Many thanks!

Hope everyone is either back home safely or enjoying some extra travels. We just wanted to post a final note to say we sincerely appreciate all you did in India. Your block-carrying, mud-slinging, song-singing skills were much appreciated. (Well, maybe not Bob’s song-singing skills, but, you know…)

And what you did went well beyond the houses you directly built. The money you raised will help Habitat India build even more long after we’re gone. Like we said, out of the money we contributed for this trip, $31,000 will go straight to building more houses.

And the attention you generated will help Habitat India, too. Actually, on one of our flights home, a man and his daughter-in-law were on the plane with us. When they learned we were in India helping build houses, the daughter-in-law immediately said: “Were you with the Women Build that started on International Women’s Day?” They said coverage of the event was all over the news and Habitat was impossible to not hear about that week. That kind of attention recruits local donors and volunteers – and makes future work so much easier for Habitat in Bangalore. 

If you’ve got any follow-up questions, feel free to get in touch with one of us. And we hope you will stay connected with Habitat in the future. Here are a few other ways you can get involved:

• Plan another GV trip! Check out the GV trip schedule at www.habitat.org/gv to join a team. You could even do one to another location in India. There are also Women Build Global Village teams posted when they are available. Check out: http://www.habitat.org/gv/special_interest_builds.aspx
• Get involved with your local affiliate. As Terry said, help in your local community is always needed. To find your local affiliate, just go to www.habitat.org/local and check out what’s happening in your area. And you could even get involved with a local Women Build (go to www.habitat.org/wb to learn more about the Women Build program). 
• Donate, and you could even consider designating your gift to Habitat India. To do so, go to https://www.habitat.org/cd/giving/donate.aspx?link=1 for more information.
• Become an advocate. Learn more, get updates and advocate online at www.habitat.org/gov. And you can already get people motivated to support Habitat, and even Habitat’s work in India – just tell your stories and show off those pictures you took (and maybe those CDs Habitat India gave us)!
• Find even more ways to get involved! Learn more about Habitat and find a program that is right for you. Visit www.habitat.org/getinv to start exploring.

We’ll keep you updated with any other news and stories produced after our visit to India. In the meantime, feel free to post anything else you’d like on here. And let us know if any of you post pictures of your own online.

Photos taken by Phillip are posted online now, up here: http://indiateam2010.shutterfly.com/19. (And, yes, there are waaaay more than you could ever be interested in looking at!)

So, thanks again. And it seems appropriately cheesy to close with a thought from Mother Teresa: 

Unless your work is interwoven with love, it is useless. To work without love is slavery.

Thanks for making our work so meaningful – and useful. 

Back to the business,
Terry, Phillip, Lori & Nell

See you March 7!

Namaskara once more,

Well, one week from now we will all be meeting for the first time at our hotel in Bangalore! We know we’re excited; hope you are, too. Keep those tickets and passports close!

Below are a few final notes and reminders. 

Airport pickups

Hopefully, all of you received emails from Habitat India’s Mahesh Lobo this past week, confirming how and when you would be picked up upon arrival. If for some reason, you did not receive confirmation from Mahesh, shoot him an email at maheshl@hfhisa.net.

Once you exit baggage/security/customs after landing in Bangalore, look for someone holding a Habitat sign with your name on it – most likely held by an employee from Vellara Tours and Travels (that’s the company Habitat India booked to do the airport pickups). Some of you will be picked up individually; many will be picked up in groups with others arriving at similar times. Regardless, the driver will take you straight to the Hotel Evoma where your room will be ready.

You should have these already from Mahesh, but just in case, here are the emergency contact numbers if you need them at the airport or en route:

Mahesh H. Lobo, Director, Program Development: 91-98452 72101

Nirmala Rani, Site Area Host Coordinator: 91-640 45447

Palakshi Goswami: 91-97314 24483

Susan Park: 91-97428 97892

Babu V.K., Vellara Tours and Travels: 91-98808 26888

 

Sunday, March 7 meet-up

For those able, let’s plan to get together as a team at 5:30 p.m., so we can meet each other and visit a bit before dinner. Looking at the Hotel Evoma Web site, the Elephants & Coffee coffeeshop seems like a good place to rendezvous, so let’s meet up there.

Otherwise, you have most of the day March 7 to yourself – to get settled in, rest up and check out the surroundings. The first official thing on our working itinerary is a 6:30 p.m. team dinner in the Hotel Evoma, followed by a welcome and orientation by Habitat India staff after the meal. (Our first visit to the build site, for the opening ceremony and first day of work, will come Monday, March 8.)

Team leaders’ emergency contact numbers

If an emergency comes up while we’re in India, each of your team leaders will have a cell phone that may be used in case of an emergency for you, or for family back home. Here are the numbers (as have been sent to us by Mahesh; we won’t have access to the phones until March 8 most likely):

Terry Gaar: +91-80958 87712

Phillip Jordan: +91-98864 53126           

Lori Vaclavik: +91-80958 87677

Nell Pittman: +91-80958 87671

Weather update

For those in the United States or Canada, who have been buried in snow and cold this winter, get ready for some heat! The last 10-day forecast we looked at for Bangalore today has highs in the low- to mid-90s and lows in the mid- to upper-60s. You’ll hear this a lot, but go ahead and get it in mind: keep hydrated while working!

Build update

General build info is on the trip blog; details will come from Habitat India once we’re there! But as you can see from the docs on the blog, we know a bit about the neighborhood where we’ll be working.

And Habitat India will give us all the details on how we’ll be split up to work on the (likely 10-plus!) homes we’ll be constructing, once we arrive. The houses will all be in that same Hegde Nagar community so while we won’t all be on one site, we will be close. This will also give us the chance to work with volunteers from India and other Global Village volunteers coming from Australia and Northern Ireland – as well as the partner families.

Keep up-to-date!

This is likely the last you’ll hear from us (hallelujah, right?) until we meet in Bangalore. But if we happen to need to send anything else your way before the trip, we’ll send by email and also post on the home page on the trip blog: https://indiagv.wordpress.com/.

If you need to refresh yourself on anything as you’re preparing to leave, give the Web site one last look – especially for things like the suggested packing list and all the most recent news from the previous newsletter and the “boring but important” info page.

If you have any last-second questions, feel free to e-mail us at indiawomenbuild@gmail.com. Your team leaders’ flight info is online, too, so you’ll know when we’re in transit.

If you have already left for some pre-project traveling – hope you’re having fun. For those who haven’t left yet, safe travels!

We’ll see you all next Sunday,

Terry, Phillip, Lori and Nell

Welcome from Habitat India

Welcome Letter from Habitat India

Welcome!

Welcome to the blogosphere! There’s probably already enough info on here to bore you to tears. But hopefully some of it will get you just a little bit excited, too – or at least better prepared. We’ve just added a lot of stuff here as we got more information from our Habitat host coordinators in India. 

So take a look around at the pages listed above (just under the banner photo). Team newsletters are posted here, as well as pages with: team member bios; info on travel & health; an overview of this Global Village Women Build project; and a good bit more. 

Feel free to post comments here – or get in touch with each other as you’d like. As always, if you have any questions, give your team leaders a shout (indiawomenbuild@gmail.com). 

Thanks again for joining up – looking forward to sharing more with you as we close in on this journey to India!