Fingers Crossed

So the past few days we have spent securing and setting up our monitoring locations in the slum. I'm realizing slum isn't necessarily what I've always thought. Part of the area, is certainly the like the slums you see in the "save the children" ads, but there is also so areas of development. The government has been assisting a good amount of building in the main area and there are lots of 2-3 story buildings and concrete or asphalt roads. In fact, I really enjoy my time in these areas. The streets are alive! There kids all over, playing cricket, jacks or having there hair brushed. There are people cooking, selling vegetables, doing laundry, cleaning the houses. There's quite a bit of construction and lots of people sweeping their area of street, which keeps it fairly clean. Though it has its difficulties, there is solid sense of community. Our host in the slum is a man named Jaikumar, a local community leader and a custodian at the college we were invited by. And as we walk around we are constantly greated and he explains how he knows everyone.

We got both stations set up and running and will go back today to check them, download the data and move to our mid-income sites. As we finished setting up, the skies opened up and poured! The past week, I've come to respect the monsoon season, and have been thoroughly soaked more than a couple of times- like as we were leaving the slum. But I try not to let it sour me... there are few locations where is fun to be soaked from head to toe. We'll set up the monitors today at he mid-income housing and then pretty much be set. From that point on, Arun will be checking and downloading the data everyweek and changing locations every two weeks. Lets hope the autorickshaw drivers don't continue there strick, which has forced us into a lot of walking!