Ability Beyond the Horizon

2012-07-05T23:54:00.000-04:00

If you are reading this, please note, this blog is being phased out, and we're transitioning to a new blog found at: www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ you can subscribe there. It's much better for me to work with.

Sick

I'm on the other side of the worst food borne illness I've ever experienced in what is becoming a pretty large amount of travel in developing countries. This one is still paining me 3 days later. The worst day, the first day, involved all the usual one would suspect with this kind of illness without painting too much of a humiliating picture, couple this with chills, and fever, and a near 24 hour period of not leaving my bed, mostly unconscious. I have no idea what I ate to cause it, but thankfully I've got some antibiotics with me that I never ended up using last year. I started them when the chills and fever started, knowing this wasn't a typical relationship with some spicy food in India. I'll finish what is the prescribed last pill this morning, and I'm still not feeling right, so whatever this bug was, it was hopped up on steroids and did not like Americans. If I hadn't taken the meds, who knows. All is better now, and I think I may stay on hard boiled eggs, coconut water, and bottled water for the rest of the trip. Seems pretty safe to me, and its something my Indian mother/warden/servant Padma seems to understand how to make, and she can't seem to make it spicy. The night before the great Mickey Quake of 2012 she served me food that she was very proud of saying, "See, its no spicy!". It was at best, medium spicy by American standards. We eat a pretty bland diet at home. They asked me what I eat at home, and I said, "meat and vegetables." She said, "Every day!?" Theirs is a diet mostly made of rice, with other carby type breads, and peppers, occasional meat, the kids eat it here I think twice a week, and its chicken, and some vegetables thrown in here and there more often than meat, but far less often than soupy spicy rice.

Observations and Musings

Onto the more interesting part of this post. At least to me. You know, a common thing being put on Facebook lately whenever someone complains about something like their cell phone breaking, or their manicure being imperfect is #firstworldproblems I find this a little heartening because at least these people using the tag have some inclination that their "problems" are really sort of silly in the scheme of things. Even though, at the time they seem large.

Each time I've visited a country like India, a "developing country" it really does bring home to me how little we in the "developed world" need worry about. This trip, it seems to be coming home even more clearly, because this time, I'm really living in it. Or closer to "it" than I've ever lived before. Even still, there are people within feet of me that are living in "it" more. The people here wouldn't let me sleep in the courtyard on a cot, or a table, like most of them do, my son curled in my arms, with flies sleeping on my face and shoulders. Flies, numbering in the thousands, just within visible distance who recently were born in the nastiness that is the "sewer/river" running behind the school. No, I live in my own room, with my own bathroom, and running water. I also just realized that someone else must have lived here before I did, and is probably sleeping on a table until I leave. I'm going to find out who I booted out of a room today, if they'll tell me.

I literally have my own personal servant, I'll phonetically write his name, I have no idea how to spell it, Sigh-T-Bob-oooh, as well as pretty much anyone else at the school as a servant, if I show any inclination for anything they trip over themselves to make sure I have it. So I'm always guarded in my actions, because I hate that, it frankly embarrasses me.

The irony of this, is that I in many respects also feel a servant to their need to serve, and my inability to clearly communicate, or their inability to want to understand. These people will not allow me independence, even though I fight for it every day, like a toddler demanding to feed himself. Just this morning, Sigh-T-Bob-oooh, woke me with tea in hand, in my own special tea cup, with a handle, everyone else drinks from a steel cup *this annoys me*. This involved a banging on my door like the school is on fire, and even when I yell, he just keeps banging. I literally YELL back, multiple times as I'm trying to get a shirt on, this is a door that's no more than 5 feet from my bed, with a window that is not closed. I don't understand it. He must hear me, and even though he understands no English, and me, no Telagu, he must certainly hear the tone... He then, for the first time this morning had his own tea, while he sat and watched me drink mine. So perhaps he's getting more comfortable. Next, after tea, me rubbing my eyes, he starts sweeping my floor, he does this each day, and each day with gestures and ineffectual English, I ask him not to. I was able to convince him to let me clean my own toilet, so I know he "hears" me when he wants to.

He then, starts insisting on washing my clothes. I again, with gestures, tried to tell him that my clothes were fine *he just washed them two days ago, and I pack enough clothes for a week, so I'm good for a while* he nods like he understands, and then still starts gathering them up, even the clean ones. Its nuts.

I tried to help with clean up here yesterday, they cut down a tree, so I started to help move logs, they freaked out. SIR! SIR!! PLEASE!!! then they usher me carefully to a chair as if I'm a toddler who has a tendency to just get in the way of grown up work. I'm not saying that I'd like to sleep on a cot with flies on me in the courtyard, but I really resent the idea that they have that I'm somehow just better than they are. Indians by their culture really revere guests, so I know that's part of it. When you are a guest, literally they believe you should be treated like a "god". In America, we'll get you your first drink, after that, you know where the fridge is. *Maybe we treat our guests like we treat our gods too??* So I know that's part of it, but they also have innately built into their operating system that there are levels of people in the world. They are totally ok with this, or appear to be. When the founder of the school causes Padma to stop cooking the lunch she has been cooking for me for the past 40 minutes because he brought me something else, she just stops, and throws it out. Not even a sour look. I look on in horror at her hard work wasted, and he doesn't even notice. Its fascinating. In the US that would have at least warranted a snarky facebook post by Padma, "OMG can you guess what my boss just did??"

I guess the whole idea of "upward mobility" which is essentially what the "western world" is founded on, relies on one being unhappy and dissatisfied with one's place in life, and so you strive to do better, get better, have more. Here, many people are just fine with sleeping outside. Its their station, and that seems to be ok.

I have to go, Sigh has just shown up with my requested hard boiled eggs, but in classic fashion, instead of the asked for 2, he brought 3. He refuses to eat the third himself, and we just had a race to see who could peel eggs faster because I can do it myself. I won. There I go again, being an unruly American toddler. I hope you all sleep well, I'm just starting my day. Time zones are really neat.

~Mickey

ps. Dad, if you've read this far, I'm proud of you :-)

I’m here, wow what an experience!

2012-07-02T22:15:00.002-04:00

If you are reading this, you are still getting the "old" blog. We've moved blog accounts and you can subscribe to the new blog at this page: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/2012/07/02/im-here-wow-what-an-experience/

Apologies that its taken me a while to get anything up. Internet has been fairly unreliable and I'm still working to sort that out. I was able to get up at 5 this morning thanks to jet lag, and the internet was working, the room was not yet heated by the sun in July, so I feel comfortable enough to actually write something. :-)

So, I left Thursday on what was a very long trip here to Hyderabad. Leaving Tampa International was a very teary experience, its the longest I will have ever been away from Quin, and I realize I've gotten quite the addiction to my little guy. He makes me smile every single day, and I can't wait to see him again. If I've not flown my paramotor for a while I start having dreams of flying when I'm home. Well, the first dream I've had was of Quin, and not flying, so I guess I miss him more than flying, and that's saying a lot! Unfortunately he's 2, and I can't get him to talk to me on the phone for more than a couple minutes, it breaks my heart. I can't imagine what our service members go through when they leave their families for a year. That's insanity and makes their sacrifice that much more poignant to me. He and Melissa will be on a plane to Austria today, so they should have some good fun, and I'm a little jealous :-) I miss them both terribly.

The plane trip was pretty uneventful, the first leg was to Atlanta with a very brief layover, which is good because I wasn't ready to stop yet. Then onto Amsterdam for about 9 hours. I had a window seat next to a lady who spoke no English at all, so it was a quiet flight. She was very sweet though and had a nice smile, one of those ladies who you know bakes something really well, probably cookies, and her grand kids probably love her a lot. I would love to go to Amsterdam for some more time, and I think my next trip to Europe will include it. It looked great from 3000 feet.

Next off to Mumbai, another 8 hour flight. This time I was on an aisle next to a boy flying with his family returning to India. They were going to leave the son in India so he could finish his high school, the dad works in the Caribbean somewhere and he wanted his son to have a good education. So they were just going to leave him with family. I couldn't imagine doing that with Quin, though he's not an irritating teen yet, so maybe I will change my mind in the future, though I doubt it.

Once landing in Mumbai, I was re-introduced to the ridiculousness of Indian bureaucracy. I had my passport checked no less than 20 times, there was some guard every few feet to look it over. Twice I was told I couldn't go that way, only to go to another guard who let me through so that I could get to the domestic side of the airport. My thought is that there are so many people that need jobs here, they don't pay them very well, and so they make up for their smaller income by being bossy and feeling like they have some power. Its nuts. Once in Mumbai domestic, I had to settle in for a long night and I was wide awake. I arrived at 11pm India time, and my next flight wasn't until 7:25am the next morning. It turns out that the Indian lady across the way from me was also traveling from the US. She's also a colo-rectal surgeon visiting family and was 34 years old with a 2.5 year old son. We had a great evening talking about our kids and sharing ideas for work. I gave her a card and hope she'll email me, I'd love to stay in touch with her. She tried to convince me to go to medical school, and wants herself to do some work in Africa with women. She says I would get in easy because medical schools today are looking for more than biology majors, and my background would really help. Interesting thought...

Finally in Hyderabad at 8:55am where I was picked up by the same guys that picked me up last year. Nice men, and it was like meeting old friends, even though we didn't say more than 10 words to each other. There is definitely a language barrier. Here at the school, its an interesting place. I'm living here, which gives me so much insight to how it is in the "real world" of Indian schools for the blind, and they are treating me like a king. I definitely have it better than anyone else at this school, even though by American standards, the "hotel" would probably be condemned. Its all relative though, and I'm grateful for the kindness they're showing me. What makes my accommodations so relatively wonderful? I have a refrigerator and my own toilet. A ceiling fan that works, and my own bed that I don't share with anyone else. The others? A few of the top employees get their own living space at the school, but during the day it may be a classroom, so they're sleeping on tables. The guard of the school sleeps on a table on the porch. The kids sleep in dorms all bunked together girls and guys separate, of course. Pretty much everyone uses a latrine style toilet behind the school that empties into the "sewer" that I think God intended to be a river once upon a time, but has been repurposed to one of the nastiest bodies of water I've ever lived next to and smelled. None of us have hot water.

I however am treated like a king. Annoyingly so sometimes :-) I'm very appreciative of the respect they are showing me, but this American is not used to having servants. I can't "unsee" them like people who grow up with servants can. I can't help but notice their humanity, and feel like I have no right to impose myself on them when my legs work just as well. Dr. Goud the school's founder and a local ophthalmologist just yesterday offered me a bell. With this bell I could ring it whenever I wanted, and someone would be by to tend to my needs. Seriously. I couldn't do it, I wish I could say I was tempted, because maybe that would indicate I'm "moving up in the world" from my roots as a real person, but I see how hard the people already work here. Padma, the school mom, who takes care of all the children, is school nurse, cafeteria lady, and pretty much everything else around, here works her tail off. I couldn't imagine asking her to do something else for me like come to the ringing of a bell.

We had class yesterday for the first time. It went pretty well for a first day. We'll see how today unfolds now that we've all met each other. They got their canes and have a real willingness to learn. There are some changes that will have to come into effect here at the school though before what I'm teaching in mobility will become valuable to the children. They gave away the canes I brought last year, real high quality ones for a white cane event to generate income for the school. The children never touched them after my leaving last year, I asked them. That makes me pretty sad. I've already said I wouldn't be very happy if this happened again this year. I don't intend to waste my time and the time of others by not having at least something implemented.

The students in the class are very interested in changing toward a more holistic student approach, rather than purely academics. We discussed individual education plans, having the children become more responsible for chores around the school, and teaching more life skills. The students were excited, I think largely because many of them have children who attend Devnar. They want the best for their kids and see the value of having their children grow up to be fully participatory members of society and not "poor blind people". Now, I need to convince Ms. Lilly the school principal, and Dr. Goud the school's chairman that this is valuable. In my opinion, more valuable for the long term success of their students than their ability to do math. If you don't know how to take care of your daily care needs, and travel independently, it doesn't matter how much Algebra you know, you won't get a job.

Well, before the electricity cuts out for its daily interval at 8am, I'm going to wrap this up. At least its better than Vietnam where they cut the electricity in the heat of the day to save energy. I love you all very much. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments or by email. I'll update again soon.

~Mickey

Hyderabad, just around the corner and fundraiser report!

2012-06-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

Adventure Beyond the Horizon!

Our first fundraiser organized by Ability Beyond the Horizon was a success! It is however, important to define success correctly in this case :-) I definitely made some logistical errors, but it all turned out in the end. The event was so much fun, and I was lucky to have a lot of volunteers making it happen.

: Woohoo!

To bring you quickly up to speed, the fundraiser was a field day event. The catch was, everyone had to be working with someone that was blindfolded through the activities or be blindfolded themselves. As you can imagine, people traded back and forth on the blindfolds, but both parts of the experience, I think, were equally as fun as you can see below.

: Awesome structure built by Guardian Home Inspections and Repair

: Limbo, so fun when you can't see the pole!

: Dizzy Bat! I'm not sure I've laughed this hard in a while.

Our shirts came out great! Thanks to Full Press Apparel for the quick turn around on these. They made us shirts in less than a week's time! We received so many compliments about them. I had no idea the importance of a shirt for making an event "legit". We have some shirts left over as well if you are interested in purchasing one, they're $15, just get in touch and we'll get you clothed in our first ABH gear.

: The shirt!

We made approximately $700 on the event after all of our expenses are accounted for. That's not bad at all! The attendance to the event was not great, but this is my fault for putting it on a Sunday. I totally neglected to factor the impact people going to church on Sunday morning would have on the event attendance. We also had it a little far out of town. I was warned about this, but the administration at Montford Middle School is so wonderful to work with, and they have such a nice space, I was hoping we could overcome it. It definitely played a role though. Other than that, the mistakes were close to none, and to be honest, it made for a really nice run without being overwhelmed with people. We plan to put this back on again in the fall, so if you missed it, you can make that one! If you want to see more photos of the event, head on over to our photos page! There are some really good ones taken by Michael Copeland of Copeland Productions, he's also the guy that did our great video on the front page. We love him a lot! There should be some video coming from him as well. I'll post it here when that happens!

India!

Ok, Hyderabad. We're so close, today marks exactly a month from when I expect to be getting off a plane in India. The plan is to begin work on July 2nd. It'll be me and Lauren Barr from last year. We had another volunteer all lined up and ready, but she wasn't able to make it unfortunately. This had a somewhat rippling effect in that people aren't able to get up the funding so quickly to make a trip to India. I've had awful luck with volunteers this year, I had another lined up very early, but again, couldn't make it due to finances. They've been great volunteers, but the economy and all that makes it difficult for people to pull this kind of money together. In the future, I hope that we as an organization can fully fund our volunteers, but its just not possible where we are now.

The plan is to work 3 weeks in Hyderabad, doing whatever we can in addition to giving some orientation and mobility training to teachers that work there so that they can teach their students greater independence. There's a group of parents that waits each day at Devnar School, and I'd like to work with them as well, teaching them concepts of the Expanded Core Curriculum and so forth. What would be great would be to tie them in with the parent group that is now functioning in Bangalore. Maybe Lauren can tackle that project.

After 3 weeks, Lauren and I are headed back to Bangalore to spend a week with our old friends from last year and finish up our trip. Part of the plan in Bangalore is to work with some other teachers in a 2-3 day workshop teaching some orientation and mobility skills as well as other areas of the expanded core curriculum. Going back to Bangalore is really critical because we'll be able to see what worked from last year, and what might need adjusting in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, I really enjoyed the folks at Enable India, what a great group of people.

Financials

Many people have asked how we're doing financially for the trip. As most of you following the blog know, this is an all volunteer organization. There are no salaries paid out anywhere. The money we raise currently goes entirely to supporting the trips we're making to help with visual impairment education globally. Right now, we can make the trip possible, but not entirely where I'd like to be. I have enough money to get the plane ticket and the visa, Devnar School has agreed to host Lauren and I, so that our lodging should be covered. Enough money means that we can make the trip happen, but I'll have to take the bank account back down to nearly nothing. For any of you in business, you realize this is not a good idea. So, I'm asking, if you are still interested in supporting our efforts, please lend some support. You can send a check to:

Ability Beyond the Horizon

5789 St. Joe Rd.

Tallahassee, FL 32311

Additionally, you can donate through the website and all that information is found here: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/get-involved/

Regardless, we are going to India again! I'm so happy that we're able to do this 2 years in a row. My hope is to get this project funded with larger resources like grants in the future, and would welcome any ideas you have in that area.

Thank you so much for making this possible. You may never meet these kids, but I promise, they'll know of your kindness.

~Mickey

ps. if you are reading this blog, then that means you probably haven't signed up at the new website. It would help a lot if you could. Just go to: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ and put in your email address. Super simple. Thanks!