Project Trip

Well I have arrived safely back from our project trip, and boy what a trip it was. I won’t be able to tell all the

stories in this space but be sure to ask me about them when I return.

At the India Gate in Delhi

The Trip There(above is a rough outline of our route)

We left the office in Mussoorie at 3

AM on Thursday morning to take a taxi down to the train station at Dehradun. From there took a train to Delhi. We spent most of the day in Delhi site-seeing and relaxing as our train to the Northeast didn’t leave until 11:30PM. Well, the train left a little later than that, we didn’t leave Delhi until around 1 AM on Friday morning. The train ride originally was scheduled for about 29 hours to the Assam city of Guwahati, but the Indian railway has an interesting perspective on late trains, that being the late trains will get later. So whenever an on-time train was on the tracks we had to stop to allow it to pass, that turned our 29 hour trip into a 39 hour trip. Upon arriving in Guwahati we had to find a taxi to take us to Tura.

We left Guwahati around 6:30 PM and arrived in Tura right around midnight. We were hosted by a church there who is an eMi client and attended church in Tura on Saturday morning. The cool part about Tura is it is actually the home town of our project leader, so we were able to meet a lot of his family on Sun

day. After lunch in Tura we were picked up by our client, Ku’simkol Baptist Church(KBC) and driven to Williamnagar, which is about a 2.5 hour journey.

Our train berth

The Project

We sat down with the client on Monday morning. Their vision is pretty unique and the scope of the project was a bit greater then we were previously anticipating. The church is supporting about 7-8 missionaries in India and another one in Sudan and they would like to support more, but they are very strained financially. So their vision is to create a separate center for revenue generation, and they set-up a separate society to manage the project since they are going to try and pursue government loans and subsidies and the government of India will not support churches in any way. The vision for the project is kind of broken down into three main areas, a shopping center, a seminar hall, and a guesthouse. They felt like all of these are needs of the town and will help generate revenue by renting out these facilities.

Our project team awkwardly trying to all fit on one couch from left to right: Peter(volunteer), myself, Katie(Architect Intern), Sashi Kiran(civil/structural eng. volunteer from South India), Huberth(eMi staff architect and native of Tura)

Our work began with a survey of the site boundaries. We were using a Total Station System which makes land survey quite easy. So after we captured the boundary points, we plotted them in AutoCAD so the architects could begin with a master plan for the site. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we went back and surveyed the features of the site, whether that be existing trees, wells, pipelines, or topography. We then inserted all those points into AutoCAD and created a topographical map of the site. Other engineering work that we did consisted of a basic water quality test of the ground water and another test know as a percolation test. The percolation test is a simple field test where a hole is dug in the ground and it is filled with water and length of time it takes to drain the water is measured. This test is important for the way in which we design the wastewater treatment system, which is typically composed of a septic tank and a soak pit/field. The percolation test helps us to properly size the soak field so that the water is released into the ground at the proper rate. Another portion of our work is an estimation of the water usage so that we can properly size the water supply systems.

We presented our work to the client on Saturday afternoon in a meeting that was attended by about 50 people from the church congregation. They seemed very pleased with the conceptual design and hope to start construction by 2013.

Presenting at the final conceptual design meeting

The People

I’m not sure I have ever encountered such wonderfully hospitable people in my life. Upon our arrival on Sunday afternoon we were greeted by a large portion of the church and served fresh homemade sweets and tea. We had multiple different meat dishes served to us at each lunch and dinner meal. Also, I was ill at one part during the trip and they took me to the doctor and paid for the visit and the medication without even a second thought about accepting any money from me. Also when we left on Sunday the gave us a “small” gift of appreciation which was a handmade necklace, a bouquet of flowers, and a mysterious envelope. Later inspection of the envelope showed 4500 Rs(100 USD) for each person, we only accepted about half the money since we thought it would be rude to return it all and we donated the rest back to the church. Their generosity was truly humbling and something I hope I can practice in my own life.

Saying goodbye to the KBC folks

The Place

Meghalaya is beautiful state in the northeast portion of India, that is bordered on the west and south by Bangaladesh. Meghalaya is home to exotic flower species including orchids and anthurium which they export to Europe. Meghalaya is also home to an endangered species of monkey and also allegedly a bigfoot type creature.

Some of the native grown flowers

The Return Trip

We departed Williamnagar for Tura on Sunday afternoon. From Tura we took an overnight bus (8PM-3AM) to get to Guwahati. Once in Guwahati we went to an Baptist missionary compound for breakfast and a bit of rest before getting on the train at 10 AM. This train was scheduled for 32 hours and it took us about 37 hours to get to Delhi. We were originally supposed to be taking a train from Delhi to Dehradun, but because of recent heavy rains and landslides part of the railroad track was impassable. So we ended up driving from Delhi to Dehradun which all said and done was about a 15 hour drive.

Please continue to pray for our eMi office here in India as we have one team currently out on a project in south India. Please also pray that God would really bless our work as we begin to produce the project design reports and that we would serve Him with humble hearts.

"Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall."

-Psalm 55:22

With Love,

Nate

Preparing for the Project Trip

Namaste

Monsoon continues to rage on here in Mussorrie, we get several hours of rain each day and when it is not raining, the town is usually covered in a dense fog. As the monsoon continues we are busy preparing for the project trip.






One of the few clear days, a view of the Dehradun valley below








































We pulled out the survey equipment this week to go through the procedure for a site survey and have done some more training in Hindi.

The trip that I will be on will be to Williamnagar in the Indian state of Meghalaya. We will be partnering with a local church to design a guesthouse for the church's mssnries. Our project team will consist of an eMi2 staff member who will be the lead architect, a civil engineer volunteer from India who will be the lead engineer, an architect intern, another volunteer who will assist in the survey, and myself. We will begin with a site survey for the property boundries and important site features. From there we will do basic soil testing and evaluation of water sources to determine a water and wastewater plan for the site. In the meantime the architects will be creating a master plan for the site in-line with the mnstries vision.

The travel to the project site will include a 28 hour train ride followed by a 6-8 hour car ride. The exciting thing about the train ride is that we will pass within 125 miles of Mt. Everest, probably the closest I will be to Everest in my life.


One thing I would like to start doing on this blog is pass along some of the things I am learning about India while I am here whether that be about religion, food, culture, etc. Hopefully they are fairly true.

The Indian Minute:
The religious affiliation in India is as follows:

80% Hindu which includes athiests and tribal religions
12% Islam
2-4% Christian
2% Sikh( Was founded in Indian state of Punjab with the Golden Temple located in Amritsar, Punjab)
1% Other( Buddists, Parsees, etc.)

Hinduism
Origin: Originally Hindu meant a resident of the Indus valley. Hinduism now is a panthestic way of life, Hindus would not considered it a religion necessarily. Hinduism doesn't have any authority of law per say.

Holy Books: Vedas, Mahabharata, Ramayan. The historical truth of the books is not as highly valued as the morals of the stories.

God is realized in the following:
Brahma- It is the universal soul and spirit in everything
Trimurti- The 3 idols, Brahma(Creator), Shiva(Destroyer), and Vishnu(Preserver)

Dharma and Adarma are fundamental concepts of Hinuism. Dharma is the fulfillment of your purpose, where righteousness is described by self(caste, gender, circumstances). Adharma is not fulfilling your duty(Dharma), it is like sin in a way.

Karma is the reward for doing good and the punishment for doing bad. It is Hinduisms way of explaining suffering
Reincarnation is also a fundamental belief of Hinduism, if you have lived well and achieved your dharma then you will move up the ladder.

Caste system is determined by birth, there is no social advancement and it is as follows from highest to lowest:
Brahman-priests
Kshatriya-warriors
Vaishya- merchants
Shudra- laborers or farmers
Dalit- Untouchables

Moksha is the goal of Hinduism and it is the release from reincarnation.

Interestingly Buddha is considered the last reincarnation of Vishnu, Buddha rejected the caste system and Hinduism has kind of enveloped Buddhism in a way.


Other fun facts:
Uttarakhand in northern India is considered the center of Hinduism especially in the mountains and near the Ganges River. Physical location to holy places is very important.

Hindus don't believe in cnversn, because they do not beleive that you can choose your religious destiny