Okay. So. Last week after the group meeting some of us went and bought a whole bunch of postcards. I don't know if people were actually going to send them - but I wanted to. I held onto them until I could figure out what I wanted to say to each person. In the mean time I gave my mom the task of getting me the addresses of everybody I needed. Se came through and texted me 5 of the addresses I needed. Her's and another I knew already, and one was a repeat. So 9 in all. I'd wanted to mail them on Friday but that proved no possible (I forget why) and I was in Agra for the weekend so I hoped for Monday. I brought them with me. It was pouring rain and the post office above Dr. Nanda's closed an hour before we got there.
We got a chance to go yesterday morning to the main post office in D. Dun, near the Clocktower. Getting there was half the fun because I got to barter with the A. Rich drivers. The first one drove up to us and this was the conversation that followed:
ME: Clocktower?
DRIVER1: Okay.
ME: How much?
DRIVER1: 70
ME: 40
DRIVER1: 70
ME: 40
DRIVER1: 70
ME: ok, jao-go. (waved him off)
Another driver pulls right up as this one was leaving.
ME: Clocktower?
DRIVER2: (nod)
ME: how much?
DRIVER2: 80.
ME: 40.
DRIVER2: 80.
ME: 40.
DRIVER2: 60.
ME: 40.
DRIVER2: 60
ME: No. Go. (wave off and look back for another.)
DRIVER2: Teek hai.
ME: 40?
DRIVER2: Teek hai.
ME: (to Mary) Let's go!
It was really fun. And I find that I enjoy bartering a lot. There is a total sense of accomplishment when you talk your way down to the actual price. Soniya, Aunty's daughter, had told us that from home to the Clocktower it should never cost more than 40 rps. So that is why I insisted on 40.
He drove us to the Clocktower area. We paid him and crossed the street to the big white building that was the post office. When we got inside we immediately were not sure about what to do or where to go. From wall to wall there was a wooden counter with a glass divider. There were about 12-14 desk partitions at this long counter, all designated for something - all written in Hindi. I looked to the left and saw a semi-circular counter in the corner that looked like an info desk (but wasn't). I approached the guy and asked him where I would find stamps. I showed him the postcards and he looked at them, and pointed to the other counter at the far end of the building - we went and I approached that counter too and waited for the lady's attention. Just so that it is clear - where ever there was a person behind a counter - people were swarming. The lady looked and me and I said that I wanted stamps. I showed her the postcards and she asked how many there were. I said 9. At 15 rps a piece I paid 135 rps in all. Then I asked her where I was supposed to take them next. She pointed to the general direction of the 12-14 tellers. I chose one of the emptier tellers and started there. I got sent to 3 different places until I finally just went up to another empty one with a girl who luckily spoke English. She took the postcards, stamped them and put them in the out-going box. I thanked her a few times and we left in high spirits.
The whole experience wasn't too difficult, it was just confusing and a little bit trying as, just like with the roads outside, lines were a construct of a foreigner's imagination. People just go around you to the front if you don't join in on the dog pile. People are too busy, it seems, to bother with useless things like the European construct of 'proper etiquette' in a public place. I would be very interested in seeing which system - order, or controlled chaos - works more efficiently. I don't know, the way things work here just makes more sense to me. Order and lines can drive a person crazy - always waiting, waiting; just being a sheep. Here, you go more or less where you want, and if you see someone coming your way you both just move to the left. So simple. So effective. This seems to be the rule of life here - just move to the left. Why do we make things more complicated than they need to be?
For the most part nothing else special happened yesterday that stands out to me. I did ride on a scooter at night. Dr. Nanda gave Mary and I a ride to the vikram connection because we left later than usual. It was cool. It was Mary's first time on a scooter/motorbike and it was exciting for the both of us. The lack of containing walls between us and the night air was somehow surreal, and that this vehicle had shocks made it feel like we were riding on a cloud. The ride was too short and it was time for us to catch the vikram home.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
7.20.11. 4:30 PM. Day 19. Bringing People Together.
I'm getting tired of talking about this girl so I am going to keep this story as short as I can.
Mati came to talk to us after our meeting with Dr. Prem Nath while Pompous Ass went to the seamstress boutique, Seema's, right next door. Mati basically just let out all of her frustration and pent up grief to us in about 20 minutes. We felt so bad for her, it seems that not only is Pompous Ass her namesake everywhere but she also manipulates Mati into doing things and going places she doesn't even want to. Mati desperately wanted to get away from her - even if only for a while. So we suggested that she ask Mayank if she could be switched to Dr. Nisha Gera during the 6-8 time slot. She asked, he said yes. She was excited. She went to tell PA that she would be going. PA responded - ok, see you at the homestay. Mary and I came to terms with the fact that we would be stuck with PA, but then it would be a relief for Mati. We even began to look forward to our encounters with PA especially since Mati told us that PA cried for an hour the night before because of me. What ever vile thing I said... Mati apparently told her that maybe I had a point, and then she was accused of not supporting PA. So much drama.
We went to Dr. Nanda's office and sat with him and the boys for over half an hour before declaring her a no-show. We feared that she followed Mati to Dr. Gera's anyway. We and the boys vented about her some more and when D. Nanda came back to his desk I apologized for our ranting during clinic time. He sat down, smiled, waved it off and said, "No, no - keep going." We all laughed and realized that he felt the same as we did. He would even refer to her as "the great doctor." If the Pompous Ass knows how to do one thing well -it's bringing people together.
Mati came to talk to us after our meeting with Dr. Prem Nath while Pompous Ass went to the seamstress boutique, Seema's, right next door. Mati basically just let out all of her frustration and pent up grief to us in about 20 minutes. We felt so bad for her, it seems that not only is Pompous Ass her namesake everywhere but she also manipulates Mati into doing things and going places she doesn't even want to. Mati desperately wanted to get away from her - even if only for a while. So we suggested that she ask Mayank if she could be switched to Dr. Nisha Gera during the 6-8 time slot. She asked, he said yes. She was excited. She went to tell PA that she would be going. PA responded - ok, see you at the homestay. Mary and I came to terms with the fact that we would be stuck with PA, but then it would be a relief for Mati. We even began to look forward to our encounters with PA especially since Mati told us that PA cried for an hour the night before because of me. What ever vile thing I said... Mati apparently told her that maybe I had a point, and then she was accused of not supporting PA. So much drama.
We went to Dr. Nanda's office and sat with him and the boys for over half an hour before declaring her a no-show. We feared that she followed Mati to Dr. Gera's anyway. We and the boys vented about her some more and when D. Nanda came back to his desk I apologized for our ranting during clinic time. He sat down, smiled, waved it off and said, "No, no - keep going." We all laughed and realized that he felt the same as we did. He would even refer to her as "the great doctor." If the Pompous Ass knows how to do one thing well -it's bringing people together.
7.19.11. 2:09PM. Day 18. American Idiot.
Yesterday was an interesting day. We were to begin our rotation with Dr. Sanjay Gandhi. We had heard quite a few stories about him, none of which were positive. People had said that he ignored them, would show up late, and would only give them one word answers, or just very short. People had built up such a hype about him and his pompous ways that we were completely ready to hate him.
We looked at our schedules and we had him bright and early at 10AM. We thought Mayank would come to guide us again, but it was nearing 9:15 so we decided to head out on our own. We figured he had other people to deal with and probably felt that we could handle it solo. We misread the map and once again got lost. At 9:50 we called Mayank so that he could hopefully dictate to us how to get to the hospital. He spoke to Mary and according to him we were not supposed to start until noon. We were hot, sweaty, and flabbergasted. He was soon forgiven because he said he would meet us at a nearby coffee shop, Cafe Coffee Day, in a little while to help us get to Dr. Gandhi's.
Sure enough, true to something Mayank would pick out, Cafe Coffee Day was this swanky step-above Starbucks looking place. Since their ice machine was apparently broken and neither of us wanted caffeine we both got some yummy hot chocolate. Maybe 10 minutes after we arrived, Sunny, Mayank's fairly amazingly good looking, studmuffin of a right hand man, walked through the door.
He came and sat with us (next to me) and waited with us for Mayank to appear. Talking was slow as it seemed we were both quiet people. He added Mary and I to Facebook, and eventually I asked him his age, since Mary and I were talking about age brackets. He said he was 17. Ugh. Jailbait. We had to laugh because Mary pointed out that she was a whole 10 years older than him. He also told up that he was about to start med school in one month in Hyderabad - in the south of India. Mary and I both agreed, later on, that who ever gets this one will be a very lucky girl indeed. Beautiful babies. Sigh - just kidding. Mayank came and we all hang out and talked until it was closer to 12.
When we got up to leave we saw that it was raining at about a moderate pace. No vikrams were about so Mayank offered for one of us to go with Sunny on his motorcycle. Guess which one of us jumped on that band wagon! It was awesome. I was nervous for a while but not scared. I couldn't help but feel that this could have been straight out of a bollywood film - hot guy takes girl on the back of his bike, in the rain, zooming toward the hospital...I just waited for the music and dancing to start. Sadly, the ride was soon over and we stood at the hospital waiting for the other two to arrive. When they got there, Mary came and stood with us while Mayank went to talk to Dr. Gandhi. After a while he came to get us and brought us into the doctor's office.
In a nutshell, after just 1.5 hours with Dr. Gandhi, we completely retracted our previous fears and preconceptions about him. He was....kind of amazing. He was funny, and friendly, and very much brought us into the consultations as much as possible. We'd decided afterward that it must have been both the attitudes and expectations of the other students that ultimately led them to think so poorly of him. I related a lot to him. I could see that he, too, was a soft-spoken, quiet person. This often makes people think we are pompous, stuck up, or unreachable. But he was charming and playful. I noticed this when amongst the hustle and bustle of his office, his wife came in and he was so formal with her, but had a twinkle in his eye that showed he was just being playful. It was quite apparent that his patients not only revered him, bowing and such, but they also liked him. He made them laugh and smile even through their pain. He's great. I approve.
We left his office in high spirits and were thoroughly pleased to change our opinions about him. He's the medical director of the program here, after all, there had to be some good in him. Yes, he is full of subtlety, but I wish the other groups could have seen him the way we saw him.
The rest of the day had a downside with a strong dash of upside. Barely mentioned in the beginning, the Globe Trekkers have left quite a wake after every rotation they've done. Either from the other students, during the weekly meetings, or from the doctors themselves, these girls had left quite an impression on everyone. Just as a warning - this may just be the biggest rant about a person I will have in this journal - so brace yourself.
This week we were supposed to deal with them for two back to back classes for 5 days. That would equal a whole 10 sessions, 20 some odd hours of having to interact with them. Mary and I decided before going to Dr. Prem Nath's that we would try to give the girls a chance instead of just the hearsay like with what happened with Dr. Gandhi. We walked in and found Pompous Ass #1 sitting alone with Dr. Prem Nath at the table. I soon found out that #2 was in the bathroom. We sat down and had small talk with PA#1. She asked us how our trip has been so far and when we said that we absolutely had a fantabulous time - she gave us a quick look and a completely ingenuine smile, "Oh, us too..." The other one came back and we began class. The class itself was fairly uneventful, though it became apparent that #1's pompousness was completely real and not just hearsay. Overall, #2 was quiet and seemed completely overshadowed by the ego-eclipse that was #1.
The week before, Dr. Prem Nath would always continue to lecture for half an hour after our time was over. We were always eager for more so we never minded staying longer and then we even got to expect it everyday. This week, however, he decided to stop abruptly at 5PM. Mary and I only saw one factor change in the whole situation and that was the presence of #1 and #2 - mostly #1. Mary and I were off to Dr. Nanda's. I'd wondered if we were going to share a vikram or something since we would have the next clinic with them too. But they went somewhere and we got a vikram by ourselves. We got there 20 minutes early and so decided to go to the sweets shop across the street, Kumar's Sweets, to try some Indian yummies. We spent some time there and then five minutes to 6 we crossed the road and waited on Dr. Nanda's stoop for him to arrive. While we were waiting, some other people from our program, the boys from Georgia who were on the train with me, walked up the ally. I was confused because I thought there were only supposed to be 4 of us here, which was already 2 too many. The boys said that their doctor canceled so they were reassigned to Dr. Nanda.
Dr. Nanda came and opened up the clinic. We added another bench inside the already crowded office. No patients showed up yet, but the girls showed up almost 20 minutes late. They'd apparently gone shopping and had lost track of time. The shopping must have been more important than food because Pompous Ass #1 basically put her stuff down and declared that she was going out for food. Not even 1 minute into her already late being there and she was already disrespecting the doctor's time. By the time the little princess came back, there was a patient in the room. She plopped herself in a chair and , fairly loudly, demanded patient symptoms. Right off the bat she acted like she was a full blown doctor, where in reality she was just a first year med student - like half of the people here. She kept on trying to diagnose a problem and prescribe a solution even though Dr. Nanda had already done all of that. Every time a patient came, this same upchuck of uselessness and disrespect would occur. She was constantly undermining the decisions of Dr. Nanda. It became quite apparent that she believed absolutely nothing about Homeopathy because she kept inserting her wanting to refer every single patient to a western specialist of whatever problem it was. It was not only this complete and utter disrespect of all parties involved, but there was also the blatantly obvious fact that she was embarrassing herself every time she opened her mouth. First of all, she wore a bindi (the dot) on her forehead. She has no idea what it's for but since some nice lady on the train gave her one on the first day, she has been wearing them ever since. One lady pointed to it and laughed. #1 said, "oh my bindi! Do you like it? Haha." And then every time anyone would walk in she would put her hands together and sing-song "NAMASTEEEEE." Most of the time people would just giver her a weak reply or jsut acknowledge her with a who-are-you glance. SOme would smile and respond. But then if somebody ignored her completely, she would, "Na, nam, na, Namaste" every time she thought he or she would look her way. The rest of us didn't speak much, but we would smile quietly and the people would usually do it back. It was intimidating enough to have 6 extra strangers in the room while you're at the doctor's. It must have been overwhelming for them to have Ms. Can't-Shut-Her-Mouth-For-One-Second in their faces too.
My annoyance of this one person pompous ass circus festered and boiled until finally she scratched the scab one too many times and I let my venom ooze out. She kept going on and on and on and on about how this one patient (who was still sitting there) should go get Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for his panic attacks. "It worked for me," is what she kept saying. The doctor had already prescribed the man a medicine (a placebo) because his eventual goal was to get the man off of his meds all together. Mary tried to point out her her than CBT is probably not available here and even if it is, this man probably couldn't afford it - as is why he was at the office of a homeopath to begin with. Her response to that was to tell Dr. Nanda that he should teach himself some CBT so that he could do it to his patients. At this point I'd had enough. I pointed out the total unethicalness of that statement, saying that she just told him to do the equivalent of me picking up a book about medicine and then practicing on people.
She said, "Well, we self teach all the time."
I said, "No, no you don't."
HER: I'm sorry, do you have an issue with how I'm doing this?
ME: Yes. You are being rude and disrespectful.
HER: This is a preceptorship and I'm just asking questions.
ME: No. You've been rude and argumentative in front of patients.
HER: I have great repore with the patients, they like me.
ME: (smile) right....
HER: If my way offends you, I can stop.
ME: (smile).
After that she didn't say much. She would wait until the patient was leaving to ask the doctor. Good. My anger still boiled, but I let it go and simmer down. By the end of the night she stopped talking so much and so I had nothing else to say. We all left and were waiting by the street to hail vikrams home. She came up behind me.
HER: Hey, I just want to clear the air. I feel like you are upset with me and that there is tension.
ME: (wait).
HER: I don't know if you've ever done a preceptorship before, but you're supposed to have a dialog with the doctor.
ME: No I haven't, but you were arguing and were rude.
HER: No I wasn't. In America this is how we interact with doctors and patients. We're supposed to talk to the patients. I just want you to know that because I don't want tension.
ME: I've said my piece.
HER: I'm feeling tension.
ME: I've said all I've needed to say.
HER: I didn't do anything wrong.
ME: OKay. (blank stare).
HER: I just want everything all right so we can work together. You still seem angry. Do I need to explain more? Do you want to say something?
ME: I've said all I need to say.
HER: Okay...well I hope we're okay then.
ME: (smile).
Our groups parted ways and Mary and I decided to walk to the vikram connection since we both had much needed venting to do. It basically consisted of us pointing out how she is the embodiment of every thing negative perceived of Americans. She's loud, argumentative, opinionated, and doesn't seem to be able to pick up on physical cues - subtle or otherwise. A few major points to bring to light are as follows: First off, when she said that "this is how we do it in America." I said (to Mary), "That's great, but we're in India." Things are not the same here. Yes these are preceptors, but their clinics are not teaching hospitals. The patients did not know that you would be there before they got there. We are here, as stated in the program guide, to observe different kinds of medicine - not practice playing doctor in some other country. We have found that if you sit quietly during the visit of a patient, the doctors are more than happy to answer any questions before the next one arrives. Plus, it is more respectful of the doctor/patient relationship. Diplomacy can go a lot farther than dictatorship. Secondly, she said that the patients like her. No they don't. She made a few nervous, and just amused the rest of them. They plainly made fun of her "silly Americanness" and her ego took it as being complimented. Her behavior was more embarrassing for us, as she reflected negatively the image of Americans. And the whole fact that she thinks she's not doing anything wrong - is what I feel is the worst. This is why I did not allow the argument to escalate - I could have let it all out and let her have it. But no, I know better than to argue with concrete. Once it sets - there's no making it change its form.
We'd talked about it, and agreed that we were wrong about #2. Her name is Mati (Mathilde - French Canadian) and she was just placed with a bad partner and the stigma stuck to her too. We felt so bad for her. She'd made it quite clear to us during clinic that she wanted to go off with us without the dead weight she was burdened with. We desperately wanted to reach out to her, but our schedules conflicted so we couldn't really get some alone time with her. We went home and told Aunty all about it.
We looked at our schedules and we had him bright and early at 10AM. We thought Mayank would come to guide us again, but it was nearing 9:15 so we decided to head out on our own. We figured he had other people to deal with and probably felt that we could handle it solo. We misread the map and once again got lost. At 9:50 we called Mayank so that he could hopefully dictate to us how to get to the hospital. He spoke to Mary and according to him we were not supposed to start until noon. We were hot, sweaty, and flabbergasted. He was soon forgiven because he said he would meet us at a nearby coffee shop, Cafe Coffee Day, in a little while to help us get to Dr. Gandhi's.
Sure enough, true to something Mayank would pick out, Cafe Coffee Day was this swanky step-above Starbucks looking place. Since their ice machine was apparently broken and neither of us wanted caffeine we both got some yummy hot chocolate. Maybe 10 minutes after we arrived, Sunny, Mayank's fairly amazingly good looking, studmuffin of a right hand man, walked through the door.
In a nutshell, after just 1.5 hours with Dr. Gandhi, we completely retracted our previous fears and preconceptions about him. He was....kind of amazing. He was funny, and friendly, and very much brought us into the consultations as much as possible. We'd decided afterward that it must have been both the attitudes and expectations of the other students that ultimately led them to think so poorly of him. I related a lot to him. I could see that he, too, was a soft-spoken, quiet person. This often makes people think we are pompous, stuck up, or unreachable. But he was charming and playful. I noticed this when amongst the hustle and bustle of his office, his wife came in and he was so formal with her, but had a twinkle in his eye that showed he was just being playful. It was quite apparent that his patients not only revered him, bowing and such, but they also liked him. He made them laugh and smile even through their pain. He's great. I approve.
We left his office in high spirits and were thoroughly pleased to change our opinions about him. He's the medical director of the program here, after all, there had to be some good in him. Yes, he is full of subtlety, but I wish the other groups could have seen him the way we saw him.
The rest of the day had a downside with a strong dash of upside. Barely mentioned in the beginning, the Globe Trekkers have left quite a wake after every rotation they've done. Either from the other students, during the weekly meetings, or from the doctors themselves, these girls had left quite an impression on everyone. Just as a warning - this may just be the biggest rant about a person I will have in this journal - so brace yourself.
This week we were supposed to deal with them for two back to back classes for 5 days. That would equal a whole 10 sessions, 20 some odd hours of having to interact with them. Mary and I decided before going to Dr. Prem Nath's that we would try to give the girls a chance instead of just the hearsay like with what happened with Dr. Gandhi. We walked in and found Pompous Ass #1 sitting alone with Dr. Prem Nath at the table. I soon found out that #2 was in the bathroom. We sat down and had small talk with PA#1. She asked us how our trip has been so far and when we said that we absolutely had a fantabulous time - she gave us a quick look and a completely ingenuine smile, "Oh, us too..." The other one came back and we began class. The class itself was fairly uneventful, though it became apparent that #1's pompousness was completely real and not just hearsay. Overall, #2 was quiet and seemed completely overshadowed by the ego-eclipse that was #1.
The week before, Dr. Prem Nath would always continue to lecture for half an hour after our time was over. We were always eager for more so we never minded staying longer and then we even got to expect it everyday. This week, however, he decided to stop abruptly at 5PM. Mary and I only saw one factor change in the whole situation and that was the presence of #1 and #2 - mostly #1. Mary and I were off to Dr. Nanda's. I'd wondered if we were going to share a vikram or something since we would have the next clinic with them too. But they went somewhere and we got a vikram by ourselves. We got there 20 minutes early and so decided to go to the sweets shop across the street, Kumar's Sweets, to try some Indian yummies. We spent some time there and then five minutes to 6 we crossed the road and waited on Dr. Nanda's stoop for him to arrive. While we were waiting, some other people from our program, the boys from Georgia who were on the train with me, walked up the ally. I was confused because I thought there were only supposed to be 4 of us here, which was already 2 too many. The boys said that their doctor canceled so they were reassigned to Dr. Nanda.
Dr. Nanda came and opened up the clinic. We added another bench inside the already crowded office. No patients showed up yet, but the girls showed up almost 20 minutes late. They'd apparently gone shopping and had lost track of time. The shopping must have been more important than food because Pompous Ass #1 basically put her stuff down and declared that she was going out for food. Not even 1 minute into her already late being there and she was already disrespecting the doctor's time. By the time the little princess came back, there was a patient in the room. She plopped herself in a chair and , fairly loudly, demanded patient symptoms. Right off the bat she acted like she was a full blown doctor, where in reality she was just a first year med student - like half of the people here. She kept on trying to diagnose a problem and prescribe a solution even though Dr. Nanda had already done all of that. Every time a patient came, this same upchuck of uselessness and disrespect would occur. She was constantly undermining the decisions of Dr. Nanda. It became quite apparent that she believed absolutely nothing about Homeopathy because she kept inserting her wanting to refer every single patient to a western specialist of whatever problem it was. It was not only this complete and utter disrespect of all parties involved, but there was also the blatantly obvious fact that she was embarrassing herself every time she opened her mouth. First of all, she wore a bindi (the dot) on her forehead. She has no idea what it's for but since some nice lady on the train gave her one on the first day, she has been wearing them ever since. One lady pointed to it and laughed. #1 said, "oh my bindi! Do you like it? Haha." And then every time anyone would walk in she would put her hands together and sing-song "NAMASTEEEEE." Most of the time people would just giver her a weak reply or jsut acknowledge her with a who-are-you glance. SOme would smile and respond. But then if somebody ignored her completely, she would, "Na, nam, na, Namaste" every time she thought he or she would look her way. The rest of us didn't speak much, but we would smile quietly and the people would usually do it back. It was intimidating enough to have 6 extra strangers in the room while you're at the doctor's. It must have been overwhelming for them to have Ms. Can't-Shut-Her-Mouth-For-One-Second in their faces too.
My annoyance of this one person pompous ass circus festered and boiled until finally she scratched the scab one too many times and I let my venom ooze out. She kept going on and on and on and on about how this one patient (who was still sitting there) should go get Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for his panic attacks. "It worked for me," is what she kept saying. The doctor had already prescribed the man a medicine (a placebo) because his eventual goal was to get the man off of his meds all together. Mary tried to point out her her than CBT is probably not available here and even if it is, this man probably couldn't afford it - as is why he was at the office of a homeopath to begin with. Her response to that was to tell Dr. Nanda that he should teach himself some CBT so that he could do it to his patients. At this point I'd had enough. I pointed out the total unethicalness of that statement, saying that she just told him to do the equivalent of me picking up a book about medicine and then practicing on people.
She said, "Well, we self teach all the time."
I said, "No, no you don't."
HER: I'm sorry, do you have an issue with how I'm doing this?
ME: Yes. You are being rude and disrespectful.
HER: This is a preceptorship and I'm just asking questions.
ME: No. You've been rude and argumentative in front of patients.
HER: I have great repore with the patients, they like me.
ME: (smile) right....
HER: If my way offends you, I can stop.
ME: (smile).
After that she didn't say much. She would wait until the patient was leaving to ask the doctor. Good. My anger still boiled, but I let it go and simmer down. By the end of the night she stopped talking so much and so I had nothing else to say. We all left and were waiting by the street to hail vikrams home. She came up behind me.
HER: Hey, I just want to clear the air. I feel like you are upset with me and that there is tension.
ME: (wait).
HER: I don't know if you've ever done a preceptorship before, but you're supposed to have a dialog with the doctor.
ME: No I haven't, but you were arguing and were rude.
HER: No I wasn't. In America this is how we interact with doctors and patients. We're supposed to talk to the patients. I just want you to know that because I don't want tension.
ME: I've said my piece.
HER: I'm feeling tension.
ME: I've said all I've needed to say.
HER: I didn't do anything wrong.
ME: OKay. (blank stare).
HER: I just want everything all right so we can work together. You still seem angry. Do I need to explain more? Do you want to say something?
ME: I've said all I need to say.
HER: Okay...well I hope we're okay then.
ME: (smile).
Our groups parted ways and Mary and I decided to walk to the vikram connection since we both had much needed venting to do. It basically consisted of us pointing out how she is the embodiment of every thing negative perceived of Americans. She's loud, argumentative, opinionated, and doesn't seem to be able to pick up on physical cues - subtle or otherwise. A few major points to bring to light are as follows: First off, when she said that "this is how we do it in America." I said (to Mary), "That's great, but we're in India." Things are not the same here. Yes these are preceptors, but their clinics are not teaching hospitals. The patients did not know that you would be there before they got there. We are here, as stated in the program guide, to observe different kinds of medicine - not practice playing doctor in some other country. We have found that if you sit quietly during the visit of a patient, the doctors are more than happy to answer any questions before the next one arrives. Plus, it is more respectful of the doctor/patient relationship. Diplomacy can go a lot farther than dictatorship. Secondly, she said that the patients like her. No they don't. She made a few nervous, and just amused the rest of them. They plainly made fun of her "silly Americanness" and her ego took it as being complimented. Her behavior was more embarrassing for us, as she reflected negatively the image of Americans. And the whole fact that she thinks she's not doing anything wrong - is what I feel is the worst. This is why I did not allow the argument to escalate - I could have let it all out and let her have it. But no, I know better than to argue with concrete. Once it sets - there's no making it change its form.
We'd talked about it, and agreed that we were wrong about #2. Her name is Mati (Mathilde - French Canadian) and she was just placed with a bad partner and the stigma stuck to her too. We felt so bad for her. She'd made it quite clear to us during clinic that she wanted to go off with us without the dead weight she was burdened with. We desperately wanted to reach out to her, but our schedules conflicted so we couldn't really get some alone time with her. We went home and told Aunty all about it.
Friday, August 5, 2011
7.17.11. 3:03PM. Day 16. The Taming of the Agra.
We left Friday night. Five of us, Mary, Rayleen, Maggie, Christian, and myself all packed in fairly comfortably into the same car, with the same driver, we had the previous weekend. The plan was to leave late on Friday night, drive through the night and arrive Saturday morning. A 10ish hour drive. We had been thinking to spend the night in Agra and come back Sunday morning but then Mayank said, "why would you spend the night and pay for a hotel? Just drive back Saturday night and be home by morning." I liked that idea. Why pay to sleep when we could sleep in the car and be heading back at the same time? So that was that, none of us planned on staying.
Ours was the original group who wanted to go this weekend but then three more girls wanted to go not even 4 hours before we were supposed to leave. There was a frustrating moment because 5 was a reasonably comfortable number in our car because we still had our bags to bring. Now 3 more wanted in. Luckily Mayank said no to them coming in our car. They rented another car and we ended up caravaning the whole way there.
Our driver is a good man. Quiet, but is very helpful and is always looking out for us; he is a saint compared to the driver of the other car. The other driver is a small, nippy fellow who is basically the tough little dog if compared to our bigger, mellower Great Dane. He got us lost'ish twice until our guy took the lead and never gave it back. When we finally reached the parking lot to the Taj Mahal (Ahhhhhhhhhh!) the two drivers spoke for a while and then ours said that he wouldn't be driving back that night. We were at a loss for words, and ended up calling Mayank to have him talk on our behalf. We could see the little dog wag his finger and shake his head at our driver when he was on the phone. It seems like he was the instigator behind all of this. His group was going to spend the night because they were going to go to Jaipur in the morning. He must have told our driver that he should spend the night too. We went back and forth on the phone with Mayank, and what was annoying was that the little dog would be the one to come get the phone and talk to Mayank before he would hand the phone to our guy. Mayank said that our driver was very tired. We said that he could go sleep if he wanted, we would just make our way around on our own and we were planning on spending most of the day in Agra, so he could go sleep if he wanted. In the end we had to buy a room for him to sleep. It was about 8:30AM and the plan was to meet up with him at 6PM at the same place he dropped us off. Little dog was defeated, our guy got to rest, and we would get to go back home that same night.
We were at the Taj Mahal! Well, the parking lot anyway, but we got to take a camel pulled carriage ride to the entrance.
The tickets for the Taj cost 15 rps for Indians and 750 rsp for foreigners.
The girls tried to get me to see if I could get away with passing but I declined. My major lack of language skills is the only thing holding me back from apparently being indistinguishable from the real deal. I paid the 750, totally worth every cent to see the Taj Mahal. Understandably, we had to go through security in order to get in. This was an amusing scene because in a very old building there were metal detectors that we all had to pass through. People were split into lines of men and women, and each had to step through the metal detectors, which weren't even on, and were patted down loosely by guards of the same gender.
That was all there was by way of security.
We walked into a fairly large courtyard where we saw that were actually three entrances, on the South, West, and North sides. The east side was were the Taj was on the other side of a grand archway. At the center of the archway the Taj Mahal was perfectly visible inside the silhouette of the archway's walls. There it was. The Taj Mahal. Just like in the post cards. It was as if it were a painted backdrop on a beautifl and grand landscape. I am trying my best to describe something that leaves me with a complete loss for words. Unbelievable. It was a cloudy day so the pictures might not have captured it.
Nor do I think they could have anyway. I totally played my tourist card and went to town taking pictures from every angle and ones of us doing silly poses and the ones where we act like we are holding up the Taj by its point.
It became quickly apparent that people were taking more pictures and videos of my whities than normal. It is quite possible that this is because they are touristing it up too so cameras were with them at all times. Since the Taj is completely symmetrical, I got pictures from every angle rather quickly. I decided to start taking pictures of the people taking pictures of my whities. It got to be pretty fun. Often times, they smiled and posed. Other times it became evident they thought they were being stealthier than they obviously were.
We had given our driver a good 8hr window to get his much needed sleep so we really had plenty of time to be leisurely and enjoy the environment. After about 3 hours at the Taj Mahal we all began to realize just how hungry we were since we had not eaten since dinner the night before. We hired an A. Rick, somehow fitting 6 people in an, at most, 4 people vehicle, and made our way to find some food. Mayank had recommended one place and one place only to eat at while in Agra. "The best place in town," is more or less how he put it. So, after about 10 minutes or so we arrived at a very upper class, swanky establishment. Pizza Hut, in India, is at about an equal standing with such eateries as California Pizza Kitchen or BJ's. Compared to how Pizza Hut is at home, this was basically a 5 star restaurant.
Again, as in Orchard, I noted the types of people who came to eat here. Lots of foreigners and upper class Indians. I couldn't help but wonder how many of the people here thought that this is how this supposedly American restaurant chain is on its own home turf. They even had the delivery bikes. We got the 6 people meal deal, which fed us all quite nicely. It was an interesting experience, and pretty darn good food too. After this we killed some more time at the coffee shop next door, digesting in the A.C. I got a hot chocolate. We chatted for 20 or so minutes and made the plan to go to the Red Fort (Agra Fort) where Shah Jahan (guy who commissioned the Taj Mahal to be built was a tribute to his dead wife) was imprisoned by his bad-seed of a son, so that he could only just have a distant view of the Taj through a small window until the day he died. He was then entombed next to his wife in the mausoleum within the Taj. Sad story - romantic though. So we went there.
The Taj Mahal was the kind of prettier, sweeter, younger sister to the Red Fort. It had a beautiful structure and was fun for a little while, and most of it was off limits. The Red Fort was that shrewish older sister, with a nasty reputation, who once you go through the first few rough layers turned out to be quite a magnificent creature in and of itself. I found that here there were more stairs and ruins to climb, dark tunnels and rooms to run scared from (bats), and some very gorgeous architecture in the innermost parts of the massive compound.
We spent another 3 hrs here. I took lots of pictures, and again of people taking them of us. We saw all that we could and then made our way back towards the Taj because Mary and Maggie wanted to get some souvenirs. After an hour of shopping, we went back to the parking lot, found our driver, and began our 10 hr trek back to D. Dun.
The 10 hour journey ended up taking about 13 hours because we got two flat tires along the way. Our driver was awesome because he noticed before the first tire got dangerously low. He pulled over randomly and stopped in front of what was apparently a house. A whole family was sitting our front with the family dog enjoying the night's cool. When they saw us pull up, get out, and start changing the tire the men came over and one began to help while the other two insisted that the rest of us go over and sit with the family. Since Maggie and I had nothing in our hands to show that we should stay by the car, we obliged. We began walking toward the chairs in front of the house, and even though I saw it, one of the men grabbed my hand to lead me away from the big pile of cow poop in my path. He let go after we passed it. They had us sit. One of the women brought us water in open cups. We tried to tell them that we weren't allowed to drink it, but they claimed it was "mineral" water which I guess was equivalent to "clean." When we didn't drink, they insisted so I took a sip. It tasted fine. I took another, this seemed to satisfy them for awhile. Maggie refused to trust steamed rice, so she sat statue -still and basically shut down. They were very friendly and joyfully conversed with us about our travels so far. The man who helped me over the cow poop sat close to me and seemed more interested in me than in Maggie - which was something I was not used to. THis guy seemed to be in his mid to late 20s. His younger sister, late teens, early 20s, told me how Indian I looked (the 4th time someone told me this that afternoon). The guy said that he has a sister and a brother-in-law in San Francisco. That was cool. After about 20 minutes our driver motioned that they were done. Maggie and I got up to leave, and we said our thank yous and goodbyes. Maggie turned and walked off quicker, but i was only a few steps behind. The same guy as before came up to me and walked me to the car. On the way he took my hand again to shake it but then he held on and kissed it...I thought it weird but not much more until he did it a second time. We reached the car and as I tried to get inside he came in for a hug, hand around my waist, and then tried to kiss me. Before he could, I pushed him away. He smiled and tried again, and this time I pushed more forcefully, said, " NO!" firmly, got into the car, locked the door, and never looked back. I guess I was in shock for a little while. I didn't say anything until we again pulled over at a tire store to get another tire. After I told the others and they just found it amusing - saying that he just wanted to make me his bride or something. No thank you. I was just as bothered by the fact that the guy tried to make a move on me right in front of his family. But what ever, the farther we drove the better I felt.
At some point a few hours later we got the second flat tire and this time the driver changed it on his own. Uneventful - good. We eventually made it back home safe, sound, tired as all hell. We'd had a crazy-amazing time, but now only wanted sleep.
Ours was the original group who wanted to go this weekend but then three more girls wanted to go not even 4 hours before we were supposed to leave. There was a frustrating moment because 5 was a reasonably comfortable number in our car because we still had our bags to bring. Now 3 more wanted in. Luckily Mayank said no to them coming in our car. They rented another car and we ended up caravaning the whole way there.
Our driver is a good man. Quiet, but is very helpful and is always looking out for us; he is a saint compared to the driver of the other car. The other driver is a small, nippy fellow who is basically the tough little dog if compared to our bigger, mellower Great Dane. He got us lost'ish twice until our guy took the lead and never gave it back. When we finally reached the parking lot to the Taj Mahal (Ahhhhhhhhhh!) the two drivers spoke for a while and then ours said that he wouldn't be driving back that night. We were at a loss for words, and ended up calling Mayank to have him talk on our behalf. We could see the little dog wag his finger and shake his head at our driver when he was on the phone. It seems like he was the instigator behind all of this. His group was going to spend the night because they were going to go to Jaipur in the morning. He must have told our driver that he should spend the night too. We went back and forth on the phone with Mayank, and what was annoying was that the little dog would be the one to come get the phone and talk to Mayank before he would hand the phone to our guy. Mayank said that our driver was very tired. We said that he could go sleep if he wanted, we would just make our way around on our own and we were planning on spending most of the day in Agra, so he could go sleep if he wanted. In the end we had to buy a room for him to sleep. It was about 8:30AM and the plan was to meet up with him at 6PM at the same place he dropped us off. Little dog was defeated, our guy got to rest, and we would get to go back home that same night.
We were at the Taj Mahal! Well, the parking lot anyway, but we got to take a camel pulled carriage ride to the entrance.
The tickets for the Taj cost 15 rps for Indians and 750 rsp for foreigners.
We walked into a fairly large courtyard where we saw that were actually three entrances, on the South, West, and North sides. The east side was were the Taj was on the other side of a grand archway. At the center of the archway the Taj Mahal was perfectly visible inside the silhouette of the archway's walls. There it was. The Taj Mahal. Just like in the post cards. It was as if it were a painted backdrop on a beautifl and grand landscape. I am trying my best to describe something that leaves me with a complete loss for words. Unbelievable. It was a cloudy day so the pictures might not have captured it.
We had given our driver a good 8hr window to get his much needed sleep so we really had plenty of time to be leisurely and enjoy the environment. After about 3 hours at the Taj Mahal we all began to realize just how hungry we were since we had not eaten since dinner the night before. We hired an A. Rick, somehow fitting 6 people in an, at most, 4 people vehicle, and made our way to find some food. Mayank had recommended one place and one place only to eat at while in Agra. "The best place in town," is more or less how he put it. So, after about 10 minutes or so we arrived at a very upper class, swanky establishment. Pizza Hut, in India, is at about an equal standing with such eateries as California Pizza Kitchen or BJ's. Compared to how Pizza Hut is at home, this was basically a 5 star restaurant.
Again, as in Orchard, I noted the types of people who came to eat here. Lots of foreigners and upper class Indians. I couldn't help but wonder how many of the people here thought that this is how this supposedly American restaurant chain is on its own home turf. They even had the delivery bikes. We got the 6 people meal deal, which fed us all quite nicely. It was an interesting experience, and pretty darn good food too. After this we killed some more time at the coffee shop next door, digesting in the A.C. I got a hot chocolate. We chatted for 20 or so minutes and made the plan to go to the Red Fort (Agra Fort) where Shah Jahan (guy who commissioned the Taj Mahal to be built was a tribute to his dead wife) was imprisoned by his bad-seed of a son, so that he could only just have a distant view of the Taj through a small window until the day he died. He was then entombed next to his wife in the mausoleum within the Taj. Sad story - romantic though. So we went there.
The Taj Mahal was the kind of prettier, sweeter, younger sister to the Red Fort. It had a beautiful structure and was fun for a little while, and most of it was off limits. The Red Fort was that shrewish older sister, with a nasty reputation, who once you go through the first few rough layers turned out to be quite a magnificent creature in and of itself. I found that here there were more stairs and ruins to climb, dark tunnels and rooms to run scared from (bats), and some very gorgeous architecture in the innermost parts of the massive compound.
The 10 hour journey ended up taking about 13 hours because we got two flat tires along the way. Our driver was awesome because he noticed before the first tire got dangerously low. He pulled over randomly and stopped in front of what was apparently a house. A whole family was sitting our front with the family dog enjoying the night's cool. When they saw us pull up, get out, and start changing the tire the men came over and one began to help while the other two insisted that the rest of us go over and sit with the family. Since Maggie and I had nothing in our hands to show that we should stay by the car, we obliged. We began walking toward the chairs in front of the house, and even though I saw it, one of the men grabbed my hand to lead me away from the big pile of cow poop in my path. He let go after we passed it. They had us sit. One of the women brought us water in open cups. We tried to tell them that we weren't allowed to drink it, but they claimed it was "mineral" water which I guess was equivalent to "clean." When we didn't drink, they insisted so I took a sip. It tasted fine. I took another, this seemed to satisfy them for awhile. Maggie refused to trust steamed rice, so she sat statue -still and basically shut down. They were very friendly and joyfully conversed with us about our travels so far. The man who helped me over the cow poop sat close to me and seemed more interested in me than in Maggie - which was something I was not used to. THis guy seemed to be in his mid to late 20s. His younger sister, late teens, early 20s, told me how Indian I looked (the 4th time someone told me this that afternoon). The guy said that he has a sister and a brother-in-law in San Francisco. That was cool. After about 20 minutes our driver motioned that they were done. Maggie and I got up to leave, and we said our thank yous and goodbyes. Maggie turned and walked off quicker, but i was only a few steps behind. The same guy as before came up to me and walked me to the car. On the way he took my hand again to shake it but then he held on and kissed it...I thought it weird but not much more until he did it a second time. We reached the car and as I tried to get inside he came in for a hug, hand around my waist, and then tried to kiss me. Before he could, I pushed him away. He smiled and tried again, and this time I pushed more forcefully, said, " NO!" firmly, got into the car, locked the door, and never looked back. I guess I was in shock for a little while. I didn't say anything until we again pulled over at a tire store to get another tire. After I told the others and they just found it amusing - saying that he just wanted to make me his bride or something. No thank you. I was just as bothered by the fact that the guy tried to make a move on me right in front of his family. But what ever, the farther we drove the better I felt.
At some point a few hours later we got the second flat tire and this time the driver changed it on his own. Uneventful - good. We eventually made it back home safe, sound, tired as all hell. We'd had a crazy-amazing time, but now only wanted sleep.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
7.15.11. 1:39PM. Day 14. The River Runs Through It.
Okay, I'm not sure what day it was that I said the monsoon officially started but I was wrong. Very wrong. It started today. It has been raining nonstop since the wee hours of the morning. Today I actually had to break out my very blue "I-look-like-a-Smurf" poncho and even that didn't help much.
Even though it rained profusely I enjoyed the lack of traffic on the road. It took longer to get a vikram but we could cross the street without fear of injury. We got soaked in a matter of seconds from leaving the house but it was fine, we were having fun. I couldn't stop laughing because Mary had put her camera and bag under her jacket for protection but also ended up looking 8 months pregnant with a fairly lumpy baby. We managed to get to Dr. Nanda's only one minute past 11:00, not too shabby for our first monsoon.
Just like with the streets, the clinic was empty - only two people came in during the whole hour and a half we were there. We asked to leave an hour early because Soniya, Aunty's daughter, wanted to take us to the bazaar herself. Dr. Nanda had no problem with us leaving early, especially in this weather. *Side note: Dr. Nanda is Aunty's cousin...which makes him my roundabout homestay uncle.* We ventured back out into the pouring rain, what little we had been able to dry off soon got soaked again. We got another vikram and when it dropped us off at our connection stop, the street was flooded about 7 inches deep. The thing about the streets here is that the gutters are huge. Understandable. They run along the edges of the buildings and are about a foot and a half wide and are about 2ish feet from the main road. There's a white line for the outside of the lanes. The vikrams were parked on the other side of the street from where we were dropped off, and we had to walk through the fast moving mini road river to get to them. I walked fairly slow, my shoes were already retaining water, there was no reason to be in a hurry. One guy seemed to think running would make his situation better but his plan backfired when instead of reaching the stoop of a shop, he sank and fell chest-deep into the gutter. Immediately guys came to help him up and were quickly able to get him out. I think he only got some bruising, but hopefully no cuts because that gutter is also a sewer, or is at least used as one, so I was worried about his cuts getting septic. I hope not.
Our day is not even half way done and we have to venture out at least 3 more times. I hope all goes well...
Our last rotation with Dr. Nisha Gera proved to be one of the most special moments in my life, and the beginning to the awesomest weekend ever. We arrived a bit early, as usual, and one nurse let us in to sit down and wait for the doctors to arrive. We didn't really have a chance to settle down yet before another nurse said two words to us, "Go. Delivery." She pointed down the hall and that's where we went. We got confused on where to go because all of the signs were in Hindi, but the woman's family seemed to know who we were so they all eagerly pointed us in the right direction. We opened the delivery room door and there was Dr. Nisha Gera all dressed in surgical gear, standing in between the outstretched and open legs of the woman in labor. She looked up at us and said, "Hello girls." and went back to getting the woman ready. The woman seemed exhausted from her many hours of labor, plus we were told she had preeclampsia. I'm not quite sure what that is but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good. The rest of the entire situation was both amazing and amusing. The amazing bit was that I was watching a live birth. The amusing part was that, Mary, the future doctor, has a fairly strong reaction to the mere sight of needles. I'd thought it was just when she had needlework done to her, but apparently not. The woman in labor had to get a local anesthetic so that Dr. Nisha Gera could cut her perineum so that the baby could fit through the birth canal. I didn't even notice the needle, I just saw huge scissors cut into a certain part of a woman's anatomy. But still, all I had was a look of mild curiosity. When I looked over at Mary, she was drained of all color in her face and she said that she was going to pass out, she left the room. I had no problem stomaching any part of this that I saw - I even surprised myself at my ability to cope with what should have been a fairly traumatic experience. I was also stroking my ego for a while after because, I, not being remotely medical, didn't have to leave the room two times (unlike someone) for fear of fainting. All of this happened in a matter of minutes and the woman gave one last push and the baby came out in one big bluish blob. They held the baby at an angle and sucked the fluid from his lungs. He began to cry. The doctor cut the cord and handed him to one of the nurses. The nurse worked the baby until he was nice and pink. Dr. Nisha Gera began sewing up the cut she's made after she removed the placenta and made sure everything was out. I watched the baby being cleaned with wads of cotton and baby oil. He was the cutest little wrinkley thing with all 10 fingers and 10 toes, 2 nostrils, 2 lips, 2 ears, 2 eyes, and all the right plumbing. My maternal drive was kicking into high gear and I had a strong impulse to have one...but I'm resisting for now. Don't worry. We left the delivery room with the doctor and left the nurses to clean up the rest. The rest of the night was kind of dreamlike as Mary and I were both on a post we-just-witnessed-a-birth high.
Just like with the streets, the clinic was empty - only two people came in during the whole hour and a half we were there. We asked to leave an hour early because Soniya, Aunty's daughter, wanted to take us to the bazaar herself. Dr. Nanda had no problem with us leaving early, especially in this weather. *Side note: Dr. Nanda is Aunty's cousin...which makes him my roundabout homestay uncle.* We ventured back out into the pouring rain, what little we had been able to dry off soon got soaked again. We got another vikram and when it dropped us off at our connection stop, the street was flooded about 7 inches deep. The thing about the streets here is that the gutters are huge. Understandable. They run along the edges of the buildings and are about a foot and a half wide and are about 2ish feet from the main road. There's a white line for the outside of the lanes. The vikrams were parked on the other side of the street from where we were dropped off, and we had to walk through the fast moving mini road river to get to them. I walked fairly slow, my shoes were already retaining water, there was no reason to be in a hurry. One guy seemed to think running would make his situation better but his plan backfired when instead of reaching the stoop of a shop, he sank and fell chest-deep into the gutter. Immediately guys came to help him up and were quickly able to get him out. I think he only got some bruising, but hopefully no cuts because that gutter is also a sewer, or is at least used as one, so I was worried about his cuts getting septic. I hope not.
Our day is not even half way done and we have to venture out at least 3 more times. I hope all goes well...
Our last rotation with Dr. Nisha Gera proved to be one of the most special moments in my life, and the beginning to the awesomest weekend ever. We arrived a bit early, as usual, and one nurse let us in to sit down and wait for the doctors to arrive. We didn't really have a chance to settle down yet before another nurse said two words to us, "Go. Delivery." She pointed down the hall and that's where we went. We got confused on where to go because all of the signs were in Hindi, but the woman's family seemed to know who we were so they all eagerly pointed us in the right direction. We opened the delivery room door and there was Dr. Nisha Gera all dressed in surgical gear, standing in between the outstretched and open legs of the woman in labor. She looked up at us and said, "Hello girls." and went back to getting the woman ready. The woman seemed exhausted from her many hours of labor, plus we were told she had preeclampsia. I'm not quite sure what that is but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good. The rest of the entire situation was both amazing and amusing. The amazing bit was that I was watching a live birth. The amusing part was that, Mary, the future doctor, has a fairly strong reaction to the mere sight of needles. I'd thought it was just when she had needlework done to her, but apparently not. The woman in labor had to get a local anesthetic so that Dr. Nisha Gera could cut her perineum so that the baby could fit through the birth canal. I didn't even notice the needle, I just saw huge scissors cut into a certain part of a woman's anatomy. But still, all I had was a look of mild curiosity. When I looked over at Mary, she was drained of all color in her face and she said that she was going to pass out, she left the room. I had no problem stomaching any part of this that I saw - I even surprised myself at my ability to cope with what should have been a fairly traumatic experience. I was also stroking my ego for a while after because, I, not being remotely medical, didn't have to leave the room two times (unlike someone) for fear of fainting. All of this happened in a matter of minutes and the woman gave one last push and the baby came out in one big bluish blob. They held the baby at an angle and sucked the fluid from his lungs. He began to cry. The doctor cut the cord and handed him to one of the nurses. The nurse worked the baby until he was nice and pink. Dr. Nisha Gera began sewing up the cut she's made after she removed the placenta and made sure everything was out. I watched the baby being cleaned with wads of cotton and baby oil. He was the cutest little wrinkley thing with all 10 fingers and 10 toes, 2 nostrils, 2 lips, 2 ears, 2 eyes, and all the right plumbing. My maternal drive was kicking into high gear and I had a strong impulse to have one...but I'm resisting for now. Don't worry. We left the delivery room with the doctor and left the nurses to clean up the rest. The rest of the night was kind of dreamlike as Mary and I were both on a post we-just-witnessed-a-birth high.
7.13.11. 11:28PM. Day 12. Dancing in the Moonlight.
Today was a major milestone for Mary and I. We officially mastered the transportation in Dehradun. It's only halfway into the first of two weeks here and already we feel we can get ourselves anywhere. We hopped onto two vikram connections for our homeopathy clinic in the morning and actually made it before the doctor, despite Mayank keeping us at the house longer after breakfast. Dr. Nanda had to leave the clinic early to pick up his brother from the train station, and since it was on the way he offered to take us home.
The whole leaving an hour earlier really worked in our favor since we wanted to go back to the Paltan Bazaar to go to a fabric store Aunty's daughter highly recommended, and be back in time for our trusty A. Rick driver to pick us up at 3:30. We would normally have been done at the clinic at 1:30, but now we were already at home and eating lunch at that time. By the time we left we would have only just over an hour to go, shop, and come back in a comfortable amount of time to meet our time goal. Somehow we pulled it off. We walked down the alleyway to the street corner and after a few minutes were picked up by vikram 8. We traveled a ways and were dropped off at the Clocktower. We wandered into the bazaar, luckily not as swarming as on Saturday but still crowded, we looked for the shop, Mahawar, down the sea of signs. Somehow I spotted it and we ventured inside. Again only men worked here, but this time 3 or 4 came to greet us. The service was amazing and, lucky me, the prices were set. If I had to guess, I would say that this place had about 15,000 bags of fabric. Each bag contains a patterned fabric for the shirt and them a complimenting one for the pants (salwar kameez/suit), and a matching scarf (dupata), all neatly folded into a clear plastic bag of about the size and shape of a men's dress shirt box. Floor to ceiling rows and rows on every wall on at least two floors. The show rooms were neat. You have to take your shoes off before you enter, the floor is padded with a white sheet on top that they tell you to sit on, and then they bring out stacks of these bags at a time according to your color, fabric, and style specifications. Once they bring out these stacks, if you opt not to touch them, the salesman will slip it out of the bag, in one cool motion, and then spread the material wide and smooth on the sheet with another single motion. The guy repeated this process adding layer after layer of fabric until we saw things we liked. I started with the one type of suit that Mun said I absolutely needed, and which also proved to be the hardest to find in D. Dun. But Aunty's daughter said Mahawar had it, and oh - they had it. I had so much to choose from I felt slightly overwhelmed by the decision. But eventually I found one I really liked. Sonce I bought two fancy ones yesterday from another shop, they next ones I bought today were more for everyday use. I helped India's economy a lot today. At Mahawar I spent 3700 rps. on fabric for 4 suits and at Seema's, the other shop own and run by Dr. Prem Nath's wife, I spent a total of 4,365 rps. for the fabrics of 2 suits, the stitching of 6 suits and one sari blouse. And the ari, itself, which I think I way overpayed for now even though it was a fixed price, 3,100 rps. This for a grand total of: 11, 165 rps or $253.75 for 7 costom made outfits, two of which are made of silk , and the others were all had embroydered. Yup. Money well spent. Next week I have to buy accessories for all of this and still get gifts for everyone!
The whole leaving an hour earlier really worked in our favor since we wanted to go back to the Paltan Bazaar to go to a fabric store Aunty's daughter highly recommended, and be back in time for our trusty A. Rick driver to pick us up at 3:30. We would normally have been done at the clinic at 1:30, but now we were already at home and eating lunch at that time. By the time we left we would have only just over an hour to go, shop, and come back in a comfortable amount of time to meet our time goal. Somehow we pulled it off. We walked down the alleyway to the street corner and after a few minutes were picked up by vikram 8. We traveled a ways and were dropped off at the Clocktower. We wandered into the bazaar, luckily not as swarming as on Saturday but still crowded, we looked for the shop, Mahawar, down the sea of signs. Somehow I spotted it and we ventured inside. Again only men worked here, but this time 3 or 4 came to greet us. The service was amazing and, lucky me, the prices were set. If I had to guess, I would say that this place had about 15,000 bags of fabric. Each bag contains a patterned fabric for the shirt and them a complimenting one for the pants (salwar kameez/suit), and a matching scarf (dupata), all neatly folded into a clear plastic bag of about the size and shape of a men's dress shirt box. Floor to ceiling rows and rows on every wall on at least two floors. The show rooms were neat. You have to take your shoes off before you enter, the floor is padded with a white sheet on top that they tell you to sit on, and then they bring out stacks of these bags at a time according to your color, fabric, and style specifications. Once they bring out these stacks, if you opt not to touch them, the salesman will slip it out of the bag, in one cool motion, and then spread the material wide and smooth on the sheet with another single motion. The guy repeated this process adding layer after layer of fabric until we saw things we liked. I started with the one type of suit that Mun said I absolutely needed, and which also proved to be the hardest to find in D. Dun. But Aunty's daughter said Mahawar had it, and oh - they had it. I had so much to choose from I felt slightly overwhelmed by the decision. But eventually I found one I really liked. Sonce I bought two fancy ones yesterday from another shop, they next ones I bought today were more for everyday use. I helped India's economy a lot today. At Mahawar I spent 3700 rps. on fabric for 4 suits and at Seema's, the other shop own and run by Dr. Prem Nath's wife, I spent a total of 4,365 rps. for the fabrics of 2 suits, the stitching of 6 suits and one sari blouse. And the ari, itself, which I think I way overpayed for now even though it was a fixed price, 3,100 rps. This for a grand total of: 11, 165 rps or $253.75 for 7 costom made outfits, two of which are made of silk , and the others were all had embroydered. Yup. Money well spent. Next week I have to buy accessories for all of this and still get gifts for everyone!
...
When we came back from our last clinic, Dr. Nisha Gera, we found that all the lights were off in the house. We came inside to find Aunty sitting on one of the couches next to a battery powered blue lamp, waiting for us. She told us there was a power outage, so most of the house was lit by candles. I went up to the roof while Aunty was setting up our dinner. I decided to make a few phone calls, of which nobody picked up, and that's when I saw the moon. It was a full moon. At this point Aunty called me down to dinner, and Mary and I had dinner by candle light. So romantic. After, we came back up to the roof and just basked in the powerful moonlight. I don't know why, but when ever I see a full moon, the song Dancing in the Moonlight gets into my head. The annoying part is those are only words I know, so I just repeat that over and over again. People called me back and Mary and I just laid on the roof looking up at the clouds. We saw lots of bats flying around. These ones are huge. They are about the size of crows, but they were definitely bats. After about two hours on the roof the power came back on. Even with the fan on it is cooler outside. But here we are. Good night!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
7.12.11. 9:08AM. Day 11. Doctors.
After I finished that rant about Maggie last night I felt like I could be taken as being an insensitive bitch to Maggie's hardships. After all, I too had issues with Rishi's food. Mary and I talked about it long into the night and came to the conclusion that the rant was warranted because Maggie, along with a few others, had been whining nonstop since the moment they got here. We agreed that every single thing they were complaining about had been forewarned in the information guide given to us long before we all left home. There had been no surprises here, everything was stated: the food, the yoga, staying with families, the staring, and photo requests. Yet people still, for what ever reason, choose to act like they didn't know. I understand that things take adjusting to in new places, but when you hated the food even before you got here, one has to question why exactly you chose to come. CFHI has plenty of programs all over the world, At least one of the guys has been putting down alternative methods (traditional) of medicine since he got here. What did he think he was going to learn? But anyway, long story short - we all knew what we were getting into, they kept no secrets from us. These people should just shape up or ship out because they're not doing anyone a favor by being here in their negative ways.
...
Our first day of medical rotations in Dehra Dun started out fairly hectic. Mayank showed up in the morning and he was supposed to show us how to get to our first doctor, Dr. Nanda, for Homeopathy. He came, told us to meet him on the street corner. He sped off on his motorbike , while we walked down the alley way to the street. We saw him waiting on the other side, standing like a dork, with his giant black helmet still on and his backpack pulled really high up on his shoulders. We crossed the road and he was telling us to get an A. Rick right when a bus pulled up and he told us to get on it. Just like that we were speeding off away from Mayank. We had no idea what to do, but after awhile the bus pulled over and the driver told us to get off here, so we did. We walked a ways and then Mary pulled out her map. Not even a minute later Mayank pulls up and tells up to keep walking for 5-10 minutes until we see him. We eventually find him in front of a sweets shop, and then he tells us to cross the road. He met us on the other side and walked us a few steps into an alleyway to Dr. Nanda's office.
It was a quaint little place with a small sitting room which led into his office which led to the backroom where he kept hundreds of vials of various concoctions. I would suggest looking up homeopathy online because I could not give a descent description of it even if I tried at this point in time. It was surreal to be in the doctor's office while he was actually seeing patients. It seems like privacy really isn't a luxury most Indians get. Often, when there is one patient in the chair speaking, there is another in the office waiting his or her turn, then there are the few in the waiting room. During all of this there are Mary and I who are sitting, watching, and taking notes; the doctor's son and his friends are playing WWE Raw on his laptop behind him. Meanwhile the cleaning lady is practically crawling on the floor sweeping then mopping by hand. The doctor answers his phone multiple times while the patients are talking. He is both doctor and pharmacist - as he goes into the backroom, prepares the meds and takes the money from them. He doesn't tell the people who we are or why we're here. And from what I could tell, they don't really even seem to mind our being there. We were at the office from 11:00AM to 1:30PM and then we took a bus back home where we had lunch and took a rest.
Mayank was supposed to meet us at the house at 3:30 to show us how to get to the next place, Dr. Prem Nath (Reiki, Accupuncture/Accupressure, and Auyuveda) but around 3:00 he called to say that an A.Rick driver would be there at 3:30 to pick us up. We guessed he had a lot to juggle with the three other groups he had to show around that day. Our driver came and took us to Dr. Prem Nath's and said that he would be back at 5:30 to pick us up. We entered what looked to be his house. It was dimly lit only by the light from outside. He sat waiting in an armchair at the far end of the dining room table. He told us to come in and have a seat. And like a true gentleman, he stood up and waited until Mary and I sat down. We had been told that this man was 97 years old (*turns out he's 99*), but he honestly didn't look a day over 70. He is a well spoken philosophical man and in great mental health for his age. After another 5 minutes the two boys, Christian and Alex, came through the door. Dr. Prem Nath began lecturing on energy and how it pertains to life. It was a very interactive lecture, where he would ask each of us questions that were fairly philosophical in nature. Mare and I seemed to be racking up points whereas the boys were struggling to look past the science of the ideas. He talked about chakras, their colors, symbols, and elements. He was supposed to lecture from 4-5 PM but I guess we were having such a good time we ended up going until almost 5:30.
Our driver came and rang the door bell. It came time for us to go and our driver, who Mary says is good looking, took us to the last doctor of the day, Dr. Nisha Gera, an OBGYN. At this pointwe are both in love with having a driver, not having to worry about figuring out how to get from one place to another.He asked what time he should come back, and we said 8.
Dr. Nisha Gera is, in the best description I can give, a matriarch. She has this presence about her that is both down to business and maternal. I found that I was quite drawn to her. There was another lady doctor, I don't know her name, but she was the sidekick understudy type; the one we could more readily talk to and joke around with. This place was a bit hectic, like most things in India so far. There would be 2 patients in the office, plus us, plus the two doctors, plus 2 to 3 nurses all in one room. As soon as one patient was wrapping up, the nurse would call in another to come inside. While all of this was happening, other people would walk in and hand the doctors their results and go back out again. We found that most of the patients were there for either regular prenatal check ups, baby vaccines, and a surprising amount of infertility. We got to witness 3 ultrasounds at different stages of growth, and we got to hear fetal heartbeats , and had to see one woman get her c-section stitches being removed. In the middle of all of this we stopped for a tea and biscuit break. Some one brought in a box of what looked like ladoos with big chunks of peanuts inside.
Around 8PM our driver came and got us and took us home. When we got out we asked him how much, and we thought it would be a lot , but for a whole afternoon he only charged us 200rps which comes out to just over $2 each. Not bad at all. To top it off he asked, "Same time tomorrow?" and we said, "YES!" I was going to ask but he beat me to it. This just made my outlook on the next two weeks just a little bit brighter.
7.11.11. 11:03 A.M. Day 10. Big Buddha, Holy Caves, and an Orchard.
I suppose since the incident of us getting lost the day before, Mayank said that if we would like a tour of the city he could rent us a car and the driver would show is around. We liked this idea because it would be a relief to all parties involved for us not to get lost. We would be shown 3 different holy sites on the extremes of the city. There would be another girl from another group, Maggie, who would be joining us for the tour. I'd been interested in meeting her because Mary would tell me stories about her from their train ride up here. She'd seemed overwhelmed by the train ride in her air conditioned compartment that catered food to them and everything. We joked that she would have completely lost it if she'd been on my train. Apparently spice - of any kind - was too much for her.
We were picked up around 10:30AM in a nice big jeep-looking SUV. We first drove across the city to the Buddha Temple. According to Mary, we were entering one of the Tibetan communities that had been exiled to India. Her knowledge of both Buddhism and Tibet way surpassed mine. As we entered, we could see an immediate change in the facial structure of the residents of this neighborhood. The skin was lighter in color, the cheek bones were higher, the nose a bit flatter and rounder, and the eyes were more asian in shape. It was as if, in a blink of an eye, we were in a small portion of a community in Tibet. Even the clothing styles changed. The driver took us through and pulled into a parking lot that had a sign in English: No Unauthorized Parking Beyond This Point. I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think we were authorized. He pointed, "Temple here; temple there," and then just sat there. We got out with out knowing if he was going to drive off and come back later or if he was even going to stay in the same spot. We took all of our stuff with us just in case. The weather was in our favor in that it was a pleasantly cool day. It was not in our favor in that it lightly rained more or less the whole time we were out. This wouldn't have been a big issue save that we all had expensive cameras, or were borrowing (me), and water + electronics =/= happy. We did our best to keep them dry and to keep the drops from landing on the lenses. This proved difficult because the Stupa (temple) was the tallest in the world and we accordingly had to point upwards.
As we approached, we began to hear low toned chanting from within the Stupa. The doors were open but the stairs were roped off so we just looked in from the outside. There was a "No Picture Inside" sign so I'm sad to say that I have none to show of the monks chanting. We saw a little van pull up to the steps and the old, bent over monk who was sitting outside by the open door, went over to the van and spoke to the driver. He then stepped inside the Stupa and returned quickly with 3 young monks who appeared to be in their late teens. One pulled out a big box wrapped in twine, while the other two grabbed some bags. It had been a grocery run. We found this greatly amusing because it never occurred to us - monks have to eat too. From there we walked around the compound and were eventually adopted by a young Tibetan man in his teens, who was just a local from the neighborhood. He showed us around and took us into a smaller stupa where a female monk was chanting on her own. Beautiful voice. We went back outside and continued to the giant statue of Buddha standing at around 200 ft tall. I couldn't help but feel both awe and shame as we tool pictures of it becuase I'd learned that before Siddhartha had died he told his followers to not idolize or worship him, and as soon as he died, that's exactly what they did.
The fact that this monument was the very thing he did not want made for a fairly strange combination of emotions to run through me. It was time for us to say goodbye to our eagerly helpful guide and continue on with our journey. We walked back to the parking lot where our driver had found some other drivers to talk to, he said his goodbyes too and we were on our way to the next site.
We drove for awhile on the outskirts of the city, beautifully covered by the edge of the lush green jungle. It was apparent that the jungle could hardly be kept at bay, and if left alone it would swallow up the buildings and the roads. We pulled into a detour of sorts and our next temple came into view, but only just. We were told by our driver that the temple itself was inside the caves that lined the river below. Not a big fan of caves or tight spaces in general, I squirmed a bit in my seat at this news. We went down the marble steps to steps that were carved in the rockside itself. Apparently the leading experts in temple etiquette, Mary and I were put at the front of the group. We saw some bells, got excited, and rang them. We miss the bells of Rishikesh. We came to the opening of the cave on the left and saw that people had left their shoes there so we did the same. We rang some more bells and went down some more steps and were inside the caves. I don't know if they were painted light blue, but they were light blue. There were multiple levels within the caves where different gods were being kept, when we reached the bottom most level there was a thick blanket of smoke and incense. I followed Rayleen into a side chamber that ended up just being a little room devoted to some god, there was a rather wild-looking Sadhu, or holy man sitting there, thin, brown body, long bushy beard, and dread locks pulled back. He had the white elongated U with a red line in the middle on his forehead like the other orange clad holy men. But coming from a backlit chamber into a smoky room does give the man extra brownie points in the mysteriousness department. This could have been a rather frightening moment had it not been for Mary. She, too, wanted to see what was through the doorway after we got out. Before we could say anything she walked right past us and was at the door when the holy man stepped into the frame, handed her a small coconut and insistantly gestured that she take it somewhere in the other direction. By this time I was already a few feet away taking pictures of a group of men doing some sort of ceremony around a large fire pit. Mary cautiously approached these men and with her outstretched coconut and when their stares did not look welcoming she continued on with her new quest to find the right place for her coconut offering.
We ran into a pair of Californians while in the smoky cave. Our groups merged and our 4 became 6. We continued onto the small bridge over the river where there was a priest who blessed us. 4 of us were willing and got blessed, Rayleen and Maggie hugged the edge of the bridge, not wanting to get too close to the priest. The priest kept motioning to them to come get a blessing but they kept looking away. He then tried to get the rest of us to get them to come over. It has come to my attention the eagerness with which these priests insist we foreign folk, come get blessed. After each blessing they ask for a donation, and by ask i mean all but demand. If you don't pay up, things like Mary's instance with the Hanuman-painted man where he unblessed her could happen. We are fully aware that we are probably being played, but the novelty of the situation sustains our open pocketed ways. Mary and I have been trying to dive in deeper than just the superficialness of the ritual for foreigners and have been trying to get the stories behind them. It's been slow going without a stable guide. I will be inquiring much when I get home. So those knowledgeable better be ready!
We continued over the bridge to the cave on the other side of the river. This one, we were told, we would have to squeeze through. I was immediately hesitant but with both a mix of peer pressure and shear curiosity I conceded and went in at the middle of the pack. Indeed we had to squeeze, crawl, and contort to be able to get through. And in true India fashion, the little lights lining the very low roof went out and we were left in the pitch black while we continued on. Shortly after having entered the cave, both Maggie and Rayleen chickened out of going through with it, and I'm not going to lie - the thought did cross my mind to turn back, instead I grasped the hand of my fellow Californian, Sarah. We made it to the temple altar part of the cave unscathed. The annoying part was that Maggie and Rayleen were already there. The exit was right at the far end of the altar and apparently only about 10 feet from the entrance of the whole cave system. They calmly took 3 steps while I risked life and limb to get to that altar. The gods better give me brownie points for this!!! It was at this time that I noticed Mary come back to the altar and place her little coconut on the side near some candles. At about this time it was getting to the point where we had to say ggodbye to our fellow Americans, my fellow Californians. We climbed back to our shoes, and then to the car. We said our goodbyes and were off to site number 3.
Site 3 turned out to be quite an interesting ordeal. It was one of the oldest temples in Dehra Dun and turned our to be a Sikh Temple (*actually it wasn't, it turned out to be a temple devoted to Sai Baba, who when described as an old man with a white beard and a turban could be mistaken for Guru Nanak. oops.*) Had I not been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of traffic passing through the front gates I would have gone inside. 3 of us panicked and wanted to leave the immediate area and Rayleen had seen something pretty and shiny next door. So we went to check it out. It turned out to be another Stupa, and was indeed very shiny and pretty. A beggarwoman walked in a little while after we did and began to do her thing to us. One of the monks who happened to be walking by shooed her off the compound. Not really willing to get any closer, we too decided to go, and headed towards the car. Rayleen pointed out an ATM to me and Maggie. We hurried over and went inside. We both took out large sums of money and felt that it would be best to wait in the car while Mary did a quick run through of the temple. Maggie reached the car first and had been followed by the same beggarwoman. She was right up against the window asking for money. I came up right next to her, I didn't have much choice, and just got in the front seat and shut the door and locked it. it's a good thing we did lock them because the old woman kept at it for a good 5-7 minutes, even trying to open our doors a couple of times. This whole time our driver was standing outside facing the other direction. Eventually she went away and a few minutes later the other two came back and the driver took us to our final destination.
We were picked up around 10:30AM in a nice big jeep-looking SUV. We first drove across the city to the Buddha Temple. According to Mary, we were entering one of the Tibetan communities that had been exiled to India. Her knowledge of both Buddhism and Tibet way surpassed mine. As we entered, we could see an immediate change in the facial structure of the residents of this neighborhood. The skin was lighter in color, the cheek bones were higher, the nose a bit flatter and rounder, and the eyes were more asian in shape. It was as if, in a blink of an eye, we were in a small portion of a community in Tibet. Even the clothing styles changed. The driver took us through and pulled into a parking lot that had a sign in English: No Unauthorized Parking Beyond This Point. I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think we were authorized. He pointed, "Temple here; temple there," and then just sat there. We got out with out knowing if he was going to drive off and come back later or if he was even going to stay in the same spot. We took all of our stuff with us just in case. The weather was in our favor in that it was a pleasantly cool day. It was not in our favor in that it lightly rained more or less the whole time we were out. This wouldn't have been a big issue save that we all had expensive cameras, or were borrowing (me), and water + electronics =/= happy. We did our best to keep them dry and to keep the drops from landing on the lenses. This proved difficult because the Stupa (temple) was the tallest in the world and we accordingly had to point upwards.
We drove for awhile on the outskirts of the city, beautifully covered by the edge of the lush green jungle. It was apparent that the jungle could hardly be kept at bay, and if left alone it would swallow up the buildings and the roads. We pulled into a detour of sorts and our next temple came into view, but only just. We were told by our driver that the temple itself was inside the caves that lined the river below. Not a big fan of caves or tight spaces in general, I squirmed a bit in my seat at this news. We went down the marble steps to steps that were carved in the rockside itself. Apparently the leading experts in temple etiquette, Mary and I were put at the front of the group. We saw some bells, got excited, and rang them. We miss the bells of Rishikesh. We came to the opening of the cave on the left and saw that people had left their shoes there so we did the same. We rang some more bells and went down some more steps and were inside the caves. I don't know if they were painted light blue, but they were light blue. There were multiple levels within the caves where different gods were being kept, when we reached the bottom most level there was a thick blanket of smoke and incense. I followed Rayleen into a side chamber that ended up just being a little room devoted to some god, there was a rather wild-looking Sadhu, or holy man sitting there, thin, brown body, long bushy beard, and dread locks pulled back. He had the white elongated U with a red line in the middle on his forehead like the other orange clad holy men. But coming from a backlit chamber into a smoky room does give the man extra brownie points in the mysteriousness department. This could have been a rather frightening moment had it not been for Mary. She, too, wanted to see what was through the doorway after we got out. Before we could say anything she walked right past us and was at the door when the holy man stepped into the frame, handed her a small coconut and insistantly gestured that she take it somewhere in the other direction. By this time I was already a few feet away taking pictures of a group of men doing some sort of ceremony around a large fire pit. Mary cautiously approached these men and with her outstretched coconut and when their stares did not look welcoming she continued on with her new quest to find the right place for her coconut offering.
We ran into a pair of Californians while in the smoky cave. Our groups merged and our 4 became 6. We continued onto the small bridge over the river where there was a priest who blessed us. 4 of us were willing and got blessed, Rayleen and Maggie hugged the edge of the bridge, not wanting to get too close to the priest. The priest kept motioning to them to come get a blessing but they kept looking away. He then tried to get the rest of us to get them to come over. It has come to my attention the eagerness with which these priests insist we foreign folk, come get blessed. After each blessing they ask for a donation, and by ask i mean all but demand. If you don't pay up, things like Mary's instance with the Hanuman-painted man where he unblessed her could happen. We are fully aware that we are probably being played, but the novelty of the situation sustains our open pocketed ways. Mary and I have been trying to dive in deeper than just the superficialness of the ritual for foreigners and have been trying to get the stories behind them. It's been slow going without a stable guide. I will be inquiring much when I get home. So those knowledgeable better be ready!
We continued over the bridge to the cave on the other side of the river. This one, we were told, we would have to squeeze through. I was immediately hesitant but with both a mix of peer pressure and shear curiosity I conceded and went in at the middle of the pack. Indeed we had to squeeze, crawl, and contort to be able to get through. And in true India fashion, the little lights lining the very low roof went out and we were left in the pitch black while we continued on. Shortly after having entered the cave, both Maggie and Rayleen chickened out of going through with it, and I'm not going to lie - the thought did cross my mind to turn back, instead I grasped the hand of my fellow Californian, Sarah. We made it to the temple altar part of the cave unscathed. The annoying part was that Maggie and Rayleen were already there. The exit was right at the far end of the altar and apparently only about 10 feet from the entrance of the whole cave system. They calmly took 3 steps while I risked life and limb to get to that altar. The gods better give me brownie points for this!!! It was at this time that I noticed Mary come back to the altar and place her little coconut on the side near some candles. At about this time it was getting to the point where we had to say ggodbye to our fellow Americans, my fellow Californians. We climbed back to our shoes, and then to the car. We said our goodbyes and were off to site number 3.
Site 3 turned out to be quite an interesting ordeal. It was one of the oldest temples in Dehra Dun and turned our to be a Sikh Temple (*actually it wasn't, it turned out to be a temple devoted to Sai Baba, who when described as an old man with a white beard and a turban could be mistaken for Guru Nanak. oops.*) Had I not been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of traffic passing through the front gates I would have gone inside. 3 of us panicked and wanted to leave the immediate area and Rayleen had seen something pretty and shiny next door. So we went to check it out. It turned out to be another Stupa, and was indeed very shiny and pretty. A beggarwoman walked in a little while after we did and began to do her thing to us. One of the monks who happened to be walking by shooed her off the compound. Not really willing to get any closer, we too decided to go, and headed towards the car. Rayleen pointed out an ATM to me and Maggie. We hurried over and went inside. We both took out large sums of money and felt that it would be best to wait in the car while Mary did a quick run through of the temple. Maggie reached the car first and had been followed by the same beggarwoman. She was right up against the window asking for money. I came up right next to her, I didn't have much choice, and just got in the front seat and shut the door and locked it. it's a good thing we did lock them because the old woman kept at it for a good 5-7 minutes, even trying to open our doors a couple of times. This whole time our driver was standing outside facing the other direction. Eventually she went away and a few minutes later the other two came back and the driver took us to our final destination.
Not even a mile away, hidden away from all of the noise and crowdedness of the street was a swanky restaurant named Orchard. Mayank highly recommended it and we could see why. It was built like a modern style resort cabin with large windows and sliding glass doors that led to an oversized deck that overlooked the lush jungle valley below. We didn't really know what was on the menu but we ordered half of it anyway. Why not splurge? We're in India after all! We ordered about 6 or 7 dishes between the three of us. Maggie proved to be the pickiest, most finicky eater on the planet. She can't handle any spice above black pepper to save her life, and eventually even stopped being able to eat plain white rice, for what ever reason. She ate some of her chicken fried rice and had lots of Mary's fairly plain tasting soup. I think she ate most of my deep fried spring rolls too. But it wasn't a big deal, there was more than enough to go around and we were just glad that she found stuff she was willing to eat.
I have issues with her whininess about food. I can't quite put it to words yet exactly what I want to say, but it's along the lines of what the hell did you expect to be given , in India of all places, to eat? Why come if you can't handle anything above the use of salt? And then it really bugged me that she wouldn't even eat the white rice they made for her. It told her to have her homestay get her a bottle of ketchup. The ketchup-like continental sauce got me through my week in Rishi with its stupid bean sprouts and weird soups. Hopefully it will help because frankly, ketchups is about as American a flavor as you can get. And if she doesn't want that she should just go on home...or to some bland country like England.
7.9.11. 7:00 P.M. Day 8. Are We Lost Yet?
I can't tell if I woke up on my own this morning or if it was because Pop called me at 7 in the AM. I went to sleep pretty late because Mary and I stayed up talking to our other homestay buddies Matt and Rayleen until 1AM about our different experiences this week. From what they said, their schedule was pretty full so they weren't able to do any exploring, and some of their doctors didn't make it easy for them. Weird thing - they both got sick the same day I did. It appears that our week was pretty much awesome and hard to beat. I can't help but feel that these next two weeks are going to be tougher for us mentally and emotionally.
9:40 PM.
So yes, Pop called and said, "Hey, your wayward brother wants to talk to you." and then he put Paul on the line. That was fun, I talked to him while I went up to the rooftop terrace since I didn't want to wake anybody. It was sprinkling out but it felt nice. Paul asked me if I'd done anything "cool" yet and I couldn't help but be a bit baffled. To me, just being in India was the most amazing thing I'd ever done, but really being in the Ganges was, so that's what I told him. I don't know if he knew how big of a deal that was for me or cared that it is probably considered the most holy river in the world. But he tried and that's enough for me. After the phone call I went to lacy back down until the other girls got up. When they did, we had a yummy breakfast waiting for us at the table.
We decided that today we were going to go to an internet cafe and then go shopping. We managed to get completely ready to go before Mayank came. And alas, I had to stay behind because he and I had a previous arrangement today (just not what time), so the girls went for a walk without me. But they promised to come back in time for lunch and after we would go shopping. And that's exactly what happened. They came back, we ate, and then went out to go shopping.
Rayleen is the only one of us who has had experience with the city, and even then it was limited. We stood on the edge of the street and soon an auto rickshaw came and pulled over to us. Rayleen told him "Clocktower" and he nodded so we assumed he knew where to go. The experience was fun, we 3 were crammed in the back of a vehicle i could only describe as a 3 wheeled, yellowish golf cart, but narrower, and with a bicycle handle bar instead of a steering wheel.
I must question whether there is any kind of smog regulation because some of the vehicles on the road were just spewing the blackest smoke from their tailpipes. After about 10 or so minutes the guy dropped us off by the Clocktower. it was supposed to cost 60 rps. but Mary accidentally talked the driver down to 40. Mostly, this happened because she was asking for change for the 100 rp. bill she had out. I had 20, Rayleen had 20, he took it and went on his way with Mary's hand still clenching the 100 in the air. I guess something was lost in translation. This little victory was soon overshadowed by the shear magnitude of being at the downtown, Clocktower area on a Saturday afternoon. I think half of the city was there and between zooming cars and swarming people, we had to navigate our way to a place we didn't know where to start looking for. We were told by Aunty that a shop called Fab India would be a great place for us to shop for clothes. With this one place in mind, our eyes scoured over the many thousands of shop signs and advertisements clustered together along tops of buildings, and that was even before we hit the bazaar. I was a shop on the other side of the road from where we were dropped off. It had a great window display that caught my eye - it had its most vibrant and shiny saris out on manikins. I pointed it out to the girls and we mustered up our courage, said silent prayers, and for the first time - crossed the road. Why did Arlette cross the road? To get to the sari shop. We crossed unscathed and went inside. Immediately it became apparent that none of us knew what to do, but since I was the only one actually looking to buy a sari the pressure was on me to do the talking. I don't know why sari shops are always run by men, but there they were - two old men sitting behind a desk watching us silently as we came in. I just stood there for a few minutes, the girls went to the kurtis and began to look through them. Just to look busy I followed and did the same. I knew I had to eventually turn back around to face the old men. It appeared that they kept the one thing I wanted lined on the wall behind them, folded up in bags, neatly stacked on floor to roof shelves. I turned around and said hello. The first one of the two that replied was the one I went towards. Long story short, I got myself a sari. I have absolutely no idea how to tie the 15 feet of fabric into something that makes sense. But I have one. This one item wiped me out of all of the cash I had with me, and like a true idiot I forgot my card at the house so I couldn't take any more out. Basically I was done shopping for the day after just one shop. My gleefulness soon faded after we ventured back outside and into the bustling bazaar in the heavy midday heat.
After a short time I wanted to head back. There was no reason for me to be there. Negative Nancy, I know, but the heat got to me and so did the ever lingering fact that the sun easily darkens my skin and my tan hasn't been this bad since my high school days. Since my pockets were empty, and Rayleen hadn't been out all week, on top of Mary's compulsion to explore, I had no choice but to continue one. They didn't buy anything there, just walked around. Eventually my complaining weakened then and we went to a coffee shop not too far away named Barista. Mary spotted me for my Lemon Iced Tea. I'd been craving ice, of all things, since the moment I got to India. And it was the one thing I thought I would never get to have. Where would somebody freeze filtered water? Here. To top off the awesome ice-wieldingness of this place, they also had air conditioning! I didn't know what to do with myself - I didn't want to leave. There was a bookstore connected to the coffee shop so once we were done with the drinks we went to look at some books.
After the bookstore, the girls wanted to continue walking but I wanted to find an internet cafe. We found one close to where we were so I went in for about an hour while they went for a walk. I was finally able to update the blog, but the typing was slow and cumbersome due to most of the keys sticking and the fact that I wrote really small in the journal so I often lost my place. By the end of 45 minutes I finished the first entry, and as the second was even longer, I decided to leave it there for the day. With my spirits significantly raised I went back outside and found the girls on their way back. We decided to make our way back toward the house so we stood on the side of the road until an A. Rick pulled up. Rayleen told the driver where we wanted to go a few times, but when he continued to not know what we were talking about - we waved him off. Right after he left another one pulled up and she tried again. This guy was more responsive, again not sure what we wanted but still seemed like he got the general idea of what we wanted. We squished into the backseat and he began to zoom off. Mary, after we passed the Clocktower, said that this was not the way we had come. All of the streets looked the same to me so I was practically useless. Rayleen took out from her bag the giant Lonely Planet guide to India and opened it up to the map of Dehra Dun. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and tried to show him the map...while he was driving. Considering where we were, I thought taking the driver's eyes off the road was a very dumb idea, but luckily he seemed to think the same because he pulled over. She tried to point on the map where we wanted to go. He got out and walked across the road to somewhere we couldn't see. I hoped it was to find a translator but....probably not. I took this opportunity to take a few pictures of the driver seat and of us sitting in one of these. The driver came back after a few minutes and repeated something and we were on our way. Another few minutes pass by and our driver pulls into a gas station. He puts the A. Rick in park and slowly releases the brake. We begin to roll back. He presses it and again releases it. Roll back. He does this a few more times until he just gets out. The A. Rick continues to inch back until it comes to an uneasy stop. We maybe moved about 6 inches but it felt like further. We made no sudden movements, not wanting to anger the finicky brakebeast. Eventually, I made an executive decision and took out my phone to call Mayank so that he could talk to the driver. As I explained our situation to him, Mary got our driver's attention and when he came over I gave him the phone. They spoke for a little over a minute before the guy handed back the phone. With a renewed sense of faith in our driver's ability to get us home we set off. He took us through a labyrinth of alleyways: left, left, right, left, right, right, stop. We weren't there. Without even looking back at us, he tapped his ear a few times...I got Mayank back on the phone again and just said, "one more time," before I handed the guy the phone. Again they spoke briefly and by what I could make out from the bits and pieces I understood - we were close. They hung up and the driver made some sort of hand gesture to the phone. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at that and he just made a comment about the phone. I thought it was toward Mayank, but he covered the gesture quickly so I'm not too sure about that. He tool the first right, went straight passed two alleyway intersections and we saw our home sweet homestay. We thanked the driver profusely and then asked him how much the fare was. He said, "As you wish." We repeated the question and he said, "What you think." We weren't sure what to do with this. We later figured that he made the price up to us since he got us lost. But we never blamed him as it was we who couldn't correctly say where we wanted to go. We were just happy that we got home and that he didn't get so frustrated that he would just dump us somewhere for an easier fare. In the end we figured to give him more. The first guy said 60 rsp. so we gave this one 100 rps. Probably a lot, but we felt he deserved it because we didn't make his job easy. We went inside, said hello to Aunty and went to lay down for awhile. What a day.
9:40 PM.
So yes, Pop called and said, "Hey, your wayward brother wants to talk to you." and then he put Paul on the line. That was fun, I talked to him while I went up to the rooftop terrace since I didn't want to wake anybody. It was sprinkling out but it felt nice. Paul asked me if I'd done anything "cool" yet and I couldn't help but be a bit baffled. To me, just being in India was the most amazing thing I'd ever done, but really being in the Ganges was, so that's what I told him. I don't know if he knew how big of a deal that was for me or cared that it is probably considered the most holy river in the world. But he tried and that's enough for me. After the phone call I went to lacy back down until the other girls got up. When they did, we had a yummy breakfast waiting for us at the table.
We decided that today we were going to go to an internet cafe and then go shopping. We managed to get completely ready to go before Mayank came. And alas, I had to stay behind because he and I had a previous arrangement today (just not what time), so the girls went for a walk without me. But they promised to come back in time for lunch and after we would go shopping. And that's exactly what happened. They came back, we ate, and then went out to go shopping.
Rayleen is the only one of us who has had experience with the city, and even then it was limited. We stood on the edge of the street and soon an auto rickshaw came and pulled over to us. Rayleen told him "Clocktower" and he nodded so we assumed he knew where to go. The experience was fun, we 3 were crammed in the back of a vehicle i could only describe as a 3 wheeled, yellowish golf cart, but narrower, and with a bicycle handle bar instead of a steering wheel.
I must question whether there is any kind of smog regulation because some of the vehicles on the road were just spewing the blackest smoke from their tailpipes. After about 10 or so minutes the guy dropped us off by the Clocktower. it was supposed to cost 60 rps. but Mary accidentally talked the driver down to 40. Mostly, this happened because she was asking for change for the 100 rp. bill she had out. I had 20, Rayleen had 20, he took it and went on his way with Mary's hand still clenching the 100 in the air. I guess something was lost in translation. This little victory was soon overshadowed by the shear magnitude of being at the downtown, Clocktower area on a Saturday afternoon. I think half of the city was there and between zooming cars and swarming people, we had to navigate our way to a place we didn't know where to start looking for. We were told by Aunty that a shop called Fab India would be a great place for us to shop for clothes. With this one place in mind, our eyes scoured over the many thousands of shop signs and advertisements clustered together along tops of buildings, and that was even before we hit the bazaar. I was a shop on the other side of the road from where we were dropped off. It had a great window display that caught my eye - it had its most vibrant and shiny saris out on manikins. I pointed it out to the girls and we mustered up our courage, said silent prayers, and for the first time - crossed the road. Why did Arlette cross the road? To get to the sari shop. We crossed unscathed and went inside. Immediately it became apparent that none of us knew what to do, but since I was the only one actually looking to buy a sari the pressure was on me to do the talking. I don't know why sari shops are always run by men, but there they were - two old men sitting behind a desk watching us silently as we came in. I just stood there for a few minutes, the girls went to the kurtis and began to look through them. Just to look busy I followed and did the same. I knew I had to eventually turn back around to face the old men. It appeared that they kept the one thing I wanted lined on the wall behind them, folded up in bags, neatly stacked on floor to roof shelves. I turned around and said hello. The first one of the two that replied was the one I went towards. Long story short, I got myself a sari. I have absolutely no idea how to tie the 15 feet of fabric into something that makes sense. But I have one. This one item wiped me out of all of the cash I had with me, and like a true idiot I forgot my card at the house so I couldn't take any more out. Basically I was done shopping for the day after just one shop. My gleefulness soon faded after we ventured back outside and into the bustling bazaar in the heavy midday heat.
After the bookstore, the girls wanted to continue walking but I wanted to find an internet cafe. We found one close to where we were so I went in for about an hour while they went for a walk. I was finally able to update the blog, but the typing was slow and cumbersome due to most of the keys sticking and the fact that I wrote really small in the journal so I often lost my place. By the end of 45 minutes I finished the first entry, and as the second was even longer, I decided to leave it there for the day. With my spirits significantly raised I went back outside and found the girls on their way back. We decided to make our way back toward the house so we stood on the side of the road until an A. Rick pulled up. Rayleen told the driver where we wanted to go a few times, but when he continued to not know what we were talking about - we waved him off. Right after he left another one pulled up and she tried again. This guy was more responsive, again not sure what we wanted but still seemed like he got the general idea of what we wanted. We squished into the backseat and he began to zoom off. Mary, after we passed the Clocktower, said that this was not the way we had come. All of the streets looked the same to me so I was practically useless. Rayleen took out from her bag the giant Lonely Planet guide to India and opened it up to the map of Dehra Dun. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and tried to show him the map...while he was driving. Considering where we were, I thought taking the driver's eyes off the road was a very dumb idea, but luckily he seemed to think the same because he pulled over. She tried to point on the map where we wanted to go. He got out and walked across the road to somewhere we couldn't see. I hoped it was to find a translator but....probably not. I took this opportunity to take a few pictures of the driver seat and of us sitting in one of these. The driver came back after a few minutes and repeated something and we were on our way. Another few minutes pass by and our driver pulls into a gas station. He puts the A. Rick in park and slowly releases the brake. We begin to roll back. He presses it and again releases it. Roll back. He does this a few more times until he just gets out. The A. Rick continues to inch back until it comes to an uneasy stop. We maybe moved about 6 inches but it felt like further. We made no sudden movements, not wanting to anger the finicky brakebeast. Eventually, I made an executive decision and took out my phone to call Mayank so that he could talk to the driver. As I explained our situation to him, Mary got our driver's attention and when he came over I gave him the phone. They spoke for a little over a minute before the guy handed back the phone. With a renewed sense of faith in our driver's ability to get us home we set off. He took us through a labyrinth of alleyways: left, left, right, left, right, right, stop. We weren't there. Without even looking back at us, he tapped his ear a few times...I got Mayank back on the phone again and just said, "one more time," before I handed the guy the phone. Again they spoke briefly and by what I could make out from the bits and pieces I understood - we were close. They hung up and the driver made some sort of hand gesture to the phone. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at that and he just made a comment about the phone. I thought it was toward Mayank, but he covered the gesture quickly so I'm not too sure about that. He tool the first right, went straight passed two alleyway intersections and we saw our home sweet homestay. We thanked the driver profusely and then asked him how much the fare was. He said, "As you wish." We repeated the question and he said, "What you think." We weren't sure what to do with this. We later figured that he made the price up to us since he got us lost. But we never blamed him as it was we who couldn't correctly say where we wanted to go. We were just happy that we got home and that he didn't get so frustrated that he would just dump us somewhere for an easier fare. In the end we figured to give him more. The first guy said 60 rsp. so we gave this one 100 rps. Probably a lot, but we felt he deserved it because we didn't make his job easy. We went inside, said hello to Aunty and went to lay down for awhile. What a day.
Monday, August 1, 2011
7.9.11. 9:40 A.M. Day 8. Another Day Behind.
We went back after breakfast yesterday. It would be our last day in Rishikesh and we had to get everything done by 3PM. So 10AM was for the jewelry. We went back to the shop, and they gave us chai. They brought out the thinks we were going to buy, but as they were doing that I saw this earring and necklace set on a jewelry manikin neck on a shelf behind the glass cabinets. I didn't notice them the day before but now that I did I just had to make this the set for my mom. I also bought a really pretty ring for my sister, which hopefully fits her finger, but if not I made sure that it fit at least one of mine!
So now with a ring, a set of earrings, an earring/necklace set, and a statue of Lord Hanuman, I spent about $250. Give or take. Not bad. Crazy-shopping Mary dealt some serious damage there spending $510. They wrapped up our stuff and we were out, on our way to our final lecture.
The lecture about massages continued. But after 24 hrs, it is not all that memorable. So I'll leave it at that.
5:45 PM
Being a day behind in storytelling is very frustrating because so much keeps happening and i want to write it all down right away but i have to catch up first on what happened yesterday. I'm always tempted to skip stories but it's not fair to you guys at home to only get a half ass attempt, so here i am.
We had to leave Rishi at 3 so we only had a little over 2.5 hours to make it to the 17 story temple, get blessed, and make it back. Somehow we managed to do it all. We were on our way back to the ashram with plenty of time to be back by 3, but at 2:04 Mayank calls me and says that he is almost here. We did a double take since he was over an hour early. I told him we weren't back yet and that we needed at least another 40 minutes. He said to take our time. We made it back by 2:30 but Dr. Muthu wasn't in his office and wouldn't be back until 3. And we needed him to hire us a porter because the hike in with all of our luggage was extremely cumbersome. I called Mayank back, gave him the update, and he said, "no worries."
So now with a ring, a set of earrings, an earring/necklace set, and a statue of Lord Hanuman, I spent about $250. Give or take. Not bad. Crazy-shopping Mary dealt some serious damage there spending $510. They wrapped up our stuff and we were out, on our way to our final lecture.
The lecture about massages continued. But after 24 hrs, it is not all that memorable. So I'll leave it at that.
5:45 PM
Being a day behind in storytelling is very frustrating because so much keeps happening and i want to write it all down right away but i have to catch up first on what happened yesterday. I'm always tempted to skip stories but it's not fair to you guys at home to only get a half ass attempt, so here i am.
...
This gave us a chance to catch our breath since we had luckily already packed our gear. 3:00 finally came around so we went down, fully loaded, to see Dr. Muthu about a porter. It took them about 10 minutes to find one and bring him to the center. Another 10 minutes were spent by Dr. Muthu and his boss arguing with the porter. From what I gathered from the bits and pieces of Hindi I could understand, the porter was wanting to overcharge us by a lot. In the end, the porter started walking off with everything we owned. We looked at Dr. Muthu, and he said that we were to only pay him 250 rps. no more. The porter was noticeably angry for awhile as we had to jog to keep up with him. But eventually he seemed to cool down and we were able to follow him. He led us across the bridge and down the long road to where the cars wait and the auto rickshaw drivers swarm.
When we approached I started looking for Mayank but didn't see him. Mary shut down completely because she got overwhelmed when the drivers surrounded us all asking, "Ride? Ride?" I said no each time, payed the porter the 250 rps. grabbed the bags and walked through. Mary followed mindlessly behind me. We walked through where the a. ricks were parked, and made our way to the car area where we'd been dropped off 6 days before. Still no Mayank. I called him and when he answered, he said that he would be there in 3 minutes. We were asked for a picture by some of the drivers while we waited, after which Mayank came. We loaded up and left. I've realized that my favorite time in India is the time spent in a car. Being in a temple doing a pooja makes top two for sure. Mayank and I had a great conversation on the way back to D.Dun. Apparently he didn't know a) that I wasn't Indian b) an anthro student (after which he said he wants to talk sometime) c) I can read/write punjabi d) know a little hindi/punjabi and e) other. It was a pleasant ride, and we found out that he was a fan of country music...Everyone has their flaws. He took us to our home sweet homestay, to the lovely Aunty , and most of all Aunty's cooking. I'd been telling Mary about both Aunty and her cooking and that how even after one night I could be homesick for them. She gave us both a warm welcome and a hefty bowl of what looked to be homemade spaghetti o's. Home.
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