During the 2005 Spring Semester, 18 Ball State students, two Ball State professors, and three students from other universities ventured to India and Sri Lanka on the CAP Asia IV field study to experience different cultures while learning more about planning and building.
Students who participated in the CAP Asia IV program will share their experiences using displays and presentations this week.
A representation of an Indian marketplace such as ones the group visited while on its trip is being displayed in the Architecture building atrium.
"It's going to be focused on the senses of going through the marketplace," fifth-year Lindsay Bacurin said.
Spices and burning incense will represent the smell of a marketplace, while chai, a spiced tea from India, will be served to give students a taste of India. Fabrics will be incorporated along with photographs, artwork and audio recordings of the students to complete the marketplace experience.
Three small presentations will be given about the cultural elements students experienced while on the trip. The first presentation was Monday at noon and focused on the traditional dances from India that the students saw. The second presentation is Wednesday at noon and will focus on Hindi music. The third presentation is Friday at noon and will address the stereotypes the students had before they left and how their perceptions changed during and after the trip. Each of these presentations will last about half an hour and will be held in AB 100.
The students will also give two longer presentations.
"We'll be talking about the different places we went and what really struck us most," Bacurin said.
These hour-long presentations will be Saturday, Sept. 17 at 4 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. in AB 100. The students are also going to serve Indian food to those who attend.
"We're going to have several different Indian dishes after the longer presentations. We're also going to serve chai and some Indian sweets and desserts" Bacurin said.
The CAP Asia program is offered through the College of Architecture and Planning, but students from any major are welcome to participate. Nihal Perera, director of CAP Asia and associate professor of urban planning, started the program in 1999 and continues to offer the field study every other spring.
"We do collaborative projects with people and students in the countries we visit," Perera said.
The program is meant to involve students in the lives of real people and has two main aspects: planning to learn and building to learn.
For the planning to learn project, students teamed up with the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, India, and worked with students on a development plan for a nearby village called Veraval.
"Instead of dominating, we were trying to participate in the process and learn," Perera said.
The people in Ahmedabad and Veraval were extremely welcoming, students said.
"There are these complete strangers that aren't familiar with your culture that invite you into their homes, whether they can speak English or not," fifth-year Kathleen Edwards said.
For the building to learn project, students changed their original plan and went to Kalametiya, Sri Lanka, to help rebuild homes that were destroyed in the December 2004 tsunami.
"We decided, let's go and build something that's useful for somebody," Perera said.
The residents of the town, more than 100 people, were living in temporary housing when the students arrived.
"It was really heart-wrenching," Edwards said.
Even though the people had lost almost everything they owned, the students said the villagers were welcoming.
"These people lost their family, their parents, their children," Bacurin said. "The whole time we were with these people, I almost forgot all they had lost because they're so strong.
"By working in Kalametiya, the students were able to have an effect on the people they came in contact with, Perera said.
"It's our educational project but in reality, this is their project, living-wise. They need to complete this project after we leave," he said.
Students were also able to visit Bangkok, Thailand, and Taipei, Taiwan. While in Bangkok, students visited a university and learned about how to integrate natural materials into the building process. In Taipei, they visited the Taipei 101 tower, currently the tallest building in the world, and met with an architect who helped create the tower.
"It's a very humbling experience because it trains students to participate in other people's processes," Perera said. He will begin taking applications for CAP Asia V in the spring.
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