Skip to main content

everything we need for life

It’s 12:30 and I’ve finally made it to the office. Have no fear that your favorite blogger is slacking, however. I’ve been working on a proposal all morning. My English language skills are being gainfully employed (hmm, can I truthfully say that since I’m a volunteer?) as I revise a draft of a proposal to assess and improve the socio-economic status of Dalits (see previous blog) within Himachal Pradesh. I’ve been working from my sitting room, a nicer environment than the office. Though my manager is still out of town, I’ve had the company of my landlord and his troupe of Mr. Fix-its. I use that term slightly deridingly because I asked my landlord today to call a different toilet repairman since this is the fourth time within a week that I need my toilet repaired.

On the cooking front, I boiled a kilo of milk this morning and promptly poured a large portion down the drain. I buy milk in ½ kilo bags and then boil it to ensure healthfulness. I have been storing the milk in an old Whiskey bottle after boiling it. Unfortunately, the mouth of the bottle is too narrow for my pot and, hence, I poured a lot down the drain. At least I completed this operation in the sink. I wasn’t so forward-thinking last time. After pouring the milk down the drain and in the bottle, I heard a glass-cracking sound and noticed the bottle had broken. I quickly re-poured (successfully) into a series of cups lest the bottle shatter (which it did not). So that’s my fun morning activity in Palampur. Oh, when I opened my fridge, the uncovered cup of milk spilled on the floor but I’m not crying over it.

By the way, you can check out my local “market” in the pic above. OK, I can't upload pic's on here at this time so click on My Pictures to your right and look for the Palampur folder. The pic's in there.

Comments

Anonymous said…
i've been talking to Dad about you...love you sar!
april said…
oh, sarah. always something to think about and something to laugh about. do they sell funnels in india?

Popular posts from this blog

Rare Disease Day 2024

Today's Rare Disease Day. There's sometimes a particular weightiness to life with a rare disease. All the appointments, emergencies, traumas, doctors, therapists, medicines, opinions, schedules and upset schedules. My touchpoint is being mom to my precious girl with Wiedemann-Steiner Syndrome  (WSS). You'd have to spend a day or week shadowing me to know what it's really like. Doesn't that sound alienating? As though you couldn't possibly imagine if you're not living it? Well, maybe. But think about a time of immense grief you've lived through, or a time when your world seemed to be falling apart around you and it felt like everyone else was completely unaffected. I suppose it's a bit like that. You might have thought that those around you couldn't possibly know how that experience felt to you. A couple weeks ago, I started keeping a list of all the extraordinary things that happened in my life due to my daughter's rare disease. I learned a c

Startup Day 676: MVP coming soon

Hunkering down and revisiting user data consumed much of my last hundred-odd days, resulting in a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Simply built using Softr and Airtable (with tons of gratitude for  INVANTI 's support), I'm testing the willingness of Disability Self-advocates and Caregivers to find and write reviews of providers they recommend. Of the 200+ pain points expressed by Empowered Together's community, 88% can be addressed by the online marketplace simulated in our MVP. Users get to recommend respite providers, social activities, and therapists they love. We're testing a shift from Word of Mouth recommendations to tech-enabled referrals and lead gen, leveraging the collective voice and purchasing power of the disability community. This progress energizes me as a founder. This could be the key to unlock support for families affected by disability. My narrative for a startup bootcamp's application summarizes it best: As Empowered Together’s founder, Sarah has a

Startup Day 703: MVP live...

It's official, you can visit app.empoweredtogether.us  to see what we've been building! It's been a long journey to get here though this is really just the beginning. Yesterday, I reflected on why I'm doing this ( watch here ). I want to dive a bit deeper around the concept of creating the future I want to live in with my kids. I'm building a marketplace to connect families affected by disability with recommended businesses. I hypothesize that this will increase the rate of excellent customer experiences for People with Disabilities (PwD) -- 80% of their customer experiences are currently FAILURES! I also hypothesize that businesses will see the value in welcome PwD and society will slowly become more inclusive and accessible. Big dreams, I know, but that's the future I'm creating. On the personal side, creating that future would be meaningless to me if my kids and I didn't get to enjoy it together. That means it's equally important for me to engage