Singapore... bloody hell

No there's on blood or hell, in Singapore. It is a very clean and safe place. I've been hanging out with too many Brits, so I've picked up some international slang. I do feel so much more Cosmopolitician...

Based on previous advice, we did not attempt to shoplift or smuggle drugs into the country. We did engage in some malicious j-walking to see if we were really being monitored by security cameras.

We didn't get arrested. No fines. No threats of death or torture. We just got across the street a little more quickly.

We leave tomorrow morning for SF, but fear not dear readers. Unlike last time, we have many more experiences to share with you. It won't exactly be real time though, we've got notes and papers and shit to write up. We also have lots of pictures to process and post and link to relevant content.

We did leave everyone hanging last time, so when we've hit the bottom of the barrel of our canned stories of entanglement and woe, we will officially let you know. I promise.

In the meanwhile, I wanted to brag about a little piece of feedback from Motivation UK, regarding the report on our new wheelchair prototype:

James & Firoz,

Thank you very much for compiling this report, it made inspiring
reading. I have circulated it here at Motivation UK and the reactions
have been fantastic.

On behalf of Motivation I would like to send our best wishes and
congratulations to the whole special seating team at CRP! Well done.

It is great to hear that CRP is open to collaborating with Motivation on future projects...in fact there are several programmes coming up which I think would be of interest to CRP... Many thanks again - it's a magnificent achievement that the service has developed so well.

Kind regards

Ray
Motivation
www.motivation.og.uk

Here is the .pdf version of the report I submitted. It has plenty of pictures and meangingless dry comments for everyone to enjoy. Yippee!

Agamical, Ami Kolkata Geachelam

I stumbled out of bed at 10:15am yesterday and ran out to the front gate to wish goodbye to Catherine and Chris. They had been at CRP for the last 4 months. Catherine is a Physiotherapist and Chris, a IT geek who helped with (more like designed it from scratch) the website. They are off to SE Asia, then Australia and New Zealand. Please read all about it in their blog www.expectedresult.co.uk/Personal/.

I wish them and the rest of the volunteers well.

I mentioned earlier that CRP felt a little like sleep away camp. The last few days were had the same feeling as the end of summer. Everyone was exchanging gifts and gathering emails and talking smack about possible reunions. They were very sweet and got me two lungies as going away presents.

After seeing C and C off, I took the bus down to Dhaka. I was in much need of the airconditioning and ATM at the Standard Chartered Bank. The clouds were low and the wind pushed black waves across the marshlands dotted with brick-making smokestacks. This final day should have been filled with reverance, but I was reading "The Running Man." A beat-up Stephen King pulpy thriller immortalized by the awful movie starring my governator. I was embarressed to be reading it, but I've read all of the other books in my flat. I folded the cover around the back to avoid showing the beaming arnold to unsuspecting Bangladeshis.

I miss my stop on the bus and have to walk a kilometer back to Mirpur road. Along the way I stop again to oggle Louis Kahn's National Assembly Building (I've visited it three times so far). It hits me - I am stalking a building. It was the reason for our initial border crossing into Bangladesh and here I was staring at it again. I imagined the building pulling down a great window shade from the sky, calling me a "Masher" and threatening to call the police. Instead of sliding down the fire escape and running into the night, I sit down on the curb.

The building is astonishingly simple and so beautiful, especially from the 3/4 mile marker where I sit. It is a concrete structure with gridlines of marble. The marble shares the same hue as the sky. As such, the clouds seem to seep into the structure and roll down the sides like rain. Window's peek out from huge incisions into the concrete. Repetitive triangles, circles and squares gape for several stories, then return to the marble mesh. There is a solitary flag of bangladesh and a chorus of mullahs ring from surrounding masjids. Across the immense grounds flow a steady procession of burkas, hijabs, and multicolor plaid lungies. The lighting is the only feature that places the building in a time frame. Mod-style arrangements of glass bulbs on steel trunks bring one back to the mid 70's.

I attract a small gathering (12 people) of gawkers gawking at me gawking, but it starts to rain so I beat it for the shelter of Parbatana, a women's rights organization that houses a quiet cafe a bookstore and several handloom goods boutiques. I buy my mom a tshirt for exercise class - It is a drawing of a Bangla bus full of people. They hang out the doors and are crowded on the roof. Although, the salesperson told me that the quotation in Bangali read "Travel safely" or "Have a safe journey," I like to think that it says "You will know that an accident has turned fatal when the bus pilot absconds - As such, always watch the pilot." My timing is tops, as the rain falls heavily now. I much on samuchas and wish that my lassie was from Sharma's in Kolkata.

I'm due back in Savar at 3, so when the rain has stops I'll scuttle to the bus with a bag full of things for Michele, a couple of posters and the T-shirt.

I've got a ceiling fan

I have black under my fingernails, because we painted the wheelchair prototype today. Also, there was a little drama at work. My good friend Alamgir, may lose his job. I don't understand the circumstances at all, but I think that it has something to do with budget cuts. CRP has a new CEO and he may be stretching out his power with the organization's founder in Europe on a fundraising visit. I want to write him a letter of recommendation or do something to help, but I don't want to overstep boundaries or get into politiky bullshit either.

He prayed at every call today - I haven't seen him ever do that.

A few days ago, Team Bangladesh beat the Australian cricketers in a One-Day International (ODI) match. The BBC says that it was a "huge shock with a five-wicket win." Thus, people are generally in good spirits. I did manage to see a little of the game from a big TV in an electronics store near Gulshan II. People were all crowded around the store out into the street. Rickshaw pullers were pissed - Their handle bar bells rang as they swung around the mob into oncoming traffic.

I've passes a milestone in my Bangla speaking. Very quickly I can rattle off:
"You able to walk away - I have no money - I unable to give any taka" It makes me very happy.

Go pistons.

Why I hate computers

The monsoon has finally kicked into gear in Savar. Rubber sheets of rain pound the tin roofs of the workshop and the plants rejoice in heavy contrast green. On the bus to Dhaka this afternoon, my dear friend chris noted that the TV's color was off. In this city of greys and browns the color of everything seems amplified... blown out of proportion with reality.

The faces (of Bangla moviestars, grimacing and toting guns and bloody knives - but we've been throught this before) on the seats of rickshaws glow in an orange pink that matches the hue of "sharuhk khan's" mug dancing above the driver's head. I can't believe it - they dance at the foot of Lombard street where the road sublimely turns like wheelchair ramps only at a worse slope and without handrails. Now they are dancing on the top of church street? Or is it Russian Knob something hill? I can't tell but I swear that I saw Gavin Newsome while they danced around the steps of the city / county building. But we were talking about color.

The red of the bucket, a little less amplified then shahruk's face reflects the jackfruit. Let me describe my lunch feast. Sickly sweet pods with threetimeskidney bean sized pits. A cross between a perfectly ripe mango and a banana? to be honest, the national fruit of Bangladesh sometimes reminds me of Starburst candy. Michele thinks that they taste like Tums, or rolaids, just ask her.

The red bucket of ripe jackfruit is continually replentished by the junior of the workshop technicians. He is the same sweet guy who brings me chai and shingara (like samosa only better) at 10:30 everyday. He waits until I've finished and then takes the tiny glass mug back to be washed. Today he has jackfruit glue all over his fingers. He pulls in the jackfruit body and deposits pods of the shining fruit in the red bucket. After a couple dozen of fruit pods, another technician pours puffed rice into the bucket. His hands are covered with a white substance that requires kerosine to rinse off. When I fake to shake his hand the whole room yells at me not to touch him. But he smiles.

A senior technician then digs his hand in and thoroughly mixes the concoction. We all watch and try not to drool. On our haunches, we are crouched around the bucket bangla style. We all reach our right hands into the mixture and return with a puffy wad. Stuffing the rich ball into our mouths, we all spit out the pit. They rain on the floor like the water falls from the sky and we chew together.

I like all 12 of the seating, positioning and orthotics workshop crew. While consuming mass quantities of Jackfruit and puffed rice, they tease me about my lungie. I should NOT have worn it to work - A big faux pas.

I've heard the lecture before about my choice of work clothes. So I try not to laugh when my boss, Firoz, discusses the merits of the lungie... as a sleeping outfit, not a work one. We continue to savor the rich fruit.



We have made great progress on the portable seating system. We are not quite there yet, but a few minor details away. We took a few hours off and built a keyguard from scrap plexiglass. An award plaque from 2001 was sacrificed. I scraped the 4 year old paint off the surface and washed it in detergent. It is a beautiful keyguard, although I'm starting to regret our use of superglue. I should have paid the 350 taka for a keyboard with Bangla characters... Although not entirely useful for those unfamiliar with english characters, our keyboard and keyguard look pretty.

This cybercafe monitor is on it's last legs - it's contrast has pushed the blogger blue to purple.I pray that allah keeps you all well and functioning, then knock, knock knock knock knock on wood and pray the same for blogger.

That is What We Do

Although there is no camping or, counselors, or arts and crafts activities, I get this strange impression that I am at summer camp. Don't get me wrong, dear reader, I am very happy here, but it feels slightly odd.

I write from the bowels of the Center for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP). CRP is in Savar, a quaint townlette 30 minutes to the north of Dhaka in Bangladesh. I've been here for the last 6 days, and has been way to preoccupied to blog. This may be hard to believe for some of you, but I am actually working very hard. I walk in the door to the workshop at 8:30am and stumble back to my room around 6:00pm.

I'm now on a volunteer vacation!

This is what doo-goody, doo-gooders do when they get sick of dooing good at home, I suppose. Like all of the rescue ronnies flooding New York City post 9-11, I just wanna help people, dig? I do like the tsunamni tourists in India and Sri Lanka, or all the annoying christian helpers up in Ma Theresa's joint.

The workshop is the rehabilitation engineering / seating and positioing clinic on the sprawling CRP campus. I am joined by a bevy of technicians an a handful of occupational therapists and engineers. Well, they were here already, I just sit in the corner and stare at the tools and try not to cut myself.

Besides all of the chairs and prosthetics that they are busily constructing, they get to babysit me and my project. Mine is a project of necessity not glamour. While I wanted to get all jiggy with architects and designers, and talk high-fallutin nonsense about universal design, I'm getting jigified with jigs... and shunts too. Me and my dear friend Mister Alamgir (Alum-Ghee) are designing a portable seating and positioning system. I ask him lots of questions about the shop equipment and he scowls.

For wheelchairs, you have two basic seating types: the plain jane and the special seat. Each can be dissected and stratified into niches and needs. The plain jane is for peeps who have lower level spinal cord injuries, amputations or have plenty of upper body muscles to move them around. The special seat user needs help propping their body up.

Special seats in the US are really high-tech wonders. They buzz, jerk, slide, tilt with an efficiency that would make NASA proud. They are constructed of molded plastic and space age fabrics, gels and meshes. Chairs get used hard, because like any piece of durable medical equipment, they become an extension of your body. Western Special seats are designed to clean easy (to shed a user's funk), adjust to the user's bodies needs and whims and be easily transportable. Special seating for people with cerebral palsy and other mobility disabilities, is essential for increasing their independence in life, being productive and getting shit done.

In the developing world, like most things for people with disabilities, wheelchairs are a luxury. If you are born with, or acquire a serious mobilities disability, you'll be lucky if your family doesn't disown or divorce you. Then you'll be super-psyched if you get your hands on a flat board that may or may not have little wheels, like a Michael J Fox skateboard in Back to the Future. For those with a little more luck, you'll be channeled into an organization that will hand you a 1950's everett and jennings style tank-chair that 5 generations of neighbors have died in.

You can see where I'm going with this... Special seating is like the frill of your big-pimpin '64 impala's shaggy ceiling.

At CRP, we design and fabricate new chairs from durable components available locally, we design in plain jane and special seat flavors. People who can make it to our seating clinics are very happy. The chairs we design are efficient, but are not exactly high tech. They utilize rickshaw wheels, and rubber castors and a thick grade of steel tubing. They will hopefully last the user a lifetime of bumps and spills and falls from the top of local busses (from which we guarantee the life of the chair, not the user).

We're working on a portable seating system so that families of children with disabilities can actually bring the seat back to CRP for adjustment and recalibration as they grow. A device that plays such a serious role in a person's life, needs to adjust to their changes. A return trip to CRP is like a kid's journey to Footlocker. To insure correct development of their minds and bodies, they have to come back. But, they have to come back by bus, and buses here (or any mode of personal or public transportation) are not wheelchair friendly. There are plans for satellite seating centers throughout Bangladesh, but there is only one for now.

Along with annoying Alamgir and my boss, Firoz, my job is to make it easier for the caregiver, while keeping the quality and adjustment settings of the chair consistent. We are hoping that if a family can bring just the "guts" of the seating system back, then they will be more likely to return. I'm excited about the accessorizing possibilities, such as handstraps and carrying bags and baseball hats. F and Alamgir and Nehpa our OT, are more worried with other things... like my date of departure. I'm sure that they are all going to celebrate my return to India (then back to home) in a couple more weeks.

Go Pistons.

Same as the old Kolkata

When I spend time in Detroit, it seems that no visit is complete without an orbit or snack of Lafayette Coney Island. It is my favorite hot dog place in the entire world (Mustard's Last Stand with locations in Denver & Boulder is my second favorite). I consider myself a quote-vegetarian-unquote but I'm never bothered by the processed filler sludge in the Lafayette's dogs or chilli fries. Who knows, they could easily be some type of soy product.

I am drawn back to these places for the food, but also for the consistency of experiences. When I want to be reminded of people and times in the past these places are essential. It is also helpful to see what changes have taken place at these points to gauge my overall sense of a place's differences.

Yesterday afternoon, I arrived slightly frazzeled, but okay, to Kolkata's Howrah railway station via Chennai from Bangalore. The trip was about 40 hours of consistent clanking and buzzing of the three tier sleeper car. Along the way I met a construction team from a village near Auroville that was headed here to work on a new DVD shop. The firm's owner and manager has done extensive construction in Auroville and had even worked on the Matri Mandir and US Pavillion that we visited. We both laughed at the Mandir's fugly design and wondered if it would ever be completed. He showed me drawings of the project here and invited me by the worksite.

Since arriving, I've been busy with errands that are essential to my trip back to Bangladesh. In between getting passport photos and waiting in line to get my Bangladeshi Visa (3 passport photos, copies of passport & indian visa, correctly filled out forms and RS 5000) I've hit the street corners, Internet cafes and restuarants that hold meaning to me. The repetition is deliberate as it helps me feel more grounded in this chaotic indian metropolis.



I am on my way back to Bangladesh to volunteer at the Center for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed. While I'll be there for the next three weeks, M has chosen to stay in India and meet with the Deaf communities in Bangalore, Srinigar (don't ask) and Dehli. I miss her like crazy, but it is also nice to travel alone.

While I dodge the same guys who try to sell me hash and marajuana 2 months ago, I've also taken in fine sweet lime sodas, paw bahji (Kolkata variation on the Mumbia staple Pav Bhaji) and the views of New Market from the 9th floor of the Lindsay Hotel. This is the same time that we stayed here prior to our departure back to the US in 2003, so it is an interesting repeat of climate - Godawful f'ing hot and humid. Thus, I've been zipping in and out of air-conditioned spaces like an artful boxer dodging punches.

Speaking of punching, I've been enjoying the recent political flags and graffiti that cover every spare square-inch of wallspace in the city. All the candidates have slogans and color schemes, but each ad has prominent directions to "Punch this symbol." In a region where so many people are illiterate (who knows about learning and cognitive disabilities), it is nice to see the ballots have icons.

As the posting could hardly be complete without a status report on my digestive system - I'm in the grips of another fun bout with dysentery. However, the Cipro flows like water here. It is less than $3 for two doses (RS 9 per tablet at two tablets / day by 3 days for each dose). With rates that good, I could survive more than a couple rounds with Anthrax - Bring it on you commie terrorist scum!

Tomorrow morning, I'll hop a bus at 5:00AM to the border at Benapole, then on to Dhaka by 6:00PM or so. I did finally score an alarm clock with glow in the dark numbers, Japanese design and Chinese manufacturing. I'm just uncertain as how to turn the alarm off without removing the batteries... Don't fret dear reader, as I will keep you updated as this important story unfolds.

PS: Just for fun