Off to India

I am reviving this blog after a long hiatus. I originally started to post when I hosted 26 Indian and Pakistani teachers over the summer of 2007 at UCLA for an institute designed to provide professional development and foster greater understanding and conflict resolution for our participants. Blogging was one of the technology components included in the institute, so I learned it along with them. I have not been the best blogger, but I think it will be a good tool to share information, so I am recommitting.

My dissertation research has revived my interest in India. I will be in the country for two months conducting field studies of Education for Sustainable Development in various sites in the Western and Northern parts of the immense nation. My wife and my father will join me for the last three weeks in India and we will try to see some of the fabled tourist sites. I also want to reconnect with some of my teacher friends from the UCLA institute whom I have not seen since they left California.

Its an exciting opportunity and I am grateful things have worked out. Previously in 2007 I was to travel to Islamabad in Pakistan, for a follow-up conference to the UCLA institute, but my trip was canceled by the State Department weeks before my scheduled departure due to the possibility of political unrest and violence.

I love to meet and learn from people who are different than me and experience the food, culture, natural environments, and ways of life of diverse places around the world, so this is a very exciting adventure, but it takes a lot of sustained effort and energy. Hopefully I will be up to the challenge. It will be difficult to be so far away from my family and friends, especially my wife, since we have been married for less than a year. Hopefully this blog will help me feel closer while I am in distant lands.