February 25, 2004
Quote of the week
"I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all, and I think all Americans should be concerned about this."
-- Conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly, who had promised rival ABC last year he would publicly apologize if weapons were not found in Iraq. O'Reilly also said he was "much more skeptical about the Bush administration now" since former weapons inspector David Kay said he did not think Saddam had any weapons of mass destruction. Source: Reuters
February 24, 2004
Yummy
"Delicious is a social bookmarks manager. Using simple bookmarklets, you can add bookmarks to your list and categorize them." (more about del.icio.us here...)
Hat Tip: VJ (Yes, the "Amber" category refers to me!)
Reviving The Qualities of Teamwork
On Monday, February 16, 2004, I learned the value of teamwork. Traveling in a team, particularly, has many benefits.
First, there are the health benefits. For example, if one is sick, and there is a doctor (or two) traveling with you, then there is perhaps access to free samples of anti-nausea medication (to name one). There may also be access to a stethescope, which is particularly useful when desiring to check someone's blood pressure after they regain consciousness.
Secondly, there are the transportation benefits. If, perchance, one of your number passes out in the airport, then there are many around to ensure that a wheelchair, or perhaps a stretcher, is utilitized (maybe both) and that one's bags, boarding passes, and international identification (i.e. a passport), are looked after.
Thirdly, there is the benefit of "sharing the burden" or as the case may be, "packing the burden(s)". This, of course, done with a cheerful and willing attitude and without complaint, even if one's burdens consist of a disarray of clothes, cords, camera equipment, microphones, video tapes, and computer accessories.
There are many more benefits, I'm sure, to teamwork and specifically, traveling as a team. But these three, in my personal experience, are held by me in the highest regard, in light of my own personal experiences and interactions on Monday, February 16, 2004.
And though it was said afterwards that the "incident" was most likely physician-induced, I am grateful for the care and attention given to me by the doctors, nurses, and friends on my team. Without them, I wouldn't have even made it to the airport. With them, I experienced the surreal: being pushed in a wheelchair across the airport tarmac to a plane waiting to whisk us away to a 4-star hotel in Mumbai.
Thanks for tuning in to this edition of "India: Looking Back" or whatever I decide to call it tomorrow.
=)
February 19, 2004
Lag
Hello friends. I'm back in Portland. Sorry updates were so few and far between. Our dial-up connection was just that -- dial-up -- and we experienced severe technical difficulties when the "Trans-Atlantic Pipeline" went down.
For now, jet lag is setting in once again, but I'm very happy to be home. More soon. =)
February 04, 2004
It's simply complicated
I'm sitting at a desk that I've pulled into the middle of my hotel room. I'm surrounded by a pile of punjabis on one of the twin beds, various papers, maps, receipts, empty water bottles, and granola bar wrappers, battery chargers, cameras, blank tapes, filled tapes, memory sticks and a few favorite CDs. Outside my 5th floor window, I see a still and motionless landscape -- the tops of buildings and apartments and clothes draped from the window sills. But my ears hear a different story. I hear non-DEQ approved combustion engines, the crescendo and decrescendo of engines as they aggressively weave and manuever down the street. I hear three distinct sounds of horns. The double-beep ("Look out"). The single beep ("OK"). And the rapid succession of beeps that I take to mean, "Move now or die!" I hear dogs barking, a man wailing, and in a couple of hours, I'll hear the Muslim call to worship over the loud speaker.
The juxtaposition of stillness and chaos, of melody and cacophony, of peace and imminent danger precisely and abstractly describes my experience here in Ahmedabad. This is the town where Ghandi lived -- a man of peace and revolution. And this is the state of Gujarat -- a place of change and turmoil. And it is here that I find myself in the dead of winter wearing a rose-colored tailored punjabi with embroidered flowers ready to embark upon the chaos of the streets to find a McDonalds with the young people in our group.
It is indeed a strange existence.
February 02, 2004
Live from India
Greetings from India!
Everyone arrived healthy, happy, and exhausted after the 2 days of travel, including a Friday that seemed to go on for days. Actually it did go on for almost 2 days!
When we arrived, after having spent all night awake in a couple different Indian airports, we got settled into our hotel rooms and many of us girls went shopping for local garb. It was very fun and I got some very colorful footage of the shop we were in, which was just a hole in the wall shop filled floor to ceiling with fabric.
Yesterday I went with the women trainers who were talking to a group of working women. It was great to meet the ladies who live in town and to learn a little bit of their experiences in the workplace.
Today I traveled with the youth trainers and got just a tiny bit carsick -- nothing serious, just a mild headache and dizziness. Driving here is a bit different than in the states. It's kind of like riding the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. All you can do is hold on and try and convince your mind that the objects hurdling toward you will not indeed smash you to pieces.
Being at the youth seminar was wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed meeting, interviewing, and filming the college age students in the nearby town where the seminar was held. I especially wish that I could have spent more time getting to know the young women there, of which there were so few. (It was mostly young men who attended.) The ladies were shy but very friendly and warmed up after a little coaxing and some friendly conversation.
Tomorrow I think I will rest up a little bit. Perhaps I will have some time to post some pictures on the blog as well. We'll see. We didn't end up getting the Internet phones, for whatever reason, so I am dialing up from my hotel room (which is wonderful, but slow nonetheless.)
Until then,
Amber
