Belated India Post: Manipal and Goa

So....once again I’ve forgotten to take notes, so my update about the last 2 weeks in India might be brief and prompted by my photos. 

Good Friday, I opted not to go on the group tour and stayed back to relax and catch up on sleep.  Ruth and I made our way to the pool at the hotel and relaxed a bit in the sun.  I hummed and hawed (?sp) about not going on the trip, but I was glad I didn’t go in the end as Ruth and I had a great time at the pool and the trip ended up being a bit of a bust because a few of the stops ended up being closed so most of the time was spent on the hot, sweaty bus.  In the evening, one of the professors took myself and a few other students to his church for a Good Friday service.  It was similar to a Pentecostal church but it was great to be in an evangelical church regardless of denomination.  We essentially met in a larger version of a living room in an house-like building that was now being used as a church.  I cried a bit during the worship service, as I was simply overwhelmed to be worshiping the same God in a room filled with people from at least five different countries.  We sang songs in both the local Indian language and also English.  We even sang “Here I am to Worship” which, again, brought me to tears.  I hadn’t realized just how much I missed our Christian fellowship back home.  The last four months most of our spiritual journey has been a party for two (well, three, I guess, considering God, too, was present), reading our bible at the dinner table and the occasional downloaded sermon.  It was awesome to be in communion and partake in communion with fellow Christians, in India nonetheless.

After I returned from the church service, my friends had arranged a surprise dinner for me in lieu of my birthday.  We ate out at a cute little restaurant then headed to a bar for a beer (no alcohol is allowed on campus, so it was a treat for us).

Saturday and Easter Sunday consisted of our Global Health Symposium weekend conference.  I had one presentation on Saturday and one presentation on Sunday and raised quite a bit of a stink trying to convince one particular member of the McMaster faculty that I found it disrespectful that the conference was arranged on Easter Sunday and no accommodations would be made for students who wished to observe the holiday by attending a church or having some personal reflection.  In the end, I was able to attend a church (different from the Good Friday church, because of the timing that my presentation was scheduled) and skipped the afternoon to take some personal reflection.  My presentations went off without a hitch and we had a nice banquet on the Saturday night to celebrate all of our accomplishments throughout the year.

Monday and Tuesday we were back at our fieldwork.  We met with the founder of an NGO that employs only HIV positive people for peer support and counselling as well as aiming to decrease stigma for HIV positive people.  She was an incredibly inspiration woman who was spurred on to start an NGO when her husband died from AIDS and her children were then refused re-entrance to their school because of suspicion that they too might be HIV positive.  In order to respect her privacy, I won’t publish the details of her story or the story of the resilient 20 year old girl we met with, but feel free to ask me about it in person.  Our Manipal (India) students tried to arrange for us to go to an orphanage in Mangalore (1.5 hrs away) that only cares for HIV positive orphans, but the faculty shot that idea down, which was frustrating.  On Wednesday we were supposed to interview the head honcho of the ART centre, but he didn’t show up, and since there was nothing else for us to do there (considering we had finished quantitative data collection the previous week) we went to get Henna tattoos!  When we re-boarded the bus to get back to the university after fieldwork, the other groups were all jealous of us!  Thursday we did some quantitative and qualitative data analysis and compiled the results of our study.  We found that, of the 84 orphans’ charts we looked at, 62% came from families with either only primary school education or illiterate, and the average family income was only about $50 Canadian/month.  All of the cases except for one had contracted HIV through mother-to-child transmission.  So even though this project was sort of made up, we still were able to draw some conclusive results of both qualitative and quantitative data and make a short report out of it.

One afternoon, we went to the neighbouring town of Udupi and visited a Hindu temple.  I was a little weary to leave my shoes outside the temple, but, out of respect, I did so.  I should have, however, voiced my thoughts out loud because, upon returning from looking at the inside of the temple, discovered that my new birthday Birkenstocks had been stolen!  I can only hope (and, expect) that the person who took them needed them more than me.  (Ron was able to score me a new pair back in Europe while he was travelling with my Dad and Brother....he’s also overdue on his blog!)

Saturday, April 30 marked the end of our studied in Manipal and we concluded with short presentations from each group about their fieldwork placements.  It was nice to see what other groups had been doing and the diversity of the projects.  We went out in the evening to a bar and celebrated being finished another leg of our Masters Program.

Saturday night most of the McMaster students and some of the Maastricht students boarded an overnight bus to Goa, India (one state north of Karnataka where the university was). However, I managed to get a bug (?food poisoning ?flu) that a dozen people had the previous weekend.  So I opted to take the bus the following evening instead by myself and met my friends a day late.  One of the Indian students from my group was incredibly helpful and figured out a bus ticket for me for the next day and waited at the bus stop (sort of sketchy at midnight...) with me to make sure I got off ok.

 I met my friends in Goa without any problems and we had a great few days at a resort.  It was 39 degrees prior to the humidity the entire time we were in Goa; so hot that I only went to the beach once because the sand scalded my feet!  We spent most of the time at the pool just lounging around, reading, and playing “keep up” with a volley ball we found.  It was a nice way to end our time in India, most of which was quite jaded because of the poor organization of the field placements and conference.  I had a long trip back to Amsterdam, but made all of my connections.  Ron greeted me at the airport with a gigantic balloon and a bouquet of coral-coloured roses.  We spent the day doing laundry and re-packing as we were only back at Romke and Margot’s (Ron’s uncle  and  aunt) for less than 24hours before setting off to meet Lauren and Keith Hubley in Paris.  I don’t have any plans to return to India, and am quite happy to be “home” (since my heart lies with Ron, and “home” is where the heart is).  Then again, I didn’t really have any plans to go there in the first place prior to starting my Masters Program...so who knows what is in store next! 

For now, we’re going to enjoy the next 2 ½ weeks travelling France and Italy with my BFF and her hubbie and then we’re off to Greece for a week before heading home – truly “home” – for the beginning of June.

Celebrating my birthday (again) in India: All the "McMaastricht" students  (McMaster students who did the last semester at Maastricht with me)

 

 

dancers at our conference banquet

peacock dancers at our banquet

Our field work group meeting with the woman who started the NGO for peer social support for HIV positive people

lots of watermelons in India (that's for Megan)

our Henna tattoos

taking a tuk-tuk with Gwen and Cat to go to the temple in Udupi

the temple in Udupi (where my shoes got stolen)

making intricate flower wreaths

playing volleyball in the pool in Goa

our fellow student, Cristina, couldn't come to India (because she's expecting!!) so we wrote her a sign to tell her we missed her!

Cat, me, Gwen, and Renee out for dinner in Goa

soaking the last minutes of 39+ degree weather before heading to the airport