The End of India

I have been in Goa for this last weekend! Goa is basically a crazy Russian party influenced India. It’s Russia’s Mexico. Because India has no rules (yeah there are laws but no one really cares that much about enforcing them or following them you could expect that Goa is a very strange mix of partying Russians and local Indians trying to sell them things. It is my last day here in India; I fly out in about 3 hrs. It has been great, I have learned a lot about medicine traveling, and Indian culture. I have enjoyed it immensely. From my travels I have concluded that India must be the hardest country to govern because of the non-shilant attitude that everyone has. Yesterday I was at the beach sitting in a bungalow a paraglider came down and landed on the crowed beach, kind of crashed, had his sail hit some lady on a sun chair and no one even cared. Everyone one was just like, what ever. Even the person that got hit. This event embodies India, and its attitude towards everything. While here at the beach I have relaxed become a bit more sunburned (yeah, skin cancer, ouch!) while watching the butt loads of people wandering around, being hassled by sunchair-wallas (walla means person that sells or provides something). Seafood here is great, and Indian style, which means that it is very spicy. Last night I had the spiciest meal of my life. My head was like one of those cartoons, all red with my ears shooting fire. I pulled a Ben Benson and sweated through my shirt and my hair looked like I had just taken a shower with sweat dripping off my nose. It was wild. I am excited to come back to the US, with all its amenities and familiarities, but I will miss India, with all its exotic sights, sounds, smells and people. While here I have read 7 books watched over 14 surgeries, and seen more deification, sick people and disparity of wealth then I am able to describe. I have no idea who has been reading this blog so if I start repeating stories then just tell me and I will come up with one that I did not write about. As the Indian tourist board says it’s truly Incredible India.

Mumbai and Holy Holi

I am leaving Mumbai! In about two hours I leave to spend the weekend at the beach. My original plans to visit a temple on the India Pakistan boarder have been foiled by difficult and expensive travel requirements. So I have opted out for a relaxing time in the sun, I have already been to the beach once while here, but I think a little more relaxation will be nice from all the work I have been doing (I mean come on guys, its like, hard work watching people, and I have to, like, write on this every once in a while, ha!). Anyway so this week I have been going to clinic on the edge of a slum. The number of people has been less due to the fact that during this week there was a holiday called Holi. The day before Holi everyone starts celebrating, and because its India there is some confusion on when Holi actually is and so people start celebrating the day before as well. People run around colored green, red and all the colors in between, yelling and trying to color other people. As I was going to clinic a man in business clothes and trendy glasses saw me as a white person and jumped in front my bumper-to-bumper traffic bound rickshaw and demanded me to drink a glass of some colored liquid. Being close to the train station that I needed to go to, I got out of the rickshaw. The man gave the driver some of what I could only assume was juice, who drank it happily. Outside my rickshaw a huge stage with color liquid mixers standing around doing just that, with music blasting my ears out, stood before me. The persistent man was as you can imagine very adamant that I drink his juice thing along with the huge crowd, and you can bet your behind that I did just that, thinking, that if I was afraid of becoming sick I wouldn't be in India in the first place. After I finished the yellow drink the man and the crowed cheered, and throwing my cup in a huge growing pile of plastic gave me a red drink which I downed as the mixers on the stage exploded with glee. I think that this was for Holi due to all the colors, but on the same day there was some Muslim holiday so who knows what they where happy about. While walking around past traditional bone fires, non-traditional techno-blasting speakers, I was hit in the back. Well hit with a red watery paint from a spray gun. The paint that stained my shirt, ran down my pants staining me everything else. I whipped around seeing some fat middle aged man running behind a car giggling. I yelled "It was him!" pointing at the man. Of course absolutely no one cared, in fact a group of people just laughed at me for having a reaction. I walked off eyeing the man, and everyone else at this point. It was great, people where very excited. The next day we stayed inside, sleeping in and being lazy because nothing was open. When we did leave the apartment, gangs of colored people where walking around, but not that many and it was eerily quite. People are still stained from all the paint and you can see it on the side walks. It was quite cool to see. Now I am off to the beach, this time I am not sick (knock on wood) and have sunscreen.

WEEK 9 and 10!!!!!!!!

Wow, week 9 is over and I have started week 10! This second half of the trip has gone by very quickly, like a speeding rickshaw it almost knocks you down. During the last week I observed at a clinic in the slums, or next to one. It was really amazing to see, so many people coming in being over worked, malaria, TB, general sickness, or worrying about their libido (yeah it makes the top 5). In the mornings I went to spiritual training, at the BSES hospital, run by the Brahma Kumaris, which is a religious organization. It was interesting to learn about them and some of the other religions that are here in India (every kind is here, its freaky). After learning how to meditate on a red dot with your eyes open (which was hard with the ferocity that the fans churn the air here) I was done with it, and my week was over. I promptly went to the bus station to go to Hampi, which is full of ancient ruins, only to have to wait 4 hours to get on regular bus (this means a school bus with smaller seats) for the 10hr trip to Hubli which left at 5 for a very uncomfortable trip. In Hubli I bought a 1/2 kg of cashew nuts and ate them (yumm..) and talked to some Indian kids during the 3 hr wait for my 4 hr. bus trip to Hampi. Yeah it was full of waiting, but the worst part was that on the bus from Hubli to Hampi my camera went missing, which I only realized the next day. ARGG! luckily I have been saving all my pic's to my laptop so I have them all. I don't know if I lost it or if it was stolen, but it is the first thing down on this trip and with only 6 days left, I hope the last. The weekend was good, I was able to see an amazing landscape that is around Hampi. Banana plantations and jungle pierced by huge boulder outcroppings. It was a really cool trip and it was nice to catch a sleeper-bus on the way back.

Today, after my Mumbai morning routine, I went to a foot drop surgery on a leper. This consisted of cutting a major tendon in the guys foot, splitting it in half, tying it (they used a standard knot) to two different tendons on the top of the foot and then cut the Achilles. It took 40 min. and was sweet! It basically gives me the idea that your body is a machine, that can be tinkered with, and is very flexible to being switched around with. I will be going back to the clinic by the slums during the evenings this week for my last Indian medical system observations. I hope to see some very colorful Indians due to this week being the festival of Holi, which, from what I have gathered, means everyone just throws paint on each other and most of the country either stops, or goes on tye-dyed. It seems like it will be a crazy last week here, I would expect nothing less given the last nine.

Pictures!

Heres a link to some pictures. Ill post more to this album later but I cant take sitting in this internet cafe any longer (uploading takes too long).
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=37095716&l=f692f&id=11513397

The Beach

This last week has been fairly uneventful. I went to the rural rotation, which was at the end of a 2 hr. metro/train line on the edge of Mumbai. I don't actually know if it would still be called Mumbai but no matter, because the only difference was that the buildings where a lot smaller (no lack of people, remember its India I am talking about). The natural medicine clinic had some amount of hectors of land that I cant remember, on which they grow all their own food for people in the community and the students at the large school that they run. It was cool to see. Our guide was very confusing, even now I am not sure if he was working there or was just some former drug addict patient who knew a spattering of English, so I don't know too much about the place. Unfortunately due to events out of my control we could only spend one night so I cant really say much more about the place. The rest of the week I just hung out here in Mumbai, did some sight seeing, which means that I spent more time in traffic then in temples. I traversed bazaars in which you could really find anything, its kind of freaky, think; goats, smart phones, antiques, car repair, food, all packed an old alley.
This weekend I went to Goa! Goa is basically a tropical paradise, with picturesque golden sand beaches, palm trees and clean warm ocean water. It was great, all except becoming sick just as we left, and only getting better as soon as I got back! Just my luck. My advise; try not to get sick on an overnight train in India. If you can imagine, you don't get much sleep. By the time I got to the beach I was exhausted and promptly fell asleep on the beach, thinking 'ahhhh... how peaceful'. When I awoke the damage was done, and I am currently the color of a beat. I didn't really feel bad at that point so ran around in the sun, went for a swim in the perfect water and enjoyed the place. By night I hardly had any energy to move. The 2nd degree burn covering most of my body, of course, only added to the effect of any intestinal problems that I was suffering from. Now 24 hrs later, after this near death, I am feeling great, albeit my movement is inhibited from searing pain. The beach was every nice though and was not very crowded, a real surprise here, with only Europeans filling some of the sun chairs. I did enjoy the trip, not as much as I could have, but it was great to get out of the city and in to a (much) less smelly area (I only realized this upon returning).

A sweaty experience

The past week has been like the others here in Mumbai, going to clinics, seeing sick people, while attempting not to succumb to the heat or the crowds. Getting from one place to another is like summer in Disneyland, trying to get from Space Mountain to Splash Mountain. You are pushing, being pushed, while all you really want to do is slap the stupid idiot blocking your way, sit in the shade and drink an ice cold lemon-thingy and then just get on the ride. Except here there is no ride at the end of the line, just a hotter, more crowed train.

After taking such a ride this week I would end up in a leprosy clinic. If you wish to feel no pain, just have to leper sneeze on you and vua-la, within six months you wont feel your hands and feet. The amount of leprosy has decreased by a huge amount here in the past 20 years, but has had a slight resurgence in the past 3-ish, but have no fear, I can now recognize the signs. Also I have been going to a small clinic by the worst smelling dried fish market imaginable, where I listened to the collapsed lung of a woman, who had Extremely Drug Resistant TB! AAAAHHHHH! I will have to tested when I get back, but it is not as contagious as some (KELAN) may think.

For the weekend, I went to caves in Ellora and Ajanta which was an 8 hr train ride to get to. It was worth it! They where all carved from about 200 BC to 600 AD, from the from Jain, Hindu and Buddhist religions. The weekend started with breakfast on Friday which was some spicy potato-thing, sending me in to a fit of fire breathing sweats, which would be the theme of the whole weekend. Every bit of it involved me sweating all over, from eating in an air conditioned restaurants, to hiking in between the caves, and in an attempt just to avoid heat stroke I had to keep sucking down water and limca (their lemon fanta) with lots of grunts, sighs, and ARRGG's. The caves were amazing, thats all I can really say. For every bit that the Vatican is awe inspiring for its grandness these caves where in their details. Each was cut out of the cliff face in two sets of some 30-odd caves. The largest single cave was created by removing 3,000,000 cubic feet of rock! Yeah it was wild! Many of the caves (particularly Buddhist) had paintings, that where still intact, which along with the giant Buddhas, Shivas, ornate columns and shrines made it quite an experience.

This week I am off to some town on the outskirts of Mumbai (I dont believe there is such a place) where I am to work in some other medical clinic and, you guessed it, see more sick people. But today I was informed that there is a doctor strike (I am also not sure of the existence of this) to I have the day OFF! Yeah more walking!

Rolling on

The weeks are falling like flies. Unfortunately here in Mumbai I am having to deal with mosquitoes, which are impossible to kill. When I have not been chasing these pesky pests, and then subsequently running from them (a doctor burst in a fit of laughter after seeing this process, saying something about westerners) I have been walking around the city, getting my self lost in the all the hustle and bustle. In an attempt to reach the beach by foot I ended up walking in circles (as I found out later) for an hour and a half until I waved down an auto rickshaw, and it was long ride to where he dropped me off. The beaches in Mumbai are done completely Indian style, that is to say, one of them was covered in people, the other covered in trash.
Besides expending energy in my personal locomotion, I have been using it to stand for long periods of time watching surgeries. I have been able to watch a tipple bypass, several angiograms and the removal of a large tumor from the intestine of an unlucky recipient. I have been stationed at a BSES hospital here, which is a strange cult like organization, but harmless only due to the fact that they only want to help people. I went to a TB clinic for the poor, which was amazing, because I observed every kind of TB in the span of 2 -ish hours. My best attempts to breath as little as possible to avoid catching the airborne bacteria where thwarted by a giant celling fan that churned the air with such force that it would blow the paper off desks and cause my hair to assault my eyes. The doctors did tell me that after decades of working there they have never caught TB, and with my impeccable health record (ignore all the broken bones and injuries) I hope to join them in not getting infected.