Hi everybody!
I’ve been avoiding posting for the past few days because attempting to describe everything is overwhelming. However, I realized that the longer I wait, the more difficult writing it out will become, because everything will pile up. Even still, I’m only posting a handful of the hundreds of photos I’ve already taken. [never fear, most will be posted on facebook]
This is my bed. There's another one to the right, which I use for my clothes because the metal dresser makes thunder-like noises when its doors move.
My sense of time is still completely out of whack. I can’t quite remember what I’ve done each day without taking a few minutes to stop and sort it all out.
On the first day we settled in, ate breakfast, had a little down time (during which I wrote my previous post), and then had our first class. The professor quickly went over the history of anthropology and talked a little more about the Jamkhed model of primary health care. I promise to explain the Comprehensive Rural Health Project soon, but for now I’ll leave you all in the dark. Sorry! The website is good for the general idea: www.jamkhed.org
note: “Jamkhed (model)” and “CRHP” are used to describe the same thing, but I’ll use CRHP more often because Jamkhed is the name of the town it’s next to, which might get confusing when I talk about “going to Jamkhed”)
I also learned that McCord (whose really famous paper from the late 70s comparing mortality/life expectancy stats in Harlem and Bangladesh we read in medical sociology) stayed in our apartment while doing research on maternal and infant health in the Jamkhed project villages. A copy of that research paper is here in the library and I’ve read about half of it so far.
After class all the women in the class (there are 8 students total, of which only 1 is male) went into town to buy saris. There’s a Hindu holiday next weekend for which all the women buy new saris, and we’ll be joining the festivities! The tailor came today to measure us so they’ll be ready soon. I bought one of the most expensive ones and it is gorgeous (deep purple decorated with silver and red), and still cost less than 30 US dollars.
After the sari shopping and lunch, we had another round of classtime and then downtime, dinner, and more downtime. We came to terms with having geckos coming in and out of our living areas, learned to use the showers, and began the had the first of many rounds of complaining about the crows that descend upon the trees around 6pm and do not shut up until 7am.
Yesterday, we spent the morning in one of the project villages, which is named Sharadwari. We were shown around by Shoba Arole, a CRHP social worker, and the two Village Health Workers. All the men were working in the fields, so there were only women, children and very old men in the village while we were there. We saw how they grind sorghum to make bakra, how chapathi is made (a lot like tortillas), and how people and their animals live.
an adolescent girl makes chapati
After getting a feel for the village and taking lots of pictures, we went to the village’s primary school, where the children sang songs for us. Though the songs were supposedly in English, we couldn’t make out many words. Nonetheless, the songs we sung in Spanish in 3rd grade were probably equally unintelligible. It was adorable either way. The kids were really friendly and loved introducing themselves and shaking our hands, and also having their pictures taken. After taking the photo I showed it to them, which they really got a kick out of.
kids
We also saw the preschool, located right next to the primary school. The preschool began as a CRHP program, but is now a government program. Components of the preschool include weighing the kids, feeding the kids (twice), and general preschool activities.
The preschool program includes weighing the children, feeding them 2 nutritious meals (9am and noon), teaching them basics like the alphabet, and playtime.
We reluctantly left the village, and really hope we can go to villages more often. As interesting as class is, being in the village really puts everything in perspective. I do wish I had learned some Marathi beforehand, because all I know how to say at the moment is “yes,” “hello,” “thank you,” chapati, daal, chutney and “Can I take a photo?” Whereas in Mexico and Nicaragua I was able to eke out sentences and manage simple conversations (and eventually deep conversations too!), trying to communicate with people is frustrating. Hand gestures only go so far.
door to the house of one of the more well-off families in the village
We toured the hospital on campus, which was a real eye-opener. The hospital is brand new and run–like the rest of the CRHP–on a shoestring, but with amazing results. We’re hoping to see a delivery and a C-section before leaving (though c-sections are only performed when necessary–more on that later). The most interesting part (and there were many interesting parts!) was the use of ultrasounds. As you can see from the sign I took a picture of, ultrasounds are a dangerous tool, because female infants are often unwanted and thus may be aborted. Use of ultrasounds for fetus sex determination is therefore illegal, and doctors/technicians may not inform parents of the sex until it is too late to abort the baby. IT IS NOT DONE HERE\””]
Today we had class and went into Jamkhed in the later afternoon to buy salwaar kameezes to wear over our weekend trip to be tourists in Ellora and Ajanta. I noticed that I got a sunburn withing 15 minutes of being outside, so it is most definitely time to wear sunblock everyday. Next blog post soon!
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