Jewel of the Crown

We went to the church service. None of us are Christian, practicing anyway, but we just went to respect the staff of CRHP. We saw Dr. Arole’ mother, who is over a hundred years old. After class, we told the Professor that we really wanted to watch a good Bollywood movie. Ravi bought us a DVD with five movies. Samira and Angela really wanted to watch Chalte Chalte, a movie with Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee, but it had no subtitles. Tauhid desperately wanted to watch Om Shanti Om, another Shah Rukh Khan movie, and he got his wish because it did have subtitles. It wasn’t a really good movie so we stopped an hour later when Liz was falling asleep and the rest of us (minus Tauhid) weren’t interested.

Saturday was Sankrant, a Hindu festival. The true purpose of the holiday is not known, but usually people say women celebrate it to honor their husbands. But others say it is a day when women celebrate themselves. Us girls finally got to wear our saris! The women of the mess hall helped us put them on. Afterwards, we drove over to the temples. The temples were filled with women and little girls. Swarms of women came to us and showered us in sesame and blessed us with their red and yellow powders, and gave us tiny sugar balls to eat. By the time I got back, my whole forehead was redd. It was definitely a great experience to dress up and be part of a huge festival exclusively for women.

For the week of the 10^th, we mainly had classes, did some outdoor activities, and watched a few movies on our spare time. Class topics included the caste system, childhood diseases, the mobile health team, violence against women, and the farmer’s group. I’ll post more on the topics later. But we went to two villages, making rounds with the village health workers. One nice part of the trip was when we visited a pregnant girl of about 18 years. She was about 7 months along, and came back to her mother’s house to give birth. Interestingly, her sister-in-law came with her. That seemed a little odd from what we had been learning, which was that the father’s family wasn’t very supportive of the wife. I, Samira, and Angela got the chance to listen to the heartbeat the fetus. It was barely audible, but it was pretty amazing to know a little person was just on the opposite side of the wall.

On Tuesday the 11^th, we finally got our class party. We went to the roof of Dr. Shoba’s house. We finally met Ravi, Dr. Arole’s son, who helps in running CRHP. He’s been very sick lately from a clotting disorder, and was in Pune before we arrived. Alex, the Professor’s very accomplished mentee, and Smisha, another coordinator of CRHP, Kris and Yoshe also came. For dinner, I had pasta and delicious veggie burgers. Eventually we were all sitting around a fire, eating and chatting away.

The next day after the domestic violence lesson, I saw one of the health workers, Mumtaz outside. I remembered she was Muslim, and so when I saw here I said “Assalamualaikum.” She was very happy to learn that Samira and I were Muslim and she replied “Wa-alaikum assalam!” with much enthusiasm. We got a picture with her and two other women who wanted to join in.

The first movie we watched was the Constant Gardener, which was about how pharmaceutical industries conducted illegal trials in Africa so they could save time, and hence earn a lot of money. The second movie was Monsoon Wedding, which was about the drama surrounding a certain family. The family was pretty bizarre and it just wasn’t good overall. On Saturday afternoon we saw Outsourced, about a guy who’s forced to move to India and train some people there. That movie also wasn’t good. Ravi gave us this movie called Peepli. We were hoping to watch a silly Bollywood movie, but Peepli had no megastars or music or anything. It was a serious movie about poor people and it got very political and economical and we were just not in the mood for a movie that requires a lot of thinking, so we stopped watching it after 30 minutes.

So I have a lot to update on! First I need to talk about the past weekend, which was filled with a lot of touristy stuff. So on Saturday morning, the 8^th, we woke up early so that we could leave for our destinations. Everything was going well, except it was freezing cold. It’s ridiculous how it can be so cold in the morning, and then the temperature hits the 80s within a few hours. But anyway, we got on our big jeep thing, but the seats were actually wet…so we had to wait for another car to come. That wasted like an hour.

We first went to the Ellora Caves in Aurangabad. Before going in, we had some lunch. We ate some delicious chapatti with paneer. Before eating though, we checked out the monkeys that were jumping around on the cars. At one point, Nadine and I were checking out a monkey that was on the opposite side of a fence. The monkey seemed to be mad, making faces at Nadine. And Nadine started scolding the monkey, saying, “No, no, you should respect your elders.” And then the monkey made a jump for us, and we ran for our lives. I was not planning on being killed by an angry monkey.

After lunch, we went to the Ellora Caves. On the same mountain were several Buddhist and Hindu temples. Right after the caves, we stopped by a silk factory. It was so incredible how people actually make silk, using large machines that must be extremely precise. We went to the factory’s store right next door. There I bought a really nice black and crimson sari for my mom. There was another sari that had the same design, but was in red and green, and I really really loved it. The two of them would cost like one hundred dollars, which is a very good deal. So I bought the other sari for myself.

Next, we went to the Bibi Ka Maqbara, also in Aurangabad. It’s basically the smaller version of the Taj Mahal. It was quite a sight! The Bibi was built by Prince Azam Shah, for his mother. The Prince’s father was Emperor Aurangzeb (Aurangabad’s named after him), who was the son of Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal’s creator. The artwork was very Persian, with intricate floral designs. Once we entered the tomb, we saw at the bottom of the rotunda the grave of the mother. It’s interesting to think how the prince built it to honor his mother, while now people come to see it as a remnant of a once great empire.

We left around sunset, and finally got to our hotel, which was not the best quality. The only good thing we had was a television with like a hundred channels. Sadly, there wasn’t anything good to watch. Before dinner at 8:30, I, Liz, Samira, Angela, and Tauhid went out to a store to get some shoes. My sandals fell apart while going to Ellora, and I had to change to flip flops while at the caves. New shoes were absolutely necessary.

The next day, we went to see the Ajunta caves, which were exclusively Buddhist. The caves were located high above in the mountains. After about three hours, and some lunch, we were on our way back to Jamkhed. We got back around 12:30 at night.

In school, we learned about the various groups that defined India’s history. It was very amazing to see the remains of these ancient peoples. When reading in a book, the history felt mythological, but after seeing the structures, it hit me that it was all very much real. It’s also unthinkable how people were able to create such large structures with not as advanced technology. The art was also so beautiful, ranking with that of the Renaissance artists.

The past two days, the 6th and 7th, have been quite eventful. On the morning of the 6th, we went to a village for the first time, about 15 minutes from CRHP. The village was called Sharadwadi, and it was the first time we had ever been deep into the heart of any rural area. Toward the beginning of the village, we saw two large bulls with the horns colored blue, with hanging decorations, sitting silently and idly. They seemed to be like some ancient guardians overlooking the village, which the villagers probably thought the bulls were actually doing.

We met Rababai, one of the village health workers. She took us around, with Dr. Shoba Arole (Dr. Raj Arole’s daughter) as our main guide. All the children of the village came swarming toward us, laughing and smiling. They were extremely excited to see us. We went to Rababai’s house and one other house of a “better off” family.

One really important part of the village was education. I actually believed that children in poor villages never went to school. Here, there was a preschool (that feeds two meals to the children) and elementary school. Afterwards, the children go to the schools in Jamkhed. We met one girl who was 17 years old making some kind of pita. She was in 11th grade and hoped to go further. It was very nice to see that she aspired for higher things, and especially that she wasn’t married off already. Usually, daughters where married off at like 10 years old to very old men. The legal age of marriage is 18 years in India. This shows that progress is being made in preventing child-bride marriages.

We also met another boy who spoke surprisingly fair English, wearing a uniform. I was very impressed that he was actually a student of Jamkhed’s college, and was a civil engineering major. He also spoke of dreams of going to the US, especially to New York. It was very inspiring to hear a boy born into a very poor village of rural India aspiring for a much wealthier life in the greatest city in the world. This shows how huge an impact education has on people’s lives.

After the village, we were given a tour of the CRHP hospital by Alex, the professor’s protégé who has basically been taking control of the complex. The professor will be doing a lottery for those who want to see a C section/ delivery. I will be extremely depressed if I don’t get to see one of them.

Later that day, we went to the weekly meeting of the village health workers. The professor brought some pineapples for everyone, and they were delicious. The workers were also very nice, coming after the meeting to shake our hands, and some said “Happy New Year.”

The next day, the 7th, we went to a meeting where five of the health workers spoke about their work. They had no doubt changed lives in their villages. They had made so many deliveries with virtually no infant or mother deaths. Infectious diseases have also been completely wiped out. Now, they are focusing on diabetes and hypertension. Two points that struck me was 1) Halima, a Muslim worker, apparently had no conflicts with Hindus, but rather, she had issues with allowing to help her won fellow Muslims and 2) Babai was of the lowest untouchables (the untouchables also have their own hierarchy…) but ended up becoming the first female mayor of her town! She was and is still illiterate, and yet she did so much for her town, such as getting electricity, roads, houses for poor, etc. Right now, the mayor is also a woman, and so is the deputy mayor. Babai has obviously had a huge impact on her village’s perceptions of women empowerment.

Before lunch, Angela, Samira, and I ran into the pineapple man! He had a cart right next to the dorms, with all the pineapples lined up on the cart. He also cut them into thin slices, just like how it was the day before. We bought two packs, one for ourselves, and one for Nadine, who really wanted some. Funny enough, once we entered the mess hall and gave her the pineapple slices, she said they had just been talking about the pineapple man. We have not seen the last of the pineapple man.

After lunch, we had class, and then got measured for our sari blouses (I wrote my name down and the tailor said, “Oh you are Muslim? My name is Khan” so I had to say Salam). Alex said he was going to take us to the market to buy clothes, but he didn’t make it. The professor reluctantly took us. I didn’t buy anything because everything looked hideous…Hopefully in Pune I can get some quality dresses!

By the time we got back, it was already dinner time. Before dinner though, we went to CRHP’s own little market. I forgot the name of this project, but it sold beautiful handicrafts made my village women. And they are much cheaper than other places that sell the same things. I’ll probably buy another day, but at least I finally exchanged dollar for rupees there. I have more than enough.

Dinner for the first time had chicken, in tanduri style I think, and it was very good.

Over the weekend, we’re going to see the historical sites in Ajunta and Ellora, and we will be staying over at Aurangabad. One of the sites will include, sadly, the fake Taj Mahal.

Hello from Bombay! or actually Mumbai (the correct way of saying the name).

We still can’t grasp how much time went by these past two days.

Today, it is after midnight on Thursday the 6^th. We got off the plane in Mumbai Airport on Tuesday the 4^th. Right after we got off and did all the customs/luggage stuff, we got on our little shuttle that fit the eight of us and Professor Antoniello (Another van carried all our luggage). By the time we were heading to Jamkhed, it was already Wednesday the 5^th. We were bracing ourselves for an almost 8 hour trip from Mumbai Airport (which is actually about 2 hours away from the actual city) to Jamkhed.

Jamkhed is a town located in the state of Maharastra, the “Great State” (Mumbai is also in it). It is also the location of the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, an internationally renowned health center honored for its great accomplishment in providing primary healthcare to thousands of people from the surrounding villages.

After many hours of accelerated, bumpy, and dangerous driving through the darkness of the rural areas of India, we made it to CRHP at around 6 am in the morning. None of us could get sleep in. The ride was just too intense to allow us to get good sleep, even though we were all desperately tired.

After a couple of hours, we went to the mess hall, the small cafeteria, for breakfast. It consists of two long tables, and one other table that has the food served out. All I remember eating was a boiled egg mixed with khichuri (a special kind of rice mixed with daal or lentils, so its all yellow).

Then after a few hours of relaxing and lunch, we had our first class, in Dr. Rajanikant Arole’s office (co-founder and director of CRHP). We had interesting class discussing anthropology (this is actually an anthro class though it is global health) and its connection to primary healthcare, culture, etc.

Right afterwards, all us girls (which is everyone minus one) went with the Professor and Meena (I think she’s like the only teacher in CRHP), to go sari shopping. We drove into town to a clothing store. I thought I wasn’t going to find anything I really liked, but finally I got a very dark teal one made of georgette, with dark red borders, and intricate red floral designs all over. It has an oriental elegance to it that I love. We got petticoats later, and a tailor will be coming in another day to fit our blouses. We’re going to be wearing the sari for a holiday called…Samkhet? I actually have no idea what it is but all the women get new saris.

We returned to our dorms to find geckos on the walls, which we weren’t thrilled about. I wasn’t going crazy though, because I was used to seeing them in Bangladesh. Truth was, we were feeling sort of aimless. We didn’t really have anything to do (except read…). Plus, we weren’t crazy about our suite. It’s spacious and all, but the tiles are dirty, the walls are so stained, and the bathroom is just ehh. But again, the real India isn’t the high-end penthouses and luxury of Bollywood movies. It’s not like American houses. But again, this is also how I lived in Bangladesh, and well, you get used to it.

That night when we went for dinner, we met a couple of Dutch women (one, Kris, is in her late fifties and is Flemish, so I guess that means Belgian, and the other, Joshe was from Holland). Both were volunteers of CRHP. We told them how we weren’t exactly thrilled to be in the position that we were. Kris said that she loves the life here, and told us our eyes are too opened up. We need to close them up a little.

Well after dinner, I finally took a shower after being dirty for who knows how many hours, and went to sleep.

And I finally woke up eight hours later from the OBNOXIOUS cawing of black crows.