R&R in Holland: First Week in India

We’ll I’ve arrived safely in India and it's hard to believe I've been here for an entire week already. It was a long flight, and I didn’t sleep much, but got here safe and sound with Jeff and Kirsten (two Canadians studying in Maastricht) alongside. We were the first ones here, so we just took the 2 days we had to explore the small town, Manipal, a bit and rest up. Lots of little run-down shops and street vendors selling everything from fresh fruit to flip flops to cell phones. The writing on all the signs is in both Hindi and English and most people speak English fluently and seem to switch back and forth between languages when talking on the phone or to one another. It’s been between 30 and 34 degrees everyday here and very humid; the sort of weather that makes you sweat as soon as you walk outside….the kind of weather that reminds me of my wedding day.

The university campus is really beautiful. Really new buildings and up to Canadian standards. One of the only things different is that there are security guards everywhere. To get into the library we had to first go to the information desk, then the security supervisor, then he had to make 4 phone calls to verify who we were and why we were here, then we had to be escorted into the library by an armed security guy. So weird. I think in a country of 1.2 billion people, they must just make up jobs for people to keep them employed.

We are staying in the dorms on campus, boys and girls in separate dorms. The girls dorm is new, they rushed to finish it before our arrival. Well…it’s not finished. And you wouldn’t know it was new to look at it from the inside. They seem to have no problem installing chipped tiles or stained sinks or scratched doors and certainly didn’t clean any of the rooms after construction. We have constant power outages because construction isn’t complete and I can’t get my room any cooler than 25 degrees, but oh well, I’m making the best of it. I have a private room with a private bathroom, which is nice, but very hard to keep clean (or get clean in the first place) with all the red dirt being tracked in from outside. I’m glad I brought my own towel, pillowcase, and toilet paper as those things seem to be non-existant here. We even got hot water yesterday so I had a warm-ish shower in the evening. Living in a dorm feels a bit like being in 1^st year university again at Dal with people just knocking on my door periodically to see what I’m up to or if I want to watch a movie and arranging what time we will go to breakfast together in the morning. There is one main food court on campus with about 8 choices of where to eat. I’ve been able to stay away from mangoes, but have had to be really intentional about it. You can get any kind of food: there’s a “KFC”-like restaurant, a Subway, a Pizza/Pasta joint, a Malaysian place, and an Indian place. I’ve been trying lots of new India food and we’ve also eaten off campus one evening at an Indian restaurant.

They drive insanely here! We take a bus every day to our field placements and I am convinced it’s some sort of national Indian game of “chicken” while driving because the buses drive towards each other at top speeds, head on, until the very last second when they swerve out of each other’s way. Lots of tuk-tuks (rickshaws) to be seen and quite a few motorcycles/mopeds too.

I, along with 3 other students, have been placed at the ART (anti-retroviral therapy - HIV medications) centre for our field placement where we’re supposed to be collecting data about orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS. It’s been slow going as we always seem to be in someone’s way and no one really knows what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re paired up with 2 Manipal students who have been nice. The Indian students seemed to think that we already have a project going and this fieldwork is contributing to our project, but we were told the opposite; that all the field placements are on-going research studies that we are assisting on. We finished our data collection today (looking through all the charts and writing down the patients' age, gender, who they live with, their HIV stage, family income, care giver’s education level, etc) and we’ll do some analysis next week. We’re also hoping to conduct a few interviews with some people from NGO’s and orphanage facilities next week and are keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll get to visit an orphanage in Mangalore that cares only for orphans who have HIV/AIDS.
We went to the beach last night and dipped our toes in the Arrabian Sea. We were told it was too rough to swim, but it looked okay to me. A few of my friends and I shared a pineapple and had a beer while watching the sunset before getting on the bus to head back to the university.

I celebrated my birthday since my last post and got some great presents this year! Ron sent along a card for me in my suitcase (along with a note for me to read each day...I'm spoiled by him!) and a "coupon" to take me out for Thai food with him (which he's not a fan of). Catherine (a friend of my from Mac) and a few other people went to the pool at the nearby hotel on my birthday to tan and relax and spend time together. This also happens to be where the faculty are staying. Our Dean came down to the pool and, upon finding out it was my birthday, smuggled me a beer from his room after pouring it into an empty diet coke can and brought it to me at the pool! (We weren’t allowed to have alcohol at the pool, but our Dean seems to be quite a bit like my dad and husband: Always able to find a way around the rules.) When my parents visited Maastricht, my mom gave me a pin that she had made at a local bead shop. It has a giraffe and cowboy boot (symbolizing myself and Ron respectively), a heart to remember that I’m loved, and a fish (like my tattoo) to remember that I’m prayed for. My sister sent along a new book by my favourite author that I’m well into by now. My dad sent along an epi pen and some bugspray with a McMaster student since I was likely to run into both mangoes and mosquitos while in India. What I didn’t expect was the bugspray-fan contraption that, according to the picture, I am supposed to clip to my belt like some people do their cellphone and turn the fan on which will continuously “mist” bugspray into the air and around me. (It reminds me a lot of Opa’s water-misting fan that is a permanent fixture in his walker basket.) Oma and Opa sent along a birthday card and some money with my parents which I used to buy new Birkenstock sandals and a bathing suit (both of which have been used already in India. P.S. Ask Ron what he bought with his birthday money!) My birthday happened to be our first official night of our Global Health Symposium and my classmates organized and surprised me with a birthday cake at the welcome dinner which had 60 people, many of whom I didn’t know. I was slightly embarrassed but also honoured as they all sang Happy Birthday to me.

I think that’s it for now, but I’ll try to write a bit more frequently, if anything noteworthy goes on!