My first year was spent partially at Dacca Polytechnical Institute where I attempted to teach a course in radio transmiters, receivers and antennae. It ended in May of 1962 and the following September, I went up to Nandina to teach in the pilot high school there. My reception was very well received and I started teaching math, physics and general science. Before school, which started at 11:00 am, I would do various activities, one of which was building solar heaters and making crude lab equipment. About three weeks after I got there, a jeep pulled up to the front entrance and an American got out named Ben Ferguson. Ben worked with AID and he was on his way to a village to encourage them to use modern developments to improve their lives, including putting in a diesel pump to provide irrigation during the winter months. After that first visit, I joined him on several of his outings and began doing my own, with his help. The objective was to continually encourage the local TAOs, the Thanna agricultural officers, to go into the villages and provide not only the information necessary to improve their lives, but to get the materials to them. They weren't doing this when I began, but after prodding them, they began to perform. Ben Ferguson and the District Agricultural Officer of Mymensingh, the DAO, met with them to insure that they did their job. Periodically, I met with the SDAO, the subdivisional ag officer in Jamalpur. I remember well the day he and I rode our bikes to Sherifpur to meet with the village elders. Unfortunately, by the time I left, I was unable to see the fruits of this labor. There were a few village farmers that spent the necessary money to buy pesticides, fertilizers, and pay for the pump, but they were the more wealthy. I was unable to get the school headmaster to install a pump and turn the school into a model farm. My teaching efforts were very successful, I had the PC office import a microscope so that I could do field studies after and before the school day. They passed the english section of the matriculation exam the highest ever. Well, no wonder, I wasn't fluent in Bengali and they had to widen their vocabulary. I did make good use of USIS to bring films into the villages and the school, but I couldn't get anyone in the school to go Mymensingh to obtain films, the elctrical generator and projector to continue this after I left. It was fun while it lasted. I was going into various villages showing films and at the same time, meeting with the headmen to collect information for Ben Ferguson's "building program" as he called it. And that's about the size of it, Bette. I've attached a few pictures that I could find.
See you in September.
Bob
School front
Monsoon rain
Village where the headman is showing the result of using pesticides and one without
Workers harvesting a section of paddy to measure the result of using fertiliers and pesticides (the yield increased about three-fold)
Downtown Nandina
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