"home"

I am back "home", suffering in more ways then just separation from my real work and the places that are the most holy to me. I miss the friends I made and the common goals; working towards something higher. I decided to keep up with this blog as it is super fun and a good way to sort through my own tattered thoughts.

crossing and ganga (ganges)

I was crossing the Ganges yesterday to go from one village to another. It was a public boat and cost a rupee for the fare. I was sitting on the edge of the boat and to my right a fresh water dolphin jumps out and disappears again under the muddy water. It is a real blessing to see one as they are becoming increasingly rare.
Nothing here is as it is in the west. It is a differant world alltogether. It took me a while to adjust again, and now I never want to leave. I am sitting in a little internet room and a oxen cart just went by on the road followed by a chevy van and a rikshaw. I can hear parrots, geese, venders, cows and someone pounding metal. I love the crazyness of it all. It feels more real then the west... like life here isn't steralized. It is real. Dealth is real, life is real, disease is real, dirt is real, saddness and happiness... everything feels more... like it is not under glass. You know, when you are at the zoo and you are looking at the animals? They are real, but they are like only a portion of what they are in real life... all of the western world feels like that.
Kiki's deep thoughts for the day :-)

Brandie

I took a boat to the middle of the river Ganga in the moonlight and placed a small basket in the water and watched it float towards the sea. Brandie... this is Her mercy. Jai Ma Ganga Jai Nabadwip Dham!

week of posts continued

01/05/08 I went to the village and did a little work there. It was interesting to see the type of people who came to the clinic. There were poor village people as well as wealthy ones. There is little proper care available, so everyone will come. We worked out of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat eye clinic and saw loads of people. Some saw the doctor and some just saw me. The other girls that are here are from all over the world. There is one from Serbia, one from Venezuela and one from Italy so I am the only one who can speak “good” English, enough to understand the translator and then tell the girls what he is saying. It is hard when there are so many people who have English as a second language. It can be hard for them to communicate with each other in broken English. Many people here speak some English so I have been able to do a lot of work on my own. One 20 year old came in with a sore ear so I gave him ear drops another lady came in with muscle pain and when I asked if she was taking any medication currently she pulled out a bottle of HCTZ she was taking for her “high BP”. I asked if she had any other pills (potassium) and she said no so we gave her potassium. We don’t have to facility for testing of levels (K+ etc) or culturing bacteria etc, so we are completely treating symptoms. If they have what seems to be an upper respiratory tract infection we are giving amoxicillin which is readily available and inexpensive.


I am staying in an amazing house next to a pond which has a temple in the middle of it. It is called Jal Mandir or water temple.I have a room to myself. There is water, but not hot so to take a warm bath I have to heat my water using a coil immersion heater. All the windows have metal bars on them to protect from monkeys! The monkeys here are really big and can steal things.

A week of diary (I haven't had internet)

12/31/08 So, I am in Delhi. Just sitting in my hotel room waiting for the reception to find a one hour wireless internet card so I can get on line. My flight was… annoying. In Paris we were delayed for about an hour. When they did call for us to board they just said board at will which meant about 1000 people rushing the gate. When I finally got on the plane the stewardess had given away my booked aisle seat so a Italian couple could sit together. While everyone else was being seated, I stood in the back of the plane waiting to get a seat. I was thinking that I would be moved to an upper class J, but when they led me to my seat it was a middle seat in between a guy and a family. I was squished for 71/2 hours. SUCK!

When I got the Delhi it was midnight. The customs took about an hour because three international flights (most likely all 747s) landed at the same time… then I waited about another hour for my bag. By this time I was going cross eyed from lack of sleep (those of you who work with me can imagine what I must have looked like, shout out to east 8!). I called my friend from a taxi counter (send your psychic thanks to the taxi counter guy) where they called me over to see it I needed a car. My friend, Sandeep, was waiting and came to pick me up at the private taxi area. It was 2am! He took me to the hotel he booked, The Ginger. If anyone is going to India, I HIGHLY recommend this hotel. It is about 20 bucks, has comfortable beds, clean bathroom with hot and cold running water!!! (ok if you have never been to a third world country, you have no idea how fricken awesome this is) I took a hot shower and fell into unconsciousness.

I woke up to the sounds of India. There was a pigeon outside my seventh floor window. There were the horns of the cars and auto rickshaws on the road… voices of the construction workers who are building an extension to the subway system taking a line from the main train station to the airport. It is a unique sound… India. I could hear it anywhere and know where I was. I will try to capture the sound and post it here. (I don’t know if I can do that… Jen or Meghan, can I do that… o queens of blog)

So here are a few pictures from my hotel room. My taxi is coming to pick me up in an hour to take me to the domestic airport … and I am going downstairs to eat some lunch before.

12/31/08 Ok… now I am in Kolkata. I took a taxi to the Math (pronounced Maat, with a long a) from the airport and am now in a room. I am not sharing at the moment, which is what I need tonight. I really just need sleep. I am going to Nabadwip tomorrow and will see my mother. I still have no idea what my service will be here… but I am sure something will manifest tomorrow.