Week ending 17 June 2018

The kaleidoscope which is India turned for us this week to reveal another remarkable aspect of this vibrant and ever diverse country.  Diversity, though, is too bland a word to even begin to adequately describe this place.  From one of the world’s top eye institutes at the very cutting edge of research and development relating to issues of sight to living conditions and agriculture techniques that haven’t changed much in the last 1,000 years.  We saw the two extremes this week.

We flew to Hyderabad on Tuesday morning.  Obviously an ancient city itself, it has nearly doubled in the last decade or so due to the proliferation of high-tech companies based or with major offices there, including IBM, Microsoft, Dell and the likes.  So there is the old city and the ultra-new with all the conveniences of modern life.  They appropriately have dubbed the new area “Cyberabad.” 

We were met at the airport by a driver from the LV Prasad Eye Institute which is devoted to all aspects of ophthalmic research, education and patient care as well as vision rehabilitation.  The Institute receives support from LDS Charities.  

Mohan went blind due to a congenital condition at age 14.  Now he teaches computer skills at Information Technology Research Center at the Prasad Institute. 

          Pria and Aishwarya both lost their sight as young adults.  Now they are rehab counselors giving support via a helpline, smart phone training and other strategies to foster independence for the blind.

           
           Wednesday and Thursday we headed into the rural area east of Hyderabad with Elder and Sister Jolley (Humanitarian Missionaries) visiting at total of 10 villages where LDS Charities has provided water treatment plants for “transfer celebrations.”  The celebrations are nearly identical in each village.  The traveling entourage (us, Jolleys, Pres Mekala of the Hyderabad Stake, a politician, a site monitor, and the installation engineer) is led to the site by chalk lines at each side of the road.  When the village welcoming committee sees us there are fireworks, drum beating and marching from where we are met to the building holding the newly installed system.  The traveling party members are also welcomed with a dot of color to each of their foreheads placed by the Hindu priest or village leader.  Then the honorable guests and village leaders are each given a mature and husked coconut which they in turn crack open at the entrance of the new water facility structure. It is apparently some omen for blessings and good luck.  After the breaking of the coconuts two or three of the VIPs switch on the machinery and the water starts to flow with the applause of the villagers.  The party then moves back outside where chairs have been set up for the VIPs.  The guests are then presented with beautiful flower leis and then a (usually very colorful) shawl is draped around the shoulders of each.  After a few short statements, not even speeches the ceremony concludes and the traveling party leaves for its next destination where this is repeated.

         
             A Hindu priest was on hand at this village to bless the new purifier.

          These women were happy to have good water close at hand.  Previously, they had to carry it in from outside the village and pay as much as R15 for 20 liters.

       
             Farmers were preparing and planting their fields.  Major crops in Telangana are rice, cotton, sugarcane, magno and tobacco.

           
           The water in some of the villages we visited had high levels of fluoride which causes skeletal problems, as in the case of this woman.

         

LDS Charities has had these water purification systems installed in over 100 rural villages and has plans right now for approximately 50 more.  A  nominal fee is charged to pay a water master a small salary and for operation and maintenance costs of the equipment.  LDS Charities has site monitors that work with each village for a year or two before it is totally turned over to the village.  It is a phenomenal service which has and will bless the lives of tens of thousands of people.  Each site had people come up with tears in their eyes, hands together in the “namaste” sign then touching the breast as a sign of gratitude for what they have received.  Truly moving.