I was back in India as part of an international educational exchange during July 2008 sponsored by the Deshpande Foundation that invited me to help evaluate the state of educational technology in the Dharwad School District. My current work responsibilities at the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education included liaison activities with international guests and colleagues interested in professional exchanges around appropriate applications and uses of technology, and my office leadership felt that this travel would further enhance our understanding of technological developments there. Although I was now returning as representative of a federal domestic agency, I was also very interested in what remaining associations as a result of the Peace Corps being there at an earlier time. Surely, someone would remember the Peace Corps, or at least one or more of the young Americans who lived there in the late sixties. I actually returned to the campus of the Teacher Training Institute where I lived and worked, teaching a few classes in health/nutrition and often traveling to neighboring villages to oversee the construction of school kitchens where mid-day meals would be prepared for elementary school children. I arrived in India on July 5, 2008, and returned to the U.S. on August 1. Forty years later, I did not meet anyone during that time who had heard of the Peace Corps or could remember any activity or discussion about their presence in this part of India in the late sixties (4,325 volunteers served there from 1961 – 1976).
Perhaps it was just a question of numeric odds. India has more than doubled in population since 1968, and although the national average age is closer to my own, 64.8, nearly a third of the population is under the age of 15. Surprisingly, there was still a general fondness for the U.S. across different age groups, not so much for any generosity or peaceful bilateral exchanges over the years, but more in terms of support for our current military incursion into Iraq. The young Americans and Indians who were now Deshpande Fellows/Innovators (approximately 25 Indian, 15 Americans/British) were assigned to work in projects very reminiscent of past Peace Corps efforts in the Hubli-Dharwad area: agriculture, health, education, environment, etc. Whereas Peace Corps Volunteers were assigned to work with Indian government officials, these Fellows were typically assigned to specific projects developed and managed by smaller non-governmental organizations. These projects were also more closely aligned with each Fellow’s specific educational training and career goals as opposed to the broader Peace Corps assignments based on general host country needs.
Deshpande Fellows are working in a much faster, more populous, younger, and louder world than I experienced years before. Mobile phones, motor scooters, ATMs were some manifestations of how younger Indians were choosing to connect with each other and the larger outside world of the twenty-first century. At the same time, there was much that brought me back to my younger years in these same streets: tea shops, vegetarian meals, Kannada language, auto rickshaws, crowded buses, Karnatic music, dance, and Kingfisher beer (digital photography helped me capture more of those memories this time). These things still remained, and unfortunately so does an antiquated public educational approach to meet the growing demands of younger school-age Indian population. While there may be much talk about using technology in its schools and how India has benefited economically through its technological expertise and educated workforce in key areas such as call centers and other outsourcing services, many families in the Hubli-Dharwad area have not reaped the benefits of such economic expansion. Deshpande has recognized the challenge and is attempting to resurrect the spirit of global social responsibility by inviting others to serve in a distant corner of the world. Hopefully, this non-governmental socially entrepreneurial approach will become the vehicle that will succeed where governmental efforts have not. Maybe another forty years will tell, or perhaps we will know sooner in a busier, faster-moving (for some) India.
I am grateful that I got to see and live again briefly in the twenty-first century Hubli-Dharwad, India. Living and working there again reminded me of what I experienced when I was there as a young man – that you received more than you gave. Perhaps I had more to give now, but it was not about giving and receiving this time. It was simply about being there and being welcomed back forty years later.
Links that may be helpful background:
www.deshpandefoundation.org
www.picasaweb.google.comraymondmyersHubliDharwadRevisited2008
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