Preparing for the Journey

So for those of who you don't know, the company I was working for closed its Houston office this past March. As often happens in the business world there are meany reasons that things change direction and the Hazen Houston office was a casualty of that fact. The good news however is that the closing of the office has presented me with several unique opportunities. The first is that it allowed me to take some time of. I was able to take the month of April off, visit family, foster a dog, do work around the house and go to the beach! The second is that Houston is a place filled with many opportunities for a civil engineer and so I already have a job lined up starting in mid-June.

The closing of the office coincided with another opportunity as well, a job for a month in India. The timing of the office closure and the dates for the trip to India lined up perfectly as if by divine intervention. I leave tomorrow night, May 4 to begin the trip. I have my visa, my plane ticket, my shots and malaria pills, the equipment i'm supposed to deliver which means that all that is left is to leave. Oh and of course in pure Carol fashion a day to stress about it.

I will be in India from May 4 - May 30th in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Odisha is a state in eastern India and Bhubaneswar is its capital. Bhubaneswar is also called the "Temple City of India". From what I have read online it appears very tropical with a rich history. I can't wait to explore and learn more about it!

I will be working with AguaClara, LLC which branched out of the AguaClara program at Cornell Univeristy. I was lucky enough to be able to do my masters project through the program at Cornell and then go to Honduras for a year to work on water plants there. The project in India that I will be helping with is chlorinators. I will be working with an NGO called Gram Vikas and we will be building chlorinators for water systems in India that do not need additional treatment beyond disinfection. The month I am there we will be fabricating the chlorinators and making sure we have all the parts, materials and functionality for installation in the villages.

I'll update this blog as the month progresses. I am nervous at the moment but that comes in waves and usually hand in hand with excitement. Please pray for a safe flight, safe trip, health and that I am useful! I know this is vague at the moment so feel free to ask questions!