Our car bumbles along the dirt road, its tiny wheels barely surviving the bumps. The four of us unload at the high school teacher’s house, and the teacher leads me, my translator and our driver through dirty yards and alleyways to a pile of sand. We’re looking to find a certain sized grain to put into a water filter, and me being an American engineer need to give my blessing on the sand (the idea of me being a supposed expert on construction materials still gives me a chuckle). We sift through the sand, I nod, the translator nods, the teacher nods, our driver nods, and we start filing the sand bags. As we struggle to carry the bags back to the car, the teacher and driver tell me through the interpreter about a woman who could carry our 75lb sacks on her head as if they were nothing.

The car loaded, the teacher leads us to his house for the mandatory chai break. We pass by some women managing cowpie production, and see them arranging the 12″ diameter pieces of poop into neat rows, letting them dry in the ample winter sun. We sit on a wicker bed / bench in the courtyard of his home as the teacher and driver go to prepare chai.

My translator works for a company called Evalueserve, an outsourcing firm in Delhi. One of his bosses is an alumni at the University of Hartford, which is the school who organized this Engineers Without Borders work project. The alumni arranged a deal that let employees take the day off if they agreed to volunteer to translate for us. Generally nerdy, all have been very helpful and good natured.

“So, what department do you work in?”, I ask, making conversation. Most of the translators had worked in business development or sales.

“I work in the Intellectual Property division.”

To fully understand the meaning of what happens next, it is best to understand the usual response to hearing of my stated profession. Indifference, confusion, dismissal, walking away, statements akin to “So you have a big stamp?”, blank states, condescension, statements regarding the US governments efficacy at accomplishing anything, etc.

“Interesting. I also work in IP. I’m a patent examiner.”

“You … you are a patent examiner?”, he says incredulously.

Cautiously, I respond in the affirmative.

“Oh my! I can’t believe I have met a patent examiner!” he bursts, nearly jumping out of his seat. “We read about you! You do searches and apply the law and … I can’t believe I met a real live patent examiner!”

Both of us sit with someone shocked expressions and talk about IP business practices until the teacher and driver return with chai and Indian sweets. I sit on my bench, drinking chai, the translator still beaming at me, watching random children peek over fences to stare at me, and quietly enjoy this Indian parallel universe where being a patent examiner is cool.

I thought the only way to describe my Engineers Without Borders experience in rural India was to just describe one day in detail. Here goes nothing.

630am: Dave’s alarm goes off, we talk about Lonely Planet induced plans as we walk through Pathways to our early morning Yoga class. We are staying free of charge at Pathways, an IB school for international students that has a campus larger than Case’s. Beautifully manicured lawns lie between English styled buildings, and you can almost convince yourself you’re at an English boarding school. In reality, we’re a very dusty two and a half hour drive from Delhi. Yoga reminds me of each and every part of my body that is weak. The instructor asks us to help him apply for a PhD in Physical Education in the US. Afterwards we have breakfast in the Pathways cafeteria, the 15 or so of us eating potato cakes, cereal and handmade hot chocolate milk.

915am: We load into our bus to Abheypur. It takes an hour or so depending on random back roads village traffic. I mostly sleep, outside of the massive speed bumps.

1030am: Arrive in Abheypur, a small farming village of about 750 people. It’s on the edge of some very rocky hills, and in the fields they mostly farm Mustard seeds, Rice and Wheat. The girls school we are working on is in session, and we get many stares from the grades 1-3 students as they sit in open air classrooms in neat little rows. I’m to go with two students from Hartford University to the shopping district of the nearby town of Sohna, where we are to get PCV couplings, metal pipe and bleach.

1100am: Head to Sohna, listening to our translator Nishant’s tales of going to school in Scotland and his companies deal that lets him have the day off to translate for us. He’s quite happy to help, as according to him “no one likes their jobs”. He talks of wanting to move out of Delhi into the countryside. We drive along harrowing roads, avoiding head on collisions and severely overloaded rickshaws.

1130am: Arrive in Sohna. The people we work with in Abeypur are mostly used to us being there by now, but our white skin and foreign clothing gives us many stares in Sohna. Crowded market streets, wandering cows holding up rickshaws and cabs, trash everywhere. We go to the hardware store and are sat down on an embroidered bench by the owner. Through Nishant we communicate broad descriptions of the fittings and other items we need. He mostly understands, but tries to tell us we need metal fittings for our metal pipes. It is apparently impossible to explain what we are actually using the pipes for; we need to cut holes in PVC pipe without a drill, so we’re planning on heating up the metal pipes in cow-poop fires (the main Indian fire fuel it seems) and then use it to burn the holes. The hardware store sends out a worker missing at least one finger for what we assume are our supplies, but he comes back with snacks and chai. We eat and drink in the midst of the small crowd that’s gathered. Another worker coils wire for us as I eat what appear to be carrot brownies. We load up and head out, avoiding more cows and curious onlookers.

130pm: We arrive back to find an Indian journalist team from the Indian borough of the Associated Press interviewing the team. Our Hartford University professors are gone, and Dave’s on the phone with them and trying to stall the journalists until they get back. We eat our lunch, croissants filled with potato curry and an apple. The main journalist wants to know if Engineers Without Borders does work in Pakistan.

“We don’t do work in countries that the US government has travel advisories in,” Dave explains.
“So no Pakistan?”.
“No Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea …”
The journalist says something about Muslim countries, followed by “So no Pakistan.”

300pm: School lets out. The two hundred or so schoolgirls who had been sitting (mostly) dutifully doing school work (and singing multiplication table songs) all start mobbing for my camera. All the kids have figured out the system. Hold up your pointer finger and say “One!” repeatedly, then when the cameraman (me) finally breaks down and takes a picture, they all giddily rush over to see what they look like. Rinse and repeat, with slight variations and interruptions until we leave each day. The other (mainly boy) activity is the Running of the Americans. The pushy boys will come up to you and start repeating “Go!” while pointing down the yard. If you start running you’ll have 20-30 boys chasing you, screaming, until enough latch onto your shirt or limbs that they pull you down to the ground. There were enough of us that we could keep rotation going that kept them occupied for a while, but there seems to be an unlimited amount of energy contained in a 7 year old Indian boy.

400pm: We go on a children led hike up the hill near town. 10 of us, our translator Nishant and 40-50 kids scramble up rocks as seven different kids try to be path finder. We watch some peacocks attempting to mate, scare off some monkeys and break up a game of “I’m braver than you because I won’t dodge the rocks you throw at me from across the valley”. At the top we can see over the trees to the somewhat fertile valley below. We see some goatherds burning cow poop over the hill. Amid more demands for “One!”, we make the hike back to the school.

600pm: The non-hikers have finished the connections of PVC, we enjoy some more Running of the Americans, and eventually load into our bus. I split a pair of iPod headphones with Constanza, the only girl I’ve ever met who independently knew of the band Mr. Bungle.

730pm: We make it back to Pathways and rush to dinner before the school children eat dinner. We talk about our planned day trip into Delhi the next day, where we’ll visit some ruins, the Ba’hai Lotus Temple, the Indian Institute of Technology for an industrial design meet and greet, and have dinner at a rich businessman’s house.

1000pm: We smoke cigarillos on our dorm patio, talking of life, religion and India. The sign outside the Pathways school says “Learn. Work. Play. Think. Live.”

I sleep like a baby.

Many of the larger trips I’ve taken have had a somewhat smooth mental transition between the “Non-Trip” mode and the “Trip” mode. For example, about a week before the month long road trip I took this summer with Mark, I had already begun the process of mentally checking out, of distancing myself from work and DC and slowly entering the nomad mindset. Once we finally got around to actually leaving, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

This time, not so much. Not being able (or wanting, for that matter) to take my work laptop meant having to finish 8 weeks of work before I hopped on the plane. Though I was certainly capable of the task (</flex>), it followed my normal work speed progression. 10 days left, 25 things to do (2.5 per day). 8 days left, 22 things to do (2.75 per day), 6 days left, 18 things to do (3 per day), and so on, all the way up to 1 day left, 6 things to do (…). Starting slow and finishing at what can only be considered a heroic pace. I managed to squeak it out in the end, but it wasn’t very pretty.
 
Since mine is a primarily mental job where my productivity is based on how well I can concentrate, having to increase my work speed means continually ramping up my concentration to the point where I enter a world solely populated by weird philosophical, legal and technical concepts for 12 hours a day. Reality takes a backseat to this fantasy land of patents. Normally I leave myself a couple of days for decompression, but not this time. I was running at full speed ahead through my fantasy land for so close up until my plane flight that I barely had time to mentally grab my bag as I flew out the door.

And then it was done. I was on a plane. No laptop. No responsibility. Not much of an actual, concrete plan. Three pairs of underwear. Eight weeks.

I feel dizzy.

(posted in Amsterdam)

Salt Lake City is home to a number of famous institutions, though many aren’t famous for the same reasons. The Church of the Later Day Saints (Mormons) is headquartered at the intersection of Temple St. and State St., where it oversees a global religion of 13 million adherents. The SCO Group, famous for claiming that Linux violated its copyrights and demanding license payments from all users, is located in a non-descript building in Lindon.

But perhaps the most important institution, the bedrock of what keeps me coming back again and again (aside from my family), is the bountiful and beautiful snow capped Wasatch mountain range.

Skiing is a way of life in the winter. We normally leave the house at around 8:30, make the 20 minute drive up to Snowbird, ski until we’re tired and make it home by 4:00. We play cards at lunch, drink juice packs, eat the occasional chili cheese fries, and generally have a relaxing day on the double black diamonds. Snowbird lies at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, a steep, twisting drive up into the heart of the Wasatch Range. Most of the road is only two lanes wide with the occasional passing lane, with one side being a mountain and the other being a quick drop into a cliff or stream.

One notable day several years ago, I had what alcoholics refer to as a ‘moment of clarity’. I was in the passenger seat as we snaked up through the valley on our way to ski, and I was paying attention to the line of cars we had found ourselves intermingled with. Not everyone drives the same speed, and not everyone takes this fact pragmatically.

Several cars behind us was a big, impatient SUV. He was hugging the car in front of him, and whenever even a small stretch of road appeared he would make a move to pass. Slowly he worked his way up to our car, and started to wait for another opening in the road.

Other cars would pass us coming down the mountain at irregular intervals, but it seems that such was the need to keep moving that the SUV decided to pass on a nearly blind turn. I instinctively grabbed my armrests as the SUV roared by us, achieving a probable 3 miles-per-gallon on a push that saw it miss an oncoming sedan by no more than a three second margin. Further acts of automobile heroism saw him inch up, car by car, until he was out of sight.

Approximately five minutes later, when we pulled into the parking lot, I spotted the SUV about 8 cars to our right. The SUV that had risked death and atmospheric insurance premiums to forge ahead of us was only about 25 seconds walking closer to the lift than we were. We put on our ski clothes, grabbed our gear and started the short hike. As we passed, I saw the two passengers standing next to the SUV’s side door, finishing their coffees. By the time I had lost sight of them they still hadn’t even gotten their skis out.

Between the ages of 20 and 22, I received four speeding tickets that cost me a total of about $600, not counting increased insurance premiums. In retrospect, only one of them wasn’t strictly deserved (I swear the school zone blinker wasn’t on), and all of them were in situations where I wasn’t even in a hurry. I’ve never been in a bad car accident, but watching the SUV take the blind turn scared me in a deep, primal way.

Every time I find myself driving fast, I think back to walking by those SUV drivers, their coffee, and the 25 extra seconds of contemplation, and ask myself, “Why?”