This is one of the women my volunteers interviewed for our book on Father Burns, the director of Hayden Hall for 40 years.
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This is one of the women my volunteers interviewed for our book on Father Burns, the director of Hayden Hall for 40 years.
August 30, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Between projects, I'm here in Delhi to share the last few days of my daughter's summer in India. I'll be publishing a report and evaluation of my work in Darjeeling's Hayden Hall, probably by the end of the week. I am somewhat disappointed not to have made more headway with the Rotarians, but we did have a few successful moments and I have some evidence that they DO want to work together to do a project that could take place during my tenure as club president, starting in July 2011. I'll have a separate post on that project.
In the meantime, I've also been able to keep the home fires burning, with Skype calls to my former boss to resolve one or two small problems that have come up, and my future boss to further define what our work will be and how we'll proceed to become THE go-to org for tech support in the Triad!
August 29, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 26, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 25, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Father Van’s testimonial about Father Burns:
In 1968, in a move that foreshadowed his founding of Hayden Hall, Fr. Edgar Burns released one of the fathers to go to Siliguri and start the Jesu Ashram to work with those with leprosy and tuberculosis. Then in 1969, while still teaching English at St. Joseph’s College, University Division, he started Hayden Hall. He bought the house called the Sheehan House and moved in here with others who wanted to do social work.August 23, 2010 in Intercultural Issues, Religion, Travel, travelertrish, World Trip, worldstouch | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
My Estonian friends went to the Zoo the other day and caught the Red Panda-- one of the most rare and famous animals in the Darjeeling zoo. They also have a snow leopard, but if the Estonians got a photo of it, it was not possible to distinguish it.
August 20, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I've been trying to use Skype to connect my Rotary Club back in the States with the Darjeeling Rotary Club. Last week, the call was dropped and then nobody in the US answered when I tried to call back.
Well, this time we screwed up from our side with the Rotary exchange I was hoping to pull off, but maybe we've got it figured out at last. We were supposed to meet all together yesterday at the installation of officers of the Interact club at Loreto Convent School. The meeting had been postponed from the week before. It was pouring buckets of rain, just pelting down, and I was up to my shins in puddles. Besides, my umbrella has stitching holes all down the ribs, so that in that kind of rain, I was getting drip, drip, down my neck and on my head. Nobody told me the meeting was postponed. Feeling a bit uninformed lately.
Is it any wonder I woke up this morning with a sore throat? My dear friend and scientist Marisa tells me that the weather has nothing to do with whether you get sick or not, but it's difficult to argue with Got soaked/Woke up with Sore Throat equation.
Anyhow, the club prez arrived tonight and was willing to do the intro thing right away, but our Stateside club wasn't finished with its program, so he just basically got on with his meeting and gave me the nod when they'd finished the various reports and letters and all sorts of business. By that time, people has already left for work in America.
One of the things I love about this club is that they are involved in so much. They are planning trivia quizzes in about three different locations to promote education. The members create powerpoints for the students with all sorts of information questions. This club has two Interact clubs it sponsors. They are getting ready for a visit from their District Governor, which involves putting together a booklet with all their activities. At the end of the month, they will do another health camp and the various doctors are actively recruiting other docs to participate. They have an active debate about whether to admit female members--they are an all-boys-network at the moment. They put on various events for the poor, including a party with presents on the occasion the equivalent of our Christmas.
When I was here before, they had also sponsored a Room to Read library and after-school program at a village nearby. They had ties to a Sisters of Mercy project for men with mental disabilities.August 20, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
My second day on this job, though I think we have to count Monday, even though I wasn't officially on the job.
I've completed two of the five interviews I have planned for the reminiscences of Father Burns from his closest friends and volunteers. I'll do another one tomorrow, or maybe two of them. I have written one of them up.
I'm also simultaneously working on a memo of understanding with Hayden Hall that I'll present to Father Kennedy (the director now that Father Burns has, as they say here, "expired."
My wonderful student assistants have been working well on this project. We have a good timeline pretty much done, both for the good Father's life and also for the programs of Hayden Hall. Shika (the first two syllables of Chicago) is also working on the section where we outline the programs and explain a little bit about what each one does.
I will cut and paste a biography of Father Burns and write up the five interviews along with photos of Father Burns and his friends. The newest student, Peter, has spent the last couple of days going through the photo files...incredibly yellowed, dusty, old-fashioned Indian filing systems, enormous notebooks with pockets of little black and white photos...He has put together a pile of photos (keeping each envelope's photos in a separate envelope with the name on it) and has spent the rest of the afternoon scanning them. Father Kennedy has a scanner that allows you to put four or six photos on the plate and run the scan...and it will make a separate file for each photo! None of this cropping photos or dealing with the laborious one-by-one method. Wonderful, huh? I want one. For the digital storytelling project!
We now have lots and lots of photos, though we'll need more. I have taken some of my students, but haven't yet downloaded them to the computer. Before the East Coast wakes up Thursday morning, i should have uploaded the photos that are now gathering humidity in my camera.
This is a satisfying project, I must say. I love writing and writing with deadlines and a bit of pressure for a client is actually lots of fun. Digging into the life and personality of Father Burns is fascinating. I'm obviously not doing a biography... But this is good work, anyway.
August 18, 2010 in Intercultural Issues, Travel, travelertrish, World Trip, worldstouch | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
And the lights just went out, so this is going to be brief-brief... I had my first day on the Father Burns Memorial Booklet project and it was long and satisfying. I have photos of two of the three students working with me, got all the materials together and put together a task list with who is doing what up on the bulletin board. I also interviewed one of the principal friends of the late father.
The real question is... will I get supper now that the lights are out? Or am I going to bed with half a box of cookies and water? I will let you know. I plan to get to the internet place an hour earlier tomorrow, so i won't be rushed. Next big interview is at 10 am.
I'll leave you with the stitched photo of Kanchanjunga. The other one was only one third. This is the whole horizon.
August 17, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I met today with the director of Hayden Hall, to hammer out the basic structure of the booklet I'm doing for them. We have a basic structure as well as a small collection of materials that have already been gathered. I have two Nepali students assigned to me and we are already at work.
Tomorrow, we'll get a workplan put together. We have about three or four people to interview for the biography and several more to interview for the "success stories" section.
The booklet will be about Father Burns, the Jesuit priest who started the social service organization in 1969. I think part of the reason for the booklet is to get a kind of closure since Father Burns' death last spring. The good father was a towering figure to many of the poor, especially the rural poor around here. He spent years simply walking the paths with his handwoven shoulderbag, listening to the problems and SOLVING many of the problems that came to his ears in the course of his walks. It was apparent to me the last time I worked for Hayden Hall, in the course of my Ambassadorial Scholarship for the Rotary Club, that the good works that got done were HIS, not the organization's, in the eyes of many of those who were helped.
It was a very common case of the organization and the founder somehow being ONE in the eyes of the public. I think one of the motives of the present director is to reassure people that the social work will continue, that the programs that Father Burns started, at least some of them, will continue. That the mission of Hayden Hall is still uppermost in the hearts and minds of the mainly Catholics who run the place.
I'm fine with that. I knew Father Burns and found him a sweet old guy who was finding it difficult to let go of the reins he had held for so long.
Well, I better take myself off to supper if I'm going to get some. It's not quite 7:30 and it's already pitch dark.
August 16, 2010 in Religion, Travel, travelertrish, World Trip, worldstouch | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)