I had the opportunity to visit Bangalore, India in 2000 for 8 weeks. It was an amazing experience. Totally sensory. The sounds of the city never cease, even in the middle of the night. Honking horns to warn people you are driving around a corner. Street vendors shouting their daily specials.
The visual imagery of India is lasting. Throngs of beautiful brown-skinned people, dressed in an array of brightly colored sarees and kurta pyjamas. The contrast of beautiful homes directly next door to slums. Cows stopping traffic, with cars 5 or 6 across what we would consider to be a two or three-lane highway. Heads bobbing side to side in affirmation.
The smells are potent. Burning incense to greet you as you enter a shop. The smell of raw sewage as you drive over what at first glance appears to be a river. The constant smell of burning trash.
Indian food is a tasty combination of sweet and savory. Spice. Rich creamy sauces and rice in abundance. Combine your taste and touch sensations at each meal, as food is eaten by hand. Combine the rice with sauce into a cohensive clump, hold with your four fingers cupping the food, and push it into your mouth with your thumb.
I loved my time there. But the heart break of poverty is so evident and accepted that there was a lot of confusion and questions as well. The caste system still exists, separating the poorest of the poor from the richest of the rich. But even in these set ways, and centuries of ingrained ideals and traditions, there are heroes in India. People that recognize we are all the same, regardless of our status in society. "Everybody has got 5.5 liters of blood. I am just a human being." Narayanan Krishnan is serving these people. Nourishing their bodies and encouraging their spirit.
Evans Wadongo is one of CNN's Heros. A 23-year-old man who has an idea that is going to greatly impact the rural communities in Kenya. Having grown up living by the light of a kerosene lamp or firelight, he knows firsthand how insufficient this is for seeing at night and the impact the smoke can have on your health.
"The youngest of four children, Wadongo grew up in a home that stressed the importance of education -- his father was a high school teacher. But years of exposure to smoke while studying by kerosene and firelight left Wadongo with eyesight problems.
With a lack of good light to study by -- Wadongo often had to share one lantern with his siblings and other family members -- he remembers the frustration of unfinished homework and poor exam performance.
"I couldn't compete effectively with other kids who had access to lighting," he said. "In every home in the village it was the same. Many children drop out of school for these reasons ... so they remain poor for the rest of their life. All along I was asking myself if there is anything that can be done to improve this situation."
And Wadongo was motivated and creative enough to find an answer. Solar-powered LED lamps. But not only did he determine a way to bring light to these rural communities, he managed to find an environmentally conscious solution, reusing solar panels and steel, using LED lights which can operate 50 times longer than an incandescent bulb, and reducing carbon emissions by decreasing dependency on kerosene and firelight.
Wadongo now has an organization called Use Solar, Save Lives, with volunteers helping to build these lanterns. They have distributed more than 10,000 lanterns, and plan to continue building these lanterns with the hopes of reducing poverty by allowing families to save money that they would have had to spend on kerosene, and by allowing children to succeed in their studies.
