Rainbow Primary School

The Rainbow School's headmistress (principal) is here! She is in California visiting her son who works at Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California. I took Usha and family bowling, we've visited a few times at her son's house. Friday, I took Usha Madaml her husband (Rao Sir) and her grandson (Vivek) to my house to make Biryani . We went shopping for herbs (cilantro) and peppers at the local grocery store, too. At the store, she had her first face-to-face with a Dungeness crab and talked to the sushi chef, Benjamin. Usha is so curious, so fun to be with. She says "I love America!"

I wanted to give a shout out to my awesome buddy, Anna Somos Krishnan at SKS Microfinance. She is still in Hyderabad, tending the vines out there. The stories in the link below are about three of the 1.3 million clients SKS has in Andhra Pradesh. Medak, where these stories take place, is a direct, one-hour drive north of our slum. Some parents of students at the Rainbow School are from Medak, others are from Maboobnagar. These people are true economic refugees. SKS is helping to keep others out of the slum. These stories are about people in rural villages that created small, sustainable industries thanks to microlending. Click here for the SKS Microfinance Client Stories. SKS is funded, in part, by UNITUS which is back here in California. Big props to UNITUS and SKS and Anna.

I met with Usha this morning, and we talked over the first cup of chai I've had in months. Her amazing daughter-in-law (also Usha) is a physicist and pretty darn good cook. Usha told me the government did not come through on its promise to pay for two more vidya volunteers plus the Early Childhood Education Center teacher (preschool). Maybe this is just a delay, but I'm a bit worried. I contacted our India partner, and she will work with our new mandal education officer, who is a terrific man and gentle soul: Chary! He worked as the number two at the district office, we talked daily. I don't have a picture of him, he was gone, but you can see the rest of the government officers in this photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/leighanne/RangaReddySSAPersonnelApril2008

This is a fantastic article from the NYT today about life in communities just like Masthan Nagar. "Outside, the Slum." pdf Something that always troubled me, the housing for high tech execs was billed as "safe," but as the maids and security guards came from the slum just outside, all the health issues in that slum were brought into this "safe" place.