pictures from mah trip

nurses being trained to run the integrated counseling and testing centres in rural areas.

view from the roof of a small village convent. the nuns run a primary school and farm the plot of land behind it for money. you can see their waterbuffalo and her calf.


in the city's zoopark on a day off. yes, those are white tigers.

at a farm/newly started Care and Support Centre/soon-to-be nursing school the NGO is working on. the crops are grown for both medicinal purposes as well as for profit to help fun the endeavors.


the view from inside a rickshaw.


visiting one of the government hospitals in the city (huge!!!).


visiting a nursing school - this is the practice room.


this is the nursing station/medication room for the HIV/AIDS Care and Support Centre. i can't really post any other pictures from it - confidentiality and all that.


doing some touristy stuff - visiting ancient ruins, climbing on things.

the world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.

i really am glad to be back in Toronto. i have missed home. and yet there is something that worries me about being back.

you see, being in India i had the privilege of seeing the world through tourist's eyes. not belonging to a place and having no (or very limited) responsibilities, and being somewhere quite alien puts a sense of wonder and the exotic on everything.
everything is interesting and strange and beautiful. i recall the daily 'parades' of Eluru and realize that i probably did not represent them to you entirely accurately, as even while they stared at us walking by, i also stared - not in the same way, but at the beauty and wonder of this strange new world and its people.
it's sort of like reading the beginning chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hence the title) - where the ordinariness of life is so magical and surreal that you are filled with continuous wonder - (before the world he paints descends into chaos and ruin).
i would catch myself thinking all the time, i wonder if anyone else realizes how beautiful this moment and everything is. just the way the sunlight falls, the way the ground feels beneath your feet, the buildings greyed with dirt and pollution, the walls covered with moss and creepers, birds calling, traffic blaring continuously, children laughing, and people everywhere, busy, going about the stuff of life.

i know that now i have returned i will soon get caught up in the stuff of life myself, and lose the wonder and appreciation of life and its beauty that i gained while being here.

it's strange how we learn to be in a way that isn't being at all.
eyes that don't see, ears that don't hear.
and i know that soon i will start to take for granted the people that for months i longed to see. we will argue and fight and become bored and exhausted and stressed and disconnect, and want to be away from it all, all the while blinded to the wonder and beauty and love.

on flying.

i hate flying.
i hate flying.
i hate it so much it had to be said twice. i used to think aeroplanes were wonderful marvelous magical machines - oh naive fool that i was, for in reality they are horrid and evil.
i don't know who came up with the whole aeroplane/airtravel/airport process, but whoever it was is sadistic: combining the experience of being treated like a terrorist, a criminal, an illegal alein, an imposter, and cattle, all into one 33 hour long day. cramming into a shaking aluminum box, sitting still for hours on end, having your seat kicked by whoever happens to be behind you and listening to children shrieking as unconcerned parenets ignore them.
i think being frisked is my least favourite legal activity, and it is made so much worse by being told to have a nice flight directly afterward.

have a nice flight?
yes. i think i will do that.
same to you.



it wasn't that bad, really: there were no kicking/screaming children, the kids that were there were quite good actually; the plane didn't crash; they constantly kept coming around with food; i watched Prince Caspian (and bawled - but it was dark so it was okay) and about 4 other movies aaaannnd,
i'm back.

yay!

'Z' is for zoomzoom

the end.

'Y' is for yard

'X' is for xylem

... didn't expect that, did ya?

'W' is for waterbuffalo

'V' is for veggies

'U' is for unpalatable

'T' is for table

'S' is for sweet lime

'R' is for rooftop

'Q' is for quiet time

'P' is for parlour

'O' is for overgrown

a picture.

the train ride from goa to bombay was breathtaking.
it looked like a painting you might see, ever changing. i didn't have a camera, so this is the best i could do.

the first thing that your eyes took in was all shades of pink and orange blended together. the coulds blanketed the sky, making patterns like whipped cream being stirred about in a giant bowl that was the atmosphere. here and there the sky peaked through, pale and blue but ever darkening. clouds against the horizon had a purplish hue, looking like mountains from another world. in front of these the mountains of this world, green, covered in thick, dark forests, silouhetted against the sky.
in the foreground, every shade of green - the grass and shrubs a bright, fresh hue, and then the trees darker against the sky. here and there a cultivated patch of land, cows and waterbuffalo grazing, and the occasional cottage or villa standing bravely in the midst of nature.
the pools of water left by the rains mirrored back the colourful pallete of the sky. the mud, rich and red. the train cut a path through the hills on either side, lumbering along its way, drowning out the other noises around. all along the trees reminding you that this is jungle.
the wind, wark but refreshing against your face from the open windows. strong, whispering to you that this is real, not a dream.
darker and darker as the sun set. the train shuffled on till everything took on the same shade of black and the sky darkened to match it. first rose, then deeper, almost crimson, violet, grey and black.

it was awesome to behold. not awesome like the ninja turtles, but awesome as in instilling awe and making one wonder incredulously at the fact of life, of existence, of being here to behold and marvel at beauty.
the only thing distracting were the cocroaches crawling all over the inside of the coach.

'N' is for nightview

'M' is for market

on death. part 1...?

i don't want to die. not yet. i know that's sort of an odd statement. but in india, it feels sort of like life is cheap and plentiful. that is, not meaning that the cost of living is inexpensive, but that dying is much closer than it seems to be in the west, and it's not such a great big deal, but a part of life. death is a fact. it is expected and inevitable. they say that the west has made it 'unnatural' to die. so that even though death is universal, it is a tragedy each time. i suppose we are not exposed to death as often. (although being in the hospital setting, that might change for me). and so not being around it, you don't tend to think about it or talk about it.
well, here, i feel like it is around a lot more. or maybe it's just circumstances and my situation that makes it seem that it is around a lot more. and that makes me think about it more. death and age and sickness.
i don't want to die yet. i have some things that i would like to do first. i don't mean a "list of things to do before you die" but unfinished business.
maybe i'm morbid.
maybe a 20-something year old shouldn't be thinking about these things.
and yet, during my time here i've seen 20-something year olds die. one minute they are here, then you go for lunch and the next they are not.

when i walked through the cemetary that day, i read the inscriptions that family and friends had put on the tombstones - things like "although she is gone, she will live on in our hearts" or some such thing. it isn't true though - and i don't know why we try to pretend that it is. memories aren't the same as people. you can't live on in a memory.
mostly though, there were not even those inscriptions, just names and dates, which i found to be even sadder.
i always thought that i would die young. did you ever read "little women"? do you remember beth? i always thought i would be like her. but i've found that i'm not quite done yet.
this has just been a jumble of thoughts, not cohesive at all - i'll have to think through it again.
maybe i'm morbid.

'L' is for ladder

how many westerners does it take to kill a spider?

i haven't told you any bug stories yet have i?
i suppose none of them are too notable, except maybe the second giant spider. maybe also the first giant spider.
okay, so here goes:

the place where we stayed in Eluru was totally ghetto.
i mean, it had everything that the other places had, 2 beds in each room (the beds were hard, as hard as sleeping on the floor would be, so we would be sore in the morning, but i got used to it, and i like a firm-ish bed, so it wasn't so bad), a washroom with a toilet and a tap, a sink, a window, under which sat a desk and chair, a shelf for stuff, a mirror and hooks. but it was terribly ghetto. we were the only ones staying there, even though the place had quite a large capacity, so i suspect that the nuns who ran the centre also had the impression that the place was ghetto and didn't make anyone else live there.
there was mould growing from the ceiling to which i was allergic. at first both my roommate and i were stuffed up from allergies - but hers might have been from her mouldy shoes, so when she got rid of those, her allergies went as well. but mine lingered. whenever i was away from the room for an extended period of time they would start to clear, and then when i returned my sinuses went right back to their old green mucoid secreting selves.
our room had this horrible odor that we would notice whenever we walked into it. probably from the mould.
there were giant cockroaches living in our bathroom, so we never knew what we were going to find. my roommate was becomming quite the expert at killing them - WHAP!! and they were dead. we were both still a little squeamish though. we would keep one of her running shoes on the top of the toilet, just in case, because you never know when they would creep out. i'm blind without my glasses, so i never quite felt safe taking a bath because i wouldn't be able to see them and react. there was the usual fare of geckos and little spiders and bugs of undefined sorts. these weird wormy things (they were red, and oh so disgusting and about as long as your longest finger) would crawl around our room occasionally. we would hand wash our clothes in the buckets they provided and hang them to dry whereever we could around the room. once a wormy thing crawled onto my drying bra. i saw this red thing on my bra and wondered what it could be? so i touched it, and ACK! it was a wormy thing!!! i was mortified.
the bathroom was dark: the floor was dark and the walls were dark, so you couldn't tell how dirty it was in there. that was probably a good thing. you also couldn't quite tell what the colour of the water was because the light in the bathroom was not very good. also probably a good thing. but at one point, after the heavy rains, the water started running a very noticable muddy brown. so i had to avoid a shower for that day. i pretended it had cleared up the next day in order to convince myself to bathe.
we got into the habit of not flushing the toilet because it took so long to fill up. i guess it was a pretty good way to conserve water and all that. but ghetts nevertheless.
there were reddish splotches on the wall by my bed, that had sort of dripped down a little bit and were dried there. i had the sneaking suspicion that it was the blood of whatever some previous denizen was lucky enough to kill, and all that was left were the marks to decorate the rooms.
the electricity would go off every night at around 6:30 or 7:00 and be off for about an hour. we liked to have dinner during that time, because what else are you going to do sitting alone in the dark? besides the food wasn't spectacular and wasn't particularly helped by shedding light on the subject. so we would eat by torchlight or candlelight in the dining hall.
the mosquitoes were killer. at night after dinner, we would go straight to bed - around 8-30 or 9 o'clock. my roommate covered in her sleeping bag and i in my sheet, wrapped right round to the point of suffocation just so that nothing creepy crawly could come in and so that i had some, although not completely effective, measure of protection from the mosquitoes. by the end of our stay there they were getting worse and worse, even biting right through the sheet. so one day i decided to use my umbrella as a prop for my sheet, as a makeshift mosquito net, and i slept under the umbrella. (i can be pretty ghetto myself). my roommate was amused. it was terribly uncomfortable but it worked. so i tried it again the next night. it was the most uncomfortable thing that ever was, and this time they got in, perhaps through little places where the sheet was not held down completely. awful. i would not recommend it.
i mention all these things not to complain but because i think that they are really funny. the giant spiders were also quite funny.
the first one we lived with for a few days. my roommate saw it first and pointed it out to me. it was smaller than a tarantula, but getting there in size. it's body was a bit bigger than a toonie, and it's legs were long and hairy and thick. it didn't seem to be moving very far and it stuck to a corner of the room above the window where it was rather away from us. we were just extra careful to zip our bags up to make sure it didn't crawl into anything. but then my roommate pointed out that it could be poisonous. so we decided to ask the nun who had come with us what we should do. of course it happened that she was afraid of spiders. she came to our room, and then when we told her what it was, she didn't even look, she just backed out of the room, totally creeped out. we found that amusing. but before she went back to the city she did get someone to come in and kill it for us. there was this long pole, a sort of broom or mop type thing, but it was maybe twice the length of a regular mop. he took this thing, and used the opposite end, which was just the pole and ended in a sharp little jagged point, and he climbed on top of the desk in our room and zot! he stabbed the spider, impaling it on the end of the pole. and that was that.
until the second giant spider. this one was not in our room, it was in the hallway. same size and type. we were worried that it would crawl into one of our rooms. so someone had to kill it. my roommate was the obvious choice, because she was an expert at killing things - but she didn't want to do it. one of the other girls was also a good candidate as she would kill everything and anything, and was obsessed with keeping everything sterile - but she also refused to do it. the third girl was hopeless, she wouldn't kill anything. so they all coaxed me into it. it took a lot of coaxing but i was feeling a little bit brave because i had just killed my first giant cockroach, so i took the long pole thing and stood as far away as i possibly could, and attempted to do what the dude had done - stab the thing. it was terrifying and a lot harder than it looked. but i aimed and stabbed. i think my stab may have stunned the thing, because it moved off to the side, but it just lay there. i had missed. i couldn't work up the nerve to do it again, so my roommate came over and had a go at it. she stabbed at the spider that was just lying there. but she missed - and it got up and started running for us, so we both screamed and ran out the doorway outside the building. 2 of the nuns were standing at the front of the other building, probably amused, watching the fun of lame foreigners trying to kill something, but i don't think they liked us and they didn't come to help. well, the sterilize everything girl convinced us to come back inside because she saw the spider and it was safe, and so we went back in. she then took the mop pole thing and used the mop end to try and sweep the spider out (it was hiding under my umbrella which i had left in the hallway to dry). well, it worked sort of, but when she got to the end of the hall, by the entrance door, she couldn't anymore and so my roommate took over again. bang bang swish. out the door, and down the steps. but then bang bang bang, she was clobbering the thing. she deemed that it was best to put it out of its misery because in the struggle and the sweeping it had been injured anyhow.
so that was the end of giant spider number 2.
i'm so glad that i am not in that place anymore.

all apologies.

i probably should not have started the alphabet picture thing, because now it means i have to continue. it is agonizing posting pictures here (or doing anything online for that matter) because the internet connection is so slow, but i will continue my series "goa in pictures" when i get the chance. (the last part of that sentence makes me laugh, so i'll leave it in).


a lot has happened in goa these past 2 weeks since i've last written here - maybe more than i can say. the inside details of it lie scrawled in my journal*, not for these pages or the world to see.

forgive me if these reflections on my course and AP seem a little distant - that's because they are. i need some more time to chew through what's going on inside my head and heart right now, so these will have to suffice.





*(for ingrid: the nothing book!)

'K' is for kim

'J' is for junction

'I' is for Isaiah

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.

~Isaiah 43: 19-21

'H' is for house

'G' is for grille

'F' is for fishing boat

'E' is for exercise path

'D' is for decaying

this is an abandoned house that i pass on the outskirts of margao city, on the way to the city centre. it's beautiful the way nature creeps in and takes over whenever it is given half a chance

'C' is for creepy kim who thinks cemeteries are cool.

this is potentially where centuries worth of my dead ancestors are buried... or maybe not.

'B' is for breathtaking

this is Benaulim beach. beautiful no?

'A' is for amusing diversion

'A' is for amusing diversion

i've decided to capture goa - or at least my experience of goa in pictures. here is the first.

this is some of the artwork that i've been doing while here.

an accurate description.

there were 2 novels that the CHAI people gave us to keep. i've finished the first and am half-way through the second. they're by an indian author who is able to capture in words the experience that i cannot. so here are her words, not mine:

"Taxashila was then a good replica of India's filthy cities. Its citizens, like those in most other Indian cities, prided in the neatness of their homes. They kept their homes and premises clean by disposing of garbage, carrion and ordure onto public thoroughfares and open spaces. Its inhabitants maintained, with equanimity, the dichotomy of clean houses in a filthy and stinking environment, of the luxury of skyscrapers that soared to the skies from the squalor of slums, of the seductive nakedness of the fashionable amidst the revulsive nakedness of the ill clad, of BMWs that slugged behind bullock-carts, of serene Holy Cows that stood in the centre of the road and meditated as a chaotic traffic honked and whirled around, of billionaires who lowered the glasses of their stately cars and spat out on the unsuspecting passers-by.
"The city's municipal corporation took care that nothing was done to disturb the delicate balance of contradictions. Its employees let carrion and garbage decay and stink till nature did its own cleaning. People defecated and urinated on neatly laid roads just as their previous generations did on open fields. They made voluntary contributions for the beautification of the city by daily coating its roads, walks and walls of public offices with generous contributions of red pan-spit and phlegm."
In God's Own Country
~ Ponmala, 2000

baby you can drive my car.

this is an auto rickshaw.
once, we fit 12 adults (4 students, 2 nuns, 5 strangers, plus the driver) and 2 kids sitting on people laps in one of these babies.
craziness.

a letter to hopefully clear up misunderstandings

dear natasha and to whomever else may hold similar misconceptions,

i am indeed in india. (i had a dream one night, where i was in canada, and someone asked me why i wasn't in india because my facebook profile said that i was, and i had no idea why i wasn't in india, and so i reasoned that i would be going to india shortly, and then i was quite sad because i couldn't recall at all what i had been doing in canada the past month, and why it was that i missed home so much. but then i woke up and realized that i am indeed in india). anyhow... the misconception does not lie therein but seems to be summed up in the "doing some good work" bit. you see, i'm not doing anything. i suppose if you call 'learning' 'doing', then i am 'doing', but other than that, no actual doing of anything. i am watching other people do good work. watching them work and be dedicated and be nice and hospitable and generous and kind. but other than that, no doing. i am learning that... i guess the only way that i can think of to put it is that "real life is hard". by this i mean many things. i mean that realities of life are harsh; that things are not neatly tied up and are often a big complicated mess that it is terribly hard to understand; that for the actual doing of anything, there requires so much grunt work and so little reward that it is a wonder that anyone does anything ever. real life is hard. it's hard, but it's also beautiful and 'worth the breathing'.
maybe in that lesson, (and some others), is the value of this experience. maybe.

i suppose we shall see.

~ kim

what to make of it?

i never realized how much i take for granted until i came here. like, for instance, the simple luxury of being understood by people (not understood in the utter or profound sense, but in the simple, english sense).

we were supposed to leave from the convent/centre we were staying at 9:30pm to get to the station for our 10:55 overnight train. the plan was that 2 nuns (who do not live at this particular convent, but in 2 different ones) would get a vehicle, come to the centre, pick us up and see us off.
that was the plan.
so it's 7:30pm, the 4 of us are eating dinner and some dude that i had not seen before walks by (that was quite normal as a bunch of people work at the centre doing social service work, and we did not know them all). so the dude talks to us and says something that no one understands (which is also not out of the ordinary). i catch the words "Mister A." which is the name of the director dude of the social service work they do at the centre and so i nod and say "mhmm yeah, Mister A.". i suppose that he knew we and no idea what he meant, and he left.
outside however, we see him again and he is able to convey to me that Mister A. wants to speak with us at his house before we go, to which we're all, what-the-heck? we leave in a little while and we need to finish packing!
a little bit later on one of the nuns comes to our rooms and asks us about when we are leaving and if we need the vehicle to be dropped to the station. we tell her no, no vehicle is needed, the other nuns are coming to pick us up. she tells us to call Mister A. and let him know. one of the other girls does this, spending about 7 minutes on the phone with him repeating over and over that we did not need him to send the vehicle, no vehicle was necessary, we had a vehicle, we didn't need his. we go back and see the nuns again, let them know that we called Mister A., let them know that we still don't need the vehicle.
all is good.
half an hour later, the vehicle shows up and the head nun comes to call us to let us know we can put our stuff into it. at this point i'm trying hard not to freak out in our attempts to convey that we had told them ten thousand times that we didn't need their car and why did they still send it?
she just stood there confused wondering if we did not need their vehicle, why we didn't just inform them, and maybe we should talk it over with Mister A.


our 2 nuns arrived on time with their vehicle and off we went to our train with no further incidents. well, a few minor ones, but nothing like our first train ride to Eluru.

the elephant man meets britney

Eluru can quite accurately be described as 'the boonies'. it almost never sees any foreigners at all. some of the things there are incredibly strange, like the way it is normal for people to wear plastic bags on their heads when it rains; or how men can wear the equivalent of mini-skirts, (or nothing at all!) and women can't show their ankles; or how it is perfectly acceptable to gawk.
walking down the street, standing at the bus station, riding the bus, people would stop and just stare at us. in Toronto, even if someone stares, when you catch them staring they know it is rude and they are embarrassed and look away. not so here. you can't stare them down because they don't seem to think of it as rude and don't turn away. although the other girls drew most of the attention and my association with them is mostly what made me strange as well, even on my own i stuck out and was an aberration.
even though this has been my experience throughout Andhra Pradesh, Eluru was especially trying. being there was like constantly being on parade. it got old quick. i would walk down the street in my salwar kameez (which by the way looks like a bright pink prom dress, or in my bright blue scrubs, (because i have no normal clothes to wear) - which admittedly is like inviting strange looks from people - and it was a constant parade, somewhere in between the experience of a celebrity and the elephant man.
it did teach me a little bit about what those individuals would feel and how hard it would be to face constantly. having all eyes on you all the time, watching your every move and making you feel like some kind of freak show. it's no wonder that so many celebrities snap and go crazy.

summary #2 and the end of the program.

i hope that there will be more to follow, and quality stuff too, because there is lots to write about and reflect on, but i thought that since i'm here in Secunderabad again i'd give you the quick overview of what the past 2 weeks or so has been like.

we left Secunderabad by train on sunday july 27th at night. the whole train fiasco deserves a post of its own, which i haven't written yet, but it is documented here. we arrived early in the morning in Eluru, which is a small-ish city in the state of Andhra Pradesh in West Godavari district, on the east coast of india (so it's quite a distance!). a driver was there to pick us up and drop us off at the convent/centre that we would be staying at. the centre had a building for accommodations, which was empty most of the time except for us, as well as a building in which people did work etc., social service stuff that was carried out by the nuns and other people who stayed at the centre.

during the 2 weeks we were following two nurse supervisors (who were also nuns) who lived at different convents from the one we were staying at. the 4 of us would eat breakfast at the centre, walk 1/2 hour to the bus stand to meet with one or both of the nuns and then we would take a bus to wherever we were going for the day. we would pack our lunches in tiffins that we bought for that purpose. We would get back to the centre in time for supper. Usually the power would be cut off for about an hour from around 7-8pm, so we would sometimes eat supper in the dark by candlelight or by torchlight. our nights were extremely early, as if we stayed up very long the mosquitoes which were horrors would eat us up so bedtime was between 8 and 9 pretty much every day.

we went to Eluru to learn about the PHC Enhancement Project, which is the training of "Nurse Practitioners" to (wo-)man Integrated testing and counseling centres where HIV testing is available, pre- and post-test counseling is done and a whack-load of other responsibilities are also carried out.
PHCs are little government-run hospitals or clinics where patients can come to see the doctor, get/fill a prescription, have a baby, have minor surgery etc.. They serve a population of around 50,000. The idea behind the Enhancement Project is to have HIV testing centres at the level of the PHCs to make them accessible to the people and increase awareness of HIV.
India has a reported HIV prevalence of 0.3%, which may not seem like much but if you consider the sheer population here, it's a lot! Andhra Pradesh, the state that i'm in right now has one of the highest prevalence rates in the country, and West Godavari, the district that we visited, has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates of all the districts in AP. in some places the hospitals/doctors/staff were reporting rates of around 3-5%. yowzers.
so they started this initiative about a year and a half ago to try and bring these rates down, and especially to reduce the rate of transmission from mother-to-child. the "nurse practitioners" are trained to conduct positive deliveries. they also do a lot of outreach work with the villages that fall under their particular PHC, conducting awareness seminars and doing teaching and counseling.
we followed nurse supervisors (the supervisors of the nurse practitioners) who would go visit various PHCs, check-in with their NPs and see how everything was shaking. we visited a bunch of them (7), plus a few district hospitals, some faith-based hospitals, a care and support centre for HIV/AIDS + leprosy, and went to a few outreach/community events in the villages. oh, and we also went to East Godavari to observe a training session for the NPs. overall it was a LOT of traveling. we learned a lot though.
it was interesting to see how theoretical concepts and program planning is actually being carried out and it was neat to look at some of the barriers and challenges that the different players faced in trying to implement the program and have it run smoothly.
we got back to Secunderabad on wednesday morning, presented to CHAI about our experiences and learning etc. on thursday, and today is friday, independence day for India.
sunday we leave for goa. the other girls are coming too, but while they are staying in hotels i will be staying with family.

anyhow, that's the update. i hope it makes sense.

it's just too easy to come up with a pun, so i'm not going to.

i've been around a lot of nuns since i've been here, and i've decided to blog about them because nuns really are a very interesting breed of creature, and they fascinate me.
when i was younger i wanted to be a nun - it's because i loved the idea of being married to Jesus and entering into a life of service. of course that didn't materialize - mostly because i'm not catholic and i have certain theological disagreements with central points of the catholic doctrine, thus i could not become catholic or a nun.
being around nuns is pretty interesting though. it's sort of like the sound of music all the time. what's really weird is that no one here has seen the sound of music. we actually sand a few sound of music songs (my favourite things, and doe a deer) to some nuns in training (about 20 18-year-old girls who sand and danced for us and begged us for a song and dance in return - they liked the singing, the dancing disappointed).
i think in canada there seems to be this sense that being a nun is a very 'safe', tame profession. in some ways i suppose that may be true, as you give up a lot of your personal freedoms, like the choice to be where you want or study what you want - your superiours decide where they want to send you and what you will do. you have a ton of rules to follow, and (i'm reading this book about nuns and apparently) complete obedience to your superiors is pretty darn important too.
but here, where the choices available to many women are quite limited, and the pattern is often moving from being under the control of your father to being under the control of your husband and popping out babies all your days, the life of a nun is quite freeing and adventurous (not that i'm against marriage or having children!!).
you have to be ready to be sent anywhere in the world to do anything, and you are completely off your own agenda working for the good of others and could be sent to do anything. not only that but you have to give up so many things like personal ambitions, having children, getting married, having possessions... it's pretty wild!

i've really come to respect some of the nuns that i've been around and gotten to know (even though it remains that most of these nuns are CRAZY!!!)

monsoon weather.

we were supposed to go to visit the seashore today. but it rained all night and so the nuns rung up and said that we probably shouldn't go. which is probably a good thing since it has rained all day, continuously and there isn't really any sign of stopping.
so instead we are "working" on our PHCEP report.

today i am glum and miss home.

yup. that's all i wanted to say.




1 week till we leave for goa.

the tipping point.

the language barrier is really tough to deal with. it makes it really hard to do anything, to be effective at all, or to understand even a fraction of what is going on at any given time. however, perhaps even more frustrating is the cultural barrier, which threatens to drive me totally insane. some days i'm just ready to stand up and scream. i think maybe to live in this country i'd either have to be a little loopy or just learn to completely chill and go with it. i'm trying to chill... really, i am! but being utterly confused and not knowing what is going on ever is pushing me to the limits of sanity...

as you like it AND all's well that ends well OR much ado about nothing.

one of the other students i am with here watches hindi movies at home. three of us decided to go watch a hindi movie at the city's imax. well in advance she went through the newspapers, found one that looked good (a chick flick), went online, found the show times for the theatre so that we would know when to be there, tried to call the theatre but no number given actually ever works and by now we were getting used to that. we got there on time, went to the box office, and lo! the movie was sold out. not only that but all the online show times are completely wrong. the 4:30 show actually started at 4:00so we would have missed it anyhow. the only hindi movie that was showing near to the time was an action movie: "Mission Istanbul" starring (in my opinion) a Keanu Reeves look alike and a Viggo Mortensen look alike as his sidekick.

the basic plot was a journalist (keanu) covering terrorist stories and uncovering a sinister plot by the media to create fear. although the movie was in hindi, there was enough english thrown into the mix ("blah blah blah 13th floor", "blah blah blah hall of martyrs", "blah blah blah i will get your wife back [keanu], i swear it!!!", "blah blah blah go get 'em tiger!") that we could follow it pretty easily. not only that, but there were 3 song and dance numbers that were fully randomness. it was so great.
i thought the movie was excellently amazing. unfortunately the local paper didn't agree, giving it 2 out of 5 stars. it was great in the way that movies such as godzilla were great, perhaps not achieving the desired effect but definitely of entertainment value. what was my favourite part? maybe the mountain dew product placement scene where the 3 goodguys chug their mountain dew, do the classic can crush followed by a thrashing of badguys: hilarious. or the chinese-style fight scenes: golden. or maybe it was the complete randomness of the plans and actions of the characters: so good. i can't decide.
it may have actually turned me on to hindi flicks.

an incident that occurred during the intermission was a little worrisome:
i decided to get a sorbet: fat free, sugar free, dairy free. sounds good, right? so i'm ready to order and the ice cream vender gets a call on his mobile and i have to wait till he's done chatting to place my order. i get my sorbet, i'm in the theatre eating it, then i realize that my throat has started to close up because of it. turns out i'm allergic to whatever the artificial sweetener is that they use in these things.
(as an aside, i may also be allergic to something in the air here, possibly the mould growing in our room - my poor roommate has to listen to me blowing out gobs of green mucus from my right sinus all day and night).
i was a little alarmed and panicky at first - but quickly realized that it was my lower esophagus that was swelling up and not my bronchi, so i had no trouble breathing (which would have been disastrous if it had been the case). so i stopped eating my poisonous treat, informed the other girls i was with (who thought it was hilarious - it actually was in a way) and continued to enjoy the rest of the movie.
from now on i will beware of artificial sweetener and no-sugar, no-fat, no-dairy products while i am here.

amusante ausi.

there are so many fun stories to tell here, which is so great. here is one:

so, remember a little while back when i mentioned the hospitality of a couple who were practically strangers to me? well they did it again and invited the 4 of us for dinner to their house. however, one of the girls couldn't make it so when i called to tell the wife she sounded so sad that i suggested inviting 2 more foreign students (from America) who sere staying at the same place and who we had casually befriended. they were at work during the day and so i had to wait until they got back to invite them along. i waited and waited. they didn't come and i was so sad because i knew that the couple would be disappointed. finally, the husband came to collect us and the three of us crossed the street to get into his van, and who should be getting out of an auto rickshaw but the american students. so we invited them along for dinner and the 5 of us puled into his car.

well, after we had traveled for a short while, he started to ask what drinks we wanted and what should he pick up? "you're all over 18, right? do you drink beer? should i pick up some beer?", it was funny because it was not something we were expecting, staying with nuns and priests for almost a month. we tried to insist to him that we would drink whatever he had and not to go to trouble for us. he replied that "at home i drink vodka. will you drink vodka?" but somehow he managed to make "vodka" sound like "water". although i knew what he was saying and what he meant none of the others did so it was amusing to hear the others reply that "yes, water will be fine, we all drink water, water is very good". needless to say that they were all a little surprised when it wasn't just water that we received when we reached their home.
good times.

pretty in pink.

so, guess what?

when we were in Warangal we went with the priest to buy some fabric, and here in Eluru we searched out a tailor and had him sew it. the first tailor that we came upon refused to serve us, possibly she didn't understand enough english to be able to. so we asked some kids where we could get some saris made, (here we have to say "saaa-reee" to match their accent so that they can understand what we're talking about) and they pointed us down the street, where we asked someone else and we eventually were led to a little shack attached to a one room house where there was a plump little woman and her skinny graying husband and a man in the back at a sewing machine working away. our friends the Tailors were very friendly and measured us and took the material, and lo! i now have a salwar kameez.
yay.
i'm becoming more and more indian as i stay here.
it's a lot prettier than the ones that are in the wikipedia pictures:
kinda pink and shiny and over-the-top, but everything here is over-the-top, so it fits in.

amazing stuff.

i wanted to share with you, just briefly what was probably the most amazing experience of this whole trip, although i know that i will not be able to capture it with words.

the HIV/AIDS Care and Support Centre that we went to in Warangal is run by a priest who is the director and by nuns who are the nurses in charge. the land that it is on belongs to the catholic church, and a whole lot of the surrounding gated compounds are also catholic institutions. there is a cathedral-style church, there is the priest's house in which the 4 of us stayed along with some of the nurses who work at the CSC, there are a few convents, a few schools, a leprosy hospital, a rehabilitation centre for women (after they become widows they are taught skills that will allow them to support themselves), and a school for deaf children.

one day the priest that we were staying with took us to visit the school for deaf children. we entered the compound and first came upon a small group of boys in the back of one of the buildings. within a few seconds we were surrounded. soon after the girls came out also. it was a sea of hands and faces all around us, each one demanding attention. it was sensory overload and excitement to the max, but all in complete silence. occasionally i heard a girl laugh out loud but other than that no one made any sound. they spelled out words in english on our hands and on note pads, asking all kinds of questions. some of the girls danced for us - (the macarena!).

it wasn't very long, maybe 20minutes that we were there - but it was incredible and overwhelming.
by far one of my favourite experiences being here

fauna count

so, i've been making a list of all the interesting and exotic creatures that we have encountered here while on our travels. of course, i've left the list back at the centre where we are staying, so i'll have to give it to you from memory.

(by the way, completely unrelated, but i just had a mental lapse, where i could not figure out where my shoes were. i'm sitting here in the internet cafe typing in my socked feet, surrounded by a whole bunch of other people also furiously typing, and i suddenly couldn't remember why or where my shoes had got to. i was worried someone may have walked off with my runners right from under me. haha. the thing is they make you take your shoes off before entering certain places, so they are actually sitting outside. i just thought that was amusing and that i would share it.)

anyhow...

fauna list:

praying mantis: 2
butterflies: lots
beetles: lots
strange black beetles spotted with yellow circles: 1
flies: a bazillion-million-trillion
mosquitoes: millions
rats: 1
goats: lots and lots - probably hundreds
water buffaloes: also lots
cows: lots
chickens/roosters: many dozens
dogs: lots
cats: 3
ibises: 1
lemurs: 1
moneys: about 25
giant spiders: 1
giant cockroaches: 3 (+ 2 that were not directly observed by me)
little cockroaches: many
horses: 2
camels: 2
crows: many
geckos: many
iguana: 1
elephant: 1
people: 1 billion, or thereabouts

devestation.

so, there isn't internet access at this new place where we are staying.
surprise!
well, it wouldn't really be so disappointing if they hadn't assured us that "of course there will be internet access".
i suppose they didn't know, and it couldn't really be helped. still, disappointment.

so i've hiked 30min here to this internet cafe to let yall know this.
actually, i hiked here to get my fix.
my fix of internet.
it's my drug. more addictive than caffeine. going for extended periods without it i suffer from withdrawal.

on the plus side it doesn't stain my teeth.

in brief, a summary

the entries up until this point were all from before july 11th, which was the day we left Secunderabad for the HIV/AIDS care and support centre in Warangal district (about 3 hours by auto from Secunderabad), and with the city we also left our internet access (booohooo :*( )

this is a brief summary to catch you up to speed with how everything has been:

i left Toronto on the 29th of june, arrived in Mumbai on the 1st in the wee hours. i stayed at my uncle's house until the morning of the 5th when i arrived in Hyderabad and was taken to CHAI headquarters in Secunderabad.

being the weekend, the first day involved settling in, the second involved a short visit to a farm/training centre/soon-to-be-completed care and support centre of CHAI's just to 'take it it'; then in the afternoon a lame attempt to explore the city was made by the 4 of us which ended in a long trek along the promenade of the lake, making the local newspaper, and seeing things we probably would not have seen had the planned sight-seeing tour fallen into place.

then next 2 days involved learning more about CHAI, the programs, ideology, and services involved. this took up the mornings, so the afternoons were free. monday, the other girls went into town to find a bank. i played antisocial loner and stayed home, discovering and making good use of the library (i.e. the internet). the second afternoon we went back into town, i changed some money and we tried to do some shopping. 2 of the other girls had a cell-phone acquisition adventure/trial which took a while to sort out.
wednesday we visited a public (government) hospital in Secunderabad. it was huge, and saw an impressive number of patients, however it was not an overall positive experience (it involved some rather rude doctors insulting us while we sat there and tried to politely take it). (politeness is hellish sometimes. i don't know who invented it or what purpose it's supposed to serve, but really, good grief!. although we did make the local newspaper again (but this time we never actually found a copy of the article).
thursday we visited a faith-based hospital, which was a much more pleasant experience. friday we left for and arrived at the care and support centre in Warangal.

the centre cares for HIV/AIDS patients, about 1/2 of which have active pulmonary TB. they see about 90 patients a month, with approximately 60 in-patients at any one time. there is a male ward and a female ward, and 2 4-bed rooms for "infectious diseases" where the more serious male patients went. the patients at the centre are there for an average of 10 days, coming in because of various opportunistic infections which are common with HIV cases. each patient has an attendant - a family member who is with them at all times and performs most of the personal care for the patients. there are 3 nurses on duty during the day, one during the night, as well as various support staff. the doctor will come once a day for rounds - to prescribe medications and refer patients. care and medications are provided for free to the patients.

what is interesting is that there is an orphanage attached to the centre ("care and support for children"). there were 56 children, most orphans, all HIV positive, from 4 years to 12 years, both girls and boys. most of the kids had watched one or both parents die at the centre and had no where else to go. they were given food, medication, clothes, education and the centre was their permanent home. it was an interesting and pleasant contrast to hear laughter or young voices reciting the alphabet in the midst of suffering and dying.

there are quite a few 'special' experiences that occurred during the 12 days that we spent there, which i hope to be able to elaborate on in greater detail.

we arrived back in secunderabad on the 23rd of july. during these past few days we (in no particular order): did a city tour; finished a report on the Warangal CSC and submitted it to CHAI; visited a private/corporate hospital; walked through a slum; had a home-cooked meal at friends' house; and did a whole lot of laundry.
issues with power outages and internet outages and such things, (as well as potential carbon monoxide poisoning - either that or becoming too used to afternoon siestas) has made updating this blog difficult until now. there will potentially be internet at the next place that we shall be visiting - certain primary health centres outside of a city called Eluru, east of Hyderabad. we leave tonight by train.

one of the other girls whose blog i referred you to earlier has been posting pictures and updating, so you can continue to check that out: uibeloindia.blogpost.com. i make no promises about updating, as even if there is web access it is rather frustrating to share it with 3 other internet starved individuals, plus whoever else needs it for actual work.

homesick.

i can't really believe how quickly this set in, but within a day of being in hyderabad, i was really missing home. talking to my family on the phone sent me into tears. it makes me reconsider whether i would actually be able to do this whole travelling thing for a long period of time.

it seems that my heart is more tied to home, to my family and my friends and toronto than i had thought before.

i think that's a good thing.

mmmm... pizza

there are 6 of us foreign students staying at this place. you wouldn't believe it but i was the frist to get sick of indian food. i cannot eat rice meal after meal after meal, i just simply refuse! i have started to crave white people food. but i suppose i will get over it.

nursing in india: a plug

one of the other girls who is here with me has started a blog chronicling her experience of this program. the address is:

uibeloindia.blogspot.com

i thought it might be more forthcoming with details about what the program is like, and what the organization we are placed at is like, and what some of the things are that we will be doing, as opposed to mine which lacks such things. perhaps it is something you would be interested in... plus there are pictures!

upper class privilege and money woes

at my last placement, when i told my preceptor and a girl who had just graduated from nursing that i was going to bew doing this course in india, their first response was "you must be really rich".

i suppose that is true in ways that i take for granted - i have been able to go to university, i know where i will be sleeping tomorrow, i know i will have access to food and clean water, i have clothes to wear, air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter, a TTC pass most months, shoes, and even a computer in my room. my parents have been amazing and i have never really felt like a 'starving student'. i try to justify my privilege, mentally listing out things i don't have and want that lots of other people do have - but that is low and base and just plain covetousness, which is totally wrong. i know i shouldn't complain, and yet, as the bills and expenses come up, it is hard to feel "really rich".

this trip is an extremely privileged experience. it is also a lot more expensive than i had originally though, and though i hate the fact that this upsets me, it still does. i keep wondering certain things like maybe if i only eat 2 meals a day i can save this many rupees. it isn't just the trip but also loans and interest and money that needs to be paid, licensing fees, the list goes on.

whenever i get like this, counting the cost, i feel so frustrated at myself. what is $100 or $500? it's all the same when the money isn't there. why can't i just laugh it off? i fee like a tight-fisted miser. especially when i compare my condition to the people around me over here who have so much less.

i wonder if maybe it was just stupid of me to come here and do this. maybe i do live in this privileged world of no responsibilities where everything is taken care of and there are no imminent or important things to do so i can take off whenever i want on some stupid "vacation" to "experience" the other side of the world. whatever that means, and whatever purpose that serves.

i guess, ultimately, the question to ask when counting the cost is: "is/was it worth it?"
at this point, honestly, i don't know.

second glance.

coming here for the second time isn't quite what i thought it would be. before i came, someone warned me that i would probably experience culture shock, since this is my second trip. i thought she was wrong. i don't really know what culture shock is, but i think this might be it. or maybe, just maybe she somehow infiltrated this thought into my head about culture shock and now i'm just a hypochondriac, imagining ailments upon myself.

i don't see things the way the other girls i am with see them. the first time i came everything was so strange and different and my reaction to everything was "wow!" whereas now i don't see these things for the first time, and my reaction isn't at all "wow!". i think i may see more than i did last time. there is so much beauty in this place, in the environment, in the buildings and architecture, in the people, and yet there is so much that is sad and broken and is in need of fixing.

foreign exchange

the first day i arrived in hyderabad i had some unexpected 'guests'. (i say 'guests' because it was rather I who was the guest). it was about 7pm and i was lying fast asleep on the bed that was to be mine in the room i shared with one of the other students from Toronto. and lo! i was awoken to find out i had guests. i find parts of indian culture so terribly strange, this being one that western culture could benefit from incredibly: hospitality. not just hospitality though, but hospitality imbibed, as if part of their worldview over here.

friends of my parents from when they were my age, who hadn't seen them since then, came by, took me to their house, and took me out for dinner. they shared their home, their stories, their friendship and made me feel like i did belong in this strange country.

that was something that immediately surprised and impressed me the first time i visited this country 4 years ago and met my cousins' family. these people i had not seen since i was a toddler took me into their home and treated me in such a way that they were immediately my family, the way family should be. it was quite a shocking experience. whenever someone shows such kindness i have no idea how to respond - i am always so taken aback and momentarily jarred from my world of individualism, suspicion and reservation.

it stands in stark contrast to the social norm of toronto.
don't make eye contact. if i don't look at them, maybe they wont exist or wont become enraged, or even worse: talk to me.

stranger in a strange land

for the course i am currently doing, there were 2 locations offered: india and manitoba. you might think that i would leap at the chance to go to india again, far away, exotic, exciting, a rising world power with ancient roots, and besides, how is manitoba "international" at all? however, that wasn't my reaction at all. i opted for manitoba (however, this didn't work out, forwhateverreasonuponwhichichoosenottospeculate).

i told myself it was because i'd been to india before, knew what it was like and what to expect, whereas i've never even travelled within my own country. the farthest west i've ever been is hamilton, and that friends, is rather sad. however, although this is true, there was more to my lack of excitement and apprehension about india.

it has to do with the fact that i am indian. or rather, the fact that i am a lame excuse for an indian. i know nothing of the language, in fact i only speak english, very bad french and pig latin (estray almay indeed!). i don't know the culture or the customs, i've never watched a Bollywood movie, i don't seem to get along with other indians (evidence being my lack of indian friends), i don't go to the goan parties or dances. the only things i have going for me are that i love the food and am brown (so i can blend in until i open my mouth.

one of my excuses for this is that my family is from goa, and they grew up in mumbai, which aren't quite like the rest of india, being very much westernized. and thus i am not much like other indians. lame excuse, i know, especially since i'm not quite like other goans either. anyhow...

i suppose the truth is i've always been conflicted with regards to where i belong. in canada they ask me where i am from. i tell them "Earth" and then they sneer and walk away (just kidding, i've never told anyone that, but maybe i should). it's such an awkward question: "where are you from?" i never know what to say. "well, do you want my whole life history in 10 seconds?"
just because i'm not white i'll never be considered from canada while in canada. and yet, in india, where i'm supposed to be 'from', i'm also considered a foreigner. belonging neither here nor there. kinda sucks. when i'm in canada i'm from india, when i'm in india i'm from canada. horrible.

i feel that because of the way i look i should know indian culture and language, and yet, i better understand western culture. at least in manitoba i would have the right to be a foreigner.

despite this lament and my own confusion, i'm not altogether upset about my lack of nationalism, and my overall lack of culture is sad, but not utterly tragic. these things are reminders to me that anywhere in this world i am a stranger in a strange land, and i wasn't meant to belong here, only to be here.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (John 17:16-18)


overall, being in india is... well, an experience. at times it is awkward, but as stated previously, awkwardness is nothing new to me, and neither is not belonging - thus i will manage.

hi

my location has changed.
that's right, i'm in india right now, and will be for the next few months.
it's like time travel... but with space...

i may or may not have a workable internet connection, so i may or may not be blogging. i have however cheated and found out how to post-date entries. think of it as time travel with time.

anyhow, just though i should let all yall know.




p.s. if you want a post card, email me your mailing address and i'll see what i can scare up!