White Tiger’s Lair

9 days and counting before I begin another new adventure… 1 full month in India, March 11^th-April 11^th.

In the course of researching the solar thermal desalination market for my job, I started to become aware of the water issues and the major disconnect between business and engineering in coming up with solutions and business and humanitarian efforts in implementing them.   So I decided to volunteer so that I could learn more and maybe bring the different worlds together a bit. 

I am a volunteer with a NGO called Water For People, (http://www.waterforpeople.org/site/PageServer) which works to which works to bring sustainable clean drinking water and sanitation facilities the people in rural areas developing nations.  As part of their World Water Corps I will be heading to India for a monitoring project in rural West Bengal for the last two weeks in March two weeks.   

While I am there, I am going to take the opportunity to learn as much as possible about the various water situations in India during the second half of the trip.  This means I will be spending 2.5 weeks traveling all over the country alone.  It should be quite the adventure.

The second half of this trip will be spent traveling to different areas to interview people who are working to make a difference and getting first hand view of the results.  The specific water issues vary in place to place, (not enough water, dirty water – brackish water, water that has natural arsenic or fluoride) but the main theme is always the same not enough potable water.  The goal is to learn what solutions are being implemented what is working and what is not and see what lessons can be learned from how businesses are dealing with the water situation and applied to humanitarian efforts.

In an effort to keep everyone posted on my progress (and yes the let family and friends know I am alright) on the trip, I will be posting updates as often as I can.

With any luck I will have my itinerary set and ready to post in the next few days…