So obviously I'm doing an awful job updating this blog. Thing is I'm normally so busy and when I'm not in school or on an excursion or seeing something in Delhi I'm exhausted and eating chocolate in bed.
So I left off on my way to Jaipur...that was the weekend of Feb. 19/20. Jaipur was great. Part of the city is washed in pink. We got to see the Amber fort, the Jal Mahal, Hawa Mahal, and the Iswari Minar Swarga Sal Minaret. We also spent an entire afternoon shopping in the bazaar!
One of my favorite/most scary moments in India thus far happened in Jaipur. It was our last evening and Caroline, Ruby, and I were going back to our guest house. We had just gotten into a rickshaw and there was an elephant in front of us, so I took out my camera to take a photo, and in the process I dropped my cellphone out of the rickshaw! I panicked and told it to stop, while Ruby told me there was no chance of getting it. A huge tour bus behind us had driven over it. But the rickshaw pulled over and Caroline and I jumped out and ran back to where I had dropped the phone. The bus driver had stopped! He was motioning for us to get the phone. Another Indian man crawled under the bus to get part of my phone and he handed it to me. The bus pulled forward and even another man stopped traffic again to go into the middle of the road and get the battery, which had separated from the phone. He handed it to me and while my entire phone back in my hands we hurried over to the rickshaw. I put the pieces back together and it still works perfectly! At the time I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry because there are constantly things that happen here that make me furious, frustrated, overwhelmed. And you forget that there are still good people around you. Three total strangers, Indian strangers, had gone out of their way to help me. Traffic was stopped for me. I'm not sure you could understand how monumental that is here...traffic usually stops for no one. I couldn't believe any of it.
We took a train back to Delhi on Sunday the 20th. On Monday the 21st we left for Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, for our first excursion. Here we visited Aligarh Muslim University. We got to talk to medical students, social work students, and spend two evenings at a cultural celebration at the girls' dormitory. We visited the University Hospital and a bunch of government clinics and hospitals. We learned about the polio campaign and other vaccination programs, and the TB DOTS program where patients come in every day to take the pills while the doctor records that they've taken it. We visited a women's hospital and saw a live birth! Two other women were also in labor. A rape kit was being done on another woman, and we saw two women being prepped for abortions. There were a so many cute babies everywhere! We also got the chance to walk through a slum area where a garbage/raw sewage river had established itself right through the middle of the community. Most people had skin problems and other illnesses due to the unsanitary conditions. There were also families who were refusing to vaccinate their children until the government agreed to officially recognize the slum and start providing services like roads, water, and sanitation services. We visited the Unani hospital and school. Unani is a traditional Indian medicine system that is all natural. I picked up an awful cold on the trip and they gave me a tea for it (for free! Most medications are free). I can't possibly include everything we learned here...but check out the photos and they'll help tell a visual story. I think I also include little blurbs describing some of them.
We got home from Aligarh on the 24th and spent the 25th at school in the program center in Delhi. That evening Ruby and I left with a couple of the other girls and took an overnight train up to Amritsar. We arrived around 6am and went straight to the Golden Temple - considered to be the holiest Sikh temple - for sunrise. What a place! So much gold. You definitely have to check out the photos from this trip. We got to go inside. We had to cover our heads with out dupattas (scarves) as we usually do when entering temples. We walked around the perimeter barefoot and got in line to go inside. Our host family had given us money as an offering so we bought pashand (this holy sort of lightly sweetened mush...). Caroline and I found our way up to the top but the other girls felt a bit uncomfortable. It was crowded and none of us were really sure if we were allowed at the top but Caroline and I went anyway and we were glad we did. After going inside we went back to the hotel for a nap and then visited the temple again in the afternoon (full light) and again in the evening, lit up. We visited gardens set as a memorial for one of the British massacres and explored the area a bit. Around 4pm we left in a taxi to the border of Pakistan! There we saw the closing of the border ceremony between Pakistan and India. That was AWESOME. Pakistan and India don't have a good relationship, especially up in Jammu and Kashmir, but every evening they have this ceremony on the Wagha border and are friendly towards each other. What an experience...
On March 6th we left with the group to Udaipur - India's most romantic city! It has two large lakes and beautiful buildings and markets. It's sort of the Indian Venice, and could maybe, at a glance, pass for a European destination. Caroline and I went for a walk the first evening around one of the lakes and ended up at a crazy park with animal statues and a playground (where an Indian family pushed us on the playground equipment) and young couples makin out. By the time we headed home it was dark. That was an adventure! On the way there Caroline was drive-by-groped by a man on a motorbike so after that we carried rocks with us, just in case we needed to throw them at anyone.
In Udaipur we visited some NGOs. We visited an "informal school" set up by Seva Mandir. This if for children who can't get to school because it is too far away. The teacher takes a photo of himself with the kids at arrival, midday, and dismissal so that Seva can keep track of his attendance. Teachers, especially in government schools, frequently do not show up. 30% of children are out of school. On this day 19 students had showed up but the class had 28 enrolled. It's wedding season, so many students were out for celebrations. The kids are grouped by ability, not age (Montessori!)and they work on reading and writing Hindi and a little bit of English. Seva Mandir also has programs for health. 93% of children under the age of 3 are anemic. The NGO has immunization programs, health groups, a domestic violence resource center, and has help communities begin to demand their rights.
We visited a village where we met with a traditional birth attendant trained by Seva Mandir to perform more hygenic deliveries and refer difficult emergency deliveries to the hospital(we heard stories of women delivering on the way to the hospital...rough stuff. This village was quite rural). The TBA works with a Bal Sakhi. She checks on the women before the baby is born until one year. Both encourage using the first milk, exclusive breast feeding for at least 6 months, proper nutrition, and vaccinations. We also visited an immunization clinic run with Seva Mandir's help.
We met with ARTH, another NGO. They do a lot of work with reproductive health and safe abortion. Abortion has been legal since 1971 but rural areas lack access to safe abortions. 10% of maternal deaths are due to unsafe/informal abortions. A girl needs adult consent if she is under 18. This can be from either of her parents...or her husband - even if he is also under 18 years of age. A young girl may get pregnant and want an abortion because girls are married very early here - around 15/16 years old. They live with their parents for a couple of years, and she may get pregnant by another man or not feel ready to raise the child. The village we visited had a health group for adolescent girls. Two of them were getting married that day, and they were 15 and 18 years old. We also visited a women's self-help micro finance group and a health center. The health center washes, drys, and reuses latex gloves. That stood out to me...
It was explained to us that many times government subcenters and health centers may be closed 60% of the time, when they should be 24 hour centers. Nurses or doctors may give a woman in labor higher levels of oxytocin to speed up the birth if the shift is due to change soon. The nurse isn't even always there. But if the women go to have an institutional delivery they are paid a stipend.
There's so much more I could say. But I bet you'd like looking at the photographs more than continuing to read my half-assed posts...so here are the Chittogarh photos: Chittogarh photos
Today was Holi. This is the festival of colors. For the past week Ruby and I have had our eyes on the balconies of buildings because kids throw water balloons. When we walked home this week and the students were being let out of school they were covered in powdered colors, mostly hot pink, red, and green but also purple and blue and yellow. We couldn't really go out at all this weekend because during Holi there are men who drink a lot and "eve teasing", as it's called, is at it's worst. So we hung around at home napping, watching movies, and working on our blogs and schoolwork. It was relaxing but made us a bit stircrazy I think. Today our host mom and dad put pink powder on our faces and Ruby went out into the neighborhood park with Jordan and Katie and got covered in other colors by the neighborhood kids. Ruby's hair is still a little bit pink. Such a cool holiday!
I also got a chance to go to the Delhi Baha'i Lotus temple on Friday. Here are my most recent Delhi photos.
Ok- that was a reaaallly awful summary of the past...month? Sorry about that. Something about India....it keeps me preoccupied with so many other things!
