Letters From Delhi

Back in Jersey

2008-08-17T12:16:00.004+05:30

Hi everyone,

I've been back in New Jersey since getting in at 4:30am on Thursday morning. I missed celebrating my birthday here in the States (and Continental didn't think it was worth giving me first class for), but more or less it was a pretty smooth flight. I've been battling jet lag and this weird sickness that has left me with a runny nose and crazy bouts of sneezing - but hopefully it'll pass over the next couple of days.

When talking about traveling overseas and coming back to the US, I've always heard of the topic "reverse culture shock," meaning the culture shock that you get when you return to your home country after being away for a certain amount of time. I have to say that during the last two or three weeks of my trip, I really felt like I started to click with the lifestyle I was living in India and that it became less of a "this is temporary" lifestyle. I had a routine of everyday things, didn't have to worry about what I would be eating for dinner or how to get from point A or point B, and really started to feel like I was getting to know a lot of the people around me both at work and outside of work. It's sad that things had to end so quickly after they were working out so well!

There have been some adjustments coming back to the US. I haven't been in such a quiet environment (my house...and my town) in a while. Nor have I seen a grocery store the size of Shop Rite or cars as big as American SUV's. To reference the sizes of cars, a Toyota Corola is considered a big car in India. Even as I've been driving around over the past couple of days, it's been tempting to honk my horn expecting the person in front of me to yield to me and the drive with the assumption that no police officer is going to pull me over.

But more or less, things will be moving quickly and I will be going back to Ann Arbor this Thursday. Even though I'm back in the States, there are still a couple things that I wanted to write about regarding the last couple of days and some conclusions that I came while overseas, so it might sound like I'm writing as if I'm still there. But for everyone that has been reading, thanks for stopping by and I'm looking forward to talking with some of you about your thoughts and my experiences!

"India's Goldfinger"

2008-08-13T12:35:00.007+05:30

Today is my last day in India. I arrived back safely from Hyderabad last night and stayed with a friend for a night. This morning, we woke up and made omelets and watched the Olympics together. The papers have been raving about Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian to win an individual goal medal ever. Since cricket dominates the sports scene across the entire country - many people have never really considered India to be a sporting nation. Abhinav's win was huge for the entire country, it represents a step towards legitimizing India in world sports outside of cricket. He won his medal in the 10m air rifle - I watched the final round from my hotel room in Warangal. On the last shot of the round, he was tied with a shooter from Finland. One last shot to determine gold. Bindra shot a 10.8 - a really good score, while the shooter from Finland marked under 10, a big disappointment considering he was leading most of the way. All media has been going crazy and the endorsements have been flowing in for this Indian hero.

Since my flight is at 10:50pm tonight, I have the day to roam around one last time and finally do some shopping. I'm going to give my bargaining skills a test and see how much I can get with the last couple thousand of rupees I have left (you can't bring rupees outside of the country). Alvida!!

Testing My Travel Luck

2008-08-08T15:29:00.004+05:30

Today is my last day in the New Delhi office of the Public Health Foundation of India. I will be leaving for Hyderabad in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh this Sunday because our organization happens to be hosting a conference on "public health education in low and middle income countries" from August 12-14th. Even though I am coming back to the United States on the 13th, I still wanted to check the conference out for the sake of being able to hear at least a couple big public health figures speak as well as see another city/region of India.

Originally, I was going to meet up with a person from an organization called Acumen Fund, but it turns out she's going to be in Pakistan so it didn't work out. I luckily came across something else though. When I was having dinner with Dr. Seetharam last week, he introduced me to one of his friends who founded an organization called Modern Architects for Rural India. The people working in the organization are not "architects" per se, in that they are not designing buildings and building bridges in rural India. Instead, they refer to themselves as being "social architects," guiding people through different challenges in development work and designing initiatives that meet their needs. From what I've heard and read so far, they work ranges in areas ranging from HIV/AIDS to microcredit enterprise to sustainable agricultural development. Mr. Murali, founder of MARI, has agreed to let me visit some of the sites of the organization for two days, which is awesome news considering it will be a lot on the lines of what I saw when I was in Karnataka and Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement.

The travel schedule is going to be a little crazy. It will be a huge success if everything goes smoothly, but since I'll be new to the area, I'm a little nervous as to how everything is going to pan out. Because I'm not interested in spending 3,000 rupees to get around between Hyderabad and MARI (I should be brave enough to try some more conventional, everyday forms of transportation now), I'll have to try some new forms of transportation, like bus and train. I spent a couple hours at work today planning it out, so hopefully all will go as planned.

Sunday -
-7:30am flight from New Delhi to Hyderabad
-9:15am arrival into Hyderabad
-take bus from Hyderabad airport into city (about 1-1.5 hour ride without traffic)
-sight see around the city, try some biryani (Hyderabad special), shop for friends and family (I heard pearls are the specialty here, but can cost over 100,000 rupees).
-6:00pm get to the Secunderabad Train Station (hopefully I don't go to the wrong one, there's three) and get ready to board my train
-6:55 train leaves for Warangal (location of MARI)
-9:00pm train arrives into Warangal, take auto-rickshaw to hotel
-rest up and get ready for Monday!

Monday-day for field visits to the following sites:
-Parakala and Warangal, sites for HIV/AIDS work
-lunch with a couple staff members
-Visit to tribal habitations, which is a sustainable agriculture project
-Visit to Annaram, a women enterprise group working on nutrition for sustainable development
-back to the hotel and get ready for Tuesday!

Tuesday-busy travel day, again.
-9:00am-10:00am meeting with Mr. Murali, founder and chief functionary of Modern Architects for Rural India
-10:30am catch bus from Warangal back into Hyderabad
-1:30pm arrive into Hyderabad, take auto-rickshaw to Taj Hotel in downtown. This is where our conference on public health education is being held.
-until 6:00pm, attend different lectures going on and say bye to colleagues, contacts, and friends that I've made over the past seven weeks
-6:00pm take taxi to Hyderabad airport, which is technically not in Hyderabad. Hopefully reach by 8:00pm.
-8:00pm check in for Air Deccan flight back to New Delhi
-8:55pm flight back to New Delhi
-11:00pm arrive into New Delhi, take another taxi to (insert new apartment here).

Since I only rented my new apartment in Gautam Nagar for one month, that means it technically ends this Sunday when I'm supposed to leave. That leaves me three days short before I leave India. I'm going to meet with the landlord today to see if I can keep my bags in my room for a couple days at no charge. If that doesn't work out (as in they make me pay an extra months rent for 3 days), I'll have to look around for a place to keep my stuff and a place to sleep on Tuesday night when I return from Hyderabad. Though this is my last day in the office, I still feel like I have quite an adventure before me!

Props if you read this far!

India in San Francisco

2008-08-07T16:36:00.013+05:30

I was looking through some of my old pictures from a while back at work today and I stumbled across this one, taken with a bunch of people I grew up with when we were on a missions project in the Tenderloin districts of San Francisco. I can't remember why we decided to stop and climb all over this India sign that was on the sidewalk somewhere, but I do remember a lot of homeless shelters, urban culture, and fireworks on the bay while we were there. When I saw this picture today, I asked myself, "what did you think and what did you know about India when you saw this on the sidewalk?" I probably would have said "cool sign" and "not much, besides many of my friends from high school are Indian and that there is a huge Hindu temple five minutes from my house." For anyone who's from the east coast and knows of Hindu temples in the region, I live in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

A lot has changed since this picture was taken in 2004. I've graduated high school and am about to enter my senior year like I was in this picture. I've learned a lot more about India and experienced it firsthand. I've traveled to a couple countries in the mean time and developed a sincere appreciation for experiencing and tasting other cultures. One thing hasn't changed though, I'm still roommates in Michigan with the guy sitting on the left. Hi Jon!

Wordle

2008-08-06T17:12:00.004+05:30

I found this nifty little website on a blog that I read once in a while on media, culture, and faith. The website is called Wordle, and it basically takes all the words on a particular website (in this case, I used my blog) and creates a word mirage based on the frequency of words used throughout the website. I was interested in what this website would look like if "wordled" so I gave it a try. I'm glad that "people" is amongst the biggest ones but I'm surprised at some of the larger words. At the end of my trip I'm going to do one final Wordle and see what were some of the most emphaisized things that I wrote about over the course of my trip.

Agra

2008-08-04T18:46:00.003+05:30

This past weekend, we finally made it to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It's about four hours away by car, so we were out on the road by 6:30am to get there before all the crowds arrived. A lot of people don't actually what it is. Some people think it's a temple, some a government building, but it's actually a tomb. It was built as a mausoleum by an emperor for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. I've heard different stories about the construction of the monument, that the emperor brought in thousands of workers and cut their hands off so that they couldn't build another beautiful structure like the Taj ever again.

There's a lot more than meets the eye when you look at the beautiful building. As we walked through it, we noticed a lot of inscriptions and carvings all over the walls and ceilings of the place. It turns out there are passages of the Quran written throughout. One other really interesting thing about the way the Taj was constructed is how the designs of all the flowers and designs were placed onto the stone marble structure. From far away, one might guess that maybe they were engraved or painted on, but what we learned was that every single flower and design was put together by what could end up being hundreds of small shards of different stones arranged in a particular pattern. Each stone had to be the exact color desired for the design and was hand cut to fit its exact place on the wall. We found out that a simple flower could have over a hundred tiny shavings put together to get the image of a flower.

We walked around outside the local Agra markets and stumbled across a shop that was making handicrafts in the same way the designs in the Taj Mahal were made. There were about eight guys sitting next to their wheels, carving tiny stones in precise shapes to make things like flowers and leaves to be placed on boxes and plates. The guy next to me is either telling me to "watch my hand" or "not to touch" (there were about 7 flowers laid out right next to me that hadn't been glued together yet).

Of course, our friend Caroline was like a celebrity again!

...I thought this was slightly humorous.

Group picture of the four of us - myself, Jin from UPenn med school, Caroline, and Emily from UPenn nursing and UMich alum 04!

Besides the Taj Mahal, the other big site to visit is the Agra Fort. It's similar to the Red Fort in New Delhi and was built in the 17th century as a military outpost. This picture is of the entrance once we entered. We heard that this fort was built specifically to have ambiguous entrances so that the enemy wouldn't know where to invade from.

As different rulers came to power over the course of history, each ruler decided to add different things to the fort. As we walked through, we saw things ranging from a mosque to a tomb. This was another space on the inside with intricate carvings and designs like we found at the Taj Mahal.

Picture of a pond inside of the fort. Just kidding! It's monsoon season and it rained really heavily for about an hour just as we were leaving the Taj. We felt bad for a couple reasons - one, the line to get in was really long just as it started to rain and two, the streets started flooding badly soon after the downpours came and our car probably splashed quite a few bikers and walkers trying to keep dry!

Culture Shock #1: Food

2008-08-01T19:28:00.004+05:30

While I would say that I experience some degree of culture shock every single day, there are certain recurring themes that are always there that remind me that I am away from home. One of the aspects is food. The other is family structure, but I'll save that for another time.

To highlight the shock that I experienced upon coming to India, I should describe my food situation in Ann Arbor, where I attend school. To get to a decent grocery store, you have to have a car. That, or you can take a 30 minute bus one way and carry all your groceries back to your place after another 30 minute bus ride back. As a result, eating fresh vegetables and fruits consistently was fairly difficult unless I bought things that lasted a long time, like carrots and grapefruit. But even then, I could only stir fry things so many ways before even that became old. To survive, I would end up eating out most of the time, often with friends or groups to catch up or talk over some particular issue. My favorite spots were Buffalo Wild Wings, TK Wu (Chinese restaurant), and No Thai (A "Thai" restaurant - but not quite). Not the healthiest spots to eat, but that's what a college student has to do to survive. For some reason I always tended to round out a day by making a stop of Pancheros or Big Ten (burrito joints) or ordering a late night special from NYPD (10inch pizza and large soda for 5.95 including delivery). Definitely not contributing years onto my life.

My diet in India has been completely different. To start, I've eaten meat probably about five times and since my visit to SVYM, I decided to give vegetarianism a try. Every dish is cleverly disguised with some sort of tasty spice or unique combination of vegetables that makes me forget about craving for meat. I always used to joke around in the beginning of my stay that I loved everything that I ate, but had no idea what I was eating. I would say that the difference vegetables make in the food here is that in the US, they would simply be a complement to the main course/dish that I would be eating whereas here it is the highlight of a particular dish that we'd be eating. You can't escape from vegetables!

Another thing that's different is the way people get their food. I haven't seen any Shop Rites or Kroger's or Meijers. The largest grocery store that I've seen is called Spencer's, and I can walk up and down the isles in about ten minutes. People always seem to buy a bag of vegetables here and another bag there, and often off the streets in a local market. I remember back to my first apartment where I lived for two weeks and how there was hardly any fresh fruits and vegetables in the fridge because Ramu or Haresh would buy them fresh nearly everyday. On the note of freshness, I was shocked when someone at work this week couldn't believe that I was eating leftovers that were 24 hours old. Apparently the night before is fine, but the day before is inconceivable! I responded by telling her that normally, if it doesn't have mold or fungi, it's fair game. You can guess her response...

People are so disciplined about their food too, at least the people that I've met. It's accepted that everyone eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During the school year, I almost never ate breakfast, unless I managed to stay up late enough to make a 6am Denny's run. They also eat lunch and dinner a little later than I would be used to as well (lunch at around 1-2pm and dinner after 8:30-9pm). When I got my body type done by the Ayurvedic doctor at SVYM, I was told that for my "body type," I should stick to regular meals high in salty foods, fruits, and vegetables. While the vegetarian decision hasn't been too bad at all here in New Delhi, I'm questioning how easy it will be to maintain when my dad does his special recipe bbq for the family when I get back!

Off to the Taj Mahal this weekend!

Nothing can beat this meal right now. Meals typically have some type of bread (naan or roti), a "daal" (which is any dish that has pulses/legumes/nitrogen fixing plants...aka potatoes, lentils, chickpeas), a dry curry/gravy dish, and what people usually call "salad" which is usually tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers cut into several pieces. Those green peppers at the top are really spicy. They say the smaller they are, the hotter for your mouth. My record in one sitting is five!

I got to visit Dr. Seetharam from SVYM who's in Delhi for a conference. He was staying at a pretty nice hotel, where they converted these old train cars into actual rooms. They were quite comfortable.

Inside one of the train cars/Dr. Seetharam's room.

Meeting the People Where They Are - Part 2 (for fans of Partners in Health)

2008-07-29T09:56:00.004+05:30

I arrived safely back into New Delhi on Sunday evening, no problems. The security at Bangalore airport was pretty intense – I had my bags searched multiple times and boarding pass checked many more times than normal. They almost confiscated all of my camera batteries that weren’t already loaded into the camera (I had about 15). All in all, it was smooth and there weren’t any problems.

My time at Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement was one of those experiences where you look back and you say, “That was only one week?” I guess I’d say that because each and every single day that I was there was filled with opportunities and chances to take part in something I had never seen before. Whether it was the hospital rounds or mobile clinics or trips to the ayurvedic hospital, each stop along the way taught me something about the vision of the organization. I’ve been able to see how coming in with the desire to observe public health initiatives, that “public health” is so much more than what can be fit in the confines of a hospital or office.

I mentioned Partners in Health because many people are familiar with Dr. Paul Farmer’s organization and have read Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement began with the very same vision and reason – tribals living in the rural areas of south Karnataka were flooded out of their homes by the construction of a dam in the areas where they were living. Out of compassion and concern for their healthcare – a group of doctors in the 80’s began SVYM to provide healthcare to these tribals with whatever it took.

But they realized after a couple years that treating the needs of these people with their medical skills could only do so much. What happens if you treat a child for diarrhea and he went back to his village and drank the very same dirty water and got sick again? What if an entire generation of girls grew up and none of them could read? How could you teach people that the polio vaccine was something to save you from a potentially life threatening disease and not a way to make you infertile?

And so they started schools. They began promoting clean sanitation and water practices. They envisioned creative initiatives to teach women about family planning and ante-natal care. For many of the tribals and non-tribals alike, there were many obstacles that needed to be overcome before a sincere trust in SVYM was garnered. But for every obstacle, there was an innovative solution devised that was alongside the vision. People were taught that it was okay and desirable to have a toilet in the vicinity of their house. People were charged a mere 2 rupees to reinforce the value of seeking healthcare even if nothing was wrong with them.

One of the simplest but profound lessons that I learned at my one week at SVYM started even before I got on the plane to Bangalore. I’d once heard a story of a group of aid workers in Africa who decided to bless the tribals they were working with by giving them a huge batch of eggs as a gift. Delighted, the tribals accepted the eggs and consequently killed all of their chickens for food, not realizing that the eggs given to them by the workers would eventually run out. When they finished their eggs, they were left with a huge challenge that the workers were not there to help them through – how were they going to get more eggs? Similarly, I heard a story like this one at SVYM. At one point, the government had allotted a certain amount of money for the construction of toilets in the rural areas. The people were left asking though, “What’s a toilet?” “Why would I want that?” “Where am I going to get the water to flush it?”

The simple lesson to learn here is that development, aid, medical, whatever work to people must meet the needs of the people. It’s not that the intentions of the African workers or the Government of India were bad. They probably meant the best for the people they were serving. But somewhere along the line, there was a mishap in understanding the true needs of the people they intended to help. And that was one of the most valuable take-aways from SVYM. Every initiative, program, and extended arm to the community was created with one purpose: meeting the needs of the people in the surrounding communities.

So what’s next? I’m not really sure. I was having dinner with Sridevi and Seetharam’s family the night before I left and I remember asking the same question. Before I left for India, I got to meet with a professor in Michigan’s School of Social Work and I remember inquiring about any possible work opportunities in the fall. He mentioned the plethora of grassroots initiatives that he was involved in across southeast Michigan and that there were plenty of opportunities for students who wanted to take up a project for themselves. He even pointed to a box of robotics Legos kit that he was hoping to use to start an after school program for kids at a local low-income middle school. Somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t offered a regular eight hour a week job, I nodded and told him I would keep in touch.

But thinking back the lessons taken from SVYM – I’d have to say that I’m seriously reconsidering that box of Legos Robotics for this upcoming fall!

Here are some last pictures from my final days at SVYM:

I decided to extend my stay for one extra day, which turned out to be a pretty good decision because it would’ve been pretty hectic to fly out of Bangalore the day after the bomb attacks. On Saturday, I went on a mobile again, this time into the deep forests of Karnataka, bordering the state of Kerala. I was told that this mobile was almost like a mini-safari, with elephants, tigers, leopards, deer, and water buffalo galore. I saw everything except for tigers and leopards (luck is really on your side if you do). Here are a pack of elephants that we ran into the first fifteen minutes after entering the forest.

A shot of child getting medical treatment. Life for the tribals in the forest is very tough. I was told that many people survive on one meal a day – there are just very few viable economic opportunities around. I noticed throughout the day that there was a pattern of conditions that we were encountering throughout the day. Many of the children were coming to us with fungal and parasitic infections, like scabies. Many of the women were coming with conditions related to ante-natal care. For the children with the fungal and parasitic infections, the reason for developing such conditions is none other than poor sanitation and hygiene. You can see why there is a great need for education and advocacy campaigns to prevent these preventable conditions.

On the way back from the mobile clinic, I asked one of the health facilitators what a tree house (there were many on every field) was doing in the middle of India (I assumed they were for kids to play in). Turns out that these are real tree houses used to protect the crops from animals eating and trampling over their crops. People sleep in the tree houses at night and if any destructive animal were to come around, they would throw noise making devices onto the ground to scare them away.

Shot with all the doctor's kids that lived next to me. On my first day I came to them, asking them to play cricket. I got to hit my first couple of balls ever - and got destroyed by the bowling of the 8 year old standing right next to my right arm.

Final shot with Dr. Sridevi and Dr. Seetharam's family. They have two kids Amritha and Sriram, a housekeeper named Sughita, and Dr. Sridevi's grandma living them as well. Dr. Seetharam is coming to New Delhi this week for a meeting so hopefully we'll get to meet up and talk over dinner!

Design for the Other 90%

2008-07-28T17:37:00.004+05:30

About a year ago, I stumbled upon a website called Design For the Other 90%. Intrigued by the uniqueness of its name, I followed the links and discovered a wealth of innovation and ingenuity that were harnessed for serving the poor. The premise was that the majority of designs in today's day and age are created for only 10% of today's population - ignoring the other 90% of the world who are often in greatest need for creativity and craftsmanship for everyday problems. The website showcased products spread across several categories pertinent to everyday issues that the world's poor face: water, energy, shelter, among others.

One of the cool products I read up on was called the Lifestraw. Because clean water is not easily accessed in many parts of the world, the effects of waterborne conditions encountered because of low quality water are vast and wide-ranging. If I remember from my International Health class this past year correctly, diarhea is the number one killer of children around the world. The Lifestraw is designed to turn any body of water into a sufficiently clean water for drinking. It's shaped like a straw and designed to be sturdy and recognizable. Another product I remember reading about was the Big Boda Bicycle - which is designed to allow local merchants to carry a significantly greater load between destinations. Since bicycles are one of the primary mode of transportation in the developing world, one can understand the convenience factor and efficiency advantages to having such a bicycle. The beautiful thing about all the products on Design for the Other 90% is that every item has been specifically designed and engineered for the needs of the poor and the people that are using them. There was a thought process that occurred and took into account the context by which the products would be best utilized.

At SVYM, the Design for the Other 90% idea became real for me. On Friday, I got to visit a school in the rural areas of H.D. Kote. SVYM has been involved in the education of kids in schools all around the rural areas of their headquarters in Saragur. As part of that initiative, they helped donate funds to construct a see-saw that pumps water out of the ground into a large storage tank on the roof of the school while kids are rocking back and forth. Instead of having to hand operate a pump of some sort to store enough water for the school's use, a simple recess session can instead provide enough water for the school to use for its bathrooms, canteen, and other water-related applications. Although these see-saws aren't being built in every school around, I couldn't help but be reminded of the innovation and uniqueness of the idea that represents one step further towards educating people about the importance of the availability and quality of one's water supply.

We were there on Friday for the inauguration of the see-saw, among other things around the school grounds. The kids were loving the new toy, and as we walked around, we saw different areas that SVYM had contributed to for the education of the children in the areas of water and sanitation. During the ceremony, some adults decided to jump on and contribute the pumping of water into the storage tank as well!

The see saw. You can't really see the pump because the plants are blocking it. Kids were jumping all around it having a good time - and pumping water at the same time as well.

As I went around to take pictures of the see-saw from different angles, kids started to follow me. Eventually, they began to stand in front of what I wanted to photograph (the see-saw).

The water tank that water from the see-saw gets pumped into. It holds enough water for everything the school needs for day-to-day functions.

A photo of the bathroom at the school. One of the obstacles that SVYM had to overcome initially in its promotion of toilets over no toilets was convincing the people that it was safe and acceptable to have a bathroom in the vicinity of buildings. The thought of having a bathroom inside of a building was looked upon as undesirable and disgusting. This bathroom was right next to the school - and had a covering as well as a collecting pool (on the left) for water used for flushing.

Situation in Bangalore

2008-07-26T22:53:00.004+05:30

If you've read the world news in the past day or two, you might have come across a story on bomb blasts that have been occurring across India over the past couple of days. On Friday, a series of eight low-intensity bombs exploded across Bangalore, killing two people and injuring several others. Today, serial blasts ripped through the western city of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat, killing 15. This level of bomb attacks has occurred in India several times in the last couple of years, most recently and prominently in Jaipur a couple of months ago. Apparently, they are designed to cause civil unrest and instability and may have a connection between Hindu and Muslim tensions.

All in all, I am safe. I am not staying anywhere close to the bomb attacks and will take utmost caution when I travel back to New Delhi soon. I decided to extend my stay here at SVYM without prior knowledge to these attacks in Bangalore to check out the Saturday mobile. I'll update on the final wrap-up of my time at SVYM when I return back to Delhi!

Go Blue!

2008-07-24T15:07:00.023+05:30

The past couple of days have been great. On Tuesday, I missed the hysterectomy to go on a mobile clinic into the tribal areas. It was a full day experience with a doctor named Dr. Suman, a community health worker, a pharm tech, and myself packed into a van stocked with enough drugs and medical supplies to last us for the day and drove out for hours into the rural villages of Karnataka. We stopped in about 10 villages total, with people coming to our van with anything from acne to infected wounds. Some people came complaining of a particular ailment, but after a quick consultation from Dr. Suman, she would end up prescribing them a placebo drug - a multivitamin! She explained to me that this practice is not simply lying to the patient and tricking them - it reinforces the practice of actively seeking healthcare, something that is not as ingrained in the culture of the tribals. When we drove through the villages - many of the people and especially the children would stare at me. I would wave, and some children would wave back. Others might run and hide. But when I took my camera out and started taking pictures, the children opened up right away and were really excited to see pictures of themselves when I showed them on the screen.

My first picture at the stop. About 8 or so kids.

My second. Twenty or so kids. They went crazy every time I showed them their picture on the screen.

I thought to myself, "What would happen if I showed them the screen and took their picture?!" Unfortunately, after this picture, I started to fear for some of the little kids' saftey (you can see some of the kids in the front are sort of getting crushed by the excited kids on top).

At one point, eight or so guys were lined up next to me on a fence ledge. When I pointed my camera to take the picture of these guys, everyone that was below ran and tried to get in the picture. The line of kids standing in the back was probably ten or so kids.

Typical shot of the mobile clinic. We would normally have a couple patients, and a lot of kids that were curious as to what we were doing there.

On Wednesday, I got to visit the tribal hospital that specializes in Ayurvedic medicine called Kenchnahalli. Ayurveda is another philosophy of medicine that is practiced mainly in India. It is different from typical western styles of allopathic medicine in that it involves a lot of herbal medicines, yoga and meditation, and personalizatio based on your own body type. SVYM uses in Ayurveda in conjunction with allopathic medicine, especially to treat chronic conditions and in situations where ayurveda might be the better solution to the medical condition. Since I was visiting - the people thought it would be a good idea for me to get of ayurveda by going through a round of treatments. I ended up spending the day getting a full body massage, a session in a steam chamber, a hot bath (more on that later), and a yoga lesson. I also had a session called "shiroddhara" where hot oil was poured on my forehead, with the intended effect of raising my intelligence and helping to cure any sort of psychosomatic disorders or conditions around my head that I may have had (didn't have any).

Shot of the hospital. The entire campus was pretty small (you could walk to the other side in 5 minutes). The campus reminded me at times of a spa or resort, with its coconut trees and design of buildings. After all, there were facilities to administer and receive full body massages and steam chamber treatments (as part of Ayurvedic medicine, of course).

The first stop of my ayurveda experience. I got my massage on this table. You can see the stove and cabinet underneath where a lot of ayurvedic herbs and oils (everything is natural and there are supposedly no side effects to any herbal remedy) where things were heated up and prepared.

The steam treatment chamber. You sit inside and your head pops out of the whole on top. Because your body is covered in oils when you enter, the sweat that starts coming out as you're sitting in the chamber wicks the oil off your skin and when you step out your skin isn't as oily as when you left.

My hot bath. I was totally expecting something on the lines of a bathtub with bubbles and candles and leaves or something of the like, but not this time. I can't complain though - having not had a hot shower in 4 weeks, any hot water in a shower was good enough for me. I had a second one at night too after my shiroddhara.

Perks of being in the rural - monkeys roaming around the campus!

Dinner with the staff of the hospital. Dr. Dennis and Dr. Basaraj are on the right - they are both ayuvedic physicians.

I also got to visit the other school that is tied in with SVYM called the Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning. It's essentially a school that was started about twenty years ago for tribals that reside in the area. It's an amazing story to hear how the school started and how it has evolved to what it is today. Because many of the children over the past twenty years are first generation students, there were many difficulties encountered in acclimating the children and their parents to the idea of learning and attending school. One of objections by the parents was apparently the misconception that schools were "jail-like" for their children. So in order to compensate for this, the buildings were constructed with huge windows in the buildings that made the classrooms look like a gazebo. Starting from the youngest grades, classes are virtually conducted outside, which isn't a problem with the year-round warm temperatures. As the children grow older, the classrooms become more and more closed and what you might think of in a typical classroom, which accomodates their adjustment to school and routine learning everyday. This sort of innovation blew me away and I was left wondering what other sorts of adjustments were made to attract more tribal children over the years. The results are showing - there are families that are producing second generation learners, and children of former students who are now able to attend the very same school. Amazing.

This was the classroom for 1st to 4th graders. It was wide open with huge windows so parents wouldn't think it was a jail.

As you move on up, the classrooms stay relatively open, but more and more closed. This classroom was for 5th - 7th graders. After 7th grade, you move into a normal classroom inside a building.

We walked in around lunchtime. They all sat in perfectly straight rows, cleaned up after themselves, and went to attend to their daily chores.

Today, I took my first bus ride for about 45 minutes to a settlement called Handpost. After making friends with mutton and chicken butchers, an SVYM vehicle came and picked me up and we traveled to Mysore, the biggest city in the area nearby. I got a chance to explore two other educational arms of SVYM, the Viveka Institute of Indian Studies and the

Viveka Institute for Leadership Development. I was particularly excited for this part of the trip because I had heard that there was a group from Michigan that was here at the VIIS for four weeks of classses in South Indian music and dance. I met several of them in the computer lab and had lunch with their group. It was interesting to see where they had all come from and how they ended up in India. I also found out that I have the same class with three of them this upcoming fall!

While waiting for my ride at Handpost, I met these two brothers who were selling mutton. When I drove by in the evening, it was gone!

We ended the day with a trip to visit the antiretroviral clinic in Mysore that SVYM runs in partnership with another medical organization. I got a chance to observe the different arms of HIV/AIDS treatment - namely, the counseling, the labwork and testing that goes into diagnosis of the disease, the administration of anti-retroviral drugs, and the actual doctor to patient interactions and consultation. Because anti-retroviral drugs are very expensive typically, this clinic was unique because it was providing all drugs for free. India has become a world leader in production and distribution of low-cost, generic drugs. Because of that, world drug prices have dropped and thousands to millions have been able to receive therapy for their conditions.

The pharmacist at the ART clinic. Some of those drugs cost eight or nine thousand rupees per box (200 dollars), but since the government is supporting the program, the drugs can be given out for free.

Tomorrow is my last full day at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital, although I am trying to extend my stay one more day so that I can go on the mobile clinic that travels into the forests. Apparently, it's a very different and very exciting experience. On a good day, you might run into animals ranging from elephants, to leopards, to tigers, to wild boar. Hopefully it will all work out.

Go Blue!

First Day at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital

2008-07-21T20:40:00.002+05:30

Today was my first working day at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital. Since I'm only here for a week, I only have enough time get a glimpse of what sorts of programs and initiatives they have here and don't have any sort of opportunity to get involved in projects of my own. That, and I'm not a medical student so I wouldn't be able to treat patients. Aside from that, I would say that the first day as a good glimpse into some of the heart of what the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement is all about.

I started off my day going on inpatient rounds with Dr. Seetharam, husband of my contact person here at SVYM. We went through all the wards the hospital has and talked to each patient, going through what they were hospitalized for, and what treatment was being done to get them discharged. It was cool bouncing medical terminology back and forth with Dr. Seetharam - those "Trauma, Life in the ER" episodes I used to watch on TLC were coming to life. Since the organization exists to serve the poor and underprivileged, there were a plethora of services that were being offered for free.

For the next section of the day, I met with a man named Shivappa and the man who works in the Water and Sanitation division of SVYM. They took me on a simple tour of the Sanitation Park behind the hospital, which was essentially a "showroom" of 10 different kinds of toilets with different configurations of building material, type of pit the "matter" empties into, and methods of flushing. We had a good time joking about the toilet that had a roof, but no barrier around the person. Because sanitation promotion and fecal matter are both important issues in rural public health, the Sanitation Park serves as an important pillar by which SVYM can promote awareness about hygiene to people in the surrounding area who might otherwise discount its importance.

Next, I got to visit the Vivekananda School of Excellence. It's a school that was started about eight years ago when the leaders of the organization realized that education was a crucial means by which development needed to be undertaken. With thousands of children in the surrounding rural areas, reaching these kids became a prime objective for long term development of the area. All of the doctors' children attend the school, along with hundreds of other children and kids from the local tribes in the area. From the looks and stares and pointed fingers that I got when I walked into different classrooms, it might have been one of the few times that these kids (especially the ones from local tribes) had seen a Westerner, let alone an Asian westerner.

The last half of the afternoon was occupied by an advocacy clinic that was held for women who had just delivered babies or were somewhere in the child birthing age. Because there are certain stigmas and fears of delivering children in a hospital, especially in the rural areas where myths and rumors abound through word of mouth and not necessarily from any credible source, many women will often times avert going to the hospital to deliver their baby at home, risking a whole bunch of mother and baby problems. This clinic was held to distribute "Baby Packs' filled with blankets, clothes, and other misc. items for new borns while taking the opportunity to educate women about the importance of hospital care for pregnant women. The last part of my day going on another set of outpatient and inpatient rounds with an OBGYN doctor (obstetrics/gynecologist) and learning about many of the issues that women face. It was definitely pretty enlightening and interesting.

I rounded up my day with a game of cricket with some of the doctor's kids and am about to eat dinner (9:16pm). Tomorrow I'm supposed to go on a mobile clinic out into the tribal areas, but if that doesn't work out, I have an open invitation from the OBGYN doctor to come and witness a hysterectomy!

Follow Your Gut Instinct

2008-07-20T10:37:00.002+05:30

I was reading through my Frommer's Guide to India one day and as I flipped through the "General Tips" section of the book, there was a part about safety that read through. The one line that stuck out to me was "in any situation, follow your gut instinct, because you are probably right." Storing that into my memory, I was set on reminding myself to always be aware of my surroundings so as not to put myself in any sort of compromising situations while I'm here.

Fast forward to last Friday evening, my last day before heading off to Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement. I finished official work at 6pm and started reading Meren's final chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I wanted to finish the entire thesis for him because I wasn't sure if I would have internet/computers here (which is the complete opposite) so I resolved to stay a little later on Friday night to help him out. Some people usually stay in the office till around 7-7:30, so I had company until then. Around 8pm, while I was alone, playing some music aloud from my laptop to pump me up while editing the paper, the security guard from upstairs scared me when he came down and went to the bathroom. I just didn't hear him come in. We greeted each other and he proceeded to tell me that he would be on shift for the next 12 hours and I didn't need to leave anytime soon, which was a relief because it takes a couple hours to read through each chapter.

The weird thing that happened is that later on, around 9pm (after I had spent 30 minutes talking to my brother on Skype), he came down again, presumably to use the bathroom. Except this time, he lingered around and carried a conversation. I was trying to be nice, but 25 minutes had passed and it was definitely getting late. He was Nepalese so sort of resembled each other in terms of physical appearance and so I think he was very overjoyed to have met me, so overjoyed that he started saying things like "I want to take you back to West Bengal with me" and, "you're my favorite in this office." Looking back, I think he was just trying to be nice and embrace me as a "brother," but at the time, I was definitely a little scared out of my boots. I finally ended the conversation, telling him we would talk later, and he went back to his post upstairs.

At that point, I was a little uncomfortable but determined to finish the chapter and email it off to Meren before I left for the weekend. It was approaching 10pm and it was definitely the latest I had ever stayed in the office. I was trying to think of ways I might be able to do it at home, but nothing seemed better than to stay and finish up asap. I read the last 7 pages as quickly as possible and began to pack up. All of a sudden, the power went out. Pitch black. By then I was definitely freaked out, and tried my best to lock my laptop into the cabinet (I wasn't bringing it to the south) and pick up all of my things that were scattered on my desk (boarding pass for flight, headphones, journal). I called Meren and stayed on the line with him as the security guard was waiting to leave with me in the dark and proceeded to walk home as quickly as possible.

When I got home, I layed down on my bed and looked at the ceiling for 15 minutes, thanking God for a safe journey home. For some reason, I was sufficiently scared from the situation even though looking back, it was just a matter of staying at the office later than I should have, an overly friendly security guard, and a random power outage at a not-so-convenient time. If anything, from here on out, it was a good reminder to take seriously any feelings of reservation I might have for a particular situation. I don't know if there really was anything to be worried about that night, but all I know is that my gut instinct was definitely jumping up and down, telling me to leave the office asap!

I'll probably take it more seriously next time.

"Fly the Good Times"

2008-07-19T19:38:00.006+05:30

I've arrived safely into Vivekanada Memorial Hospital in Saragur, India. It took about 12 hours in total transit to make it, but overall it was a pretty smooth journey. Upon landing in Bangalore, I met my taxi driver and he nonchalantly told me we were about to make a six hour drive to our destination. After a flat tire, a stop to get masala dosas, 1.5 million (I'm serious) passed Airtel, Tata Mobile, and Vodafone cell phone ads, and way too many near collisions for comfort with tourist buses that were hogging the road, we pulled into the hospital sound and safe. I'm going to have to find a way to dig out the seatbelts that are buried under the seats for my ride back a week from now.

But let me tell you about Kingfisher Airlines. Back in March, when I was planning this trip, I hadn't the slightest idea of what airline to take for a domestic flight to Bangalore from Delhi. Unfortunately, Continental and Northwest don't operate within India so I knew I would have to take an Indian airline. I randomly googled "airline rankings" and stumbled upon skytrax at airlinequality.com. For fun, I clicked on the 5 star airlines and came across an airline called Kingfisher. It was a domestic airline that served destinations across India. With a name like "Kingfisher" and a website called airlinequality.com, I was a little skeptical. The only two airlines that I ever knew, Continental and Northwest, weren't even ranked that high. I decided to give it a shot, even though I hadn't the slightest idea of what a five star airline could offer in terms of a flying experience.

I was totally blown away today for my two and a half hour flight. From boarding the plane, you sit down in a special neck recliner, personal video monitor (with a channel that is a camera that lets you see the pilot's viewpoint), and soothing music in the background. In flight, the flight attendants served miniature bottles of Kingfisher premium water, the personal video monitors played quality in flight programming including a Bollywood movie, cricket matches, and the TV show "Friends," and as our "snack" (I was expecting peanuts so I ate McDonalds before boarding), we got a full course meal with chocolate cake and a mini-dosa. All for a two and a half hour flight that I would normally sleep away, waiting the time out until we reached our destination. I almost felt like I would have wasted my ticket if I had slept!

It was awesome. It's too bad Kingfisher doesn't fly internationally, because it would probably be the most comfortable flying experience I would ever have in economy. Then again, they'd probably be broke. And from now on, I will definitely trust airlinequality.com and its 5-star airline ratings.

On a more serious note, I will try to update on things here at the hospital throughout the week!

Off to the South!

2008-07-18T21:55:00.003+05:30

Tomorrow morning, I will be taking a trip to visit the southern part of India. I'll be working for a week at an organization called the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in a rural town called Saragur, outside the Mysore/Bangalore cities. It originally started in 1984 with a handful of doctors longing to serve the poor with their medical background, and has since expanded its vision to include initiatives such as: community development, water and sanitation, and education. I'm particularly excited to visit this organization because I think it will give me a view of public health from the lens of implementation. Here at PHFI, it is primarily an academic institution - we do research, teach people about public health, and look into the issues that need to be addressed. This organization is addressing those very issues in a rural area where the people are in need. It should be exciting indeed.

I'll be waking up four hours before my 10 o'clock and putting my money that there will be a taxi waiting around my street to take me to the domestic airport here in Delhi (there's one for international and one for domestic). Hopefully, if all goes well, I won't lose my bag (I have to check it in because of my contact solution - they don't sell much of it here) and I'll be walking the streets of Bangalore by 1pm. From there, I'll be hoping on a 3,330 rupee taxi through Mysore and eventually hit Saragur by 6:30pm (hopefully). Hopefully all will go smoothly! I'm excited to eat dosas once I get there - they are one of the staple south Indian foods!

They look really hard to make to me - but apparently they are common to eat for every meal.

Israel vs. Palestine

2008-07-17T19:06:00.003+05:30

This week, I've been spending a lot of time helping my friend Meren edit his disseration. He's a PHD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University here in Delhi and is submitting his thesis in the next couple of weeks. Because English is his third language (he speaks Naga and Hindi), I randomly threw it out there that I could help him read and edit his thesis as he's preparing to hand it in. Little did I know that a PHD thesis would be chapters upon chapters of material on the Israeli-Palestine peace process. I figured it was the least I could do given that he took out a lot of valuable time to help me find my new place as well as take me to church on Sundays. As an extra bonus, I've been learning the ins and outs of Israeli-Palestinian peace process, something I grew up hearing about on the news (Sharon, Netanyahu, Barak were never differentiated between). I'm seeing how this issue is something that both sides are absolutely passionate about, which could explain why neither side is willing to compromise beyond a certain halfway point. I've never been too politically active in any way, but this might be a topic that I might have some opinions on for the future!

Final Housing Update

2008-07-14T10:16:00.004+05:30

I finally moved into my new apartment at Gautam Nagar. There are a lot of things that are different about the new place from the old: no housekeeper, one room vs. entire apartment, everyday man’s neighborhood vs. fenced off security guard neighborhood, dirty bathrooms and dusty tables vs. servant cleans everything everyday, but I’m adjusting. I figured one of the best ways to adjust to the new environment was to take as much ownership of the place as I could. In a sense, make it my own.

One of the things I did (initially cause I didn’t think they would provide) was go to the local mall and buy a set of bedsheets and a pillow. It instantly made the place a lot more cozy and I felt a lot more at ease sleeping on bed sheets that I provided and not ones from who knows where. On Saturday, one of my Naga friends hooked me up with one of his friends and I got full sized fridge in my place as well as a 20 liter Bisleri water jug dispenser. I did a little rearranging of the furniture and bought some cleaning supplies (sponge, bathroom slider, rag, toilet paper) and the place feels a lot more like home now.

The environment once I step outside is a lot different too. Instead of seeing lines of security guards sipping water and sitting in front of an air conditioner all day, there are people riding three wheeled bicycles selling vegetables and kids playing cricket in a small field in front of my apartment building. Apparently, the area that I’m living in now is not nearly as safe as before (but I’m not sure what could be safer than before) – so I’ll have to take more precautions in terms of when I come home and how I come home in the future.

Aside from the wedding this past weekend, I also got a chance to have dinner at Caroline’s house, who’s aunt is a diplomat at the US Embassy. The friends that we met from Penn were there, and it was a good time of catching up and sharing stories from the wedding. We also got a chance to meet some of Caroline’s aunt’s friends, many of whom work for the Embassy or are somewhat related because of Marines work. It was cool hearing their stories of how they all ended up in India. It was also encouraging to exchange perspective on things, like living overseas. Many of the people had been all over the world and were hoping to see different parts in the near future. Some were even raising families. I can identify a lot more with my friends out there who are looking to do international relations/politics type work. These people really love what they do – and they get to have fun while working as well.

Picture of the old bedroom

Another angle

Bathroom (it's not as grimy as it looks)

New room - all to myself. The water jug and fridge helps to make the room feel a lot homier.

Rotate 90 degrees right - the "bedroom" side of the room.

The bathroom - I had to clean up about a dozen cigarette butts and scrub the sink before using it, but now it looks a lot better. Too bad there is no hot water though - cold showers are rough!

Indian Wedding

2008-07-14T09:57:00.005+05:30

This weekend, I got a chance to take part in an Indian wedding at the invitation of another intern at PHFI. Her name is Aditi and she is going to be a sophomore at Barnard College this upcoming year. She invited my friend Caroline and I because she knew that since we were Westerners we probably hadn’t had the chance to experience a real Indian wedding before. We were excited to check it out, and the night definitely exceeded any expectations that had going on.

I took about 300 pictures, which pretty much sums how long and elaborate the night was and thorough the idea of marriage is in Indian culture. Here are pictures to sum it up.

(6:00pm) We had trouble finding Aditi’s house because the road she lives on, Mother Teresa Crescent, is apparently the same road that the President of India lives on (more on that later). Our taxi driver had to stop and ask a couple of people, but we eventually found the house because there was a dressed up band playing really loud music in the driveway of the house.

Walking into the house, I saw this Volkswagen car. I guess that it would eventually be used to transport the groom to the hotel. Someone told me later that they used to have the groom ride to the hotel on a horse, but given India’s horrendous traffic and that fact that it’s monsoon season, it’s probably better that they ride in the car.

(7:00pm) The first of many, many ceremonies. That’s the groom sitting in the middle, with his mother wearing the hat. There were probably close to 40 family members at the house, ranging from immediate family to second cousins – and that was just the close family. The man in the long white beard is a Hindu priest and he’s performing a ceremony with mango leaves and holy water to purify the groom from his sins.

Before we left, there was a round of family pictures with all the aunts, uncles, grandparents, children, etc that were gathered at the house. While we were waiting, I got a chance to chat with the groom himself, the grooms father, and his best man. I learned that the groom and his bride are in the media industry, and that the majority of their family is either in the media or politics.

The groom and his cousin, Aditi, who invited Caroline and I to the wedding. Since the groom’s family is not from Delhi, the pre-wedding festivities were held at Aditi’s house. I found out there was Aditi’s father and uncle are both member’s of Parliament (!), which explains why their house could be on the same street as the President of India. When I had asked Aditi what her parents did when I first met her, she had replied that her father was an “advocate.” Ha ha ha.

Picture of the groom with Aditi’s dad, the member of Parliament, and her mother.

(8:00pm) When we’d called Aditi earlier in the day about where we should meet her, she gave us the option of meeting her at her house (which is what we did) or meeting her at the Hyatt in Delhi. Good thing we met her at her house, because we really got immersed into the whole atmosphere of the wedding. As we were all dropped off at the Hyatt, we were greeted again by the same band and were ushered into the hotel dancing! All the banter and excitement between the people was a symbolic gesture symbolizing the celebration of two people getting married.

(830pm) Coming into the hotel, we had to pass through a metal detector. Because nearly everyone was wearing bangles or metal of some sort, they were all setting the metal detector off. For some reason, even though I was dressed in a shirt and tie, I got pulled over and searched. After a while, everyone made it into the ballroom and was chit chatting with one another. Finally, after some time, the bride entered the room. She looked beautiful, and it took a while to understand the complexity of her outfit, with all the clothes, jewelry, makeup, and henna that she was wearing.

(9:00pm) Finally, a shot of the groom and the bride.

After the bride had entered the room, a time of blessings began. One by one, families and couples and friends went on stage and gave the bride and groom their wedding gifts. This process probably took about three hours, as people were constantly coming in and out. All in all, we guessed that there were 500 people give or take present at the wedding. There were some pretty famous guests in attendance too (you could tell when crowds gathered around their table or when security guards started pushing you out of the way). I heard Ajay Devgan (Bollywood star) and the future Prime Minister and leader of the opposition party were all in attendance. The movie star is the man in the back of the table with a white collar folded over a black blazer and the future prime minister is the one to his left, with the sweater vest, long white shirt, and thick black glasses. I snapped a picture of their table, right before all of them left early.

A shot of Caroline (right), Aditi (groom’s cousin, center), and myself

(1:00am) I snapped this shot after the best man flagged me down and ushered me right into the front. As the night passed on, people began heading home for the night, leaving the close family behind to attend the actual wedding ceremony, which began around 12:30am. Being one of the only foreigners in attendance, the best man grabbed me and allowed me to take a picture right up front. Here the Hindu priest is going through some of the traditional rites for an Indian marriage, which included circling a flame seven times to symbolize this life and six more lives in union together as a couple, reciting passages in Sanskrit, and showering of the couple with more dried rice. The ceremony lasted about two hours.

(2:30am) Last significant picture of the night. As the couple was exiting, Caroline and I got to snap one last shot of them before they left. They must have been exhausted. One of the most amazing parts of the night was seeing how calm and serene the bride was throughout the time. She almost never opened her mouth except to greet people, and always languidly glided around the different areas where the ceremonies were being held.

All in all, it was an incredible experience. One of the second cousins that we met joked around with us, saying, it’s a good thing that these weddings are so elaborate, it’ll ensure that you really love your spouse beforehand as well as afterwards because no one would want to go through another one of those marriages again. I definitely agree.

Ramu

2008-07-10T19:22:00.003+05:30

(I wrote this entry in my journal one week ago as I was preparing to move out into my friend's hostel at a local university. I'm moving tonight into my new apartment at Gautam Nagar.)

Ramu is our housekeeper. He lives in one of the bedrooms that Mr. Taneja has in the apartment and shares a bathroom with me. On the night of my first arrival, Ramu was waiting outside in the dark on the street for me to arrive. Who knows how long he was out there for. He helped me bring my bags in and settle me in. The next day, I couldn't sleep so I woke up and was out in the living room at six in the morning. When Ramu woke up at 6:30am he immediately brought out coffee and biscuits for me to eat.

Ramu wakes up every morning and his sole job is to take care of the apartment and the people that live in it. He wakes up before everyone else and has water boiling on the stove for coffee and tea. Throughout the day, he's either cooking a meal, cleaning up after cooking a meal, or finding some part of the apartment to clean. He makes homemade chapatis and nan as well as all the other Indian dishes that we eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The fridge that we have in the apartment is nearly empty because everything we would need for a meal is bought that day at the local market or off the street in the neighborhoods nearby. The extent to Ramu's commitment to the house is such that I didn't even need a key to the apartment because Mr. Taneja assured me that Ramu would always be around. Hasn't failed me once. He cleans up after our meals, brings water when we come in from the muggy heat, and yields whenever I enter the bathroom at the same time as him. Although, I would never expect this kind of treatment from anyone in the US, he really embodies what it means to make a guest feel like they are home away from home, and then some.

What is there to take away from all this? I'm not really sure. All I know is that this is one part of the culture that has really impacted me in terms of cementing a warm and sentimental memory of my time here in this apartment. One thing I'm going to miss a lot is Ramu's smile, and how it's so warm that it can do nothing else but brighten your day after long hours at work. I'm going miss all the ways he tries to speak English to me, the ways he teaches me how to make homemade chapati breads, and all the ways that he embodies the good qualities of a servant by taking a burden off my mind when I least expect it.

Cheers to you, Ramu.

Ramu and I

Thoughts on "Transculturalism"

2008-07-09T19:00:00.001+05:30

Back in Ann Arbor, my head pastor talks a lot about the concept of transculturalism. Instead of trying to be multi-ethnic by simply increasing the population of certain ethnic groups (we're predominantly Asian) and leaving it at that, he's talked about developing a culture of jumping between the lines of people's backgrounds, worldviews, and differences. As people are better able to transcend the natural barriers that people of varying ethnic groups have when they first interact with each other, our pastor is believing that we will naturally become a more multiethnic church that reflects the true spirit of multiculturalism.

One of the difficulties of transcending different cultures and interacting with people that might be different from one's self is that there are likely to be a lot of awkward moments, which in the future might deter us from ever associating with people that might make us feel uncomfortable. For example, when I first met Dr. Mandi the other day, I asked her "what kind of doctor she was." She responded as if it was the most ridiculous question she had ever heard. Her response, "I'm a medical doctor!" after which she mumbled a couple things in her Naga language. In the US, it's perfectly normal to ask people what kind of doctors they are, but I guess in the culture of Indian medicine, it seemed like a outrageous question to ask. I have a feeling she didn't understand the kind of answer I was expecting. Even in some everyday interactions with people at work, there are always instances where the way I say something doesn't make sense either because of my word choice or flow of language or vice versa - sometimes it's hard to understand what people are saying through an Indian accent or through their choice of words (think: British English). This can be particularly troubling in the cases when my boss is trying to tell me something important or my taxi driver is saying "I don't know where you live!"

Even though there are a lot of awkward moments in these attempts to face transculturalism, there are also a lot of moments where I remember interacting with people of different background being some of the most significant moments in my life. For lack of a better description, I would call these instances "golden moments." I guess a quick definition of a "golden moment" would be an occurrence where there was a significant sharing and exchange of life between two groups of different background/culture.

When I was in western China last summer, a group from my team visited a Uyghur market bazaar one afternoon and decided to eat lunch at a girl's family stand. She was very friendly and even asked us where we were from. She made us a simple noodles dish and then served us this awesomely good donut pastry that wasn't being served anywhere else in the bazaar. We didn't think anything of it at the time, but as we continued to see different parts of the city over the next couple of days, our little team of people decided to keep going back to that girl's stand in the bazaar. Time and time again, she was overjoyed to see her new American friends come back for a meal and some donut desserts. We eventually shared our background and why we were in western China, and learned some about her - she'd been working at the stand since she was eight or nine years old. On our last day in that city, we decided to bless her and her family by buying them a whole bunch of fruit and going to the local Kodak shop and printing out a full sized picture of a family portrait we had taken for them. As we presented it to her family on the last day before leaving that city, it was one of those moments where you realize on both ends that there was a significant exchange of "life" in the previous days' interactions. That is what I would look forward to in a "golden moment." There aren't necessarily found at the flashiest tourist attraction or in the five star hotel, but more often than not, in the realms of the lives of everyday normal people, who are carrying on more or less with life as usual when you run into them.

And those kinds of experiences are what I'm looking for here in India. Maybe it will come with the people at work. Maybe the people at the local market. Maybe with people at the hospital or people that I live with. Where ever those moments are to be found, they are a big part of what makes an overseas experience meaningful and memorable. I'm guess I'm just keeping my eyes open for now.

(Pictures from last summer)

These donut things were really good

Our little team when we visited one day after it rained

The girl's family when we gave her our last batch of fruit and family portrait

Weekend in Pictures

2008-07-06T16:05:00.020+05:30

Friday:

Dinner at Parikrama, a restaurant in downtown Delhi that's at the top of a 25 story building. It spins - making a revolution once every hour and a half or so.

Dinner at the top. We'd met some UPenn graduate students this week at a malaria talk and we got together for dinner. L-R: myself, Caroline (PHFI intern), Jin and Danny (Penn Med), and Emily (UMich 04 alum! and Penn Nursing)

Saturday: Touring Old Delhi and Fourth of July bash at the US Embassy

First stop in Old Delhi: Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. India's the 2nd largest Muslim country in the world, to Indonesia. Most of the people in the area (there was a bazaar leading into the mosque) were not tourists, but were there to pray.

Not knowing that Jama Masjid was a mosque, I accidentally wore shorts. In order to respectfully tour through the place, I had to rent a large cloth to cover my bare legs. Other tourists had to rent cloths that would cover their entire bodies.

We climbed to the top of one of the minarets and this was the view. You could see all the flat rooftop houses of Delhi and the skyscrapers from there as well. It was awesome.

Next stop: the Red Fort. It was one of many forts around the area. Since we were a little short on time, I was considering not paying 100 rupees to go in, but I'm glad I did. Turns out the entire complex is like one huge maze that you walk through, observing different monuments ranging from tombs to reflecting pools along the way.

The Fourth of July party was held at the US Embassy in Delhi. They were trying really hard to recreate a taste of America by having it on a baseball field. We were welcomed by this guy...

After the sunset, they had a small fireworks show. I found out after I left that the Lakers were in town to promote "Basketball Without Borders." As a couple of us were waiting for taxis, we ran into several US diplomats and they were egging us on to join them at their next stop. Since we were doubtful of their sobriety, we declined. We found out later on of course that they were actually serious, though.

Sunday: Sightseeing in south and central Delhi

Lotus Temple - also know as a Baha'i House of Worship, this place is home of worship for those of the Baha'i faith. It was a beautiful building with nine pools of water surrounding it. The religion is known for promoting unity of God and the unity of humanity.

Sightseeing with several Caucasian interns, this has come to be a common sight. Whenever we go to any of the touristy places in Delhi, we are inevitably stopped by people (usually Indians who are visiting Delhi) who want pictures with us. I took this picture outside of the Lotus Temple with my friend who's also interning at PHFI, Caroline. A couple minutes before, a group of people started videotaping their friend walking alongside her. The same thing happened to one of our other friends from UPenn.

Next stop: Humayam's Tomb. This place was a beautiful and peaceful complex that serves as a precursor to the Taj Mahal. It's not quite as majestic or famous, but the story is similar and it's still a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Inside - the main tomb.

Last stop of the day - Janta Mantar. There are several structures here that were built by an emperor hundreds of years ago for making precise measurements according to the sun, including the time.

I decided to climb into one of the instruments for a picture.

Next weekend: the Taj Mahal!

A Sensory Experience

2008-07-04T18:31:00.003+05:30

Before I left New Jersey to come to India, I would have dreams at night about what it would be like to walk the streets of New Delhi. I tried imagining some of the things I would see, the smells that would go up my noses, the different sounds of languages I didn't understand or vehicles whizzing by. It took a little while to get around, and it might sound a little self-explanatory, but I came to the realization that over the course of a normal day in Ann Arbor or New Jersey, I would typically identify my surroundings based on the different senses that we use everyday, touch, smell, sight, sound, tastes. Things that we take part in everyday, like the food we eat, the places we live, the people that we see, they are all part of how we identify with everyday normal life.

So obviously, a lot of these things changed when I arrived to India. I've only eaten meat several times (I would eat it basically every meal in the US), people's external appearances are different, and there are dozens of languages that I haven't the clue of what people are saying (including people trying to speak English sometimes).

On this note, I saw this post from a blog of fellow working for Acumen Fund and starred it earlier this year in my Google Reader in hopes of being able to test it out should I be able to come to India. It's from a guy who is working in Hyderabad (south India) and he learned of an activity where one records the sounds of the city in the early morning to get a taste of what life is like in that city. To my disappointment, I don't have anything that can record sounds (unless I carry my laptop around with a microphone hooked up) - but as I was walking home from work the other day, I thought about all the sounds that were going on around me that I would never hear in the US. If I could record the sounds of a walk home from work, I would hear all these unique and interesting sounds that reflects a lot of what you would see regarding life in India:

a screeching horn every two seconds
the sounds of men riding bicycles howling a phrase (literally howling, and I haven't found out what they're doing yet)
barking from one of the masses of stray dogs
sweeping of brooms from people cleaning the streets
children smacking balls around with cricket bats
the nasal engine of an auto-rickshaw
languages that I can't decipher whatsoever
...probably another horn or two.

You can find his post here.

Housing Update!

2008-07-04T17:36:00.005+05:30

In the last couple of days, a lot of things have worked out for the better regarding my housing situation from before. Instead of moving out on Wednesday night, we worked out a compromise between my landlord and I where I would stay a full two weeks (until next Thursday) and move out after that. That way, I've basically given him my 1 week's notice to find someone else for his paying guest room and myself time to find another place to stay in the meantime.

Which...I have successfully done! Meron and I met on Wednesday night after work to go apartment hunting in neighborhoods around my office. I got a chance to meet one of his friends, who asked me to call her Dr. Mandi, and we checked out a place in a nearby neighborhood called Gautam Nagar. They showed me a room that is much more bare bones than where I'm staying right now: single room with a bathroom, a bed, a dresser, and a table with a tv on it. It would start getting crowded if more than four people were standing in the room at one time. There's no kitchen or anything, but rent is going to end up being about 1/4 of what I'm paying right now. I decided to take the room in anticipation of starting afresh for life in Delhi. It will definitely be different - no housekeeper to bring coffee and biscuits in the morning, no king sized bed to pass out on, and no posh neighborhood to walk through. The area is actually completely different, there are a lot of shops and stands to walk by, so I'll definitely be interacting with a lot more people hopefully. I'm looking to check out the local Chinese joint that's right next to my apartment, "Spicy."

Last night, I got a chance to eat dinner with Dr. Mandi. She works at a local hospital that provides free care to all of its patients. I was very intrigued by this because my research topic at the Public Health Foundation of India is to investigate the equity and access of healthcare in India's population as well as the effects of having to make healthcare payments out of one's own pocket on everyday life. Dr. Mandi works in the triage center of the hospital so the realities of patients coming in will be even more relevant for the topics that I'm looking into at work. I'm going to shadow her at work sometime next week during one of her night shifts - it'll be cool to see up close and personal some of the things that I saw in my high school anatomy class trauma videos.

Tomorrow, one of my friends who's also interning at PHFI invited a bunch of us over to her house - the US embassy. The embassy is throwing a private Fourth of July bash for American citizens tomorrow night. I gotta say, I'm not sure what the expect at this, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be pretty interesting. Fireworks? A whole lot of red, white, and blue? Juicy Angus burgers? I just gotta remember to bring my passport and 150 rupees to find out!

Dr. Mandi made Tandoori Chicken!

Around Dr. Mandi's place are all vegetarian restaurants, except for McDonald's and Pizza Hut

Cool shot of Delhi night traffic (people walking, motorbikes, auto-rickshaws, and cars)

Housing Lessons

2008-07-01T21:03:00.007+05:30

It’s been about a week since I arrived in Delhi. Even though adjusting to jet lag has been fairly annoying (I would get tired at random times of the day - 11am, 6pm, and any other time except bedtime), tonight might be the first night that I'll make it through the day without napping or dozing off in the middle of doing something. If you had talked to me anytime up to a couple days before I left New Jersey, I probably would have still said that I did not know where I was staying, or “put up” as the locals might say. When I was negotiating the logistics for my time in Delhi, my boss and I made a deal that if he could find housing for me, I would take care of everything else, including travel, food, and other expenses. Early Tuesday morning (I left Wednesday night), I got an email finally with my accommodations. I was pleased because it was walking distance to work and it supposedly included breakfast and internet as well.

My boss has some good taste. The “colony” or neighborhood that I’m living in right now is called Hauz Khas. My boss even remarked as he was driving me to work on the first day that he couldn't even afford to live in this area, which is why he has to drive about one hour (it should be shorter if there wasn’t so much traffic) to work everyday. Some of the houses remind me of the places that I would see when I visited my cousins in California – they are huge. I’m staying with my landlord and his servant, and I got the bedroom upstairs to myself. It’s been a great place for me to settle down and get adjusted to Indian life. There are little perks here and there, like having coffee and biscuits brought to me every morning, sleeping on a king sized bed in the privacy of my own room, and even having a friendly servant whose smile makes my day whenever I bump into him.

The only thing that I regrettably have to object to is the price. I knew it was going to be expensive coming in (I was planning on shelling out 1,000 dollars for six weeks), but not this expensive. Turns out I’m expected to pay 1250 rupees (thirty dollars) per night plus 100 rupees (two dollars and thirty cents) for my entire time here. Doing the math, that adds up to about 57,000 rupees or 1,360 dollars for six weeks accommodation! I was talking to some people at work as well as people I met from church and I met someone who pays 80 dollars a month for her studio. Another girl who has an entire apartment to herself with a big terrace is only paying 20,000 rupees (500 dollars) a month. There was no way I could justify spending so much money, even more than I would ever pay at school in Ann Arbor regardless of how I split my funding and my own money up.

So I decided today that I was going to move out. Where? I have no idea right now. I teeter tottered all weekend about staying, thinking about how comfortable it would be to stay, how the breakfast tastes really good, how I’m so close to work, etc. But along with the whole money situation, I realized that where I’m living right now is not exactly the experience of India that I was imagining coming in. There isn’t really much street life (except for the guards that sit outside the gated fences of houses all night) and I barely get to interact with people outside of my landlord and his servant. I’m figuring that while I’m in India, I should go out of my way to interact with the people as much as possible. I feel like even those little five minute exchanges over prices for fruits or that innocent question about where the best place to buy a cell phone goes a long way in the memory of my experience here. I’m going to believe that my experience will be so much richer in memory as I move into a neighborhood with greater people to interaction while freeing up some funds to do other things than pay rent.

So my new journey starts tomorrow. I’m going to temporarily move into a hostel at the local university, Jawaharlal Nehru University, with the Naga friend I met from church on Sunday. We’ll spend a couple days looking for housing nearby my work in a different area of town , and we’ll see what happens from there. Heres to another adventure!

Taste of Nagaland

2008-06-29T22:33:00.005+05:30

Today I got a chance to visit a church in South Delhi. It was an ethnic church called Delhi Ao Naga Church and its composition is mostly people from the state of Nagaland out in the northeast section of India. I got connected with a friend called Meron who knows Panger and Ren, whom I met back in New Jersey before departing. After the service, people would joke around because the darkness of my skin made me look like I was from Nagaland as well. Too bad they could tell exactly where I was from when I started speaking. I'm glad I got a chance to see a different culture right in front of my eyes. People have always talked about how multicultural India is with all of its people groups, religions, and practices but after roaming the streets for a couple of days it hasn't been as easy as I would have thought to break cultural barriers and get into the lives of the people here. Today was a little different, and I'm glad I got a glimpse into the pride and lives of people from Nagaland.

After church, a couple of us took a bus out into a busy south Delhi neighborhood. It was a market, and we walked through for a while, dodging oncoming cars and rickshaws, yielding to cows, and trying to avoid the oncoming rains. I had a chance to try out a sugarcane drink that is made by taking fresh sugarcane and running it through a grinder. I was surprised how the taste wasn't overwhelmingly sweet, it was actually quite refreshing. That, and my stomach seems to be holding it down alright so far. For dinner, one of the sisters at the church rushed home ahead of us and cooked a traditional Naga dinner - we had a pork belly dish, fish curry, salad, and a vegetable called "ladies finger." It was all tasty and slightly different of a flavor from everything that I've been having these past couple of days, but it definitely didn't fall in the spiciness factor!

Tomorrow, I'm starting my first full week of work. I'm looking forward to cutting my commute time from a one hour walk to the twenty minute walk that it's supposed to be!

The man operating the sugarcane grinder-machine

On the streets of Delhi at night

The view from the apartment we ate at

Saturday in Delhi

2008-06-28T18:22:00.008+05:30

Yesterday, I had my first day of work at the Public Health Foundation of India. We started the day with my boss explaining the vision of PHFI as well as laying out some guidelines regarding my work and how it would be playing out over the next seven weeks or so. There are a couple of American interns here and overall the people working in the office are relatively young, so it was reassuring to be able to interact with people in a relaxed and joking way. I got to meet Dr. Srinath Reddy, which was a goal of mine coming in. Dr. Reddy is the president of PHFI and is someone I have followed since earlier this year because of his work not only in PHFI but also in the public health field. I would have to say that after one day I'm definitely looking forward to working here at PHFI over the next seven weeks or so.

After work, I decided to avert jet-lag by buying a map and trying to walk back to my office (I had been driven home by my boss' driver and was assured that my apartment was walking distance). When I heard "walking distance" I was definitely thinking something like "down the road" or "around the corner." It took me about 30 minutes to get back to my office (after taking a 30 minute detour in the wrong direction). To get back home, I decided to give the auto-rickshaws a try. They are these three-wheeled green and yellow bug looking vehicles that screech along the road with nasally horns. Even though I had been feeling slightly apprehensive toward getting into any sort of motor vehicle after my first taxi ride from the airport, I decided to give it a try because walking around Delhi is probably just as dangerous, if not more. The ride was filled your typical near-hits and close calls, but that's driving in Delhi, right?

Today I got a chance to sight see a little bit with one of the interns at PHFI. We met up a bazaar type place called Dilli Hat in south Delhi. I was told that this was one of the must sees of Delhi because it has a food court area with eats from nearly every state in India. We had lunch from a store that sold food from Uttar Pradesh, one the states in the northwest that is very close to New Delhi. Afterwards, we got to check out the Qutb Minar, which is the tallest brick minaret in the world. It was cool being able to check out a symbol of Indo-Islamic architecture. I got a chance to talk to some people around the area, who were very interested in my friend and I because we were foreigners. The brief conversations we had brought back a lot of memories from when I would walk the streets in China. I got to meet a child and his brother, who I think were homeless and were going around offering shoe shines. I also got to meet a couple of guys who loved American culture, especially Keira Knightley. We exchanged little things back forth, trading English phrases for Hindi ones. They even wrote their names in Hindi in my notebook. I showed them my Hindi name in return (डेविड ली). Coming back, we hit the rains came which conveniently cooled off the weather, which is another sign that monsoon season is here!

People fighting through the rain

Arrived Safely

2008-06-27T08:44:00.003+05:30

Hello everyone.

After a smooth thirteen hour flight over Europe, I arrived safely into Indira Gandhi Airport. Getting a taxi was definitely a new experience. I was told to go to a pre-paid taxi booth and pay for my fare before finding a driver so that I would get a fair deal. Within five minutes of stepping out of the baggage claim area, I was swarmed by several people wanting to drive me to my apartment. After fighting through an ambiguous line of people wanting a taxi fare, I finally made my way into Taxi 2519 and was off on my journey.

The ride from the airport was intense. Roads were bumpy and "staying in your lane" and "signaling" were non-existent. My driver's taxi didn't even have side mirrors! Along the way, I got a small glimpse of street life in New Delhi, with a lot of stray dogs running around, cows roaming at free will, and people hanging out or sleeping on the streets. I have no idea how my driver found my apartment because I couldn't find any visible street signs besides one's directing us to the big roads and intersections. After a thirty minute ride and several stops for directions, I made it home.

Today I awoke to a servant named Ramu who brought me coffee and biscuits in the morning. Haresh, the man who owns and lives in the apartment with me, took me for a ride and dropped me off in a neighborhood park for a morning walk. Now I'm getting ready for my boss at the Public Health Foundation of India, who's coming to pick me up at 9:30.

Until next time!

A Little Dream That Started 10 Months Ago...

2008-06-26T01:19:00.003+05:30

After I came back from China last summer, I remember being inspired in wanting to see other parts of the world. As I was riding in one of my friend's car right before school started, I was telling him about this source of funding that I had found from the Center for South Asian Studies that was funding students to go to India the following summer in 2008. His response? "I work there."

Sometime later on during Welcome Week, I was at Escapade with some friends at the Michigan Union, which is basically a huge event hosted primarily for freshmen allowing them to get different tastes for student life and culture on campus. There was a room that had booths set up with different Asian languages and their representatives stationed around them. The point of the room was to write a single phrase five times in different languages. I ended up writing my phrase "where is the bathroom" in Hindi, Filipino, Viet, Korean, and Thai. After finishing, I placed my name card in a raffle that was to be held later on that night. The prizes? Michigan shirts that had MICHIGAN written out in a respective South Asian language. After pondering over the chance to go to India for the summer of 2008 that week, I was excited to enter my name and hopefully be one of the lucky people that had their card chosen. Later that night, my name was the first one called and I excitedly picked up my MICHIGAN in Hindi shirt. It was the start of a small dream that turned has turned into a realization of many of the things in life that I've found myself passionate about.

Well, that small dream that started about ten months ago is about to open itself up to reality. I've got my camera, journal, and gift boxes of Taiwanese tea packed, and feeling slightly anxious but definitely charged up to go. After a non-stop sixteen hour flight tonight, I'm sure I'll already have stories to share.

Here goes nothing.

Ceramics

2008-06-25T09:58:00.006+05:30

One of the aspects of the trip that I was really excited for aside from work at PHFI was the chance to experience the culture of the people. When I was home last in April, I decided to pay my old high school ceramics teacher a visit after a random connection came into mind when thinking of experiencing Indian culture: why couldn't I combine this desire with my high school hobby of making pots? After all, my teacher Dr. Feder was a huge advocate for cultural ceramics and understanding the history and stories of cultures and people groups through their artwork. We had a great conversation and he told me to drop in when I was home next.

Today, I stopped in and got a chance to work in the studio again for the first time in three years. It was awesome feeling the clay running through my fingers - kind of therapeutic actually. My brother and I traded work time for labor time, with one of us working and the other cleaning the studio or doing something called "pugging" which is part of the clay recycling process. My brother and I ended up having a competition with each other, seeing who could throw a higher cylinder (I won by a long shot!).

One of the words of wisdom Dr. Feder passed along that I thought would be useful for trip was the idea of going out of my way to make myself welcome in a foreign place. He shared about how in certain ceramic arenas, the student/teacher relationship played itself out with the student having to work for at least year doing nothing more than sweeping and cleaning the studio. Then, he/she might be able to work in recycling clay and then one day be able to work with the clay itself. Essentially, the apprentice would have to go out of their way to earn the trust of the teacher. After hearing these stories, I'm thinking now that as I prepare to step into some new arenas in a couple days, that I should really take the extra initiative to help out around the place and go above and beyond in terms of showing my desire to be there. Especially if one of these arenas turns out to be a ceramics studio. Doing so will really communicate a message that I would probably be at loss to say in words.

I am leaving tonight!

Here are some pictures from the day:

My brother (Kevin) hard at work

My best piece of the day (going to go finish it tomorrow)

My brother, Dr. Feder, and I

Home in Jersey

2008-06-23T21:00:00.010+05:30

I've departed from Ann Arbor and am currently home in New Jersey. Since I likely would have had to fly out to one of the big cities on the east coast or a city like Chicago en route to India, I figured making a stop at home beforehand would be nice. I'll be spending these last couple of days taking care of some things like buying traveler's checks, figuring out where I'm going to live, and spending time with family and old friends.

Last night, I got to meet up with an Indian couple that are currently students at Princeton Theological Seminary. I was actually surprised at first because as I drove into their residential area I actually drove right past their family without considering that they would be the people that I was meeting. This was because outwardly, they didn't resemble the Indian people that I would be accustomed to seeing . As we talked more and more they shared about their background, and how they are from the Nagaland state, which is in the strip of India that hangs over Bangladesh and borders China and Burma. They shared about how Nagaland and many other states in that area have a greater diversity of Chinese and other ethnic groups, which is probably why I didn't initially recognize them as being "Indian."

It was cool being able to speak with them about what I was doing and how their experiences in India were previously. Ren, the wife, lived in Delhi for a long period of time, and Panger, the husband, also spent some time in Bangalore, where I'll be going for a week in July. They shared on some insights that would be helpful for my time there - things like basic Hindi, places I definitely have to check out, and some everyday mannerisms that I'll have to get used to like which side of the road people drive on and which way the light switches turn.

I'm thankful for their input - as I'm getting closer to leaving and setting foot on the ground alone, I'm really anxious to get as much input as possible for anything to expect once I'm there! They've also connected me with some of their friends who are either working and/or studying at universities in Delhi for anything that I might need once I arrive.

3 more days!

Meeting the People Where They Are

2008-06-11T08:08:00.012+05:30

Aside from working full time everyday, one of the different aspects of my trip that I am very excited about is the everyday interaction with people - both inside and outside of the workplace. Last summer, I had the privilege of spending a little under a month in China. Knowing a little bit of the Chinese language, I was able to strike up some conversations here and there with the people that I ran into in different areas. Coming into the trip, I didn't have too many expectations when it came to random, side conversations that started spontaneously. Looking back, however, I came to realize these exchanges with people contributed greatly to the memories embedded in my mind during the my month long sojourn throughout China.

One of most impactful experiences of meeting with people and having random on-spot-exchanges came as I took a train from the Shanghai out into the western part of the country. The circumstances around our cross-country journey were unlike anything I'd ever experienced living in America. Imagine a three day long journey sitting in a plastic bucket seat, with no shower, no bed, and only enough food that you could bring on with two hands before the train departed from our origin city. What set the train ride apart even more from a ride in America was that people had the option of buying "standing room" seats in which any 3X3 space on the train was fair game for parking one's belongings and body for the duration of the trip. Putting all these factors together, the three day long journey ended up consisting of me waking up with people's faces by my feet, bathroom excursions jumping over dozens of people, and little kids poking their faces over my seat in curiosity of all the American people that looked so out of place.

A three day long journey also afforded a lot of time for conversation. I remember sitting across from two college students who were heading home after a long year of police academy. We exchanged hobbies, favorite music, favorite basketball team (their's was the Houston Rockets, of course), and other mutual interests that college students would be interested in. We met a couple families that were heading back to their home provinces and shared in the laughter and conversation with random kids and couples.

One of the greatest lessons taken away from the trip came in the shift of perspective that occurred throughout the three day journey. For myself and many of the people that I was with, it was so easy to focus on the lack of normal "amenities" that we often taken for granted in America, things like an everyday shower, food at moment's notice, or even a bed to sleep on every night. Even for us American students, traveling such a distance would usually be done on a five hour flight, not a 48 hour overnight train ride. It would be inconceivable to not even buy a seat on the train.

But the fact of the matter is, what we experienced on that 48 hour train ride was life for the majority of Chinese people. Flying within the country is simply not an option for much of the population. As I journaled somewhere in the middle of the second or third day, I remember writing that I should not judge the circumstances of our train ride and the reality of life for the majority of people on the train through the worldview of my American background.

And that's my hope for this upcoming trip to India: to be able to meet the people where they are and embrace the cultural and everyday realities that they have to deal with on an everyday basis. I'm hoping that my reactions will not be driven by an egotistical American attitude, but that I would learn to embody all of the stories, experiences, and worldviews of the people that I meet, whether it be in the workplace or randomly on the street.

"Hello! My name is Bobby (one of the guys I was with)"

"Joking around with one of the kids"

Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement

2008-05-14T01:31:00.002+05:30

For about one week in the middle of my trip, I will have the privilege to step away from my position at the Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi and head down to the southern part of the country to observe the work an Indian NGO, the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement. It is an organization founded in 1984 engaged in building a new civil society through grassroots action in the health, education, and community development sectors. Over the course of its twenty year existence, it has brought "light and life and health and happiness to hundreds of thousands of displaced, dispossessed and disempowered men, women, and children, particularly in the tribal and rural belts." I'm excited for this leg of my trip because not only will I be able to experience another part of the country, but also because I will be able to get a different perspective on the sector of health and its effect on people.

I'm very excited to work with this organization because its history reflects something that I feel is very important when it comes to providing healthcare for the marginalized and poor. Originally, the organization was founded to provide healthcare to the disadvantaged in rural south India. However, as the doctors realized that solving the people's medical problems was merely the first step in improving their quality of life, further initiatives were created and the organization's services were broadened. For me, this reflects the important principle that curing people's medical conditions cannot be the sole objective for helping the poor. In the end, economic development and opportunity are going to be the avenues through which people's lives will be enhanced, and this organization recognized this need early and has since implemented many initiatives in the areas of education and community development.

Preparations

2008-05-13T04:12:00.002+05:30

It is now starting to hit me that in about one and a half months, I will getting on a plane to go to the other side of the world. It's kind of interesting because for me, the trip is kind of like this "out of the world," crazy experience, but for so many people around the world and for so many of my close friends, getting on a plane to India is simply the beginning of a journey back to their motherland. Sometimes I am phased by how much this simple subtlety can make a difference as I look ahead towards my trip.

For example, as I've spoken to people about my trip, I've gotten many mixed reactions about going to India. Many people at home have told me to "be careful" and to "be alert." Some people have said, "that's awesome that you're getting the chance to experience and help other people!" Some people have straight up said, "are you sure? why would you want to go all the way out there?" Even as I first told my parents about the prospects of going to India and then informing them of the reality that I had received grant money and was actually going to go, I had to reassure them that my experience was actually going to be safe and that my excitement was not overriding any lack of judgement.

Realistically, even my own personal preparations for this trip have been interesting. I've been reading up on different cultural tidbits that I should be aware of so as not to offend the people. I'm scheduled to receive a round of immunizations at my University's travel clinic at 8:30am this Friday morning. I've bought a travel money belt, and am planning on gearing up with some heavy duty mosquito repellent and long sleeve clothing to avoid getting bit by potentially harmful mosquito species. Sometimes I can easily fool myself into thinking that I'm preparing for a small war or something!

But the fact of the matter is, India has and will continue to be the homeland for millions of people scattered around the world in this day and in the days to come. And chances are when they're planning a summer trip to visit the grandparents or looking into exploring their home culture, their time spent in preparation is not devoted to arming up with the latest bug spray or devising tricks to avoid pick-pocketers. I would venture to guess that it might one of the least of their worries. Of course I am aware that I will likely stick out big time as I walk the streets of the country. But as I've been reflecting on my trip over the past couple of days, I've been coming to the realization that if I carry on my trip with the constant worry of "is this safe to eat?" or "am I going to be pick-pocketed if I walk down this street" - I will likely miss out on much of what country and the people have to offer.

And what a shame that would be, right?

Rediscovery of a Hobby

2008-05-01T08:36:00.002+05:30

I've been able to spend the past couple of days in my hometown of Bridgewater, New Jersey. One of the old time hobbies that I was able to take part in during high school was the art of ceramics. After dropping my brother off at school one morning, I decided to pay my old ceramics professor a visit. I will always remember my teacher for having a profound appreciation for the connection between art and culture. When I was in high school, I never quite grasped why he placed so much emphasis on offering his "cultural ceramics" class every semester. Now, looking ahead at the summer, I can totally see why.

As I shared about my trip to India - an idea popped into my head that was sort of like a random chance occurrence and moment of satisfaction mixed together. All this time as I was pondering what the heck I would do with my time after getting off work everyday in New Delhi - an instant solution popped into my mind as I gazed past students working on their coil pots and the art posters that had hung on the wall when I was a student at the high school. At that moment, I thought to myself, what would it be like to explore the ties of ceramics with Indian culture? What would it be like to be able to work with local artists - learning their craft, their trade, their lives? What better way to experience authentic Indian culture than to immerse myself in the lives of the people? It was an awesome moment.

Some of the greatest memories from my trip to overseas last summer came on a forty six hour train ride sitting on a plastic bucket seat with no shower, limited food, and a squater toilet that could only be reached by hurdling over dozens of standing room passengers. Yet in the conversations that I had with the college students who had just finished a semester of police training or the family who was making a move out into new territory, all those bitter memories of conditions that I would never face in America seemed to fade away. What I experienced was exactly what the majority of people in that country went through on an everyday basis. It was an experience of what it meant to be with the people.

Looking ahead to this summer, I'm excited for the opportunities to be had that will be forever cemented in the category of truly "meeting the people where they are." Maybe the whole trade of making pots and sculptures will be part of it!

A Small Wake Up Call

2008-04-14T05:46:00.001+05:30

Today I read this article from my friend's "Google Reader Sharing" list from International Justice Mission. The organization seeks to "make public justice systems work for victims of abuse and oppression who urgently need the protection of the law." Much of their casework involves rescuing men, women, and children alike from the bondages of sex trafficking, slavery, and other forms of brutality. The article that I read today talked of a recent rescue in which IJM assisted the local Bangalore government in raiding a kiln that had imprisoned 12 people in modern day slavery after the owners had promised the people wages and housing for their work. The raid occurred in the city of Bangalore, India.

Wait. Bangalore? India?

The same Bangalore that I was planning on taking a trip down to in the middle of my trip to India?

Yeah. Bangalore. The same city. The same country. Something hit me as I was reading this article today. I think for a while now I've imagined India to be this dream place where I would experience all the great things the country has to offer. It's not that I had never heard of all the human rights issues that continue to go on or the immense public health problems that continue to affect the country's population, but that until now I had never realized that I would actually be in the proximity of all these things that I read about all the time in the news and on the Internet. Who knows what I will actually see there, but I can only hope that I will prepare myself mentally for a real-world experience and not just the things that my "Frommers" tour book tells me of the country.

Read the article here.

A Humbling Opportunity

2008-04-12T11:34:00.000+05:30

Today, I was able to book my plane tickets to Delhi. I will be traveling from June 25th until August 13th, which also happens to be my birthday. That means my trip is official! I am going to India. This is going to be a dream come true.

The reason why the title of this blog entry is "A Humbling Opportunity" is because there is a long story about how this summer took shape, going back to last summer after I had just come back from China. Since I've never tracked the process in writing, I figured that here would be a good chance to recap. Here goes.

After coming back from China in July, I started looking into public health opportunities for undergraduate students at the University of Michigan. I eventually came upon some funding opportunities, one of which offered to send students to India through a grant from the Center for South Asian Studies. This was the start of the journey that led me to where I am now.

In my quest to learn more about public health, I stumbled across a professor from Berkeley who had given a lecture at Michigan on a topic that interested me (I think it was something related to leadership and sustainability). I emailed asking him to elaborate on his interests and to send over any notes that he may have had for his talk (I was in China when he came to speak). Not only did he email me back telling me he might be joining the faculty at U of M, he happened to cc Dr. Howard Hu, chair of the Environmental Sciences department of the School of Public Health.

Dr. Hu and I met and had a stimulating conversation about my interests in public health and its differences from medicine. A couple months passed with not much going on. Then, in November, I decided to send Dr. Hu another email. We met up and I shared how I was looking into opportunities for the summer to apply for funding, specifically for India. Knowing that he had done a lot of work in India, I figured he was a good person to ask.

As he shared, he mentioned his colleague who happened to be the president of the Public Health Foundation of India. The organization was founded to address the wide-ranging public health problems that India currently faces, whether it be the diseases like malaria that developing countries face, or the obesity and tobacco related ailments commonly seen in more developed countries. The potential opportunity to work with such a group was a dream come true!

We spent the next couple of months corresponding over email. Then, in a sort of "out of the blue" fashion, Dr. Hu forwarded me an email saying that I would welcome to work at the Public Health Foundation of India this summer. All I had to do now was obtain funding for my trip. Three months later, despite my feelings of inadequacy in many areas of my application, I have somehow obtained funding.

Looking ahead, I would say what lays before me this summer is truly a humbling opportunity. Never would I have imagined eight months ago that I would have such a tremendous chance to become immersed in a different country's culture again, to learn first-hand from professionals addressing real global health issues, and to top it off, to be supported by the university that I am currently forking over thousands of dollars a year in tuition costs! I am excited for this summer because I feel like with this open door to experience something so out of the norm for an undergrad means that I'm somehow meant to give back to the people and community I am currently immersed in in some way. Whatever form that takes, whether it be through reading this blog or through me sharing my experiences first hand, I'm hoping that I will be able to somehow encourage people to make the post of pursuing their passions and vision in life in the near future.

First Post!

2008-04-09T21:45:00.000+05:30

Greetings all!

This blog will primarily be for sharing about my experiences to India this summer. I have graciously received a grant from the Center for International and Comparative Studies at the University of Michigan to do an internship at the Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi this summer.

I'm genuinely excited for this experience because I think it will be an awesome way to build off my summer from last year, where I was able to spend close to four weeks abroad in China. My feeling is that many of the lessons learned from that trip are what ultimately compelled me to pursue funding and job experience abroad this summer.

I will be posting periodically about different things as they come up, including what I'll be doing there, how I'll be preparing, as well as what is going on when I'm actually there. Delhi is very much a modernized city, so I don't think I should have any problems getting connected with the outside world.

Looking forward to this!