Wow, the trip is almost over, can you believe it??

I haven't posted in a little while, we've been going at warp speed here. I'm excited to report some really awesome things happening, I don't even know where to start, and I don't want to write a novel since that may turn away "readership" here's looking at you Dad. So, bullets perhaps.

• We are in the process of helping to facilitate a network among the organizations working for visual impairments with children here in Bangalore. There are 4 already committed, now we're going to formalize it with an email list. 
• Making strides at convincing the above organizations to pool resources, so that they aren't all individually constantly reinventing the wheel. I believe they are slowly coming to think they aren't in competition with each other.
• I've already promised two schools boxes of braille story books. I was at a school run by some wonderful nuns, at the Jyothi Seva School for the Blind http://www.jyothiseva.ovh.org/Main.html, they have their roots in Poland, but there are over 20 sisters there from India, and 2 from Poland. Unfortunately, they have so few braille books that they are unable to let the kids really read them. The books looked brand new! They are afraid the kids will destroy them, and they won't get others. The kids get 30 minutes a day to read, they can't take them from the library though. I had them promise that if I sent them books, they'd let the kids take them to their rooms, read them before bed, and "love" them lots. I said if the kids "destroy" them, to let me know and we'll replace them with others. This is how literacy happens. Unfortunately the way braille is, with raised bumps on paper, there is a life span on books, the braille gets pressed down and so forth, so they'll keep needing more, and they're one of hundreds of schools just here in India. We'll start in Bangalore though with creating better braille libraries, then the world. You know, baby steps.
• The students in the class are doing so awesome. This is our last week, today is our last day. They've come an incredible distance in only a month's time. You'd never guess to look at them teach that they've only been doing it for a month. I KNOW they'll take this teaching into the world of their schools. This class has been about so much more than orientation and mobility. They've gotten a complete "crash course" in visual disabilities. Already, on Saturday one of the schools represented is having their first cooking class with their students. They're now working to teach them true independence rather than just getting them job placements, and then having them still live at home with their parents.
• A parents network is also being formed here in Bangalore, so that the parents can support each other. Remember, when we pulled the parents together for the class? It was the first time ANY of them had ever been around another parent who had a kid with a visual impairment. That's changed now, and they'll have a network of support to draw from, and share resources with. Many of the parents here in India do the modifications for the school work, not the vision teachers, they're spread too thin. So they need support too. Susan and Lauren hosted a tactile graphics workshop with many of the parents as well as teachers in this area. So that's twice now they've all come together, and it looks like this is just the beginning.
• I really feel like the people we have worked with feel more empowered to think for themselves now. Its a common practice in our world to teach people not to think on their own. We are taught to ask for instructions, to rely on someone else to lead. We teach people that their opinions are likely not correct, that they'll probably screw something up. So, we get people with great ideas that don't feel empowered to act upon them, meanwhile kids are growing up without appropriate supports. I think this is changing, already I've heard of innovative ideas for teaching their students. Sure, they'll screw up, but they won't break anything. Even the effort is doing more than what is being done currently in many cases. Each screw up, and each success, teaches us how to do it better, whatever "it" is. Could be teaching, could be riding a bike, it all works the same. This is how every great teacher I know has gotten to be great.

After this trip, I'm convinced we have a viable model for making change in the world of visual impairments in developing countries. I can't wait to get this braille book program off the ground. The sisters told me that Free Matter for the Blind is a world wide program, and that the shipping is free. I'll have to explore this more, if this is true, that removes a significant barrier to having this program be successful. I really doubt that the sisters lied about the Free Matter thing, I mean, they are nuns... Susan, Lauren, and I were starting to feel a bit intimidated at international shipping rates. 

We've not fleshed out the details on the magnifier/monocular program yet, I'll let you know as I work it out. I'd love for your thoughts if you know of a way to make this possible. I know what the goal looks like, its this: Appropriate magnifiers and monoculars given to people with low vision along with proper training in their use, for free, or at a reduced cost, so that these folks have access to another literacy medium than just braille. Print is the sighted world's literacy, the ability to offer access to this is priceless. 

I'm also still looking for someone to work with me in getting kids with visual impairment in the US or other "developed" countries in connection with kids with visual impairment in the developing world. Fundraising would be awesome, our kids at home can help to support a cause that is meaningful to them, and help to help kids around the world. A pen pal program would also be just as awesome. So to all the teachers out there of kids with visual impairments reading this, get those ideas flowing, and feel free to email, mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon.org I will get back with you, though I'm super swamped at the moment so it may be a little slower than normal.

Enough for now, here are some photos! In this collection will be pics from a trip to the jungle we took last weekend. I can't tell you how wonderful it was for this nature kid to actually get out into it. It was incredibly rejuvenating. Also there are other pics from a school we went to yesterday that is an extension of the one that we went to and gave canes out here in Bangalore. Its a farm on 20 acres, they have kids who are deaf, have cognitive impairments, and blind. Not all together though, they are either blind, or deaf, or have a cognitive impairment. There are a couple with multiple disabilities as well. Anyway, they completely work this farm, and most of the adults have a disability as well. Its awesome, really.

A wild elephant. This was a much more powerful way to see these beautiful creatures, rather than a zoo or circus.

A mother and baby, also wild.

Lets continue this cute baby animal series:

Seriously, so cute.

Breakfast!

These are Langurs, they may be my favorite monkey to date.

My little monkey

A leopard, we were incredibly lucky to catch this guy, unfortunately this is the best photo :-( Its pretty cool though!

Closest we got to a tiger, seems like we just missed him :-(

This is filled with cow dung that they are mixing into a "slurry" they will then drain it down under that drum on the left, it will produce methane which will raise that barrel up as it fills with gas. The gas will then be sent through that pipe to cook with in the kitchen, like propane. Very gross process, but really cool for what it does. Why waste the cow manure? Those guys are both blind.

These are silk worms that they are harvesting. The smiling man is deaf, the man I'm talking with is blind.

Lunch on a banana leaf, was awesome!

Wish I could take him home with me, such a cool kid, also deaf.

Climbing a coconut tree. They teach blind people to do this to earn a wage for coconut harvesting.

Doing some obligatory coconut juggling

Teaching a couple of the kids with hearing impairments to juggle

This man went and climbed a tree to get us these coconuts to drink from. He's fast!

Lauren and Susan drinking from their "tender coconuts"

Kids in the classroom studying, these are the kids with hearing impairments.

Quickly "downing" a coconut so we could head back to the center to teach the last O&M class.

If you'd like to see other India pics, you can go here, and here to my picasa album. For the non techy, click on the two blue "here"s that is underlined in that last sentence :-)

So that's all for now, this afternoon Lauren and Susan are teaching a class on daily living skills. These are the skills necessary to do things like cook when you can't see. We're going to make some fun Indian food, pass around some hugs and smiles, and promise to stay in touch. Tomorrow I'm speaking to some teachers at a head start school, further extolling the benefits of the "expanded core curriculum", I'm really beginning to feel like a missionary for this. I'll then have Sunday off, and will meet Abbyshake for one last lesson for a couple hours on Monday. We'll get on a plane at 2:30am Tuesday morning and head back to our regularly scheduled programming. So this is probably my last update before heading home. Love you all, and so glad you accompanied us on this adventure. We really did, and are changing lives. I can't wait to start the planning for the next couple of trips. 

~Mickey