India Images to Help Your Imagination...

So I have tried to upload photos into a Picasa album and every time I want to make a web album, Picasa tells me that it "Failed to Connect: Please try again later" so I am uploading the photos one by one to this blog. If anyone knows how to make the Picasa thing work, that information would be much appreciated!

The BLP runs a small school for slum children where they receive lessons, medical checkups, food, and love! They are some of cutest and most loving kids I've ever met and they all wanted to pose in a million pictures... Some of the children are wearing the typical Indian school uniform that all the children wear, and some are wearing street clothes from rags to what looks like doll sized prom dresses. Clothing here in general is an interesting mix.
One day when I was in the office, one of the interns who was posted there had to go to her medical college to pick something up. I expressed an interest in seeing what an Indian Homeopathic medical school would be like and she gladly brought me along! Little did I know that I was in for about 3 hours all told on smelly fish-water trains to get there! But it was worth it to see some of the crazy stuff that was lying around... This is a delicious leg sitting in a tank on the floor. This is a creepy dried out real human body covered in some coating that they use to mark on with chalk to learn about anatomy. There are posters up all over inside of this room that depict an assortment of tools, facts about how a gun works, what the steps are of violent asphyxial death, how to distinguish real insanity vs. feigned insanity, instruments used in criminal abortion, and much much more. There were bunnies running around in the courtyard of the medical school too! We had a little celebration and ceremony for the 31st anniversary of the BLP...Dr. Ganapati, the elderly and amazing founder of the BLP spoke. He is a very well respected and well known leprologist and researcher in the field. It is thanks to him that this organization has remained true to its roots and has stayed small and focused.
It was his vision and even at his age, he still comes to the office every afternoon to do admin work and grant writing! Over the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to hang out with him over some Kingfisher and hear about his thoughts on the BLP and the direction it is taking. One of the main problems is that the funding that comes in the form of grants is often specifically relegated to patient care and, although that is the primary focus, it is really hard to find the money for overhead... office furnishings, phone bill, etc. I hope to raise some money for them when I get home! An awesome sea face view from Nariman Point in South Mumbai. I think I mentioned this in the blog before but foreigners are often recruited (and paid minimally) to "work" as extras in Bollywood films or TV commercials. So when I was spending the weekend down in Colaba a few weeks ago, I was approached by a guy who wanted to hire me for a role as an extra! Normally I would have been really skeptical but I had read in the Lonely Planet that this is a fun thing to do [if you get asked to] in Mumbai... so I talked to him about it for a bit and found out that they would be filming the following morning inside the IMAX theatre that is right next to where I live! It was fate! I told him that I would meet him there tomorrow at 7:30 am. Again, I had my doubts, but this turned out to be a great experience! The entire lobby of the gigantic IMAX theatre was set up like an airport, departure and gate signs included! I dressed up like a british airline stewardess (whatever we were filming was supposed to take place in Heathrow Airport), walked around the set with a roller suitcase, met some great folks, and had a grand old time! The following weekend, Rebecca's parents came to visit and were staying at a fancy shmancy hotel in south Mumbai. I went up there to hang out and chill by the pool for a bit and was able to get some of the most gorgeous views of the city [Marine drive] and the sunset! Pretty pretty huh? Here are a few photos of very important things in my life. The first one is the view from my flat window looking out onto Bhakti Park, salt flats, oil refineries and some hills in the distance. It is beautiful and quiet but also not really near anything! The next photo is a mug of Kingfisher beer. It is everywhere over here! There is Kingfisher airlines and they seem to sponsor every major event in India. I have seen them served in the usual bottles, the 650 ml bottles (either premium or "strong," which has a much higher alcohol content), mugs, beer bongs, but never on tap. The next photo is a bull, walking down the street pulling a cart with a tank of kerosene on it. Part of me wanted to post this because its the famous cliche of cows walking around the streets in India but I see it every day! They walk down some of the busiest roads, cars and motorbikes weaving around them, with no one bothering them! People stop sometimes to touch them in prayer or feed them. I don't know why there is so much kerosene being transported around Mumbai in every part of the city but it all seems to be moved by bull-cart. This is also particularly strange because the kerosene can be seen sloshing out of its rusty tank as the bull meanders down the street. Safety concern? Oh well! Another mode of transportation is the 1950's fiat bumblebee painted taxi. In mumbai at least, they are metered but there is a tariff card that adjusts the metered fare to show how much you actually must pay. It is always more than the meter and if after midnight, the midnight fare applies. Taxi drivers like to just say a price to me, a white girl price, and try to get away with it but im bold enough now to demand the tariff card and figure out the conversion myself. ha! One of the Mumbai trademarks is that on the back of all the trucks, they have painted "HORN OK PLEASE." Everyone knows its ridiculous and loves it! My friends boyfriend wants to get it tattooed on the back on his neck.
Now for all of you animal lovers out there, here are some photos of the wonderful little creatures all over the city and villages!
Lizards in the kitchen [not pictured here], cows everywhere, skinny little kittens, chickens, goats, the list goes on and on! Along with visiting all of the animals... I had an educational foray into the Leprosy Museum near where the slum children's school is held. They had lots of information about leprosy in India, how the colonies used to be set up and organized, and finally how they were mostly gotten rid of. The posters that they had on the wall display showed great images and clear, simple messages that I thought were stunning and perfect for the task of raising awareness about leprosy. We put up an exhibition of similar posters in the slums just to tell people that leprosy still exists and is curable. After going to the leprosy museum, we ventured into the heart of Dharavi (biggest slum in Asia) to see a couple of patients and a nook where they make pottery to sell on the street. I am sorry that my camera battery was dying because the little clay factory was truly amazing! To get to it, we had to weave through people's tiny slum dwellings and down little 1 ft wide dirt paths into the slum until we came out into a small clearing that was filled with smoke. Upon further observation, I saw that there was a structure that appeared to be on fire and piled high with red clay pots with two huge pieces of corrugated tin over it. This was a kiln and the people nearby kept heaping ash and coal into the holes in the sides of it.
Lying on the ground in the clearing were hundreds of pots of all sizes drying in the sun! When we went inside one of the huts we found a man sitting at a potters wheel in the corner throwing pots... he would take a massive lump of clay and throw it down on the wheel, shaping it into a perfect, thin-walled big flowerput size in less than three minutes! The most shocking part? He made 25 of them every hour at the wage of 50 rupees per day [thats roughly $1.25 USD]. After seeing the inside of the slum, we went up to the roof of a nearby hospital to see the aerial view [we had to be really sneaky about photos because we werent supposed to take any but we did...] The slum seems to extend forever out to the horizon, a massive city of tiny little huts filled with millions of people. Each little square in the second, more closeup photo, is one home.

This post has taken me nearly 4 hours to complete, between the internet cutting off randomly and waiting countless minutes for each individual photo to load and i didnt even get to the wedding photos, the laundry ghats, or the Haji Ali Mosque yet! I will try to have another long photo-posting blog session soon. I hope you enjoy the images and I would love to hear about news from home! What are you dressing up as for Halloween (sadly, I will not be...)? What's the weather like? [Haverfordians, did you do anything awesome over fall break?]Tonight I'm going with a friend to a jazz/funk/fusion concert as part of an American Center function. For such a huge city, there is surprisingly little live music so I'm really excited to check it out!

Also, yesterday I went to see my first bollywood film in theatres in Hindi. I hadn't gone for one before because I knew that I would be frustrated and unable to understand all of the dialogue but this was awesome! It was a full on romantic bollywood love story about two sisters who make their way in Mumbai after leaving their village to make some money. Of course there was love, loss, prostitution, villians, lots of crying, huge company song and dance numbers [one in zurich... complete with accordian playing extras], weddings, and a happy ending! It was surprisingly easy to follow the plot line even without understanding the dialogue! I'll definitely go to see others [and get that one on DVD for subtitles to see what I missed the first time round]

All my love. Keep in touch!

Mass of Mumbai Moments

Let me begin this blog post with a moment of silence. For those of you who were acquainted with the late Mixer Bergman, you should know that he is no more. Recently he has been a rather demented, diabetic, grouchy old man so it is for the best that he is no longer suffering. We will all miss him. [For those of you who do not know him, this was my cat... not a deranged uncle or anything like that]

The past few weeks have been more busy and more happy and funfilled than the weeks before them! I have become more comfortable taking the trains alone, wandering around the city, ordering food without knowing what it is (pure veg), meeting new folks, and much more. It's been a really super mix of craziness and really intense, beautiful, heartbreaking experiences. One of the days last week I spent from 7 am-10 pm going out to rural india with the BLP. They have a really amazing network of rural workers and volunteers who go house to house delivering medications, checkups, chappals (special footwear for lepers with foot ulcers), multivitamins, etc. out in the villages of rural India! I have now been here for about 7 weeks and have spent most all of that time in the city. and lemme tell you... this was the most different and amazing adventure I could never have expected!

I left from the BLP office at 7:30 am with a breakfast in the car of coconut biscuits and curd (yogurt). There are two american girls [Jillian and Gaietry] who are doing a documentary on the BLP and we have become close, hanging out at night and sometimes at the clinic while their filming. So the three of us, the driver, and one of the BLP staff got into the vehicle and headed in the direction of Shapur (sp?) about 120 km from Mumbai proper. As the sun came up higher in the sky, the roads became less paved and more pothole-filled, we began to reach more rural india. Our mission for the day was:
1. To hand out the packets of ulcer dressings that we had brought with us. Some of the amazing BLP rural volunteers teach the patients how to dress their own wounds and every month they get a new package of dressing materials... gauze, antiseptic, cotton.
2. To give chappals to certain patients. Some of the patients with foot ulcers and loss of sensation in their feet cannot wear normal footwear because they slide off of the foot. These people, unless given another option, walk around barefoot exposing their feet to all of the elements with no ability to sense if they are burning or stepping on a sharp object. The BLP makes measurements of these peoples feet and has special shoes made for them that are more protective. It is amazing to see villagers wearing these new shoes and it truly makes a difference in their ability to work and therefore improves their quality of life!
3. To get some film footage for Jillian and Gaietry of what the BLP does in rural india. This proved to be great because it meant that the man we were with was giving us thorough explanations on camera and answering all of our questions. Also, I will be able to get that video from them when I go home and it should be some great footage (instead of photos that could not begin to capture these images)
4. Check in at local PHC's (primary health centers) to record how many leprosy patients they were seeing. We also got to see an OBGYN ward and a 6 hour old newborn baby! The medical facilities were, to put it mildly, quite different from the US. wow.

One of the main problems with the system here is that in rural villages, the government is "responsible" for identifying cases and giving out the free multidrug therapy for treatment. Like most governments, they do not take the time to do this properly but they see any interference on this front by the BLP as offensive and overstepping. So basically the BLP is restricted to providing care once there is a deformity! In the case of leprosy, it should never have to get to this point! But we are not allowed to find a patient who is pre-deformity and give them the drugs... so we must wait until there is some physical problem before doing anything. When I was there, for example, we saw a woman whose face has a huge patch on it. The patch itself is not crippling but it will soon attack the nerves where it is and it will grow to incorporate her face and forehead. Basically what this means down the line is that she will lose facial control, becoming somewhat paralyzed. Why is this such a problem? Well we're not worried about her having a crooked smile but when her eyes are unable to close voluntarily then she will sleep with them open, making them susceptible to foreign bodies entering, extreme dryness... and this eventually leads to blindness! The volunteer I was with (speaks broken english) explained to me that this is criminal medical neglect on the part of the goverment. She remains untreated just becuase they have not found her out to treat her [because she lives in middle-of-nowhere India] and we are not allowed to give her the multidrug therapy!

Some of the deformities that we saw were just unbelievable... like actually what you are scared of when you think about leprosy. People whose limbs are gone, faces are eaten away, hands are stumps, feet are one big ulcerous mass, etc. Not to gross you out but that really exists! And the most amazing part is that this tiny little organization with very little funding is giving out free shoes and packets of gauze and dressing and antiseptic to these folks so that they can learn to take care of themselves so they can continue working! Little crippled old ladies who are cutting rice for 8 hours a day... but, as we heard from the staff (paraphrased unfortunately) "Work is the most important. Treatment is second priority because if they cannot work, they cannot eat. If we try to provide treatment by putting people on bedrest, they will not do it, so we must be more creative. They will work. We have to accomodate that" the truth behind that especially in seeing the villages is really stunning. Food is a struggle. Deformity is secondary. Food for thought...

Also, while traveling around the villages, I came across some of the most beautiful terrain I've ever seen. Serene rice fields, gorgeous mountains, plentiful cows, calves, baby goats, cats everywhere, chickens running free. I was even gifted a baby chick by a villager which he put into my hands when I was admiring it! So cute and fluffy and lovey! And then I was like "ummm what am i going to do with this?" so i put it down. They all thought I was a crazy white person for thinking a chicken was cute. It was!


Another amazing episode in my life here was the full on indian wedding that I went to this weekend! Unfortunately the photo situation is really frustrating here... so I'm goign to try to get over to the my friend's house sometime this week and use his computer. The photos from the wedding are AWESOME and plentiful! Friday night was the mehndi ceremony where all of the women (50 or so) gathered together (dj involved as well) and about 10 mehndi artists came and spent hours giving us all henna on our hands! My palms are completely covered with the most elaborate and ornate detailed henna ive ever seen... and each hand only took her about 10 minutes! It was amazing to watch and the henna smells great like earth! [and I love that every time i look down at my hands, im surprised into a smile!] After getting mehndi done, you have to wait for hours while it dries and sets so the men came in from another room in the huge function hall [where they were drinking and whatnot] so that they could feed the women hours deouvres (sp) that were being passed around! Its the tradition that the men feed the women on the mehndi night. What a riot! Then, after chilling and eating for a bit, the music took a turn for the bollywood and all of the friends of the bride and groom got up to do choreographed dancing like a little show! I took digital video on my camera and its amazing! After the show, we all danced for a little while and then went in and had a delicious dinner!

Saturday I didnt go to any wedding functions, but took the train all by my big self to meet up with my friend Rebecca [met her at a leprosy conference because she was white, looking just as out of place as i did, and i went over and said hi and shes awesome! just graduated from reed and wanted to see what this kind of work would be like before going to MPH or med school or whatever]. We went to see the dhobi ghats which is where all of the city launderers do the laundry! I know this sounds nuts but at a lot of places, when you take your laundry to a laundromat they dont just shove it into a washing machine, they take it out to the ghats and hand wash! Then they hang it to dry. Only men wash the clothes (role reversal much?) but seeing the crazy amounts of all colors and styles of everyones laundry hanging dry while people are in water basins below scrubbing is quite a sight! Then we were starving so we found a little hole in the wall restaurant down the road. There was no name to the place. We went in and asked for menus and the guy pointed to a board on the wall all in hindi or marathi (i dunno which). We managed to get a pepsi (cold, refreshing, ahhh) and then decided that we should just ask for vegetarian anything and see what we got! So we did. We asked for two (do in hindi) veg dishes and chapati and got an amazing meal of dal and chickpeas and potatoes and chapati and rice afterwards and then chai to finish. The entire meal for both of us combined cost 64 rupees. Literally $1.50. What a triumph!

From there we went over to Haji Ali Mosque, the amazing mosque in the sea that is only accessible by foot and only at low tide. You walk out this long jeti crowded with beggers and vendors and muslims going to pray and just a million people and then come to this gorgeous structure! The pictures are awesome. The place was a spiritual palace. We didnt go inside because Rebeccas pants were cropped and that would not have been okay but it was still wonderful to go there.

Sunday was weddingtastic! I slept over at the Deshmukhs flat in Bandra (home sweet home) saturday night to wake up early sunday morning. When I awoke, there was a beautiful outfit waiting for me by my bed, picked out by Prajakti for me to wear to the wedding! We dressed and had breakfast and headed over to the wedding hall. Everyone was DECKED OUT! Some of the most amazing sarees I have ever seen were worn on sunday. Bright yellows, reds, pinks, turquoises, flaming oranges, deep purples, you name it. All of the women were also adorned and dripping with golden jewelry from bangles to earrings, necklaces to noserings that were huge hoops with pearls on them! The bride had mendhi like sleeves almost up to her elbows and all over her feet ankle deep. The ceremony was totally different from any kind of wedding ive ever seen. Inside the hall, the ceremony started at probably 10:30 am and continued straight through until 12:45 pm when they were supposed to be married because its a particularly auspicious time (dont know why). Instead of everyone sitting quietly while the service was conducted, the bride and groom and parents and close family were on stage with the priests while all the guests milled around, chatting, drinking chai, eating the breakfast provided, taking photos, etc. Then just before 12:45 we all grabbed handfuls of colorful rice and climbed up on the stage to throw it on the bride and groom at the right time. After that they were married! They left to change and we all went down to an amazing banquet lunch!

At about 4:30 we went home for a bit and then headed back through the traffic to the reception. A HUGE outdoor stage was constructed and decorated and the bride and groom took photos with all different guests for about 3 hours while we watched, drank amazing fruit juices (guava, watermelon with vanilla, etc.) and ate the most delicious indian food. Unlike in the states, weddings are all vegetarian and no alcohol so it was not a crazy reception party like many at home. It was still fun and really beautiful... and that concludes my indian wedding experience [except for the wednesday night postparty which i have yet to go to]

This is only a few highlights from the past week or so and it has been funfilled and adventurous! So India is treating me well, the BLP continues to be difficult and wonderful, the people are great, the weather is HOT, the beer is cold, the food is amazing, the nightlife is crazy, the chai is spicy, and the poo is solid. What more could I ask for.... except wishing I could share all this with you?

Please keep in touch and any news from home is always appreciated! Love.

Kirsten - congrats on your upcoming marriage! I wanna hear about it and see photos!
Gail-happy bday again
Dyl - phone card?

blog pause

Exciting amazing things are happening here everyday! I will write about them soon but the computer that ive been using literally died in a burning smell, puff of smoke, and blacking out of the monitor a few days back. Fun.

So here I am using a friend's computer (with norwegian characters on it åøæåøæ) and I will hopefully be back up and running (or posting) soon!

Keep emailing please! i love hearing from you!

Happy Birthday Ghandiji!

Today was Ghandi's birthday and the first day of my true love for Mumbai! I dont know if it was a combination of the beautiful sunny skies after days of rain, less traffic because of the holiday, or taking the public train for the first time... but I spent the day traveling around and having adventures and enjoying this amazing place!

I first took the 15 minute walk along a trucker road to get a rickshaw (they are, for some mysterious reason, not allowed to come into where i live...) and when i got to the line of ricks, i apparently picked the WRONG one to hop into! There was a line of them and I was not aware of this so when i got in the one closest to me, one of the other wallahs (drivers) came over and started screaming at my driver! He proceeded to motion to me that i must get out of the rickshaw and come into his, which i was disinclined to do seeing as he was going ballistic on driver #1! I unwillingly changed rickshaws and then driver #1 pulls his rick upside #2's, completely boxing us in. He comes around and starts physically poking and prodding my driver #1. Im freakin' out because theyre fighting and the other rickshaw drivers (about 10 all male) are watching and finally another rick pulls up alongside this madness and motions for me to come into his! I leap out amidst the beginning of a fight and hop into this new rickshaw and he speeds off down the road, getting me safely to my destination! (needless to say, he got a big tip!)

After that adventure, I met up with Karishma (lives in Bandra where I used to) for a day of her showing me the trains and Colaba! Since today was a public holiday, there would be fewer people on the trains and it would be the best first time. So we went to Bandra station, bought our tickets at the "booking office" to get into a ladies compartment second class. We found the platform and waited about 2 minutes until our doorless train rolled into the station! we got into the ladies compartment (i thought it would be strange to be separated from the men that way but its actually really nice!) and had a pleasant train ride for about 20 minutes when we arrived in Churchgate. [note: This exact same excursion took me a literal 3 hours on saturday evening when i decided to take the bus. 1 hour waiting for the bus and 2 hours stuck in traffic] The entire ride (and return ticket) cost all of Rs. 12 = approx 27 cents US.

We walked around Colaba, went to Leopold's (famous for foreigners and all kinds of food) where we talked to a random German dude who was sitting by himself, shopped a bit, drank delicious milky pineapple drink (called energee for some reason), and headed back to the train station! The train ride back was just as enjoyable and easy and we got a beautiful view of the sunset over the city from the open train door. i didnt take a picture. oops.

Back to Bandra, Karishma and I took a rickshaw back to her place where I left to meet a Norwegian friend. We had a great street-food esque pav bhaji(bread and vegetable mash) dinner on Juhu beach and walked along by the water for a while. After we got out of the main throng of people on the beach [where we were touched and asked to take pictures due to being white and him being tall and blonde]it was a really fun spot to be! Almost a carnival-like atmosphere on a beautiful night.

Tomorrow back to work but from today, I will take the train happily and hope to explore the city more that way! I miss you all from home, wish you could see some of these wonders with me, and Ill try to post some photos soon! keep emailing and ill send back postcards! all my love.