Daily India

So as I am getting ready to leave I am realizing there are so many things that I encounter on a daily basis that I have not relayed to all of you. Its funny because when I first arrived these are the things that I thought the most about but as I have acclimated I have stopped noticing them so much, that is until all the International Students get together and talk about how crazy and fun India is.

- Food: I LOVE the food here. I have never had such flavorful food. Each dish is completely different from the next and has so many spices its incredible. Luckily, I like spicy food. There are many people here from Sweden, the UK, Germany who are dying because they think all the food is hot. They have ended up eating cheese sandwiches three times a day, everyday. They are really missing out. I think I have had meat maybe twice since arriving. Its not that you can't get it its just that they have so many incredible vegetarian dishes. If you are a vegetarian in the US it seems that you are pretty limited in options and your meals are pretty bland, but not here. I could totally be a vegetarian if I lived here. I hope to bring back some spices and recipes to share with all of you.
- The Head bob: I have not quite figured out why but everyone bobs there head side to side when you are talking to them. This gesture can mean 'yes', 'no', 'sure', 'yes I hear you', 'yes I agree,' basically anything. When we first got here it drove us nuts. We would ask someone a question and they would just bob their head and not say anything. What did this mean? Does that mean "yes, there is a bathroom here" or "no, the temple is closed to visitors". However, now we have all noticed that we have adopted the head bob, apparently its contagious.
- Bathrooms: oh what an experience. You are lucky if you find a western toilet here, most bathrooms are what Jenna and I have come to refer to as 'squatters'. Basically they are the same ceramic or porcelain or whatever our toilets are made of but they are in the ground. You must squat over them. They do not flush and there is not toilet paper (thank you mom for sending me with several rolls of toilet paper), this made for a very interesting first week. We also could not figure out why bathroom floors were always wet. It took a good week (until we were no longer staying in hotels catered to foreigners) to realize this was because there is no real shower like we have, there is just a shower head in the bathroom, the entire bathroom is the shower. This made us much more comfortable when we realized this is why the floors are all wet.
- They clean everything here with formaldehyde. This may not mean much to most of you but to all of us that have gone to medical, dental, PT, etc schools we know that smell way too well. It is the solution that we use in the US to preserve dead bodies. So imagine our horror when we walked into our room the first night and took a deep breath and had flashbacks to gross anatomy lab.
- Indians are seriously the friendliest people. I had been warned before coming that they were not nice and to be prepared; however, I have not found this to be true at all. Everyone wants to come up and talk to you and find out where you are from. If you don't know which bus to get on to go where you want to go just ask anyone. Most Indians speak English and if they don't they will take you to someone that does. Today, for example, we went to the Golden Temple after work. We walked to the bus station and climbed on a bus that was in the general vicinity of where we had been told the correct bus should be. We asked and the bus driver did the head bob. We assumed this meant we were in the correct place. We asked a few more times and he gestured to us that he would take us there. As we were approaching the stop the driver called for us and told us this is where we wanted to get off. So nice.
- There is no such thing as privacy here, especially in regards to medicine. We have strict rules in the US: you cannot give any identifying or health information to anyone without the patients consent, you may not discuss a case in any public areas, all computers must be secured. This is not the case here. Patients all crowd into the room together. In fact, they don't exactly like to wait for their turn so many will just mosey into the exam room and try to move their file to the front of the stack or will just thrust their child in the doctor's face so that they will be seen first. With all these extra people in the room the doctor will continue to discuss the patient's ailment with him or her and will continue with his physical exam all with a crowd of people watching. HIPPA would die.
- Identity: this is something that has intrigued me here. In the US we are divided by race, by our backgrounds. Here people are divided by which state they are from, what religion they practice, and what community (caste) they belong to. A child is not given a name until 90-180days of life, before that they are referred to as Lakshima's baby (the mother's name baby). Since the child will have received medical care before they are given a name all of their medical forms identify them as their mother's child. Also on the chart it will list what state you are from, I assume so that the doctor knows which language you speak. However, I have noticed that for those patients who are Muslim it just states Muslim, not what state they live in. I know that many of the Muslims speak their own language (Urdu I believe) but they also speak the local language so I am not sure why that is ignored on the forms.
- Indians are extremely efficient: I have been amazed by the amount of goods a person can fit on a bicycle, an auto rickshaw, an ox cart, a truck, etc. I saw a man driving down the road on a motor cycle with 5 sacks (like potato sacks) full of something sitting in front of him. I saw another man riding a bicycle with probably 60 chickens hanging from it. If there is an inch of room anywhere they can fill it, if there is a piece of plastic or metal on the ground they will find a use for it. It is truly impressive

These are just some of the everyday things that I pass on the roads and thought I would share with all of you. I have really fallen in love with this country and hope to return one day to see all the other parts that I was not able to visit on this trip. Some of what I had been told was true but as a whole everyone has been incredible welcoming and kind and India is a beautiful country full of wonderful people.