The weather is as usual: Hazy, lots of pollution

As our flight took off from Paris, a crew member announced "The weather is as usual in New Delhi. Hazy, lots of pollution. And the temperature is 16C."

When we [finally] touched down in Indira Gandhi International Airport, we realized that he wasn't far from the truth. The parking area of the airport felt a bit like a giant steam room--everything over 200 feet away was a bit hazy. It certainly wasn't difficult to breath, but there was an unusual metallic taste to the air.

A bit of this pollution may well have drifted in from our project site. The Symbiosis Public School has been running off of diesel generators whenever the grid power went out. These generators are not only hazardous to the health of students in the school, but they also contribute to the pollution of the region. We intend to replace these generators with a more clean energy source.

--

We have reached the hotel. It's a bit cozy (see picture), but overall nice. There is no hot water, but that is really not a big deal as it's hitting 80 F tomorrow.

It's 3:30 AM here. Even though I am not tired at all, I will try to sleep now. We will be meeting with a solar vendor tomorrow and will keep you posted.

-Avesh

We Made It!

We have officially made it to India! We are now at the hotel and looking forward to getting started. We're 24 hours behind schedule, but that time was mainly for meeting with solar vendor and seeing some of Delhi. We should be able to fit some of that in tomorrow before we leave for Rampur

What Could Possibly Go Wrong...?

Three weeks ago, while we were in the midst of planning our trek to India, I asked Avesh whether he was getting excited. He responded, quite astutely, that he "would be excited once we were on the plane to India."

I say this was astute because none of us had any idea how much stuff stood between us and India. We had to get the project approved, find a technical mentor, organize the trip, meet with technical experts, compile lists of data to collect, get our visas, and purchase the tickets. The last two, which on the surface seemed simple, proved to be the most difficult, and nearly prevented us from going on more than one occasion. But we managed to get it all done, and twenty four hours ago we set out to the Pittsburgh airport to begin the first leg of our journey.

So yesterday (I think it was yesterday, but the days are starting to bleed together), we're all standing in line for security and Avesh turns to me and says:

"Hey, remember when you asked me a couple weeks ago whether I was excited to go to India?"

"Yeah," I responded. "You said you'd be excited when you were sitting on the plane."

"Oh, yeah..." he said. "Well, I'm excited now. We're close enough."

I disagreed. "You know, Avesh, a lot can still happen between now and India."


And then Avesh said those five famous last words:

"What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"


That was 12 hours ago, as of this writing. Our flight got delayed because of a problem with a hydraulic line. They needed to order more parts and wait for them to be delivered, which resulted in our flight leaving the gate four and a half hours after it was supposed to. Then, while we're sitting on the tarmac, they announce that they are unable to start the right engine, and need to get it checked out. Half an hour later, they announce that the engine has a bad starter and the parts won't come in until the morning, so the flight is canceled. Now we're all hunkered down in a Double Tree, waiting to take the same flight tomorrow, 24 hours behind schedule.

Don't get me wrong, we're all still in great spirits, because WE'RE GOING TO INDIA. Which is awesome. And so far this trip has been nothing if not a great learning experience. But I guess the real moral of this post is...

AVESH, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! YOU JINXED US!

Hopefully the next time you hear from us we'll be on Indian soil.

Namaste!

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting the blog for the March 2011 assessment trip! We will use this to keep everyone updated of our progress while we are in India. This is our first assessment trip, which means we will spend most of our time meeting with the community to understand the problem and collecting the data we need to design a solution. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here to to send us an email.