Two-day weekend.

So India normally had 6-day weeks, which will take getting used to, but it's understandable since people generally start work late and end early. And there is a ton of down time, even if you have a relatively busy day. The trend so far, especially when we're going to villages, is that there's usually one thing scheduled per day. We'll walk for an hour and a half to get to Jaajar (or is it Jaanjar?) along these crazy bagdandis (pronounced bug-DUHN-dees...i have no idea how to actually spell it), meaning, as pulkit defines it, 'crappy paths'. We'll pass through 3 or 4 yards to get to the school, which is where the meeting generally is. And by 'pass through' I mean we'll chat for 10 minutes at one, have chai at another, and briefly greet a few more. At around 11, we'll get to the school. The meeting was probably supposed to start at 10, but we'll still be the first ones there. At 12:30, on a good day, the meeting will actually get started. By 3 or s0, it'll be over, there will be more chai (no lunch, however), and we may go visit yet another villager's house for even more chai before a 2.5-hour trek back up the hill. Repeat 5 more times with slight variation.

But this weekend is a 2-day weekend, due to Republic Day, and it feels gooood. We had lunch with a friend of Pulkit's uncle, Dr. Pradeep Gupta. Got lost walking there, thought it would be non-veg, but it was a great afternoon nonetheless. They have a gorgeous house, a renovated old government building, and served us homemade plum wine. And cornflour rotis and buffalo butter. There was a homeopathic doctor, Rohit, who was also there, and he had a lot of interesting experiences to share. He's a volunteer with Aarohi, another organization in the area that I almost worked with, and he's been here for 8 months (from Goa) and is staying for at least another year, he likes it just that much. In our discussion of of Aarohi's approach to health, it seems that Aarohi and Chirag have very different approaches to health care. Everything we've been learning through Chirag is how to make the government scheme, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), go from a nice document to reality. The NRHM has a program that pays mothers 1400 Rs if they get a free institutional (hospital) delivery. Other than most likely not being economically worthwhile, Aarohi's stance is that a hospital delivery is actually riskier than an at-home delivery (if there is a trained birth attendant) except in cases of risky pregnancies. This is because you're apparently much likelier to contract an infection in the hospital than you are at home. I'm not sure how true that is (although hospital infections are a widespread concern in the US as well), but if it is then the question is whether we should be promoting this government scheme to everyone or not, and if not, how do we ensure that there's enough follow-up during ante-natal care to identify the mothers who ARE at risk? This and other issues have given me tons to think about, in addition to trying to cram random Hindi words into my poor head. Every time I want to say something I think of it English, then Chinese, then French, but I can never say a complete sentence in Hindi yet :(

Finally, Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai :)

Sundar = Beautiful.

So it's been less than a week but it feels like I have been here for a long time already. Each day is filled with so much information and learning it feels like my head will explode. Last Saturday we went to the village of Mona for a health comittee meeting. Sunday was an off day, meaning I did laundry and watched Pinjar (decent...still too overdramatized for my taste). A guy from Germany came (Sam) and is going to be working with Chirag until the end of March or so. He needed a sim card as well, so we planned to go to Mukteshwar to get one after lunch, but it started raining (and got very cold) so that didn't happen. 

A doctor from England (Jen) and her husband (Ed) also came by the Sitla guest house in the morning. She's volunteering in Chirag's clinics for a year or so and told me some crazy things about women's health care. In many villages, women are considered dirty when they're on their period, and must spend that time in a cow shed. When a woman is pregnant, after the 5th month or so, she's also considered 'dirty' and can't touch anything or cook food. Also, whenever guys are sick they'll get sent to the doctor quickly, but for women and girls the families often wait until the last minute :(. I've heard much of this before, but it's still unbelievable to experience the reality of it. 

On Monday, we met with Mr. Madhavan and got our first project assignments. I'm interested in sort of figuring out how to integrate an allopathic health care system with more traditional healing in order to achieve the best outcome for the patient. Traditional healing definitely has its place, especially in chronic or psychologic disorders, but patients need to know when going to an allopathic doctor is absolutely necessary. So my project for the next month or so will be interviewing jaundice patients to see what they think the cause of jaundice is, who they went to for treatment, why they chose that form of treatment, were they happy with the treatment, etc. Then I'll try to interview the traditional healers to see what they think the cause of jaundice is and what they normally prescribe for treatment. Based on this information and the allopathic prescription for treatment of jaundice, i'll create an information brochure or poster that addresses the local beliefs about jaundice, symptoms of jaundice, and things you absolutely must do if you think you have jaundice.

I'll leave you with this....

Places I can't pronounce (or spell).

Greetings from Sitla!

I didn’t have any sort of expectations coming to India, but my first impression was not at all the destitute, crowded place you hear about. It’s chaotic, dusty, loud, and full of people who don’t know the meaning of personal space, but it seemed…normal. It wasn’t until we took the metro (very modern) to Old Delhi that it seemed like another world. 

 After spending 2 days in Delhi, Pulkit and I took the Ranikhet Express overnight to Kathgodam. We underestimated the time it would take to get there, and just barely made it on the train - one minute later and it would have been gone. In Kathgodam, we were received by Shafik (note: my spellings of Indian names and places will probably completely off), who picked us up and drove us to the Chirag office in Simayal. On the way, we stopped for some breakfast (aloo paratha and chai –I love chai, which is probably good since we have it 6+ times a day). The view driving along the mountain roads is AMAZING, and there’s a place close to where I’m staying that has the greatest panoramic view of the Himalayas. It was still early when we got to the office, so there was second breakfast, with chai of course.

 After meeting with Kuldeep and Bipin (Madhavan won’t be here til Monday), we got to sit in on a balshikshak training session. The topic of the day was the importance of language and learning outside of the classroom. Most Indian classes are taught in a traditional rote memorization style, and there’s no overlap between classes and practical application in life, so Chirag is trying to integrate the two.  Everything is taught in Hindi (obviously), and even many of Chirag’s staff don’t speak much English, so it was extremely helpful to have Pulkit there to translate. I’m definitely going to have to learn quickly if I want to get anything done by May.

Towards the end of the day, we met Gaurav, who graduated from college in 2007 and is doing Indicorps (highly highly recommends it). He’s been here since September and is staying until the end of July. He’s working on preventative health care and it’s been good to have someone our age  (and more importantly, speaks English) to talk to.

Tomorrow we'll be going to the nearby village of Mona for a meeting with 2 swastha samitis (health committees)  about their purpose/responsibilities and problems or issues they are having with fulfilling these responsibilities.  

Pictures later, maybe. The internet here has a download limit of 1GB/month so I don't want to strain it. But it's broadband, which is quite a luxury :)

for sale! rate this business! not here....

While in san francisco this summer, i became a huge fan of 2 sites that embody something to the extent of "online democracy" - craigslist and yelp!. 

craigslist is a free site on which you can find pretty much anything. people sublet their homes and apartments when they're on vacation, sell and buy things, advertise services, list job postings, arrange carpools with strangers, and more. craigslist varies by city/metropolitan area, and the idea behind it is that it's better or safer (and free) to interact with locals rather than people across the country. my favorite is the free part (craigslist doesn't take any portion of sales you make), the lack of shipping, and the fact that you don't have to create an account to use it. granted, it can be sketchy, but anyone with a dose of common sense should be fine.

yelp.com is also a local-based search engine-business-finder thing. you need an account to write reviews of businesses and restaurants, etc, but not to read the reviews. what's great is that there's a lot of smaller, non-chain restaurants and such that you'll find out about. and places that don't get good ratings are motivated to improve, because they know that their customers are their best advertisement.

in san francisco, I found an apartment through craigslist and yelp opened my eyes (or rather, my mouth and wallet) to many great known-only-to-locals restaurants and shops. going back to boston, i noticed that the number of postings on the boston craigslist was only a fraction of the sf craigslist. in dallas, it's pretty much not worth searching for anything on craigslist because so few people use it. the same thing applies to yelp. how are west coast (and even east coast) people so much more willing to use their voice, to participate in a democratic form of capitalism, than southerners? is it the coastal mindset? is it just because craigslist started out in california? is that trend changing? i sure hope so...