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 :)