Kirsten McNamara’s Blog

Our Final Blog …

In a rickshaw

With our good friends - Sr Prima & husband Uday

Our last weekend in
India – Time really has flown! On Saturday, we spent a lot of time finalizing our research project on lactation practices in the Fatehpur area and then finished our first Bollywood movie “Bhootnath,” which was very cute.

Sunday was a full day for us. We got breakfast at the mess (puri – which is chapatti fried in ghee) with potatoes and peas – one of the best breakfasts we’ve had here! Then, we went to the fellowship service again with Dr. Sujith and some other members of the BCH staff. After the service, we took rickshaws to the bazaar (marketplace) and bought parting gifts for some of the staff here that we’ve worked closely with. After a busy day of shopping, we went to our friends’ house and were taught to make one of our favorite foods here – Chapatti.  That is the pita-like bread that is stuffed with potatoes/onions/spices and heated on a skillet with oil.  We served it with sweet tomato chutney – yum!!  We had so much fun making it and can’t wait to come home and make it for you!  It was a busy day and that night we cashed it in early (after our final load of laundry in
India!) with our books and another movie. Really, a fairly uneventful weekend, with the exception of an extremely fast-moving lizard in our bathroom J

This will likely be the final posting on our blog. Tuesday we leave for Delhi and then
Agra to see the Taj Mahal. And then Friday, we’re hopping on a plane back to the states. First priority – giant Starbucks in the airport J

There were many comforts of home that we’ve missed during our time here – but the incredible sightseeing, diverse patient population, generosity of the hospital staff, friendships, amazing food and countless eye-opening experiences have been more than worth our long journey here.  It will be wonderful to see our friends and family and get home to a nice hot shower … but we are already anticipating the many things in
India that will be difficult to say goodbye to.

We attached some pictures that hadn’t gotten put up before but are from different points during the month. Thanks for reading our postings and following along with our adventure – it’s been an exciting one and certainly an experience we’ll never forget!

Back to the Villages

A village home

With the school children

HIV/AIDS class for the village women

It’s been another interesting week for us. We got back from Allahabad and were back in full swing with a full OR schedule and a busy outpatient clinic. On Thursday, we were able to travel to two villages with the Community Health Development Program. A potential manager for CHDP was there to visit some of the sites. At the first village, the CHDP staff conducted a class on HIV/AIDS for local women. They were asked to name the routes of transmission of HIV and the right/wrong answers were explained. Interestingly, they were also asked if they believed that HIV is curable and many said ‘yes’. The session leaders from CHDP were excited to be able to correct this misconception and it really demonstrated the power of these sessions to educate and prevent the spread of HIV. There is always a female and male teacher present, so that the women feel comfortable attending class and expressing themselves.

According to a member of the CHDP staff, the second village we visited is inhabited by members of India’s lowest caste. This is the caste known as “the Untouchables”. As we drove into the village, we passed their school and, having seen our faces, many children left school to follow us. We were able to spend a little bit of time with the children and were also given a tour of the village, including explanations of some of the agricultural equipment. Recently, a new system was put in place for removal of excess water from the wheat fields. This was funded in part by a government subsidy and has improved the fields in the surrounding 10 hectares. The villagers were very proud to show us and the staff from BCH.

To relax at the end of our long days, we’ve started watching some of the Bollywood movies that we bought in Allahabad, along with eating some of our Indian sweets. We’ll post another blog on Monday before we leave for Delhi on Tuesday.

Depending on the internet situation, we may be able to post another blog about our trip to Delhi and Agra. Or, we might get to tell you in person next weekend

Holla from Allahabad!

View on the bus

Outside the Nehru family home

American family with us at Sangam

Sailing at the Sangam

The Holy Dip

Temple George Harrison built at Sangam

On Saturday we had another medical camp just outside the hospital. We didn’t know how many people to expect but it ended up being very busy and people showed up with a variety of concerns and symptoms. After a long week, we were ready to take a trip to a new city for the weekend.

We arrived in Allahabad on Saturday night. The bus ride took 5 hours. We’ll spare you the gory details but picture a rickety, dirty old school bus completely packed with people driving on bumpy dirt roads. It was an experience, to say the least! But we arrived in Allahabad safe and sound and ready for our weekend getaway.

An American family (through a connection with Dr. Sujith) met us at the bus station. They took us back to an apartment, which is the home of a missionary couple from Northern Ireland that knows Dr. Sujith. The couple was in Delhi that night, so we had the place to ourselves! We ordered Domino’s pizza, took hot showers and used the high speed wireless internet… it was awesome!

On Sunday, we met up with the American family from North Carolina again. They cooked us omelets and made us coffee (our first coffee since arriving in India). That day, they took us, along with two of their children, to the Sangam, which is a very holy place for Hindus in India. It is the meeting of three rivers: The Ganges, The Yamuna and a mythical underground river. It is this site that a drop of nectar reportedly fell from a goblet that Hindu Gods and demons were fighting over. Several drops were spilt, but the largest of them landed in Allahabad, making this a very spiritually significant place. People often make pilgrimages here to dip themselves in the water (including Madonna).

The Sangam is also the site of a huge festival that takes place every 12 years. This is actually the largest gathering of humanity anywhere on earth and is visible from space! The next festival will take place in 2013.

On Sunday, we also visited the home (now museum) of the Nehru family, India’s first prime minister. Gandhi also spent considerable time here and much of the museum is related to him as well. The home was beautiful and surrounded by lots of gardens and parks. Sunday night we curled up with our remaining Domino’s pizza and watched a Bollywood movie called “Om Shanthi Om”. What a day!

On Monday morning, we greeted the missionary couple as they arrived home. They had also brought with them an optician from the UK, Susie. The day was great – they took us shopping in the city. We played games, watched movies and they made a great dinner. We had a really nice, relaxing time and we’ve actually decided to meet up again in Delhi for our last couple of days.

Today, we’re back in Fatehpur and about to head into the OR… Only 5 more days in Fatehpur after today and then on to Delhi and Agra to see the Taj Mahal!

~Namaste

Party & Health Fair

Our hospital team at health fair

Monkey doing pull-ups

Kirsten on motorcycle with community health worker

Ellen on motorcycle with Dr. Sujith

Crowd gathered at health fair

Theresa teaching villagers at health fair

Dinner at engagement party

Last night we were lucky enough to be invited to an engagement party for a relative of a security officer at the hospital!  We were told in Delhi never to pass up an opportunity to attend a wedding-related function, so we were so happy to go.  The party consisted of food, music and a tour of the bride-groom’s home.  The whole village pitched in to provide food for the event, and it was very good.  We were advised against eating any raw vegetables, rice, curd or sweets … but there were plenty of warm vegetarian dishes (paneer, chickpeas) with puri (pita fried in a lard-like substance called ghee).  They decorated with a lot of tinsel, lights and colorful rugs which gave a fun atmosphere to the village. According to the people here, North Indian weddings have a reputation for being very elaborate and in fact, on the way home we saw a wedding with fireworks and dancers in the street! This is wedding season here and almost every night we hear music from the nearby celebrations. Often, it goes on all night and we can see fireworks on the way to/from dinner.

Today, we attended a health fair in a community nearby the hospital. Believe it or not, we travelled to the hospital by motorcycle! (see pictures). Many different villages comprise one block and this health fair served an entire block. Representatives from many different villages came and different hospitals had booths at the fair, providing medical advice and/or teaching to the villagers. The Broadwell Christian
Hospital group had models there to explain human anatomy and the birthing process. Our friend Theresa did a lot of teaching about the negative effects of alcohol, smoking and chewing paan (tobacco, betel leaves and masala spices). We, together with Dr. Sujith, saw a variety of patients, many of which had tuberculosis. Free medication samples were on hand to give them. It was a challenging afternoon but we were encouraged by the hope that many villagers, upon our advice, might seek additional medical care for their quite often very serious illnesses. At the end of the day, we learned that our booth had not only seen the most patients, but also won first prize at the health fair! We were very excited! Tomorrow we’re off to another medical camp to provide free check-ups to patients. And then tomorrow night, we leave for Allahabad, a nearby city, for two nights. We’re staying with a friend of Dr. Sujith’s and are very excited to visit the city (much larger than Fatehpur) and the well-known museum there, which is dedicated to India’s first prime minister, Nehru. We’ll blog again when we return on Monday and then we’ve only got one more week at the hospital before we leave to go back to Delhi – shocking how fast time is flying!

Have a great weekend!

~ Namaste

In the community…

Having our daily 5:00pm tea - yum!

With the kids of a village

A view of one village

With the villagers

In the villages of Fatehpur

Yesterday we were able to travel with the Community Health Department staff to three villages in the community. These are very poor communities around Fatehpur where the Community Health Department at the Broadwell Christian Hospital does outreach programs on HIV/AIDS, gender issues and women’s microfinance. The villagers were incredibly warm and welcoming. We were offered chai and sweets and shown around. On the whole, we made quite the splash - being the first Westerners to ever visit these villages. Some people even asked us to come back so that their children who were in school then could see us! They were very curious about us - what brough us to India, how we liked it, our marital status and they even wanted to hear us talk to see if we sounded like the people on tv! They really enjoyed when we took pictures of them and they were able to see themselves on the small camera screen - in fact, we even doubted whether we’d get the camera back! In addition to the cows, goats, sheep and dogs, we also met an adorable litter of piglets, which the villagers thought we were crazy for taking pictures of.

Fun fact: The population of Uttar Pradesh (the state we are staying in) is the same as the population of the entire United States!  Very had to believe, but true

 One more update - we have started a project with one of the doctors here examining the breastfeeding practices in this area.  There are a lot of low birthweight babies born here, and many women are uneducated about the benefits of breastfeeding, and the risks of introducing animal milk too early in the babies’ diet.  So far we have come up with a questionnaire to ask the women about their knowledge, attitude and practice concerning breastfeeding, and are using a translator to interview the women.  We have talked to 11 women so far, and had varying and interesting responses.  Someone at the clinic will be translating the questionnaire into Hindi so that we can have the women complete it themselves, if they are able.  Our goal is to talk to 100 women during our time here, and then see what the results tell us about how this clinic can better prepare women for breastfeeding.  It’s a very exciting project, and has kept us busy!

 Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Surfin’ the waves of the Ganges…

Ganges

Sweet Shop at Hotel Ajay

Gate to India

Piccadelhi

Sunday is our official day off - no hospital responsibilities! We started the day by attending a small fellowship service with two members of the staff here. The hospital has a Christian affiliation and each day begins with a short devotion service conducted in Hindi with singing and bible reading. On Sunday, people are free to attend their own services in the city. At the Christian fellowship meeting, songs were sang in both Hindi and English, with drums and clapping accompanying. The service leader gave her homily in both English and Hindi so that we could understand. The meeting was held in a simple elementary school classroom. We sat together on the floor. Despite the lack of ornate decorations or typical church proceedings, there was lots of love and friendship in the room. We had a great time. Also, we reached the service by a bike-driven rickshaw, which was like a roller coaster over all the bumpy, unpaved roads.

After the church service, we gathered together with some other hospital staff and their children and took a trip to the Ganges River. It was about a 20 minute ride by Jeep and we were able to get outside the city center and see a lot of beautiful, green farmlands. Many homes were built with thatch roofs and horse-drawn wagons were a frequent site. Many cows and sheep were along the road, which sometimes made for a close encounter with our jeep! (No causualties, though!).

The river is very low this time of year so we had to walk down a huge set of cement stairs to reach the water. Many people were jumping in and bathing. We, however, only dipped our pinky fingers into the water (the Ganges are very polluted). At the water’s edge, a few simple boats make of plank wood were available to take us across the river. It was a short boat ride (and quite wobbly), but a very memorable experience.

After we got back from the Ganges, we went shopping right outside the hospital walls in the city center of Fatehpur. We stopped in a few sari shops to look at fabric, which was gorgeous. Each shop has its customors sit on the floor as they pull fabric choices out for you to look at. At one shop, we were nearly buried up to our chest in fabric. We knew we had to buy something or face an angry shop owner suffocating us with saris

We ended the day with dinner at one of the hospital staff’s home. They prepared vegetarian food - stuffed pita like bread (called Chapati) with sweet tomato chutney and fresh papaya for dessert. It was delicious! A new friend of ours, named Theresa (after Mother Theresa) joined us as well. She is from the south of India and is also only here for a month. She is in training to be a superintendent nurse. 

 And that brings us to the end of another day. We’ve started using a net over our bed to keep out the mosquitos. We both have the look of a teenage boy given the number of mosquito bites all over our faces

The hospital does a number of general surgeries and we’ve been called in at some odd hours to see cases. It’s been an eye-opening experience so far and we’re trying to soak up as much as we can.

Namaste!

The medical director, Dr. Sujith, came back to the clinic today after being in Delhi for a few days.  We met him for the first time, and he is extremely friendly and likes to give a lot of teaching.  He has been orienting us more to the clinic, and giving us plenty to keep us busy - we’ll give short presentations each morning on a certain topic related to the patients in the hospital, and we will work on a project over the next two weeks studying breastfeeding practices in the area.  Tomorrow we have a trip planned to the Ganges River, which is India’s largest (and most polluted) river.  It is considered by many to be holy water, and people frequently bury their dead relatives there with the belief that this will provide them with a good afterlife.  People also take trips there to dip their bodies in the water to wash away their sins.  We will go have a picnic there with other staff from the hospital.  The weather has been very warm and beautiful during the day, and there are many mosquitos out - we have plenty of bites to prove it.  We have also seen a variety of animals around the clinic and on the streets - monkeys, dogs, pigs and cows. The monkeys have a reputation for stealing clothes, so we’ve kept a close eye on our laundry and so far, we haven’t seen any monkeys running around in our outfits!

We will try to post more pictures as we are able.  Thank you for your e-mails and good thoughts!

Arrived Safely!

We arrived safely in Delhi after a 13 1/2 hour flight, and were tired but happy to be on the ground!  We spent two days in Delhi resting, shopping and eating.  Delhi is a crowded, bustling city and could be overwhelming at times.  Our contact in India through INMED took us around the city and explained a lot of the culture differences.  Through her, we also met up with other visiting students from Ireland and Belgium, and she took all of us shopping for traditional Indian clothing that we are all to wear while working at the hospitals.  The clothing is called Salwar Kameez, and it consists of a long tunic-like dress and wide-legged pants with a scarf (called a dupatta) that hangs around our neck.  The colors of the clothes are incredibly bright and beautiful, and they are very comfortable to wear! Good to conceal the large meals we are eating We also spent time at the oldest outside shopping plaza in Delhi, called Connaught Place.  We were approached often by people asking us to shop in their stores, or trying to direct us – we’re sure we stood out in the crowd!  There we found a restaurant called Piccadelhi (a play on the shopping center in London called Piccadilly).  The food is excellent, but we have been advised never to drink water that is not bottled (with an intact seal) or boiled, so we have been cautious.  We also found a movie theatre, and thought we could see an authentic Bolly-wood film, but the only showings that day were “Slumdog Millionaire” – it is getting a LOT of press around Delhi, which is great to see.

After two days in Delhi, we took a 9-hour train ride to Fatehpur, which is where the hospital is located.  We are so thrilled to be here, and everyone has been so nice and accommodating.  The hospital is situated on a walled-off campus right in the city center of Fatehpur.  There is both an outpatient department and inpatient hospital, along with a community development center.  All staff (including the doctors) stay on the campus.  We are staying on campus as well.  The hospital provides our meals, which have been delicious. We eat three meals a day plus chai daily at 5pm. We are also served chai in our room each morning before breakfast.  Often we are served food by a staff member and get portions that are much more than we can handle! We’ve eaten dal (lentils), roti (unlevened wheat bread), curry and many other yummy North Indian staples.  Much of the food is very spicy, but is served with a lot of white rice, which makes it a little more mild.  So far, nothing has been too spicy for our stomachs

We’ve spent two days in the hospital now and already seen a lot of new things. The hospital is mainly women and children. There are many deliveries taking place, sometimes up to 90 per month! We are getting a lot of newborn and OB/Gyn exposure.  Tomorrow the medical director of the hospital will be coming back from a trip to
Delhi, so we will meet him for the first time and likely settle into a routine.  It sounds like we will be able to help in deliveries, a variety of surgeries and newborn care.  We will also spend sometime working in the Community Development Projects, which the hospital coordinates.  These projects reach out to the villages around Fatehpur and provide public health initiatives (vaccines, pregnancy care, education, and financial assistance).

Now that we are settled in Fatehpur, we have more consistent internet access, and plan to update this blog about every other day.  Please keep in touch with comments or through e-mail – it is great to hear from our friends and family back home!

Ellen & Kirsten’s blog: 4 days before the trip

We are so excited to be departing for India on Saturday!  There is still a lot to get ready.  Today we bought a bunch of supplies, and were fortunate enough to get a lot of medical supplies donated from a local store.  We were also able to get a lot of great tips and equipment from a friend whose daughter has recently travelled to Calcutta.  We are looking forward to meeting up with a friend of Kirsten’s from high school during our EIGHT HOUR layover in Newark before leaving for Delhi.  There is a lot of snow & sleet coming down outside in Columbus, but the weather in Uttar Pradesh (the region we will be travelling to in India) is expected to be sunny and 70’s!

 We will use this blog to keep you posted on our travels & adventures, and to send lots of pictures!  Please feel free to respond, or to contact us by e-mail. 

Take care!!  -Ellen & Kirsten