Its 12:02am, hello Jet Lag :-)

One thing about jet lag, every time I've had it, its made me significantly more productive. I'm so awake when the world is not, and I can focus much better :-) Today was the first day here, I spent some time with Shanthala at Enable India. First impressions are good! I met a number of clients of the center, many of them have decent mobility skills and use a cane, though most of the canes were just aluminum tubing, that's similar to what we have in the states, just without white tape. Enable India has done some great work with getting people into jobs around Bangalore. I can't speak to the quality of the employment because I've not seen it, but they are working, and not always in stereotypical "blind" jobs, and that's great.

I've spent some time this evening formulating some discussion topics for our classroom lectures that will start Monday. In typical "me" fashion, I'm leaving them very soft so that we can better capture those "teachable moments" that come up in discussion. I've not lectured here before, but I get the sense that it'll be less formal than it was in Vietnam, and I can hope for some questions and real discussion with the students. In Vietnam if you all remember, they think its disrespectful to question the teacher, which is really counter to my style of teaching. So we had to do some work on both ends to work better, so here's hoping this is a questioning group of people!

Teaching indoors first, which is how we do it in the states is not going to happen, they just don't have the indoor needs that we have in the US. There are large buildings, but most the need is moving outside, and in small 600-1000 square foot spaces. I think I'll begin the actual skills teaching outside in a park with some nice long sidewalks and no traffic which should simulate the long halls we get inside to get that cane technique working.

First impressions of India: Its very similar to Vietnam and Costa Rica in terms of city "feeling". There are tons of vehicles on the road, little to know adherence to traffic controls, and "chaos" everywhere. This is at first glance, the people on the roads make it work though, and I've yet to see even a rear end collision, though I'm certain they happen. Like in Vietnam I will teach people to walk along side the road rather than on the sidewalks, for the same reason, the sidewalks are poorly maintained and often disgusting with garbage, animal excrement, and random holes and pitfalls. The streets are much better maintained, and the people are very aware of what's going on around them, so the safety is higher than one would initially think.

Many tools I use for traffic at home may not be as useful here. The intersections do not have predictable patterns for the most part, so orientation by them is probably going to be hard. Because its overcast permanently here due to monsoon season, using the sun for orientation will also be difficult, though that only lasts a couple months of the year, its also the time I happen to be teaching here :-) We'll work around these obstacles though, I'm just not completely sure how yet, but that's much of what this style of teaching is all about, and one of the reasons I love doing it.

India itself is great, the people are very kind, hard working, and wonderful. One major difference so far from Vietnam though is the prevalence of cows. I had heard about cows being in India, and their holy nature and such. I kind of "got" that idea. I had even heard that you see them in the street, but I assumed it was like in Costa Rica where you would see them grazing on the side of the road, often picketed. Yeah, no. The cows here are like stray dogs, but as big as, well, as big as cows. They are often seen ripping into garbage bags of vegetable scraps laid out on the sidewalks. They are completely indifferent to people, you can walk right up to them and they don't even so much as glance my way. Smug bovine for sure. They know they have it good. There is also a bunch of them. I'm sure I've seen 50 or more already, and I've only been here a day. Come to think of it, no bulls though... I'll keep looking.

So picture this, the traffic of New York City, but 3-4 times more motorcycles, car exhaust, broken sidewalks, garbage in the street, and cattle roaming around, and you have the roads of Bangalore. I know it doesn't sound great, but its home to a lot of people, and I can see why, its neat!

I'm going to try to get some sleep now. Oh before that, the cars are different, the passenger seat is on the driver's side, and one drives on the left. That means the stick shift is operated with your left hand. Anubhav says I can drive tomorrow, I can't wait!

~Mickey