i am leaving to be a volunteer in patna, behar province, india on monday jan 3rd. i will be there until april 26th, 2011.

i am going under the sponsorship of the american jewish world service (a non-governmental organization based in new york and headed by ruth messinger, http://ajws.org/). ajws takes jewish philanthropic money and jewish volunteers and pairs them with one of 350 non-jewish ngo's in asia (thailand, cambodia, india), africa (kenya, uganda, ghana) and central america. my program involves volunteering for three months. ajws has a number of other programs, and was one of the first organizations to provide support following the asian tsunami and the haitian earthquake.

patna is a city of 1.8 million people on the ganges river. behar province (northeast india) is one of the indian centers for buddhism. bodh gaya, about 50 miles south of patna, and is the city in which the buddha found enlightenment under the boda tree. patna is also about 350 miles northwest of kulkuta, one of the most populated, most diverse cities in india.

dord (daudnager organization for rural development, http://dord.in/) is based in patna and has 150 workers, including 30 in health related programs. it is unclear what i will be doing, but it will probably be some combination of consulting on health care administration (they have several community clinics and work with several hospitals. i have been the medical director of a residency clinic and have held a number of other administrative posts), teaching (my skills center around childbirth issues, women's health, pain/palliative care and general medical practice), and assistance in grant writing (i have been involved with the successful development of five significant grants while at ravenswood hospital in chicago and lutheran general hospital in park ridge). i will not be seeing patients, as getting a medical license in a foreign country is a major undertaking. i also suspect i will primarily not be working with physicians, but rather non-md health workers.

it is all very exciting. india promised to be incredible, deep and dynamic. its history stretches back millenia, its population exceeds 1.2 billion. india is the birthplace of four major religious traditions (hinduism, buddhism, jainism and sikhism) and was a jewel of the british empire for two centuries. my son simon spent three months at a tibetian buddhist monastery in bodh gaya during a semester abroad in college (as well as traveling for a month with his sisters, rachel and naomi) and returned to say his overriding impression of india was that the people were happy. i confirmed that impression with some of the non-md indians with whom i worked at the hospital. a country of broad poverty, the vestiges of the caste system, expanding capitalism and international trade (since prime minister pv narasimha rao opened the country to foreign investment and liberalized economic policies in 1991), it will be a smorgasbord of sounds, sites, smells and energy.

i fly into munich, stay overnight, then to delhi and onto patna. i will take my homeopathic remedy to minimize jet lag, and set my watch to the time of my final destination on takeoff from chicago.