This weeks music selection is from Radical Face, a band from Portland, Oregon. Heard of these guys from an Oregonian by the name of Max who I worked with on the vineyard in New Zealand last year and also lived with us in our awesome community backpacker flat. I loved listening to music all day at work, it made some of the tedious hours fly by, and the best part was switching ipods and hearing others' music recommendations.
Last week I got to go to an inauguration ceremony for a solar mini-grid village electrification project set up by an Australian company and sponsored by WWF India and the Australian government. It was a full day trip, requiring a 3 hour bus ride from Kolkata followed by a 3 hour boat ride to a remote village in the Sunderbans. The Sunderbans is a National Park in eastern India that consists of a massive land mass of wetlands that empty out into the Bay of Bengal in the Indian ocean. There were heaps of Mangrove trees which have breathing roots and grow in salt water, pretty neat. There is also a tiger reserve that's a main tourist attraction for the area that we went by, however did see some species of monkey chilling on a concrete post on the way back at night and I SWEAR I saw a light flash up near his mouth as if he was smoking a cigarette, then he jumped down and walked away. Of course no one else believed me.
All around awesome trip, got to meet people from various organizations all working on interesting projects. There was a long lineup of school kids to greet the arrival of our boats, as well as a cool group of drummers and dancers that led the procession. We walked about a kilometer to the site of the mini-grid setup for the ribbon cutting ceremony, got to check out the system and panel setup as well as a few huts to see the lights in action. Following that was an official ceremony under a tent attended by the community and a lovely return boat trip backdropped by a lovely sunset.
Tomorrow is TED Talk Tuesday, which will be a video that argues for a solution opposite of that suggested by Bill Gates on his recent Ted (which I posted last week).
Last week I got to go to an inauguration ceremony for a solar mini-grid village electrification project set up by an Australian company and sponsored by WWF India and the Australian government. It was a full day trip, requiring a 3 hour bus ride from Kolkata followed by a 3 hour boat ride to a remote village in the Sunderbans. The Sunderbans is a National Park in eastern India that consists of a massive land mass of wetlands that empty out into the Bay of Bengal in the Indian ocean. There were heaps of Mangrove trees which have breathing roots and grow in salt water, pretty neat. There is also a tiger reserve that's a main tourist attraction for the area that we went by, however did see some species of monkey chilling on a concrete post on the way back at night and I SWEAR I saw a light flash up near his mouth as if he was smoking a cigarette, then he jumped down and walked away. Of course no one else believed me.
Tomorrow is TED Talk Tuesday, which will be a video that argues for a solution opposite of that suggested by Bill Gates on his recent Ted (which I posted last week).
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