Almost over...

Feb 26
Kalinga Eye Hospital, Dhenkanal (2nd last day)

I had a cool afternoon in surgery today (figuratively and literally – OT is the only air-conditioned place in the vicinity). After a boring and hence tiring morning doing post-op bandaging, I got the word that I could be in OT in the afternoon shift if I made it in time after lunch. Wolfing down my rice/dal/cauliflower curry/chutney in about 4 minutes flat, I arrived in time and scrubbed up to find that I was actually the one in CHARGE of all the non-sterile work. Very cool. My assistant was the new pharmacist who has no experience or training in nursing, and is also quite stupid. When I first met him he had asked for a handshake and then a kiss, so he wasn’t one of my favourite people to begin with (that being the only instance of vague sexual harassment I’ve experienced in India). In OT he was only good for the Oriya section of the paperwork, and breaking open one vial of adrenaline which I didn’t know how to do. Other than that it was all me, doing the work of two regular nurses – hooray, finally some responsibility! Granted, it was the slow surgeon so two experienced nurses would be bored to tears during his shift, but I was happy getting to do some jobs I haven’t been allowed yet (handling patients, moving the microscope, resupplying all the drugs and tools) as well as teaching the new guy – as in, showing him several times and then taking over when he proved incompetent. After OT was finished and I was helping with cleanup (after ignoring protests and getting down on hands and knees to scrub the floor – honestly, they treat guests like royalty here and won’t let you do anything), they seemed impressed and affectionately called me their Senior Sister (the term for respected and elder nurse). They all want me to stay here forever. I personally think the novelty of my foreignness would wear off after a while, but it’s heart-warming nevertheless. They’re a great bunch.

Hinglish?

Feb 26

I’ve got to admit, it’s still often difficult to understand spoken English here. It’s the mixed problem of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Here’s a taste…

Prononucation:

Bee-jahn/Bee-shahn = Vision
Peelt = Field
Yat-tuw-ohm = Earthworm (As in, “Oh, you are a Biology major; did you do dissection of a yattuwohm?” “Sorry, a what?” We resorted to spelling.)

There are also the basics:
‘p’ and ‘f’ are interchangeable, mixed together, or often reversed
same with ‘b’ and ‘v’ (like in Spanish)
‘i’ and ‘y’ are always ‘ee’ (my name is Aleesah Teetoose)
‘d’, ‘dh’, ‘t’ and ‘th’ all sound exactly the same to me but are apparently entirely distinct. Bloody critical period for aural/verbal language acquisition!
And the golden rule: when pronouncing any English word with more than three syllables, jam all the final syllables together into a fast, ill-stressed, incomprehensible mutter. Then look astounded when Westerners don’t understand. (Superntrndrrtrrnt - Theye’re talking about the Superintendent, of course.)

Vocab

Indians love flowery language. I don’t have any great examples at hand but will try to remember to write some down when I hear or see them. All I can say is you’re more likely to be understood if you say ‘multifarious’ than ‘many’, ‘of great length/duration’ than ‘long’, and ‘in the direction of that location’ than ‘there’.

Adjectives are also interesting. One girl looked at me happily and said I was ‘simple.’ I asked for clarification and she agreed that yes, she also meant I was ‘easy'. Great, I’m stupid AND slutty. Later I found out she meant honest and down-to-earth. I’ve also been called punctual (HA, imagine) and sincere, but used as common and broad adjectives like we would say responsible and nice.

Some fillers I find funny and strangely used are ‘little bit’ and ‘so many’, as in “I am little bit tired” or “And so many other things are also there.” Maybe this is also a grammar issue…so on to grammar.

Grammar

My sole issue with the grammar is tense. (This is limited to the poorer English speakers.) The cook asks me halting things like “Alyssa… was… eat… was… breakfast?” This can still mean anything from “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” to “Would you like to eat now?” to “What do you normally take for breakfast?” Another example: Today a patient invited me to her house and said “Told Dr. Parida you come.” She told the director I am going to go for lunch today? She is going to tell him? She wants to tell him? I am supposed to go tomorrow? Or maybe I am the one who is supposed to ASK if I can go? The only possible answer: “Maybe. I’ll try.”

How I can tell this is not a Canadian hospital...

Feb 26
Kalinga Eye Hospital

Some interesting facts about leniency at the hospital.

#1. Not ONCE have I been told to wash my hands before dealing with patients, medicine, equipment, or even in surgery. I was reminded once to wash my hands after working with patients – I think this was for my own health benefit.

#2. The other day in post-op a staff member grabbed my attention, urgently pointed at a bottle and then at some patients, said “Medicine. Him.” and held up two fingers. What the hell does that mean? I got flustered and impatiently/angrily asked which patient, what is this medicine, is it oral, how much, and two WHAT? It was some sort of liquid codeine, and the patient needed two capfuls by mouth. Sweet lord. Someone else took care of it in half the time it took me to figure this out.

#3. Everyone shares roles here. The publicity guy often does post-op bandaging, the bus driver screens school-children for visual acuity, the cook hangs around the hospital and is a go-to guy for anything from power outages to photography, and the ‘peon’ (I love that word – what does it mean?) escorts bandaged patients down the stairs and gives them eye drops. Somehow, this really works.

Spiritualism

Feb 23
Kalinga Eye Hospital, Dhenkanal

I have met a very spiritual and a very inspiring man – Dr. Dave Sahani. He used to be the resident surgeon here but has since moved on to start his own hospital, coming back to Kalinga only once per week to crash through 40 or 50 surgeries in one sitting. I met him briefly twice before and was already impressed from 5 or 10 minutes of interaction. However, this last visit we sat down for an hour and talked about spirituality, medicine, my travels, and life. It was exactly what I needed. Although I hadn’t thought too much about Indian spirituality before I arrived or made any specific plans to explore it during this trip, I’m really happy this introduction landed in my lap. Not only is Dr. Sahani a great surgeon and doctor (a ‘whole-picture’ physician), but he has a bottomless supply of spiritual advice. While definitely a preacher, he finds a way to relate to you very personally in a short amount of time. Or maybe his type of life advice just has a way of sounding pertinent and inspiring in whichever context you choose to apply it. In any case, talking with him gave me lots to think about – everything from the reasons behind childhood happiness, to meditation, to what it means to miss someone and whether love is possible where there is missing without sadness. He also gave me lots to do: a suggested itinerary for my two-week travel adventure (which starts Tuesday), passing through various meaningful and spiritual places. It sounds pretty excellent – it is basically my original plan with a few substitutions, leaving some of the more touristy highlights for my next trip to India (whenever that may be). This is not to say that the holy places aren’t also touristy… they definitely take up a large chunk of my Lonely Planet. Hopefully with Dr. Sahani’s advice I can avoid the phony yogis, gurus and trendy ashrams and see a bit of what Indian spiritual energy is really about. I’m not going to come home a converted Hindu or even Buddhist, but I hope to be more in touch with my spiritual side or at least have spent some reflective time for myself.

Holiday

Feb 22

I just got back from my first holiday! I spent two days in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa and the “temple city.” I have to admit, my favourite part wasn’t any of the temples but rather my random meanderings around town. Some quick highlights:

- going to the zoo by autorickshaw but finding it closed (spontaneity is fun)
- finding my way downtown, WITHOUT any map (my crutch)
- locating the tourist office and getting a map (30 cents; awesome)
- wandering the streets, successfully crossing the roads, and smiling stupidly at all the people staring at me
- finding a Lonely Planet
- watching a Hindi film. I thought I’d ended up in an X-rated movie, but it was pretty soft-core and turned out to be just a regular one. I mainly liked the song-and-dance bits.
- finding a bank (I now have money, always nice; my bank card doesn’t work and they don’t cash traveller’s cheques in Dhenkanal)
- checking out a local artisan shop which does leaf-paintings (beautiful, intricate pen drawings and etchings… almost bought one depicting scenes of the Kama Sutra!)
- visiting a beach – complete with cows lying on the sand and camel rides (the camels all decked out in garish colours and jangly bits)
- actually speaking English with my host and his family!

Bus-related stories

Feb 17
Dhenkanal

I love bus rides. Not only have I NOT been puked on for an entire week, but we’ve been going further and further afield and into some wicked scenery. I had (mistakenly) believed that all of Orissa consisted of barren dusty plains of reddish/yellowish/brownish rock with no potential other than for quarrying, games of cricket, and my attempts at photography. However, the other day I saw my first true forest! I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated trees so much. No maple, pine, spruce or other favourites but plenty of coconut palms and lots of much-needed shade. (Indian spring = hotter than any Canadian summer… and I only have one salwar with short sleeves. Yes, I’m a sweaty, grimy ball of irritation on the bad days, although most of the time I can accept and relish the sweaty griminess.) The rice paddies are also getting going and I have lots of mental photos of cotton-sari-clad women planting handfuls of bright green baby rice stalks in the flooded fields. Unfortunately the ride is too bumpy for real photos.

The other day I saw my first roadkill. Not a squirrel, luckily not a cow, but sadly, a dog. The worst part: there were intestines. I also saw my first accident. Two transport trucks had collided and landed in the ditch. Didn’t see more details than that. Last, I saw my first incidence of road-rage. A guy on a motorbike swerved in front of the bus yelling at our driver. Apparently one of the patients in the back had spit out some pano (mix of herbs and spices wrapped in a leaf that you chew and spit, leaving your mouth and teeth stained an attractive dark red), and this attractive gob of red goo and seeds had landed on the front of his dress-shirt. Our driver suffered the blame and had to listen to some ranting as well as deftly avoid hitting the guy. On top of that, he (our driver) wasn’t feeling great and had just stopped to puke out the window. Rough day.

P.S. The volunteers who were here in fall just told me they had a nickname for the bus: the Vomitron.

Some more impressions

Feb 16
Kalinga Eye Hospital

A few things for now…

-It’s HOT now. And technically not even the start of summer yet. That’s a whole other kettle of fish reserved for March.

- I don’t think they quite understand the meaning of the word "chocolate" in Dhenkanal. Many fried snacks with the faintest hint of sweetness supposedly “taste like chocolate, yes?” They also call all the packaged candies “chocolates” – from the caramel kind to the mango variety to even those flavoured like cardamom.

- I’ve turned quasi-vegetarian! They eat meat but only a couple times a week, and I’ve realized I don’t even like it that much here. The veg dishes are just so tasty on their own, with lots of chickpeas etc for protein. That, and the meat is always random parts form the WHOLE animal… the other day at lunch I had to abandon my curry because of several chicken livers staring up at me. I just couldn’t do it.

- People here blatantly and happily pick their noses. I wish I lived in a country as free.

Watching surgery

Feb 15
Kalinga Eye Hospital

My first day in surgery is over! I think I’m exhausted but I can’t tell through the satisfaction. It’s been a long day – 3 hour OT in the morning (Operating Theatre, i.e. what the surgery sessions are called), and a 5.5 hour OT in the evening going until 11pm. Quite the initiation. I was by no means locked into staying the whole time but felt like staying. For the morning session I didn’t really do anything, just stood in the corner and watched, trying not to touch anything or breathe. Maybe that explains the bit of lightheadedness I got for the first half-hour (at least I didn’t faint… that would have caused some problems since there’s not really any extra space; I probably would have fallen onto a patient or a syringe or something). But I’d also been feeling nauseous that morning anyways – not great timing for your first surgery observation. However, once I started watching from up close rather than from the corner, I got really interested in the surgery and kicked the lightheadedness. True, it’s still an eyeball staring up at you (probably the most ‘human’ organ – it doesn’t let you forget it’s a person under that sheet), but the surgery is quick, routine, non-bloody, and it’s so damn satisfying to see the cataract come out.

During the morning session I also watched and tried to learn the basics of the whole OT procedure. It’s a well-oiled machine. Two patient beds, one expert surgeon swinging from patient to patient in under 10 minutes, two senior nurses doing direct assistance, one junior nurse doing prep and cleanup, two junior nurses doing all the non-sterile stuff, and me standing off to the side opening the lens packaging at the precise moment in the surgery. This got tedious pretty quickly so I tried to figure out the exact roles and timing of the two junior nurses. In the evening I was rewarded when I stepped up to fill some roles while one nurse was held up with paperwork in the corner. They definitely don’t OFFER to let you help, so I had to be speedily aggressive at the right moment. Apparently they thought I did well; for the rest of the evening I got to help with various stages – supplying acetone for the surgeon in between patients, moving the foot pedal of the cauterizing machine, opening the lens, taping the final bandage, and removing dirty cover sheets. However, this gets pretty monotonous too (and so much standing is tiring, especially when you are in flip flops – or worse, bare feet for 5.5 hours). The satisfaction comes from knowing you are doing a meticulous, efficient job, and also staying alert and sensitive to the needs of the other nurses or surgeon. I call it an exercise in concentration in the midst of monotony. And if you ever get truly bored, you can just go stand beside the surgeon and imagine yourself with the scalpel in hand – that’s enough to inspire anyone. But I didn’t get bored. I loved it.

My work

Cows and curry are all very nice, but it’s time I wrote a little about what I’m actually doing here. It’s my fifth day based at the eye hospital and so far I’ve done three days of eye camps, 1 full day at the hospital, and 1 day on the internet (today, could you guess?). Overall, I have seen more than I ever expected.

The hospital runs rural eye camps every day or two to both screen for cataract/disease and test children’s visual acuity. A doctor, an ophthalmic assistant or refractionist, and one ophthalmic nurse set up to test the long lines of elderly (or other) patients who have gathered at the village school. At the same time, two ophthalmic nurses go around to the different classrooms, testing each student’s eyesight with Snellen charts (those lines of letters you read over and over at the optometrist’s). I’ve been observing and helping a bit with both. My first day I simply watched; my biggest contribution was probably the masking tape I procured from my bag for sticking up the eye charts. However, I now get to help with nurse duties like measuring blood pressure and intra-ocular pressure (they definitely don’t have the automatic IOP machine like the one I used in Kingston, but the small hand-held one works just fine), and I’ve also helped with the school screenings. Pointing to different letters on a chart all day could get boring, but luckily the students are all so curious about having a westerner in their midst that I stay amused by smiling at them and watching them hide their faces or giggle.

The hospital is pretty neat. It’s crazily efficient from diagnosis all the way up to surgery. In addition to doing some regular appointments for paying patients with various eye troubles or refractive error, they also push through 10’s of cataract patients per day, for free. They are brought from the rural eye camps by bus, stay one or two nights in the in-patient rooms with meals provided (no beds but that’s the norm here), have their operation, recover, and are returned home with antibiotic drops and temporary glasses. For some reason, I am allowed to observe and help at all these stages. Never would I get this kind of opportunity, free of restrictions, in Canada, so I feel really lucky. Although I’m not exactly going to learn the technical side of cataract surgery in 14 days here, I do get to observe it if I choose, talk to the doctors, staff and patients, and help with minor things like prep and bandaging.

I don’t feel all that useful right now since there are so many qualified people around and things run smoothly already, but it’s neat to see. Hopefully the report I write at the end will be useful, as the fundraising money I sent definitely will be. That seems to be their biggest obstacle right now – simple funding. So if you’re in the Kingston area you can expect to see me holding a few more bake-sales in March/April! Other than that, I really wish I could help on the patient-interaction side of things. While the medical side runs very well, it seems like the patients often get lost in the shuffle. I wish I had the language skills to talk with them, reassure them, answer their questions, and provide guidance or simply a listening ear. That’s the part that the staff don’t seem to have time for, or don’t want to have time for (maybe that’s a reality of all hospital settings). Sometimes, I can see myself slipping into a mind-set of ‘patients as objects to be treated’ (especially since I can’t understand their conversations and therefore have a hard time understanding their personalities), so this is something that I want to be conscious of in the future. In that sense, this volunteership has already accomplished something.

Today, after this reflection, I visited the in-patient wards and talked with several elderly patients, with translation help from one of the staff. They seemed really happy to be able to share their stories with someone and were also excited to pose for photos. When Janardan, the translator, left for a while, we hung out on the mats together and tried to communicate as much as we could (lots of laughing), settling for a song sung by one of the old men when we’d exhausted my range of topics of conversation. A very excellent morning.

Some impressions

Feb 11

- Cows are everywhere. Instead of squirrels or the odd raccoon running around on the lawns, it’s cows. Grazing. And in the streets, more cows - fighting, walking, crapping, standing, getting in the way of traffic and threatening to become rather large road-kill… Except cows are so sacred here even the most impatient driver wouldn’t dare touch one. (On the topic of cow sacredness, I made the very rude mistake of mentioning I eat beef in Canada. Everyone’s always so interested in what I eat, asking, “What are you taking for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? You take rice? You take meat? What kind of meat?”… and so it just kind of slipped out. In a town where tourists - and westerners in general - are pretty much non-existent, the idea that people eat cows was a shock, I think.) So yes, there are many cows here. It was part of the reason I knew I had landed in the right country.

- It’s still really dusty everywhere. Town is even dustier than the villages!

- I saw my first cloud yesterday. The rest of the time it’s been pure blue sky – although white near the horizon due to lighting or something in the atmosphere. Temperature: 15 at night, 25 during the day. 30 in the sun. Dry. Perfect.

- Garbage is everywhere. Even the hospital staff throw bandages and wrappers on the floor when they miss the wastebasket and don’t bother to get up. At rural eye camps, they ditch the used medical supplies out the window. At first I was shocked, but when I looked out the window and saw a pile of garbage already there, I figured the antibiotic-soaked cotton balls are probably the cleanest thing around.

- There is no privacy. In the morning the girls or the cook bang on my door to bring me tea, or shove a mirror in my face to say “good morning, here’s your smiling face!” In the evening my room is also fair game if I haven’t bolted it. And during the day, especially when I’m the office computer, I usually have 1-5 people standing around watching what I write or type. I never want to send them away so I just keep writing and hope they don't notice I'm writing about them. Although once at an eye camp, the presiding doctor asked to read my notes – which contained one part about how “Dr. Parida has a nicer tone with his patients than I would have expected.” I don’t know whether he actually read that part, or if he did, if he took it as an insult or a compliment. I didn’t ask.

- Everyone here has a large affinity for the colour pink. For guys’ shirts, pink is the new blue. And we’re talking bright pink. Most of the girls also say pink is their favourite colour. “But not dark pink,” they say, “light pink!” and they point to my skin. As in, PALE.


- In India you don’t nod your head to indicate ‘yes’. Instead, it’s a funny tilt of the head and a nod sideways instead. At first I thought people were trying to scratch their ear with their shoulder. Now I quite like it and think I will continue using it in Canada.

Boriya aichee (the food is tasty)

Feb 11
3:30 pm
Kalinga Eye Hospital, Dhenkanal

Here it finally is, my first post about FOOD. How much longer do you think I could have held out?

I don’t know how everyone isn’t 300 lbs around here - the food is fantastic. Yes, I’m a sucker for Indian in general but this stuff is awesome. I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to eat the sweet, meaty dhansak, korma and madras of Curry Original any more without craving the tasty veggie dishes of Dhenkanal. The usual is rice with dhal, and some curry or chutney or fried veggies on the side. Chapati (roti) is also standard breakfast fare. I’ve had some great market food too (and no market belly problems!):
- dosa for 6 rupees (that’s 18 cents Cdn; who knew you could beat Johor Bharu prices, eh Em?)
- bora (fried and delicious)
- breadchop (also fried… danger, danger)
-gupchu (strange crunchy spheres stuffed with a potato mixture and some tangy water, assembled as you wait with a leaf-cup in hand)
- chaat (which I can only describe as the Indian equivalent of nachos – tomatoey yet crunchy with bits of chips and things, but no cheese and instead, lots of veggies and way more chili spicy-goodness that the little jalopenos in Canada!)

I am also in love with the dining style: a test of speed, and truly hands-on. I’m afraid my little sojourn in India won’t have helped my shoveling tendencies… everyone here finishes meals in less than 10 minutes with the hand flying non-stop between the rice, dhal or curry, and mouth. I am now proficient at this no-cutlery method, and I can even scoop up the last liquids of curry or dhal with my fingers! Lots of slurping involved.

The only problem with the food so far has been the amount. No one listens when I say I’m full (“peto puri la” or “dhorkha nhai” or simply “nein” – NO!). They just keep dumping in the dhal, the rice, the curry. It’s probably also the culture. I’ve noticed that even in restaurants there’s no such thins as a ‘serving’, they just keep topping you up until you hold out your hand to refuse. My hosts here also love to give me food between meals (in the market… at neighbours’ parties… snacks from the kitchen…). Finally, after a stretch where I had five meals one day and four the next, all larger than I’m used to, I decided I had to say something. And loudly.

Success! The cook now waits for me to come into the kitchen before heaping my plate full, and last night I successfully refused dinner after a satiating evening at the market food stalls. I will therefore probably come home only 10 pounds heavier, instead of 100.

P.S. I will try to learn some tricks from the cook here so I can share the deliciousness when I get back

Initiation to Indian transit

Tues Feb 7
Pingua Eye Camp

I rode an Indian bus for the first time today. Granted, it was only the Kalinga Eye Hospital bus and not a public bus, but it still counts. Why? Because, a) I was dirtier when I got off than when I got on, and b) at least three people threw up. (P.S. Cait, that 'a)' and 'b)' is just for you!) We were on the way home from the eye camp, and the bus was filled with old men and little old ladies being taken into town for cataract surgery. When I say ‘filled’, I mean filled. They were squished 3 or 4 to a seat (while I comfortably shared my seat only with Sasmita, one of the ophthalmic nurses, who was asleep on my shoulder). Many other patients were sitting on the steps or in the aisle on little round stools. Only later did I realize they weren’t stools but upside-down, flat-bottomed plastic bowls. I figured out this pertinent fact when I heard a strange horking noise behind me, turned around, and saw the old women behind me vomiting into one of them. During the course of the 3-hour ride back to town, at least 2 others followed suit. (On a sombre, heavier note, they lost one of the two meals they can afford each day, and the cause was probably not simple motion sickness but more severe and persistent gastrointestinal problems.) However, no one seemed fazed by it, including myself - even when a woman spit up on the steps in front of me and some spray landed on my foot. It was only saliva by that point, the poor woman.

Fri Feb 10

I have lots to write and many posts already in the works but thought I’d drop a line and upload quickly now. For those wondering, I’m no longer very lonely! It’s still difficult at times living in a culture where I can’t communicate very easily, but the positives are outweighing the rough spots. The people here are terrific. It’s hard to stay lonely for long when you have five girls sitting around you braiding your hair, lying on your lap, and making fun of your attempts at Oriya.

More soon!

First week's update

Note: For at least the first week of my placement, I’m based in the middle of nowhere… so although I was bragging about my ability to find internet anywhere, anytime, it looks like that won’t be the case. Instead, I’m keeping a journal on pen & paper or the office computer and will upload the entries whenever I find an internet connection.

Jan 31
5:00 pm
From the Director’s office laptop in Bhubaneswar

I had expected my trip here to be more of a hassle. When I booked my flight with Aeroflot Russian Airlines, it was against the advice of not only my travel agent ("they have bad service, yes"), but also a random, muttering Indian man I'd met at the Toronto Indian Consulate in December. According to this guy, I'd be lucky if I didn't end up sitting next to someone who chain-smoked for the whole 20+ hour voyage.
-"But I thought all flights nowadays are non-smoking?"
-"Yes but believe me, on Russian Airlines it's the pilot who gets to decide."
I decided not to believe him, since (a) our conversation had begun when he'd swivelled towards me while mid-sentence in conversation with the other stranger on his left, apparently cutting his losses and looking for a fresh audience for his rambling, and (b) his other stories included some garbled nonsense about his kitchen tap. Legitimate warnings or not, I booked Aeroflot Russian Airlines with the justification that as a student I would embrace both the cheap price AND any bad service/smokers/delays/or adventures that came along.

Surprisingly, or fortunately, the flight was awesome. They didn't have movies but I slept the whole way anyways (thanks to the inflatable neck pillow from Tom's dad); the food was fine (no borscht); I got to chat with a woman from Siberia; the layover in Moscow allowed me to actually see some real snow for a change; and the airline didn't even lose my luggage! The only 'bad service' was some fighting between the Russian stewardesses and various Indian passengers who didn't like to stow their carry-on suitcases in the overhead compartments, or remain seated after landing.
Stewardess: "You must poot eet een the stowage."
Indian woman: -blank stare
Stewardess: "You must poot eet een the stowage."
Indian woman: -another blank stare
Stewardess: "You must poot eet een the stowage."
Indian woman: -still another blank stare
Stewardess: "Do you not understand me?"
Indian woman’s husband: -grabbing suitcase in a huff “I understand you perfectly... don't you have other people to attend to?"
The only other incidents were a couple late take-offs, with didn't bother me since the only things I was late for were various multi-houred layovers in different airports.

After 21 hours sitting on planes and in waiting areas, I arrived in Delhi at 2 am. My final leg of the trip: sitting in the Delhi airport for 6 more hours until I could phone and meet my travel agent, grab a return taxi ride downtown to chat with him about train schedules and travel itineraries (for March), and then hop on Indian Airlines for a short flight across to Bhubaneswar in the afternoon (during which I finished drafting this post).

The first 4 hours in Delhi between 2 am and 6 am went nicely, sitting with a book inside the peaceful sanctuary of Baggage Claim during its dead hours. When I finally got restless, I decided I should head through Customs and brave the taxis, money changers and telephone system. Turns out Customs itself needed the most bravery. Three agents immediately descended on my luggage, possibly because one was a giant clear plastic Rubbermaid container filled with 650 pairs of brand new sunglasses.

What were these for? Was I selling them? I was donating them to poor people? Where was the documentation? Why did my documentation letter say 'the gift is sealed legally for donation'? There were no such seals on the box, see?

They told me I needed documentation from an Indian organization, not an American one. They told me I would have to pay large taxes, or leave the glasses there, or go to an office later that day to apply for an extension, and that the extension would take 3-4 days. (I was flying across the country the same afternoon.) Then they started trying on pairs (and I think quietly approving of their stylishness), and noticed old price tags. Why was I donating them when the tag said $24?? After trying my best to get information and figure out if there was anything I could do (talk to someone? Phone the NGO in Bhubaneswar? Remove all the offending price tags?), I finally burst into tears. At this point, the man in charge suddenly waved me through the Customs gate. As I tried to say "don't mind me... I didn't want to cause trouble... I'm really sorry...", they pushed me through with my crate of sunglasses. I guess all you have to do to get into India with sketchy goods is look really pitiful. But for any future UFS volunteers, if crying doesn't work, I'd say definitely try bribery - with some of those damn fashionable glasses.

The rest of the day went smoothly. India is awesome. More later.

alyss.

P.S. There’s a pigeon doing courtship vocalizations on the windowsill outside. Makes me feel slightly at home.


Feb 1
2:00 pm
NYSASDRI’s Santhasara Campus

It’s Day 1 and I’m already faced with some tough decisions. What I’d expected to do here was vision screening, eye health education, and help out in the eye hospital. It turns out that in my four weeks here, the directors of NYSASDRI (the local NGO that Unite For Sight hooked me up with) have ambition plans for me to visit five locations and investigate and report on no fewer than eight separate development programs which they run. Not only do I hate report-writing, but I was looking forward to lots of hands-on interaction and helping directly rather than observing and information-gathering. However, I think it would be an incredibly valuable experience to see what goes on in the various areas of developmental work here, not just limited to health care. NYSASDRI’s programs include women’s self-help groups and economic collectives, non-formal education programs (“Joyful Education”) both for children and for adult literacy, agricultural demonstration plots and irrigation construction, a joint public/private hospital, the eye hospital, a sponsorship program for the elderly, a family counselling centre, and a shelter for destitute women. I’m not exactly sure how useful they expect my reports to be, given my limited time and the sizable communication barrier (I find it really hard to understand even the English-speakers!), but I’m tempted to trust their judgement and consider it. It’s time to sit down and think hard about what I want to get out of this volunteership and what I can offer.

Feb 1
5:30 pm
Santhasara campus

Back to this language barrier issue. My Hindi tutor/squash partner Namrata asked me before I left if I was good at interpreting the Indian English accent. I told her I didn’t know, but I was sure I would adjust quickly. That definitely hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been alternating between open embarrassment when I constantly ask people to repeat themselves, and hidden embarrassment when I play along and pretend I can understand the more advanced English speakers’ rapid-fire sentences that end up sounding like Oriya anyways. (Oriya is the local language, of which I now know 9 words/phrases!) I’m hoping I’m still in the adjustment stage (it IS only the second day), and that in 6 weeks I’ll come home an expert in interpretation of even the strongest Indian accents. For now, I’m focusing on identifying the differences between Canadian and Indian pronounciation – for example, I asked, “how do you say, ‘I’m full’?”, and my coordinator Dhiren looked confused for a while until he said, “oh, you mean, how do you say ‘you’re pool’?” – so I will probably also come home an expert in imitation.

Feb 2

There’s a dog outside my window that sounds like a cross between a squeaky door and a crow. It’s very young and doesn’t have a mother. Looks like nature’s played a cruel imprinting joke on the little guy.

Feb 4
10:30 am
Santhasara Campus

The campus I’m staying at is lovely, if isolated. There are flowers everywhere, trees of every sort (teak, mango, jackfruit, and lots I don’t know – quite the arboretum), buildings with red and yellow walls, and small plots of corn, cabbage, green onion…

It’s also a total oasis. On my first morning I peeked over a wall surrounding the teak forest and saw only plains of dusty earth with a few shrubs disappearing in the distance into some trick of the early morning light. Yesterday I went walking outside the campus walls and did a loop around the perimeter, about 1 km in total. It’s dry plains practically the whole way around. On one side there is a quasi forest, but it has only large old trees spaced widely apart with no understory or other growth at all, only bare, hard earth. Old women and men from nearby villages spend their days sweeping the fallen leaves into piles, to gather into sacks and use as fuel for their cooking fires. Their backs are in pretty rough shape.

There are villages all around, judging from the chanting and singing I hear early every morning from all directions across the plains. I’ve visited the nearest one, which consists of thatched clay huts and smells of pungent smoke. For some reason it surprised me when a girl pulled out a cell phone. However, she said it’s usually hard to get a connection.

We also have difficulty with the electricity supply – it’s been out more than a third of the time. The landline phones are fine but I don’t have a calling card yet, and haven’t been able to email the number to Tom and my parents yet. I’ll ask if I can get a quick hookup today through the phoneline. That is, if the power doesn’t cut out again. Oh wait, the power storage device under my desk has started beeping again. Looks like it’s gone again until who-knows-when.

Feb 6
10:30 am
Santhasara Campus

I'm lonely. I try to pretend I'm not but there it is. I just heard that my parents called the main office and will try to call here sometime today, and I just about cried. But I'm staying busy (report-writing day!) so hopefully I'll kick this loneliness thing soon! Miss you all.

love

alyss.