Sipping my Chai

A post! I think (but am not sure) that to write this post I am skipping a Hindi lesson. I think I am supposed to have them everyday, but have not memorized my stuff from yesterday, so I think I may not go. at least not right now. My Hindi teacher is a very nice woman who lives in the building and whose son goes to York. She lived in Brampton for a year. She also may be teaching me classical dance. Upon hearing these facts one of the med students informed me that although she (they teacher) would teach me the steps/words he/they would teach me the "soul" of talking and dancing: for example thier teaching me the word "Chaloyar" which was my first lesson. The translation they gave me was "Come on friend" but I think that it can also be used to mean "let's move on" as one of them used it when his friend was wanting to talk about philosophy and he was not. I also made the great cultural exchange today of discovering that here the word for "keener" is "mugger".

So, a brief recount of activity. I did not end up going to wedding part 2, but instead sat with Suprabha (Dr. Dubey's daughter-in-law and hospital administrator) and formulating some questionnaires that I can use to create reports of the patients. Incidentally, anyone reading this with any knowledge of how to conduct/analyze surveys please give me some tips! Accordingly, yesterday my Hindi lesson consisted of learning the questions that I am going to ask in Hindi. I feel this is very ambitious, but the family consider this completely possible. I need to learn Hindi fast : ) Anyway, I did get a translator to ask the questions and so have 4 patient's data. The very interesting thing I got to do was to accompany Ghorav (Dr. Dubey's son, whom Dr. Dubey told me to call Ghoravbhai (Ghorav brother), because it would suprise him. Have not had the courage yet). Anyway, he took me with him to a hospital run by the municipality. He goes there once a week to hold an eye clinic as a volunteer. THere are specialists who come throughout the week free of charge. As far as I can tell the only hired staff are 2 women gynecologists who perform tube-tying operations (I dont know the scientific name) and organize awareness and hand out birth control. they also have a few nurses. but the building is HUGE! there are wards, and several beds and lots of grassy space and other rooms, but the municipality at some point decided that it was a dying hospital and they cut funding. what a waste!

The visit was really interesting, as I got to sit next to Ghorav (sp?) and watch him interact with the patients and he explained some of the cases to me and showed me what he was talking about as he did so. I think that is one of the things that I am most amazed by so far--how relationally based all the work is. The hospital is run as a family (and really, the whole family participates) and Ghorav and Dr. Dubey take thier time with the patients, and the time to greet other staff/physicians, and to talk to students and me, and still get a huge amount of work done (yesterday he performed 15 operations himself in amongst all this other activity).

Ok this is turning too long again (kudos to anyone who has read this far) so I'll skip on to today (only to pause and say that last night I received an eye-tutorial from one of the students, which was very cute and also informative. ask me about cataracts anyone!) SO today I got a tour of the Government Medical College (courtesy of two more students--they seem to be taking this in 2 pair shifts.) These students were less medically intense and showed me the best places in the lecture hall to sleep and how they try to escape from thier labs... Anyway the School has the highest ceilings I have ever seen in a school! It's part of ventilation, also helped by the open walls everywhere--this is a strange concept for me to grasp.

I had an 'interview' with the head of the surgery department. I gave him a copy of my questions, which he then wanted to write down the answers too. I asked if he would mind saying the answers and then I could take notes myself. Thank goodness he complied. His answers were very interesting. I asked how the department was run, and he said "Run?! It runs itself! It doesn't need to be run, like a car, it doens't need a pilot!!!". Total indignation, and I didnt know what to do so I decided to laugh, my default mode so far. I think it is going alright. This time at least everyone else started laughing too so I think it was fine. He also had quite a low opinion of the health care system in the U.S., specifically in terms of patient-doctor relationships. They have a very different approach here, that as far as I can make out, consists of doctors working just about 24 hours a day and there being different prices for every patient based on how much they can pay. Also many places are public AND private combined, which means the price is somewhere in the middle. Very interesting, though when I try to explain here, also somewhat garbled.

There is of course more to describe, but I dont want to just make a list of everything. I have been asking so many questions and doing so much listening that sometimes I feel my brain shall explode. And it is Day 4 : ) But it is very exciting and I do like to be busy (and also have been told repeatedly that I just have to say if I need to rest). Oh! one more thing that I found interestimg:

Interesting fact of the day: One of the medical students was telling me that there is a hierarchy of what you do as a student. If you are the best student then you do medecine. If you can't do medecine you do engineering, if you can't do that you do business (or law, I can't really remember they were explaining this as we were standing on the street and i was distracted by making sure that I did not get run over), basically if you can't possibly have the brain power or study habits to do anything else then and only then do you turn to politics as a career. yikes.

Ok that really is it, I will just close by saying that the food is amazing! I had some kind of flour cauliflower meatball yesterday that was fantastic : ) Also I tried to eat a chapati by itself one day and the medical student who had offered it to me looked at me like I was losing my mind. oops.