This morning we woke up early and went to visit the JSS campus to get acquainted with the organization and the staff. JSS is a rural health care organization founded by 5 couples, all of whom are doctors. They provide medical services to underserved areas at rates reasonable for the local populations, a large number of which are tribal peoples and marginal farmers.
The staff ride out in the morning in a pair of Jeeps, and we joined them along with Jacob. The JSS clinic is in Ganyari, a village about 30km outside of Bilaspur, and it took about 40 minutes to make the drive through fields and villages.
The campus itself looks a lot like what I imagined it would, with sandy red soil in the shade of sparse trees, and simple buildings spread around. Three days a week, including today, they have what amounts to a walk-in clinic, so the main buildings were surrounded by a crowd of people waiting patiently for their time with the doctor.
There are currently twelve doctors full time at JSS, and each has their own speciality. The facilities are simple, but modern, including small hospital ward, and a new surgery building with two operating rooms. There is a mess where food is served, with a wood fire for most of the cooking, and everybody washes their own dishes - including the doctors. There are also office buildings, a conference room, an IT building (with wireless broadband!), pharmacies, some housing for workers and doctors who may spend the night. There are a number of support workers besides the doctors, though I don't know how many.
There are also a few fields, covering about an acre and a half, where SRI methods are practiced and researched. A number of animals wander the grounds, a few sheep (whose blood is extracted for some kind of serum or media) a cow, and the ever present stray dogs.
We spent the day touring the grounds, talking with Jacob about SRI, and generally trying not to get too hot. Temperatures here hit around 43C... I don't even want to know what that is in Farenheit, so you'll have to look it up yourself. It is supposed to get cooler when the rains come... but the monsoon is long overdue.
The delayed monsoon season is a subject that gets a lot of inches in the newspaper, and is the topic of much discussion. In the short term, it means that farmers get a late start in planting their crops. In the longer term, it means that at this time next year, at the cusp of monsoon season, water levels may be dangerously low, if the rains do not fall long and hard enough to replenish the ground water supply. This makes our work with SRI and water management even more important and immediate than we had expected.
The staff ride out in the morning in a pair of Jeeps, and we joined them along with Jacob. The JSS clinic is in Ganyari, a village about 30km outside of Bilaspur, and it took about 40 minutes to make the drive through fields and villages.
The campus itself looks a lot like what I imagined it would, with sandy red soil in the shade of sparse trees, and simple buildings spread around. Three days a week, including today, they have what amounts to a walk-in clinic, so the main buildings were surrounded by a crowd of people waiting patiently for their time with the doctor.
There are currently twelve doctors full time at JSS, and each has their own speciality. The facilities are simple, but modern, including small hospital ward, and a new surgery building with two operating rooms. There is a mess where food is served, with a wood fire for most of the cooking, and everybody washes their own dishes - including the doctors. There are also office buildings, a conference room, an IT building (with wireless broadband!), pharmacies, some housing for workers and doctors who may spend the night. There are a number of support workers besides the doctors, though I don't know how many.
There are also a few fields, covering about an acre and a half, where SRI methods are practiced and researched. A number of animals wander the grounds, a few sheep (whose blood is extracted for some kind of serum or media) a cow, and the ever present stray dogs.
We spent the day touring the grounds, talking with Jacob about SRI, and generally trying not to get too hot. Temperatures here hit around 43C... I don't even want to know what that is in Farenheit, so you'll have to look it up yourself. It is supposed to get cooler when the rains come... but the monsoon is long overdue.
The delayed monsoon season is a subject that gets a lot of inches in the newspaper, and is the topic of much discussion. In the short term, it means that farmers get a late start in planting their crops. In the longer term, it means that at this time next year, at the cusp of monsoon season, water levels may be dangerously low, if the rains do not fall long and hard enough to replenish the ground water supply. This makes our work with SRI and water management even more important and immediate than we had expected.
