housing, traffic and duties

i have been in india for three and a half weeks and officially with the ngo DORD (daudnagar organization for rural development) for seven days, although the staff greeted me on my arrival in patna on 5 january. i stayed in a hotel in patna for three days, and then traveled alone to bodh gaya and varanasi for three days each. as raja, the ngo (picture left, betty) said last week, it feels like i have been here a long time (i think it was a compliment).

i am staying in an extra room right in the ngo offices (pics right top, middle and lower).

my routine is fairly established: up around 7 am, parvez the driver/watchman/cook (pix on left, top) comes to the door of my room with a cup of chai (tea, milk, sugar, a dash of coffee), i dump water over my head from a bucket (no running hot water, although raja kindly offered to install a small hot water tank in my bathroom. parvesh heats a bucket of water on the propane stove) and brush my teeth. the squat toilet and i are finally getting along (bottom right). i turn on the computer, read about egypt and check my email, then out into the common office. parvez will have breakfast made for me, usually rice, tumeric, vegies, maybe an egg thrown in (pic lower left). newspaper is recycled extensively here, in this case, as a place mat). the work week is six days monday through saturday from around 10 am to 7 pm (common in indian offices). everyone eats lunch together in the office around 2-2:20. chai served 2-3 times during the workday, in small 3 oz cups. me, the ugly american? i bought a 10 oz ceramic cup. i need my hot drinks. i split my meals between one or two in the office each day and the rest from street vendors. no, i have not
dehydrated from loose movements (the name for diarrhea). actually, the only time i had loose movements was when i stayed in a fancier hotel for orientation. i limit myself to food fried in oil (lots of that here) or cooked on a hot fire. i also restrict myself to bottled water. there is a ultraviolet water treatment system in the office, so i keep filling my liter plastic bottles, about three or four liters/ day.

for entertainment, i wander the streets. i've gotten good at negotiating the traffic (pics right). do not stop, do not be afraid, and trust everybody to accommodate everybody else. it actually works.. it is randomly choreographed chaos. no stop signs, no yield signs, no stop and go lights. very occasionally a traffic kiosk in the middle of a big intersection with a traffic officer directing. the amazing thing is that everybody accommodates everybody else. that line of traffic in the picture on the far right? one steps right out into it and the vehicles turn slightly one way or another to avoid collision. horns everywhere, but not angry ones, no road rage. the horns are warnings that a vehicle is coming up from behind. pedal rickshaws, auto rickshaws, pedal carts, motorcyles, cars, small trucks, pedestrians. a veritable stew of movement. a certain type of truck has a sign painted on the back: "honk horn." it made me laugh. it is a message that seems to need no repeating. after dark, a quiet descends as all the vehicles leave the road. no more honking. ajws, in its wisdom, forbids volunteers to drive or ride on motorcycles. they take good care of the volunteers. really.

at night, i return to my room for some reading and internet research on a wide variety of topics. google and especially wikipedia are amazing resources for this modern traveler. india has a history going back ten centuries, in the opaque days of the vedas. more on that later.

my duties are becoming clearer. the memorandum of understanding (mou) between dord and ajws and me includes three project areas. dord has built and is running a thirty bed hospital in a rural area called daudnagar (120 km /75 miles away, a three hour car ride. i haven't been to visit yet). dord is beginning to offer women's health services, and wants to develop a full program of maternity education and services. raja has asked that i review and advise on the administrative and clinical organization of the operation. a second task may involve clinical education for the medical-paramedical and community workers. the third area is in grant opportunity identification and writing. the theme of ajws is sustainability. translate: i would not write the grant, but, rather, work with the staff here to do so. ajitesh (pic left), one of the two very proficient english reader/writers (raja is the other) and i hopefully will work together in building several grant proposals.

the next blog will focus on street vendors or construction methods. i'd like to learn how to label pictures first, though.

also, sorry to hear about chicago weather (major snowstorm predicted for today). here it is about 80 degrees, clear skies.