1 week in Tiruchuli
November 03 2007 William writes:
Due to several snags in my plan to develop an energy modeling website (energyref.com) I decided to take a month off and volunteer for the development NGO, ODAM, who solicited the position of “Biodiesel Technician.” I am no technician but thought I could help in some way and they agreed
Tiruchuli town where ODAM is located is a friendly village of 5000 people 60km west of Madurai in the state Tamil Nadu. This is main street.
The surrounding area is 25% cropland and 75% fallow land infested with the invasive weed juliflora. See my post dedicated to this weed. ODAM (www.odam.in) is an NGO focused on the development of the rural Tamil Nadu population. They have pursued this goal by organizing over 2000 women across the state in small self help groups, providing these groups with low interest loans, reforestation projects, and an experimental biodiesel production center.
Though I had come to help with the biodiesel center, the director asked me to fix the website as it had not been updated in 2 years. This occupied my first week of volunteering which is much longer than if there had been power for more than 4 hours a day. It never occurred to me intermittent power would be such a hardship, but it saps all productivity from everyone. The time required to switch between tasks that require power and those that don’t can easily consume half a day. Regardless, ODAM now has a site (base on free content management system Joomla) that can be updated without any knoledge of HTML. Take a look at ODAM’s site.
Tiruchuli life is interesting. No one except the three other volunteers and 2 staff members speak English. Food is provided by the friendly ODAM cook who will not stop serving rice until your 2 kg heavier. Conversation with the other volunteers from the UK, France and Australia are always entertaining. Their view of America is not as glamorous as mine is.
Some of the staff tock me to a cast gathering of over 2 million people who came to pay their respects to a revolutionary cast leader who fought the british. The people flowed to the complex over the rice fields from every direction.
The staff are very friendly and try hard to explain what every thing. The flags in the background are political and cast flags. Elango says that most Tamil political leaders have been actors in the film industry at some time.
From the left: Mutu (laborer/my body gaurd), Seemia, Elango, Canan (driver/clown). Good people.
This will be a good experience.
Categories: Tiruchuli