happy thanksgiving!

My work situation has changed dramatically. For the past week I had been working on a proposal to research the nenasalas; telecenters set up in rural areas by the government of Sri Lanka. Now it seems that I will be researching the e-villages. There is already one e-village in Sri Lanka, in a place called Mahavillachchiya. This village is pretty remarkable because while they lack basic infrastructure like good roads and telephones, they do have a wireless mesh network and lots of computers. The village has been wired for around 8 years and it’s made a big impact in the lives of local youth who don’t have to travel to cities to use the internet.

The president of Sri Lanka has recently allocated 100 million rupees to replicate the e-village at different sites across the country and my job will be to write a case study of Mahavillachchyia and look at what works and what doesn’t. I will also be looking at ways to make the e-village sustainable as it is currently supported through donors. If all goes well I might get ICTA to give me a small budget to make a short documentary on this initiative. It might be fun to also incorporate the talents of the kids in the village in the filmmaking process.

Of course this will mean living in the village for a couple of weeks, something which I am definitely looking forward to. I somewhat regret not being able to see very many Indian villages while I was in Bombay.

I was at an offsite brainstorming session on Wednesday and got to learn lots about ICTA and what it does. It was interesting to hear the discussions on all the various problems that this government agency faces. I found there are lots of parallels between lab procedure and management techniques. After projects like the co-op I found that setting up things like a system of checks and balances with vendors was old hat. I also learned that conferences are festivals of eating. Curd and treacle is a popular dessert here and its soon becoming my favorite. The brainstorming sessions were split up by meals and tea breaks culminating in a cocktail hour where people from work sang songs in Sinhala.

I am also now taking an aerobics class in a church hall. It wasn’t my first choice but I want to exercise and it’s the closest thing to my house. The music they play is the native Sri Lankan Baila music which makes things more exciting and the lady who teaches the class ruffles my hair at the end which is a little weird for me.

I hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. I miss everyone at home lots. I went out to a nice Italian place with a friend and indulged in pricey pasta. It was nice but not the same as mom’s cooking.