Well looks like I’m not going to be going to Nagaland now for a few more weeks. The board has set the date for the opening of CIHSR to after I was due to leave, and so now I am looking at moving my flights around a bit. On the plus side this makes me more hopeful that I will get to see the opening.
Well I think I’m pretty much set for my trip to India on Wednesday week. I have tickets, passport, visa, insurance, new camera, and my last night of accommodation in India booked.
The Women and Child Development Minister of India Renuka Chowdhury, has just told a profound truth.
You cannot trust men or your husbands…
If you believe that men will be careful, then you can forget about protecting yourself.
Men will not buy a condom when they come staggering home while drunk.
Women need to get condoms to protect themselves; let the men be suspicious.
This minister is making very blunt but useful statements. She also goes on to talk about the need for more sex education and a need to get over it..
The floods in North India and South Asia seem to be getting very little media attention. Maybe we are over floods here in Australia or maybe I don’t read the papers. 1,550 people have died from the floods in India, over 2,000 if you include Nepal and Bangladesh.
Read more here.
My friends in Raxaul are requesting prayer, as the rain has started up again there. It is pretty bad. They are keeping fighting the good fight though. They now have thousands of emergency rations to hand out. I am pretty inspired by how well they seem to be doing it. It stated raining again two hours ago and if it keeps raining much of this work won’t help much. So please if you are the praying type take this next few seconds to send up a prayer.
Thanks.
India has a number of major floods going on at the moment.
One of which is in Raxaul where I spent some time in 2004. One of my friends from there sent me some photos of the damage and the work. Duncan Hospital where I stayed in 2004 has been damaged by the floods and currently surgeries are continuing knee deep in water according to one of the reports I have received. The hospital staff despite the inconvenience they are facing with leaking roofs and water damage are reaching out to the local community.
The photos below give you some idea of the level of flooding.
If you are the praying type then please send up a prayer or two for those in the floods in Bihar and Assam.
India and Nagaland were hard, being back in Sydney is harder. It’s odd considering how much time I spent looking forward to coming home that it is being more difficult.
Whilst I was in Nagaland and Delhi I had clear goals, clear deadlines, meaningful but hard work and things to look forward too.
Back in Sydney I have very vague goals, work that seems neither meaningful nor is it absorbing. As far as things to look forward too, there really are no big events lined up. Bluesfest was my last big event I know of this year.
All this stuff is perfectly normal to feel coming back from working in the field. I am not that surprised I am going through this, it still isn’t pleasant. I go through good days and bad days. I think it is also hard because I know there is so much good I could be doing in other countries but can’t see much good here for me to do. I could easily spend 40 hours a week telecommuting to India helping out EHA and CIHSR but I can’t make money that way. Besides remote troubleshooting is one of the most frustrating things to try and do.
I love my friends, and it’s good to be back with them and my family. They are often the source of my good days, and provide me with a healthy level of attachment to Sydney.
I’m trying to make some changes to make life better soon. I am going to start looking for jobs that cater to my needs and in the mean time I am also going to work on sorting out my thesis topic making it something I am passionate about.
Well now I am waiting at Singapore airport for my flight this morning back home. I am rather tired as I didn’t get much sleep last night. The flight should be nice and dreadful as it’s a qantas flight and I am in a middle seat unless it’s the nice version of the 747 (747-400GE), which it may well be. Hope it is.
None of that actually bothers me that much as I will soon be home 
It’s been a good holiday here with Sam. Didn’t end up having the kind of reflective time that I wanted but that’s alright. Just need to make sure I make some time to write when I get back home.
I’ve started packing now. I am only allowing myself to take my original suitcase.
I really enjoy leaving stuff behind, it’s a good cure for material attachment. It is also fun seeing how much what I am taking has changed from what I started with. Hmm…So maybe I am a materialist. Oh well.
I think I managed to do some good work whilst here. I set myself the goal of providing at least $100,000 of value during my time volunteering. Except I forgot to work out how I was going to calculate that. Ops..
Anyway here is a somewhat incomplete list of the work tasks I completed:
Specify the computer systems required for a 200 bed hospital.
Setup a loadbalanced, redundant set of servers to deliver a custom application (Turbocare) using a MySQL backend.
Designed a network
Documented howto setup 90% of the hospitals systems
Misc work on Turbocare including testing and some coding.
Train and mentor two computer systems administrators. One in Delhi and one in Dimapur. (They should be meeting up in a few months, along with the guy I trained in Raxaul. I wonder if they’ll talk about how crazy I was. )
Setup online courseware for two programs (No content in them yet)
Setup an online LDAP Address Book (Not quite finished)
Setup backend for three websites (None of them have much content as of today, but I am promised it will come).
Created some mailing lists (Strangely these are actually used)
Gave a short session in a HMS workshop. (It was title Basic Health Care for Hospital Computers)
Provided evaluation of three Hospital Management Systems. (Mostly informal)
Meet with far too many vendors (I may be a bit of a people person, but I am not really that much into sales people. Particular the ones who call at 10pm on a Friday night.)
Developed a healthy coffee addiction
Researched mobile phone jammers (It’s too hard to get people to switch off phones in meetings)
Evaluated video conferencing solutions(not much though, cause I didn’t like the idea at the time)
Setup far too many wireless networks (But on the plus side, it is a good way to make friends)
Worked on credit card donations options ( Somehow it all ended up going nowhere)
Evaluated a variety of Content Management Systems (Oh so boring)
Evaluated Wireless long distance VPN system (Evaluation is such a nice word isn’t it)
Created specification for PBX system, evaluated some PBX’s and meet with a vendor.
Became official present shopper for colleagues in Dimapur. (Would be fun in a place like Delhi, just hard work in Dimapur)
Helping Damsel’s in distress with IT issues.
I am sure I am missing some tasks I preformed but I think that will do for now. No wonder I’ve been feeling tired. I am pretty amazed I managed to actually develop some friendships in my time here. Although sadly that last work task of helping damsel’s in distress is actually one of the ways I made friends here.
I think I need a new life but for now I’ll settle for leaving India and going on a holiday.
The problem with my living overseas is it means having to say too many goodbyes. I said goodbye to everyone at central office today. I even ended up giving a little speech but it wasn’t very good. It’s interesting goodbyes so often are akward, maybe we try so hard not to show the depth of emotion, or our vulnerability or something.
Anyway I’ve made some pretty awesome friends in my time here in India. I have also worked with some pretty inspiring people. The really nice thing is that I know I will at least see some of them back in Australia, or somewhere else in this tiny planet we live on.
I am looking very much forward to all my hellos that are coming soon. 12 days, 13 hours, 55 minutes until the bulk, but I have got to say hey to the Bevis and will soon be meeting Sam.
In two weeks I am scheduled to arrive back in Austalia.
In two days I am scheduled to leave India for my holiday with Sam.
I have found the well known follow an Indian trick incredibly helpful over the past week.
However now I have a new tip from my observations and experiments on Delhi roads.
Try and cross using a bus, in front of a bus you can usually find a two lane gap big enough to get you well and truly on your way. Once you have crossed those lanes don’t freak out, standing in the middle of a lane is a natural place to stand. Just keep an eye on the traffic and let it flow around you.
