After 25 hours of flying and a 2 hour car ride, I've finally arrived in Meghalaya, "the abode of clouds." The trip back to India is always a combination of excitement, chaos, and severe jet lag.
As we drove from Guwahati to Shillong, I was reacquainted with the lush green scenery of Assam and the beautiful hills of Meghalaya. I had forgotten the horrendous traffic that greets one as soon as they leave the Guwahati airport, the constant symphony of cars honking and the innovative driving rules that drivers create on the go. Here and there an elephant roams near a car and a cow slowly crosses the road, unbothered by traffic and aggressive drivers. For some, it's sensory overload but for me it's my second home.
After spending two days in Guwahati, I arrived in Shillong. As we climbed the hills, clouds filled the sky and it began to drizzle. Summer is monsoon season. The weather is unpredictable but the certainty of rain is 100%. I'm from the Pacific Northwest so rain is a constant companion. A rain jacket is worn nine out of twelve months. In Shillong, when it rains it downpours and thunders. Everyone is always walking with an umbrella, something that Oregonians detest. I have always loved using an umbrella, so I welcomed the change with open arms.
I started work last Monday at the State Capability Enhancement Project. On the first day I sat in on a meeting with the World Bank about harnessing the power and potential of the growing number of young adults in the state. During the meeting, we were served tea and biscuits in beautiful China, something that I'm certainly not accustomed to back in the States. The meeting was led by Sampath Kumar IAS, and attended by the Secretary of Education and Finance. It was my first glimpse of what a meeting with a multilateral organization looked like from the recipient standpoint. There was a palpable tension between local knowledge and the World Bank's idea of best practices. This has been the running motif of my first week at SCEP; the government having a strong grasp of the local economic and social dimensions of Meghalaya, while multilaterals are relying on proven interventions elsewhere. With only one week it's hard to say how I feel about "who is right" or "who is wrong." But, I'm excited to learn more and better understand the perspectives of different stakeholders. I'm currently working on the health systems team for SCEP. It seems that lot of the work is rooted in integrating villages into current government schemes and programs. With high rates of maternal mortality, infant mortality, stunting and anemia, there's a lot of work to be done. But I'm hopeful that the state will move in the right direction as it has committed government officers across multiple agencies.
Cheers to my first week!
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