We heard an incredible story at Nayakarahalli.  The village was without power for five days so the water could not be pumped out of the bore well.  They were forced to use the pond water for drinking purposes (we won’t go into details, but trust us that NO ONE would want to drink from this source!).  The villagers filtered the pond water before drinking it and were amazed when they did not get sick.  They are completely sold on the filters and have been visiting neighboring villages to tell people how wonderful the water filters are.  One woman told us the filter is like God to her.  Incredible

The program went on well. Many political representatives were present at the occassion. People from Chilapanahalli were also present at the program. They were very happy about the filters & gave good feed back to the Nayakarahalli crowd. It was very good program. But unfortunately electricity was not there. We had to carry out the program with a lantern. Just now I came back home from Nayakarahalli. Now, I’m driving to Bangalore.

Here goes the first set of snaps for Nayakarahalli project. The first batch of 40 filters are sent ot Nayakrahalli. The invitation cards are printed & are being distributed. Looking forward for a grand function tomorrow but one thing that bothers me is both your presence. You both are showing so much concern for these villagers & working hard for their good health..I’m feeling very proud for both of you. We are very eager to receive you all here.

On Wednesday we went to the village of Chilapanahalli to kick off the first “Adopt A Village” program that was sponsored by the Rotary Club of North Haven.  This includes a donation of 50 water filters to the neediest families.  It also includes a paid community steward who lives in the village and is trained as a Bio Sand water filter technician who will help the families with the filter operations for one year.  It also includes a donation of water filters for the school and the child center, a bar of soap for each student, and education about basic sanitation issues.

Chilapanahalli was selected by a government rural development officer, Ibrahim Padbidri, as one of the neediest villages in the area.  The BPL (below poverty level) in India is 11,000 rupees a year (approximately $240).  More than ¾ of these village families live on half that amount per year!

It was truly a gala event. 

On Tuesday we visited a village called Kyasamballi, which is home to the Rotary Club of Kolar president Venkatesh.  We were hosted by a village leader named Ranga Reddy whose father was the first chief minister of Karnataka, the state’s highest office.  The family home was built around 1880.  It had 6 inch carved teak doors and an inner courtyard.  At one time more than 40 extended family members lived in the house.  We toured the village schools and water supply.

There is a section of the village that is very poor, populated by “scheduled castes”, who are people that are on the lowest rung of the social ladder.  Their huts had burned down in a fire about five years ago and the government built them concrete replacement homes. We toured the area and Venkatesh has agreed to purchase 15 filters for some of the villagers from this section.  We agreed to donate 10 filters using contributions we received that were designated for that purpose.  The village is hosting a health “camp” or awareness day on Monday and we will attend and bring the 25 filters at that time.

Good new is that the local Doctors are appreciating our filters & we have sold 2 filters one for general clinic & other one for an Eye hospital. We are getting more orders from doctors & school teachers. we also have installed two numbers at one of the well renowned school in Kolar named ‘Mahila Samaja High School’.

On Monday we attended a water filter dedication ceremony at the village of Attur.  The filters for this village have been sponsored by Peter French in honor of his parents.  Pete is a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who lived in India when Mike did and he has been wonderful in his support of our project.  He has plans to visit India sometime within the next year. 

The dedication ceremony at Attur was the most extravagant “program” we have attended to date.  When our caravan of SUVs arrived after dark there was a band playing music as we walked down a road lined with colored lights and a crowd of villagers marched with us and showered us with flower petals and lit off fireworks.  We learned later that this is usually done at weddings.  Very cool.  The ceremony took place on an outdoor stage at the school and Mike and I had to sit in elaborate chairs like a king and queen.  We felt silly but went along with the program.  Speeches galore, most of which we could not understand, but the wonderful thing was that there was a huge crowd of interested people at the event.  A professional photographer and video-grapher were there to capture the proceedings.  After a late dinner at our host’s home we traveled about an hour home and collapsed into bed close to midnight.  It was a long but gratifying day.

We have made one filter a day since Monday and they get better each day.  We have ordered two additional molds so we can made three filters per day.  The new molds will be ready on Monday.  We set up a washing station to wash the filter media (sand and gravel) and acquired all the tools necessary to complete and install the filters.  Tomorrow morning we will complete our first installation and demonstration model in the workshop (they take a few days for the concrete to cure).  Many interested people from Kolar and surrounding towns have been visiting the workshop to see what we are doing.  We believe this will be a home run.

It has only been a week since we last emailed you about our adventures in India but it feels like months to us!  We have been so busy the time has warped.  We are now in Kolar, the town where Mike spent two years in the Peace Corps and where we wanted to begin our water filter project.  We have been here for four days and we already have a workshop site, people to work in the workshop and probable orders for 200 filters!!!

The people here have been hospitable beyond words.  Whatever we want we get.  We are working through the local Rotary club to establish ourselves in this area.  One Rotarian, Ramachandre Gowda, has been an absolute saint.  He has been with us every day since we arrived.  He is an engineer by profession and offered us his factory area to establish our workshop.  Today a contractor poured a slab of concrete for part of the manufacturing area.  We have all of the tools we need and Monday after the slab cures we will pour our first filter!

Wednesday night we spoke at the Rotary Club of Kolar weekly meeting and people seemed excited about our project.  Friday night we will attend the meeting of the Rotary Club of Bangalore Cubbon Park to do a slide show presentation.  A week from Sunday we are attending a district Rotary meeting where they expect 600-700 people in attendance from 70-something Rotary clubs in this area.  Ramachandre is going to ask the current district governor if we can have 10 minutes to speak about our water filter project.  Ah….the power of Rotary!

Our expectations for what we could accomplish in 30 days in India has already been exceeded.  As we continue to have success implementing this project we keep raising the bar of our expectations.

Not only have we advanced our water filter program, but the Rotary Club of Hamden will collaborate on a second water project with the Rotary Club of Kolar to provide pure drinking water at three public bus stations which each service up to 5,000 people per day.  Our Rotary club has agreed to match a contribution by the Rotary Club of Kolar which we hope will be matched by the Rotary International Foundation in the form of a Rotary matching grant.  This was an unexpected opportunity to do a lot of good with relatively few dollars.

We slept (kind of) on the train from Bangalore that night and arrived at 7:30am the next morning.  We showered, had breakfast, and then were picked up at 10:00am by members of the DHAN Foundation, a nonprofit organization located in Madurai that conducts training sessions and builds and distributes the bio-sand filters.

The DHAN Foundation personnel ended up providing us with a three day program that consisted of meetings, site visits, education and an evening of sight seeing.  What wonderful people.  We feel like we have made some new friends for life.  They brought us to two villages that are using the bio-sand filters and we were able to talk to the local people (with interpretation).  It was extremely helpful.  The local people are all so friendly and the young children followed us around in groups giggling every time I turned around and smiled or waved.  We were also able to see some other water projects the DHAN Foundation is involved in such as rain water harvesting (tanks and ponds that collect water when it rains for used in the drier times for agricultural irrigation).