A day in the life....

Just for you Nancy...

I woke up this morning after finally getting a bit more than 5 hours of sleep for the first time all week.  I started off my day by being at the Mysore City Corporation at about 8:30 am for the Public meeting we were given permission to join yesterday afternoon.  Most of the meeting was in Kannada which means we understood almost nothing of it but some of the fellow viewers in the audience translated a few pieces so that we could figure out some of what was happening.  Apparently the screaming match that was going on dealt with the privatization of water.  The public that took part in the meeting was against it, and the city was pushing for it.  After a few hours of the meeting we went downstairs to talk to one of the employees introduced to us yesterday afternoon that was going to go over Mysore's grievance system.  It is one of two cities in India that has an e-governance grievance system.  It is actually kind of cool.  Citizens can text, call, come down, or email in their complaints and the city has set up a system which divides them into categories and passes them on to the correct people.  They claim a success rate of 96% but of course I have no way of knowing how accurate that is.

After my meetings at the Corporation finished I went out to get some more interviews done.  For those of you who don't know yet, I have a translator from Coorg (about 2 hours drive from here) but he lives here in Mysore now.  He owns a coffee plantation (which I am under the impression other people run most of the time) which means he has lots of time on his hands now.  We completed our 3rd day of work today and I must admit, he is fantastic.  I am very happy with the way things are going.  

I actually started writing this entry yesterday evening but am just now getting a chance to finish writing almost 24 hours later.  I guess that tells you a day in the life of Briana means she doesn't have much time for anything.

So because everything is kind of blending together for me, I will just tell you about what has been happening generally.  As of today i have 14 interviews completed from 2 different slum areas.  I am aiming for 60 and we are completing about 5 a day.  It's so hot outside and with having to be out of the slums by evening to avoid any unnecessary problems, etc it's seems like a good goal to have 5 a day done.

I was really worried about how well I would handle seeing people live in such poor conditions, but to my surprise, I am handling it pretty well I think.  Don't get me wrong, some of the things I see are horrendous and I don't understand how it is possible that the people I talk to everyday manage to do to survive, and that these places can even exist.

A short synopsis, one of the main complaints I get from the people I talk to is that the sewage is mixing with what is supposed to be their drinking water (they are right next to each other).  The open sewage system runs right in front of their houses and all through the slum and doesn't actually flow.  The trash blocks most of it leading to stagnating dirty water which breed mosquitos who spread disease.  I was asked to bring home a baby girl or to take her out of the country... It's hard.  However, the people are nice, and are so open and willing to share their stories, their homes, their time with me.  

I haven't been feeling well the past few days so I am going to cut this a bit short, hope to hear from you all soon. Love to all.