Rainbow Primary School

The reason why it took two years to build the school building was we never bribed. OK, from time to time, we bought lunch for the police who protected the land from various mobs the slumlord sent around. But we never "bribed with cash." Not even to get an electricity connection. You can imagine how crazed this made my Indian staff. They had to spend long hours explaining their "crazy American" to other Indians. I carried around a copy of the 1978 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and pulled it out from time to time. I talked about getting deported if I bribed. I got the impression some people did get a giggle out of the theatrics. Anything to amuse my bureaucrats! In the developing world, NGOs are vulnerable. They require either political godfathers or they have to bribe. This article is a great example of this: http://yoomilee.wordpress.com/2007/09/10/the-unwelcome-costs-of-running-an-ngo-in-india/ If I didn't already have the greatest job in the world (...

Here are the latest pictures! Q2 2008 Pictures

www.rainbowprimaryschool.com 23 July 2008 So I was driving to a winery with my friend Ward. We were discussing his friend in East Africa, a school headmaster who regularly researches and sends along suggestions to Ward out here in California. The headmaster doesn't use his own email address, just the internet cafe's email address. We talked about how this kind of casual, catch-as-catch-can internet use in the third world will really help our work! The next day, I got a note from Gowri teacher who is struggling to serve as the temporary headmistress while Usha Madam is visiting her son. It was from an internet center, sent by the owner of the center for Gowri (who never really got comfortable typing). "today M.E.O (Mandal Education Officer, Sharma Mohanchary) visied (sic) our school and charts,reports,dairys (sic),big books, visied (sic) registers,food,all good. M.E.O sharma sir. all teachers making lesson plans,activities." How cute is that!! Love Gowri teacher...

Generally, things are just chaos right now. Usha has been gone, we've had unexpected turnover with two teachers (for great reasons, they had to resign), there are more students, there is a huge water shortage and residents are out siphoning off our water, etc. etc. etc. Jenny went by to take pictures and see what is what with the situation on the ground. I miss the kids! These pictures are sublime. http://picasaweb.google.com/jenny309/RainbowElementarySchool See here for a video walk-through of Gowri teacher's class:

Yesterday, there was a fantastic article about youth giving to help kids in developing countries. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/14/MNON11I593.DTL http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif If you like that one, I've got a story that you'll love. PRESCHOOL school kids in Georgia raised funds for the Rainbow School! My second oldest buddy, Mary Helen, was my back door neighbor growing up. She is a college professor and mom now, in Georgia. Back in the day, we had a lot of hang out time at her house, and she drove me to school when we got to high school. Since she was two years older, had great legs, and did whatever she darned well pleased, she was my personal hero. Every holiday, when we're all back home, our kids play together in the driveway at her mom's house, still the back door neighbor to my parent's house. While our kids were whacking at a Christmas pinata in the driveway over December, we got to talking about the Rainbow School and...

A HUGE shout out to Indiacorps, which is addressing the near-intractable problem of bad/no delivery of public services: http://www.indicorps.org/volunteer-work.php?page_id=4 To my stateside Desi community - I highly, highly recommend this one!

www.rainbowprimaryschool.com By popular demand, stories on three of the students, "my kids," are republished here in shorter form. More pictures can be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/leighanne/OurStoryInPictures 1) Baleshwari, (past) leader of the Alpha Girls of 5th Standard (far left, below) The harsh politics of having a girl in a very conservative Hindu area is that dowry is enormous. To marry off a girl will likely put a family in debt for twenty years. As such, lots of little girl babies don't make it past their first few days in the slum. If they do survive, with somewhat considerate parents, they are still worked from sun up to sun down. The incentive is to make them into perfect little servants to give their future in-laws no trouble. Spunky girls have it rough. Baleshwari, 13 years old, is an incredibly bright girl with a lot of common sense and spunk and striking light brown eyes. Her mother tried to send her off to work when she turned 12, but she...

www.rainbowprimaryschool.com My buddy Ross is capturing important knowledge on how to help kids get access to quality education in Hyderabad: http://rossbaird.wordpress.com/ Read his blog!