October 2005 Update

1. America On My Mind
2. Recent Travel
3. War, Slavery, and Dueling
4. Future Plans
5. Best Times to Call
p.s. Smile, Life Rocks.

AMERICA ON MY MIND
Hello from Sunny New Delhi! It still peaks into 100 degrees here in New Delhi, but the monsoons have basically ended and the end of summer is near. I apologize for not being in better touch recently, but I've been quite lucky to get out of Delhi a lot the past couple months and travel for work and also for vacation. The last email I sent out was basically "what's wrong with India" and it is not a good email to follow up with three months of silence. Despite my distinct awareness of the shortcomings of this country, the truth is, Courtney and I still love our life and work here in India and find it hard to believe we will be moving back to Washington in just five months (my how time flies.) Despite my email silence, you have all been in my thoughts a great deal the past few months. It is so easy to stay focused on India, willfully surrounded by the craziness that is life here and to not think daily about American politics, or certainly U.S. weather patterns. However, the natural (and man- made) tragedies causes by the recent hurricanes kept our friends, family and country on the top of our mind. Conversations in New Delhi bars ranged from depressing topics, like what the hell is wrong with America, to lighter topics, like we hope that the bars of all of our Tulane friends managed to survive. Our thoughts and prayers have been with the U.S. and the unending hope that we can lessons can be learned from the mistakes that were made.

RECENT TRAVEL
The past few months Courtney and I have been to Bangalore (the tech capital of India), Kerela ("God's Own Country"), Calcutta (home of "Born into Brothels"), the border of Nepal, Mumbai (a.k.a. Bombay, city of floods with 16 million people), Bangkok (the incredibly beautiful capitol of Thailand), Rishikesh (whitewater rafting in the Himalyas). Courtney has also been to Bangladesh (350 terrorist attacks in one day) and is headed to Sri Lanka tonight. Although we've traveled a lot, we're most excited about those who have visited us, including Ben Smilowtiz, who got picked up for a music video in Mumbai, Susanne Stallkamp who partied with the princess of Bikaner, and in the next four months Jen A., MAB, Jeff S., Jenny K., Caitlin D., Anice S., Beth F., and possibly President Bush are all coming to see India. (President Bush will not be staying with us.)

WAR, SLAVERY AND DUELING
It is funny how smart we think we are when we are in college. Exactly ten years ago I wrote a paper for my international relations class that predicted the end of war. My argument (I am not the originator of this idea), was that economic factors and social rejection would lead to an end of war. Simply put, while war used to be in the economic interest of countries, due to globalization, it just didn't make sense anymore. Further, society had evolved to a point that people would reject war and call for an end to its existence. Historically, the argument went, that this happened with slavery and dueling. In the case of slavery, the economic value of slavery decreased over time and was ultimately ended, in large part, to society rejecting the practice and imposing their evolved values on others. Likewise with dueling, which used to be quite common and accepted a few hundred years back, got to a point where it was rejected and relegated to the history books.

The very next year, after writing this paper, I got on a plane to Bosnia working with OSCE and learned that war, whether economic rational, or accepted by society, was a long way away from being extinct. Now, I am in India, and I've come to the conclusion that slavery is not extinct either. The buying and selling of women and children for labor and commerial sexual explotation exists to this day, and I didn't believe it the first time I heard it either, until I talk to the survivors of this horrible practice. My big fear is now that Courtney and I are headed to Colombia, we will soon learn that dueling is not extinct either! Lets only hope that I got something right on my "A" paper from ten years ago!

FUTURE PLANS
A few people have asked what I plan to do after leaving India. Courtney will have three months of training in Washington, then we get married, and then we head to Bogotá. But my plans are more in flux. I'll remain in my job until March helping coordinate the U.S. Government's anti-human trafficking efforts in India, but after that my plan is to start an international nonprofit. I'll give you a teaser now, but if you are interested – and you are one of the few who reads to the bottom of my emails – let me know and I'll be glad to tell you more. Essentially, I want to establish a "21st century Peace Corps". Where instead of taking people from the U.S. to volunteer in "developing" countries for a couple years, I'll take rising stars in civil society organizations (CSOs) from the "global south" and take them to volunteer in the U.S. for a year or two. These rising CSO leaders would share their knowledge with like-minded organizations in the U.S. and would also gain knowledge from the experience. Then they would take that experience back to their home countries to strengthen the nonprofit sector there.

There are literally hundreds of organizations that take people from the U.S. to the "developing" world, but this would be one of the first of its kind to take people in the opposite direction. This is an idea whose time has come, the business world, the academic sector, even the government has long benefited from international exchanges like this, but the nonprofit sector lags behind, disconnected from their natural allies in other countries, unable to benefit from the collective knowledge of people from around the world. Sound interesting? Want to know more? I need a lot of help, so drop me a line if you're willing to read my business plan and offer some support!

BEST TIME TO CALL
That's all from me. Please drop me an email every so often, or better yet, call! The best times to call (from the east coast) are during your lunch hour, or late late at night, coming home drunk from a bar. If you call at noon EST, then it is 9:30 PM Indian time; and if you call at 2:00 AM late late on Sat night (actually Sun AM), then it is 11:30 AM Sunday morning Indian time. The number may still be in your phone – 202-669-4497 – so call anytime!

Take care,
Scott Beale

P.S. Last night one of our friends past away here in India. A 9 year old street kid named Rada Krishna. A charismatic child beggar, who if he had been born anywhere else would have been president of his 3rd grade class. In his life, Rada Krishna smiled every day, a constant reminder how beautiful living is, even under the worst of circumstance. In his death, he is a name and a face to countless millions of kids who currently have no hope other than death to escape the unending hardship. Smile everyday and don't forget how blessed your life is.