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! 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!