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....