SALAAM BOMBAY!
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 6th. We got off the plane in Mumbai Airport on Tuesday the 4th. 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 5th. 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.
