Ballin Flossin
A reflection on my final few weeks here in India
I think the best way to tell the story is by starting at the end, briefly, then going back to the beginning, and then periodically returning to the end, maybe giving different characters’ perspectives throughout. Just to give it a bit of dynamism, otherwise it’s just sort of a linear story.
-The Other Guys
So, the end. Today is my final day at work here at ASED, and this weekend I will revisit my 30 hour journey back to America. These last few weeks at work I have really tried to ramp up my production levels with output for the company. To break down our work here, we spent our first two weeks essentially preparing for school visits with Green Rhinos programs, then the third and fourth weeks we spent going out and doing those school visits, then our last two weeks we have spent reflecting and building off of those school visits. So, it makes sense that most of our “work”, at least for me, has occurred in these last two weeks.
Here at ASED, I have been responsible for working on a biodiversity survey for the Green Rhinos programs to track and measure the program’s impact on the students, which I completed the trial survey for in the first two weeks, then implemented during the school visits, and now have been finalizing and analyzing. The next project I have worked on was filming and editing a testimonial video (here) interviewing Green Rhinos about their experience with the program. Lastly, I have began to develop the framework for an android app, a project which I originally scrapped early on after learning that most of the students either don’t have access to phones or aren’t allowed to have them at school. However, this past week I saw the opportunity to create a basic layout and some simple pages, which is what I have been working on up until today, our last day.
Several weekends ago, the five of us traveled to Cherrapunjee, in the state of Meghalaya in Northeast India. I have never seen so many waterfalls in my life. Unreal place. We were pretty anxious to go here, primarily because we flew into Guwahati, in Assam, which at the time was on red alert flood warning and had over 100 deaths reported in the area due to the floods the week we went. After a long debate, we decided to go anyways, and I’m glad we did. My highlight of the trip was the 8 hour hike down the valley, across suspension bridges and root bridges and 2,000 slippery steps, and up to the top of a waterfall on the other side.
To return to the end, for our last weekend here in India, we went to the Sundarbans, which is basically a mangrove forest of estuaries. We spent two days on a boat, and at night stayed in these small houses on one of the islands, which had no roads or cars. Although we didn’t get to see any tigers, the Sundarbans was still pretty cool, and if you are a fan of birdwatching an other sedentary activities, you probably would love it there. I myself, however, am a more active person and enjoy doing things outdoors that involve more than sitting around waiting for things to happen.
As our time in India draws to a close, I think we are all pretty ready to go home. I didn’t fully grasp this until the Destiny girls left on Sunday, so the past week it was just Dana, Julia, and me here in Kolkata. This endgame mindset has been one of the reasons we have all been working a little harder at work to get as much done as we can for ASED, while also enjoying our last week in Kolkata. Lastly, below is a picture of me in Cherrapunjee from the Kolkata gang’s quest to find the new backwards hat of the Global Fellows program. This is in reference to this picture of Eoin Lyons, a 2017 Global Fellow in India, whose backwards hat photo is face of the Global Fellows program.
-Nick
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