My fellow medic nurse Bridget noted on her hospital visit that Indian politeness means that rather than say, "no we haven't got that". She noticed that the hospital doctors would say, yes - not in a deceitful way but in a wanting to please way. Unfortunately not having oxygen, but saying that you do, isn't really safe and so with our hospital rec list I will be ticking boxes and ensuring that equipment works. It's gonna be a long day but I'm flattered to have the responsibility and am greatful that I am kinda just following protocol too. So that's where I am at right now.
Normally at field base we have a cook (the South Indian famous cook suresh) he cooks us basic curry. When the guys are out on their project sites they cook thier own food (from provided staples as part of the growing up experience) however at field base it is important to make sure that they are fed so they are cooked for here. Despite the food being the tastiest that I have ever ever had, Indians like to have curry for breakfast. The first two days of this was like Wowza and yum. However my stomach has revolted, it cannot take rice at 8 am and so I bought some cereal from the supermarket which advertised itself as "wheat and strawberries". I opened it this morning and it is the most sorry, cardboard flavour flaccid cereal that I have ever had and had rasins instead of strawberries!!!!! Yuck
So right now I am eating a meal of eggs and potatoe. Our ground mans who doesn't speak a word of English but is smiley and replies in Hindi despite not understanding stood over my shoulder and watched me cook the whole meal. Bless him, he helped out by stirring the potatoes and we had a full blown conversation and I didn't understand anything he was saying and vice versa. The only thing we both understand is the Indian head nod.
Proper comedy.
I am eating more carbs than I have eaten in my whole entire live. Rice, roti and curry. Seriously delicious. I'm made up but to compensate for the indulgence I'm running every day. I was craving a bounty bar today and had one, it was delicious but I really am not craving sweet things. It's nice. And man I love rice, sooooooo all good.
today was a nice, I awoke at 6 for another run despite broken sleep.
I was chased by the lad that lives next door. The family is so poor, and weirdly the girl looks so healthy and the boy really malnourished but very smiley. They are always glad to see me. A pack of feral dogs were ahead of me at one pint of the run and all I could think off was RABIES, especially after reading up on it yesterday I didn't know that even a lick onto broken skin or the lips can transmit the disease. ERGH. They seemed not at interested in me so all good.
The chickens however proper squak, I just wanna grab one, break it's neck and have it for me tea. Despite our chicken being moved to another farm, a whole new family from god knows where have taken up resistance at FB and these mothers cock a do dol doo at any god forsaken time in the day and I swear they come right up to my tent, right up to the head bit and squak on purpose. One even came up to me as I was doing sit ups in the sun. Bloody noisy mares.
Last night I heard a rattle outside my tent. I was utterly convinced that there was a snake trying to get me. I did try and explain away the rattle but nothing other than a snake could make that sound. I lay awake for ages. Stiff as a board. One of my colleagues told me that there are snakes that rattle around here but the venom doesn't kill (phew). I am consumed by snakage. Literally my senses are so heightend at night and it doesn't help that the wildlife is so noisey!!!
So the medical boxes are packed. LONG TING. But done. We still have the cars to do and ensure the drugs cupboard is cool and then make sure that the medic room is ready for when the teams deploy.
Speaking of deployment the young ones touch base next week on the 4th. This means I will have 150 medical interviews to do. My god. 150 report cards to fill.
It's gonna be like dr Ronxs drop in. I'm excited to meet them.
Today I had a rather interesting conversation with some of the team leader girls. They have all finished university and are very well read. Some how gender became topic of conversation. One of the girls did her dissertation on a theory she was exploring in regards to the place of intellectual or professional white women in other cultures. That wasn't the title but it was something like that. I listened to her explaining how she had interviewed some ex pat military women in Afghanistan explored their roles in that society. She described how the women told her that they were seen as not as low as the afghan women but not respected as much as men. They described being listened, and respected for being white and western but never really en par with men.
The conversation then turned into a talk about feminism and this same girl was explaining to the other girls that even in groups that are "united" (ie feminists) there are divisions. - Same same bit different.
Obviously to myself this isn't new but to be surrounded by girls exploring and discussing such topics was lovely. They were fiercely proud to be women and are strong team leaders, I am really excites to see how they develop over the next 10 weeks.
So real time it's 19.53 here in Mysore.
I've got to organise myself for tomo.
This time last week I was en route to getting wasted in London. Now I'm here on India!!
Beautiful India.
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