Tamil lessons, etc

First and foremost: we found two amazing things last night. Ice cream and beer. Our TA, Ravi, recommended going to the Park Hotel to try out a popular club. The club was closed, though, and we ended up at the hotel bar--Leather Bar. While I was slightly weirded out by the fact that everything including the floor and ceiling were made out of leather (as well as morally opposed), it didn't stop me from enjoying a draft Kingfisher. Audra and Leslie and I also found the restaurant, which, to my great delight, had ice cream!! My tummy feels much better after some dairy. We enjoyed the night rickshaw ride back to the hostel. The night ride brought out a different, even more vibrant feel to Chennai.

We started off the morning right with some coconut water straight from the coconut. Ravi was sweet enough to go out with a few of our classmates and get everyone his or her very own coconut. According to Ravi, the water is fully fortified with all kinds of good stuff. It was unlike anything I've tasted...and it was really fun to drink out of a coconut.

We then ventured off to Mahabalipuram, which is home to several temples and monuments built during the 7th, 8th, and 9th century. These are all UNESCO world heritage sites, and they are kind of a big deal. So the sites are scattered throughout the town, and you see shops and homes in the same frame as these beautiful historic structures. What's really amazing is that many of the temples were hand carved out of huge existing rocks. Like a huge rock was whittled down to several ornate temples. By hand. In the heat. It was so hot out there that my nail polish melted off of my toes. Now I couldn't even make that up if I wanted to.

It's also really interesting to observe who was all there visiting and think about who all has been there over these hundreds of years, from building the site, to praying at the site, to now touring the site. I ran into a family visiting from another state in India and they seemed pretty interested in us white people. The mother kept asking me to pose for pictures with her children. They were really sweet about it and seemed genuinely interested to see different people. As one of our supervisors at ICTPH said, "we Indians are just a curious lot." I like it.

The car ride back to Chennai was equally informative. Baba, the driver, helped us with our Tamil. We all have been really interested to learn at least the basics so we can show some respect when we're out in the field. It's been slow though. Baba was super patient with us and even led a counting session where he counted in Tamil and we repeated. Hopefully by the next post I can throw a few Tamil phrases in.

Before coming back to the hostel we stopped at the shopping mall. Dun dun dun. And I hated it. It's this huge air conditioned cage full of designer shops and KFC and Subway. But, I'll admit, I did have Baskin Robbins and throughly enjoy it. So what is the reason for going here? Sheets. I wanted to get a bed sheet for the train ride tonight. We are going to be in the sleeper car in bunks. I've heard snippets here and there about how cockroaches make for strange bedfellows; it's not uncommon to have them nest in the sheets provided. And I'm already weird about sharing sheets and beds, so it was well worth the $4 for something clean.

We did have some interesting conversations in this corporate, capitalistic mecca though (sorry, I will stop now). One thing a few of us commented on that was interesting was the way in which men interact with men and women interact with women. It's really common to see men with their arms around each other's shoulders or even holding hands. However, I haven't seen any women showing any affection to each other in public. I thought this was interesting given that in most countries I've been to, it's really common to see women linking arms, but not men. Another thing we talked about was the actually stuff in the stores. So the women's clothing on the (white) mannequins was not acceptable to wear out in the streets. Is it for a special class of women going to special places in Chennai? Or for western women? Or Indian women going to the west? Meep. I just felt like I couldn't figure out the cultural identity of this place, who it was for, or what it was supposed to represent...

Anywho, time to quit rambling and pack for the train...and hopefully not make any close friends in my bunk tonight...

Only I get cold in India

Today we started off with orientation at the ICTPH offices, which, I might say, are pretty posh. And very air conditioned. Hence, I was very cold, even though the heat index was 116 today. Wah wah.

Anyways, the offices are located on the IIT campus, which is, as I understand, the "Harvard of India." Impressive. We got to know ICTPH a bit better as an organization (the LDWpF, for the Coros reading this). Basically, ICTPH partners with local providers, and in some cases helps clinics to get started. As in many rural areas the nearest clinic (not even hospital) is up to 3 hours away, many communities greatest health need is just to have a provider. ICTPH provides guidance (local demographic data, evidence regarding appropriate interventions, etc, and the local providers, well, provide.

ICTPH staff also highlighted a few interesting points on the nuances of working in rural areas. We were told that people in rural India (and yes, this seems like a huge generalization) tend to value the "grandmother's opinion," i.e. traditional remedies. So the key to working with this is building trust with local community members, which can happen in a few ways. One that we focused on was doing home visits and accepting (very small) tastes of foods and beverages when they are offered to you. Over the course of these relationships, public health workers are encouraged to offer modern (although basic) treatments in addition to the traditional treatments that are valued by the patient. Can't just tell someone they're wrong and force them to take some new fangled medicine. The process is slow, but that's what makes it sustainable.

We took a break for lunch and enjoyed the food court. My tummy has been a grade-A wuss when it comes to spice. Even after all that building up to eating hot sauce almost every day over the past few months!! So I was boring and had pasta with cream sauce. The pasta is prepared in front of you and the chef kept trying to sneak red pepper flakes into the mix. I literally had to beg him not to spice it up...I think he just felt bad for my bland little dish. I've heard that I can homemake some plain yogurt in the hostel, which should definitely help with the esophagus burning. Ugh. Although the yogurt making does sound pretty awesome. I guess I'm just not used to white rice, white bread and hot stuff for every meal (even breakfast). It's just so good I want to eat it all!! In the meantime, I'm keeping my eyes open for ice cream...

On the way back to the hostel we stopped at Cottage Industries, which is a fancy shop specializing in Indian crafts, cloths, silks, etc. The artwork was impressive. So many colors, shapes and textures. Organized chaos, just like the streets.

After getting back to the hostel and running out for water (see Audra carrying it on her head like a champ), we're getting organized for a night out tonight and our departure to Thanjavur tomorrow!

And so it begins...

Hello friends and family!

Thanks for being interested enough to read this little account of what's going on in India.

I will be here for 10 weeks for a course called Transdiciplinary Problem Solving: Public Health in the Developing World. Fourteen other Brown School students and myself will be learning how to design effective public health interventions. We will be working with an organization called ICTPH in Thanjavur and Chennai to design interventions in several topic areas. My topic area is gastro-intestinal disease; I promise to keep you all posted while sparing you any unpleasant details :)

So, what's going on now...

Just arrived in Chennai last night. We will be here for two more days, doing orientation, etc. More importantly, however, we were able to take some time to explore the city. We started out with breakfast of Dosas and Masala tea. I love this county just for the fact that almost everything is vegetarian. And delicious.

Then Audra and Leslie and I ventured on to the T Najar market (which was a great find by our classmate, Dessa). The rickshaw ride there was really fun. You feel close to the city in one of these things and get to see so much. Probably because you literally are very close to what's going on...I had to keep grabbing my skirt to keep it inside the "auto."

Once at the market, we browsed and invested in some traditional salwar kameez. The clothing is colorful and bold (basically the opposite of what I would normally wear. No gray cardigans here, Natalie). And most importantly, very light. As you can probably guess, it's really freaking hot.

So, what I gathered today is...

At least one thing about India that is really unique is that there is just SO much going on all of the time. Rickshaws and horns and people and goats and bikes and babies and babies on bikes (I'm laughing out loud thinking of my Mom and Dad chilling at an intersection in the middle of downtown...because when you cross the street, you run and sort of hope you don't get hit. Mom would not approve. But really, Mom, it's safe). And, people seem to get all of these elements and how they interact. I mean, duh, they live here, but it's still really impressive. There's still a logic to it.

Most of all, it's exciting. You just feel really alive when you're part of the bustle. Makes me wonder what it is about this place that allows for all of these complexities...and if home has similar cultural complexities that I just miss because I'm so used to them...