I conducted my first formal “training workshop”. It was on Budgeting and Finance - for program coordinators and managers from small fairly new community based organization working in HIV & AIDS. It went really well considering the language barriers (let alone the complexity of the concepts for some). There were some in the group of 15 who really spoke no English at all (e.g. the three ladies from the Female Sex Workers cooperative). So anyway - I was happy enough with all that - we did a lot of translating via those who had good English. The event (for it became an “event” was in an A/c training room at Red Cross - with the works ... read more

I had the extreme pleasure yesterday of visiting this remarkable train which has been set up under the Rajiv Ghandi Foundation as an awareness raising campaign all over India. This is an entire fitted out train of about 7 carriages. It's administered by the National Council for AIDS Control (NACO). It travels around India and stops for a day or two at each place (just parks at a pre-determined station platform) - then there are tents and displays and inaugurations by VIPs on the platform. People come along and enter one end of the train and move through the very well done inter-active at times presentations on 'most' (read on) things to do with AIDS and HIV. The really brilliant thing is that at each stop (after obviously a lot of effective organisation) local HIV and ... read more