view of Trivendrum
After what seemed like a really long time in transit, three different airplanes and then long lines in Immigration and baggage claim, I stepped out into the somewhat sweltering sun. But it felt great – I was back in India. Not a particular India I’d been to before – Trivendrum (also known as Thirupathnapuram) is the capital of Kerala and further south than any of my prior wanderings had strayed – but for all its differences, India is still India, and I just felt special by being there. The air smelled of India.
It was good that I was thrilled to be back in the place, since I couldn’t immediately find someone from my organization to pick me up. I waited, wondering what my next move should be, especially considering I had no idea what the hotel name was. Luckily, I didn’t have to fully develop a Plan B, as I soon found Jerry, the program leader. Turns out there was a bunch of confusion with some of the other students who have been stuck in NYC ariports and still haven’t arrived yet.
At the moment, we number 13, although that will increase to 17 sometime tomorrow. Most of us are grad students, and most of us are NOT students from the University of Iowa. So we’re pretty much ALL in a similar need-to-get-to-know-everyone state. I’m the only one of the group who has been to India before (excepting Jerry, of course, who is actually of Kerala heritage and got his undergraduate degree in Trivendrum). This puts me in the position of knowing more about India, which can be useful/helpful to the others, but also has me worried I’m that annoying “know-it-all” that speaks up about India WAY too often. I’m hoping that my sincere desire to NOT be that girl is helping me to curb the tendency I have to speak up…but as we all know, I’m a talker. So we’ll see.
Yesterday was a long haze of wandering about and slowly acclimating. I refused to nap in the hopes that I could beat the jetlag decisively and early. Judging from my crash this afternoon, not sure that was entirely successful. Yet.
The Ladies Hostel (aka dorm) on CDS campus
Today was spent at the campus of the Center for Development Studies (CDS), which was designed by COSTFORD, the local NGO that is our sponsor. Planners on the international scene know that COSTFORD is the organization started by the late Laurie Baker, an expatriot Brit who achieved great feats of low-cost, durable architecture and who was at one point awarded the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in architecture. From a series of talks (punctuated by frequent tea breaks), we got a good overview of Laurie Baker’s work, the situation in Kerala and India in general. Kerala rose to fame back in 1957 when it became the first state (in the world) to democratically elect a Communist government. This (and their subsequent reputation) had the significant impact of essentially repelling big buisnesses from locating there, where Unions are much stronger than elsewhere in the country. The positives of their left-leaning traditions, however, include the highest literacy rate in India, lower infant and child mortality rates, higher life expectancies, and smaller families (yay for family planning). Despite these smaller families, however, Kerala remains a densely populated state (approximately 32 million people) that experiences what they call the “Urban-Rural Continuum,” in which there are very few villages anymore and which general sprawl prevades across the long and narrow state – in some places, Kerala is only 65 miles across!
After lunch, we got a walking tour of the campus, during which many of the techniques that Laurie Baker had employed were pointed out and further explained. Laurie Baker seems pretty cool for his emphasis on use of local materials, flavor and techniques to develop the best projects at the most efficient cost – never wanting to just insert some project that worked out well somewhere else.
Well, there’s tons more I can say, but I’m too tired to see it. If you don’t hear from me any sooner Happy New Year!
