R.D.T.

at the beginning of february a lot of people were leaving. this helped to say goodbye to this wonderful place after almost two weeks. since my teammate anna and i were both heading towards chennai we decided to cycle together.

we plotted our route along the smaller roads with just two fixed points. one was the r.d.t. center (rural development trust) in anantapur which was recommended to us as a place to stay for the night. r.d.t offers schools, hospitals, a family planing center and helps building watertowers and accomodations for villages in karnataka.

when we arrived we were surprised to find out that we should have made a reservation and plan on staying for 3 or 4 days to visit some of the different projects in and around anantapur. as anna was supposed to start teaching in chennai the following week we agreed on a compromise of staying at least one full day to see some of the projects. we got a lovely room and all the food we could eat. after dinner we were shown a movie about the organization from its very beginning and made plans what places we’d like to see the next day.

we first visited the general hospital where every patient gets a treatment no matter what. which isn’t that common in other hospitals in india where you have to pay first. additionally people from r.d.t. visit villages in the surrounding areas and pick up sick people who otherwise would stay away from the hospital out of fear or the lack of money.

with totally different architecture from hospitals i’ve seen so far…

…there is a breeze going through the building because of its open structure. almost every health center from r.d.t. has a similar concept.

to save money the organization produces some of the products they need themselves and thus providing jobs for the otherwise unemployed local population. here the production of schoolbooks…

the resting place of father ferrer the founder who died in 2009.

we then went to see the family planing center which tries to educate people in family matters and is also a place for the becoming mother… only the mothers stay with their daughters in the last days of their pregnancy, while giving birth and later take care of preparing the food and washing their grandchildren.