Udaipur!

After spending a week filled with lakefront meals and views, boat rides, festivals, thrifty shopping and village explorations.... I'm back in Delhi.

Udaipur is one of the most beautiful cities I've been to, it was tough to board the overnight back to Delhi on Friday. It is situated around 5 man-made lakes, and filled with many palaces and temples built by the Mughal Emperors. The city is also surrounded by mountains and rolling hills leading out into the Rajasthani desert. Like I said: paradise. 

We spent our first 2 days working with the NGO ARTH, who took us out into a few rural villages surrounding Udaipur where they are training ASHAs and GNM (General Nurse/Midwives) to help with maternal and neonatal care. The organization is working to supplement the government programs in places where there is limited access to care. Each day we spent probably 2-3 hours in the bus travelling to and from these villages, which just showed how hard it is for them to access the regional hospital in Udaipur. It was nice to see the contrast between the NGO and the government offices, and how the NGO is filling the gaps in care where the government is lacking. And the drives were beautiful! This was the only time thus far that I've wanted my own car to drive on the roads, because I'm sure being the driver on the back country would have been a great experience. I also made some new friends in the villages (all the little children!) and every time our group was split in half, I spent my 'off time' teaching tag and ring around the rosie to the village children (finally, some of my broken Hindi is becoming useful! Although they also speak their own dialect that I didn't understand, figures) and I also got to play a few of their games. Later in the week we partnered with the NGO Seva Mandir, who did similar work in rural villages promoting community building and empowerment. My favorite days in India thus far have been those spent in the villages with these NGOs. They are both doing great things, I am excited to be able to track the progress they make (you should all check the links as well!!).

On Friday morning we went to a government Ayurvedic Hospital, one of the traditional medicines practiced regularly in India. While on our trip to Aligarh I was very impressed by the Unani Medical College, I can not say the same about the Ayurvedic Hospital. The government facility was eerily empty, and as we toured around and learned more about the practices I became more and more turned off by what was going on. To each their own- but Ayurveda is not for me. Some of the practices they use  involve a series of 'oily enemas' (exactly what it sounds like) and induced vomiting to expel disease from your body. I guess it had better preventative practices that involve lots and lots of hot oil for massages, etc. Aside from that, our entire group left the facility unimpressed and a little turned off by the entire practice. 

Although our days were jam packed with excursions, we had most of the evenings off to explore a little bit of the city. The first day we were there just happened to be International Tourism Day (who knew that even existed?) so while at our rooftop dinner we had a small show of fireworks and traditional dancing by down by the lake. This week also happened to be the start of the Hindu festival of Navaratri, which lasts for 9 nights and includes colorful street decorations, parties, and traditional dancing called garba. It turned our to be an unnaturally good time to visit the city! The last night we were there, our amazing program staff also set up a rooftop party for us at our hotel, complete with dinner, traditional folk performances, music and dancing (and even a few beers, those rebels!). I don't think I'd be able to survive India without the overwhelmingly accommodating program staff, its been so nice having them as resources everywhere we go. And then on top of all that, they set up things like the rooftop party. Our last afternoon we were also given a surprise few hours to do a little more exploring and most importantly: shopping! I've been working on my bargaining skills, and I think I've finally come up with a (semi)effective system, as long as I'm with my American-Indians that who can try to get the 'Indian' price of things first. I'm not as savvy as I would like to be, but I finally feel like I'm getting better.

I wish I'd had more time to explore the state of Rajasthan, everything was so colorful and there seems to be so much cultural history in everything that the locals do. Good thing I'm going back to study in Jaipur (the capital of the state) during my ISP! Now that I'm back in Delhi I'm back to the grind of studying for my Hindi midterms, written on Thursday, oral on Friday. **To all you Lehigh go-ers, I feel your pain for 4 o'clocks, just on a smaller scale. Good luck studying, don't work too hard! **

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the week, there are also lots more on Facebook! I am trying to also create a blog photo album .... stay tuned. 

 On Lake Pichola.

View from our hotel window!

 Boat ride!

 Mountain view.

 Navrathri decorations!

 Hike out to one of the villages. 

A few of my new friends!!

Its amazing how many different things can be accomplished in only a few short days in Delhi. I mean, maybe thats due to the fact the city caters to around 14 million, but still its pretty impressive. My weekend started with some much needed American comforts, and a trip to the Select City Walk mall. Friday afternoon when we decided to go I was unsure about what to expect, I figured it might be a few upscale shops or something like that. Once we arrived, I had reverse culture shock because Select City is SO NICE. Probably the nicest mall I've ever been in- it has 3 stories and spans 3 buildings, and caters to every American brand that you can think of, along with many other Indian designers. It turned out to be a lovely evening of relaxing in an atmosphere where I felt like I could let my guard down a little bit. A group of us decided once we were there to have snacks/drinks/coffee at the local hookah bar Mocha, which was a fantastic way to end the week. 

Flash forward to Saturday morning. After having such a lovely and relaxing evening, Emily and I woke up refreshed and very ambitious about our day. We started in Chandni Chowk, a very famous market in Old Delhi. Chandni Chowk is known mostly for the excessively large crowd, so even though we arrived early, by the time we left it was a struggle to try to think about what was going on, just because there we sooo  many people. The great part about this experience though was the street food- I have been anxious to try street food just because I didn't want to get the infamous 'Delhi belly' but because Chandni Chowk is so crowded street vendors are forced to make fresh and clean products. We had a few delicious parathas (fried rotis filled with everything from spiced potatoes to paneer to cashews) and jalebis (essentially a funnel cake then dipped into hot sugar/syrup/water... this was delicious, but 2 bites is enough to get the flavor, so much oil and sugar!). From the jawlebi stand we headed back towards the metro, but first stopped in a gurdwara, which is a Sikh temple. Before entering I knew almost nothing about the Sikh religion, and by the time I came out I had about 50000 questions to ask the nearest Sikh- you all should look up Sikhism! Through this trip I'm coming to realize that learning about and understanding other religions is not only really interesting, but makes you much more culturally aware.

You would think experiencing Chandni Chowk would be enough for one day... but the ambitious Emily and I trekked onward. We had heard about the Akshardham temple, and thought it was closed on Sunday,  so we wanted to get over to see it that day. Sidenote: its definitely not closed on Sundays. Ah well. 

By the time we arrived at the temple it was nearly 4 PM, but even from the metro you can see how spectacular the building is- bummer though, we had to check all cameras, cell phones and electronics at the door (no pics, only from the website!)  so we were alright visiting for an hour or 2 before heading home. Once again getting in over our heads: we saw the advertisement for the 'exhibitions' and thought, 'oh great, a nice way to understand exactly what this temple is!' Approximately 1 anamatronics  show, large screen movie, and interactive boat ride later it became pretty clear: we were shuffled through what I am going to describe as the mixture of Religious Teachings and Disney World. The boat ride was reminiscent to 'Its a Small World', and the anamatronics show reminded me of moving men inside the Natural History Museum. It was pretty strange to say the least. The silver lining of this whole excursion was the fact we were able to see the temple lit up at night, along with a really impressive musical fountain/light show. It really is a beautiful place, I was just completely overwhelmed with everything that had happened that day, along with the religious teachings being thrust at me for a few hours in the afternoon. Either way, once again, I learned about another religion! Like I said, I'm becoming more culturally aware... just this time it was a little unexpected.

Today has been a recovery day from the extremely busy day we had on Saturday. For the most part we've been doing lots of relaxing, besides for trying to help our host dad and his nephew shoo out a mouse from the house! We also went to the Lodi Gardens and an outdoor exhibition nearby at the India Islamic Cultural Center. 

Tomorrow I'm off to Udaipur for the week! I'd love to share what I'll be doing, but its still a mystery to me. All I know is tomorrow night I'll be nestled safely in the sleeper car, on my way to the "most romantic city in India". Who knows what awaits me there? 

Bling Bling

My week has officially taken a turn for the better: i have a brand new turquoise stud on the right side of my nose. Finally! Yay! Khadeeja, Adil and Iman all came on the excursion with Emily and I to GK market to get our noses done. As the pictures clearly illustrate, the stud is pretty small (just the way I wanted it!) and doesn't totally consume my face. The woman piercing did an excellent job and the entire ordeal only cost me 200 Rs (about 4.5 dollars, i'm lovvin this conversion rate). 

Today at the center our workshop destinations were finalized, and I am travelling to Varanasi to work with The Kiran Village. Check out this link, this looks like a fantastic organization!! It will be directly related to my ISP also if I get to spend some time with physically handicapped people in need of artificial limbs, which is also pretty exciting. Our group is also going on our second excursion to Udaipur on Monday for the week to work with a few NGO's. Udaipur is a 15 hour train ride... so we're taking an overnight car! Sure to be quite the new experience... not sure exactly what I think about that just yet. 

Here are a few pictures from the evening excursion showing off the newest addition to my face (hope you guys like it!) ... and seriously, how cute is this baby?!!

 Before and after!

 Mini-photoshoot with Iman, my favorite 7 month old.  

Emily and I with our new bling.

(Briefly) Back to the Grind

After a day at the Taj and a week in Aligarh, class is just not that appealing. 

Luckily I'm not the only one that's been feeling that way, and we had a full class struggle Monday morning, attempting to learn Hindi grammar. Slight issues with that: I barely know ENGLISH grammar (thanks Engineering degree...) so its been a struggle of a week. Our program director Azim Ji finally talked to our class about reaching a 'low point' of the semester (most of us are there), when you realize that its not just about visiting the country, but about actually learning things in class and applying them in your every life here. Going abroad to actually learn? Ugh. (I'm kidding, I'm kidding)

I also am just starting to get frustrated with constant immersion in the culture and realized what I am missing: physical activity. I do body circuits in the room at night, but that's just not the same as being able to run outside or go to a gym. I finally got the courage to ask my host parents about the gym (the concept of paying to exercise is pretty foreign here, for some reason I was a little shy about it)  and Adil made a call, leading to my very first Indian gym experience last night. Adil's nephew Wes came to pick me up around 8 PM, and we headed to the nearby apartment building to discover the gym is actually just 3 larger rooms filled with various pieces of exercise equipment on the 6th floor. Not exactly my idea of a gym... but it has a treadmill, so it works. I showed up expecting to be able to do my own thing, but was immediately introduced to Wes's good friend who just happened to be the trainer, who was overly eager about facilitating a workout program for me. It was an experience for sure haha. I felt like I was actually completing a fitness test rather than a workout, and he suggested I come back everyday to continue my Indian workout regime. We'll see about that. Its amazing how much better a run makes you feel though!! 

Emily and I also have some pretty big things planned for our near future...Khadeeja might be taking us to get nose piercings! I'm pretty excited about it, Emily is pretty nervous, and Khadeeja is confident that she can take us to a great place, and might be getting hers re-done. When in India, right? (Dearest mother: I promise to be safe, cleanly and tasteful. And no tattoos, I got that memo loud and clear.) Emily and I also did some neighborhood exploring and ended up on the campus that Adil works on, only a 10 minute walk away! And the temperature is FINALLY starting to cool down (by that I mean way less humidity, still around 90 during the day) so its much more pleasant being outside exploring the neighborhood. Maybe outside runs will actually be in my future, if my lungs can ever handle the immense pollution in the air. 

This afternoon we were also given options for our workshop locations: Jamkhed, Rishikesh, Varanasi and Sikkim. So many great options to choose from! Although the Sikkim workship might be cancelled due to excessive earthquake damage (There was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake on the border of Sikkim and Nepal on Sunday) that has clogged roads with damage and landslides. I'll know where I'll be going by the end of the week, so I'll be sure to give you all the heads up on the organization I'll be working with.  

Well, I also just got back from my second experience at the gym (also filled with interaction with the weirdly muscular Asian/Indian trainer, I don't think that's going away) and I'm feeling much better about doing my Hindi homework. I'll leave you with this. 

Mai Hindi sikhre hai hu.  

(bonus points to whoever wants to translate)

TAJ MAHAL

A picture says 1000 words so I won't say very many... the Taj Mahal is everything you could imagine and more, and is so much more beautiful than any picture you or I will ever see. End verdict: Everyone needs to go. Actually, I still think the pictures that I took today look fake in comparison because they just don't do the monument to love justice. Here are a few of my favorites from the day, and a little video hello from me!

Thoughts on Aligarh

Well, its good to be back in Delhi.

Aligarh, even though its technically a city of 1 million, feels like a small town in comparison to the booming metropolis that is New Delhi. We got off the train on Tuesday morning and just taking in one breath made me realize just how POLLUTED Delhi is. The sore throat I'd developed while here disappeared in a matter of hours and it actually smelled pretty pleasant taking walks down the street. Delhi is officially (in my eyes) pretty disgustingly polluted. Aligarh is a city built around Aligarh Muslim University, which houses about 40,000 students, studying everything from engineering to modern medicine to Unani (traditional) medicines, which we got to take a look at as well.  Aligarh is definitely much more traditional though- we had an opportunity to interact with female students in one of the hostels (dorms) to learn that they had an evening curfew of 6:30 every single night. Even weekends. (!!!!!) And, they were not ready to protest this in the slightest. COMPLETELY different. That would just not fly for me, at all.

Our trip centered around exploration of the Government Health Delivery System. We looked at the system starting at the top - the JLN Medical College on the Aligarh campus, to the District Hospital, then the Community Health Center, the Primary Care Center, the rural Sub-Center, and finally all the way down to the ASHA delivering care and services in a local village. Each level presented its challenges, mostly equipment being an issue as the centers got smaller, but the over-crowded and under-staffed problems seemed to be predominant throughout.

This visit has opened my eyes to a personal priority I didn't realize I valued so highly: privacy. The great thing about being with a program such as SIT is that we had the connections of our program director and our professors, and were able to get tours through each health facility and got to experience village healthcare delivery first hand. This involved visits to many OPD wards (out patient delivery), In-patient wards, a delivery room, a women's hospital, and into a woman's home in Jawan (the village we went to). Being a group of 24 + instructors walking around already crowded hospital wards can suddenly make you feel very out of place and intrusive, even if you are being led on a tour by the Deputy Superintendent of the Facility. Our group tended to travel as such throughout many of the facilities, breaking into small groups when we could, but for the most part parading (for lack of a better word) through the wards observing patients clearly not well, and sometimes in very vulnerable and open positions. I realize it is the work of a doctor to be intrusive, but as a student it was a new feeling to me to suddenly be in a room crowding around a small girl receiving an IV for fluid loss. And to top that, the ethical issues of pictures inside these facilities became a major pressure point for our group. As I've clearly stated, I felt pretty uncomfortable to begin with, so obviously, taking pictures was just out of the question, at least where patients were receiving treatment. If I were in a hospital in the states it would 1) Be Illegal for people not related to be in the treatment room and 2) be OUT OF THE QUESTION to be photographed. Even though there are different privacy norms culturally here, I don't see that as an excuse to change my moral values and 'take advantage' of the fact that these parts of my trip could be visually documented. There were some that hold different views than I, and thus, a large debate on cultural and ethical differences ensued this week, resulting in us all learning a little bit more about ourselves, and about the issues that we are just not willing to compromise on.

This trip also exposed us to a whole new part of India: the rural village. The group spent a whole day travelling out into a village, examining their to be desired healthcare facilities, and we had the opportunity to meet an ASHA and an ANM (Auxillary nurse midwife), which are women from the village community working to help mothers who are pregnant and their children for up to 1 year after delivery. A large part of our health care study focuses on Women's health and family planning, so this visit was SO helpful in understanding how healthcare is delivered on the most primary level. The ASHA I had a chance to shadow was currently overlooking 36 pregnant women in the village, 27 who were due to deliver this month. Their work is never complete! We went on rounds to meet a 15 day old baby, where the ASHA did a primary examination, talking to the mother about the importance of vaccination and strict breast feeding for the first 6 months of the babies life. They also refer women to the larger hospitals and care facilities, and they receive a small commission for each women they send to have an 'institutional delivery' to cut back on the rate of child/maternal mortality during the birthing process. The rural villagers of India were extremely hospitable, running around making sure we had seats and once even fanning us as we listened to the ASHA examine (this was excessive in my opinion, but my instructor said it was pretty normal for things like this to happen, even when she went back to her village).

There were so many things I could write about from this trip, those were just a few that struck me as pretty important to share. It was an extremely educational week, about the health care system as well as about myself. After 4 days of traditional living, with literally nothing to do after dinner (sorry Aligarh, night life is kind of lacking) it was nice to get back to Delhi, regardless of the smog.

Today Emily and I took a trip out to the Qutab Minar, one of the 3 World Heritage Sites in Delhi. It was beautiful! It is was the first city center of Delhi way back when the Mughals were ruling, so it is a complex with the Minar as well as a series of other ancient ruins, mosques and mausoleums. The rest of our day has been pretty low key in preparation for our trip to the TAJ MAHAL which is happening tomorrow, bright and early!!

With that being said, its a little past my bedtime... 

Off to Aligarh!

Tomorrow morning bright and early (5 AM to be exact) Emily and I are headed in a taxi to the train station to start our first out of Delhi excursion to Aligarh. Aligarh is a city of around 1 million (very small by Indian standards, surprise, surprise) and we are spending the week examining various levels of the health care system. We got the tentative schedule of events, so I thought I'd post a few things the group is going to be doing:

-Taking the train for the first time (always an adventure to be had there)
- Meetings with the JLN Medical College and Hospital, and along with that an opportunity to go on a brief tour of the facility of our choice
- Tour and interaction at the District Rural Hospital, the second tier of health care providers. We are also going to be able to go on a series of rounds at the district hospital (!)
- A visit to the next lowest level of healthcare, the Community Rural Health Training Center
-Visit to the Mazurgarhi Village to meet with a few NGO's working to expand the rural health network and provide basic health knowledge to villagers
- A visit to the Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College, which teaches tradition medicinal practices, especially the Unani system

That was a very, very rough guide, but essentially the goal is to see field examples of each of the levels of healthcare providers we have been briefed on in our classes.

Also, this evening Adil and Khadeeja took us out to the India Islamic Cultural Center in New Delhi to watch a series of documentaries that her friend helped to create. It was so nice to get out of tourist-y Delhi and see what some of the locals get out to do (aka go watch film screenings about mental disorders and people being possessed with spirits). The cultural center also has free film screenings and performances for the general public, and so now that I know where it is, I'll definitely be going back! Really though, who can willingly pass up free cultural events in a foreign city?

The other awesome thing about Aligarh is, I'll be leaving my computer at the homestay. As much as I enjoy updating the blog and keeping with the world outside of India, I'm excited to get a few days of full cultural immersion in. Also, being outside the big city and headed to a much smaller (and more traditional) city is going to be a very welcome change.

Namaste!