So, it’s been a couple weeks, but I’ve been busy and I’m
sure you’ve been busy as well. I hope
you’ve been busy! I hope you’ve been
productive and having adventures and working and being happy. That’s the rub about this whole blog thing
–it’s very self-centered. Well, yeah,
you may think, but that’s the whole point, to have a platform from which to communicate
with hundreds of people at once. But, I
would genuinely love to know (those of you who are reading this) what you’ve been up to. I would love to sit down
with a cup of coffee and talk this whole thing out because, though I do love to
write, I just can’t adequately explain how ridiculously, unbelievably,
shockingly beautiful everything here is.
Okay, “beautiful” might be a facetious word, but I’m a cheesy enough
person to use it. I have moments,
sometimes when I wake up, sometimes while I’m riding the train or sweating
through my last good bra, where I re-realize that, I am in India; the furthest
from home I’ve ever been and by myself in one of the most historical, colorful,
spicy, spiritual, and diverse countries in the world. On a whim I decided to come here, and I’ve
never been so proud of my rash-decision-making skills.
All of this, I’d love to share with you, face to face,
intimately, and loudly (it would definitely be loud), and in return, be loud
with you about your respective summers, but I’m away from my life at the
moment, and this will have to do.
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| I may be excruciatingly white, but I love my saree. I'm going to wear it too. Suck it, Utah. |
A Vacation Vacation
The main reason I haven’t written anything earlier is
because I took a vacation from a vacation and flew to Goa for the weekend with
some friends. Goa to India is comparable
to Hawai’i for America. It’s a
tourist-driven resort town on the Arabian Sea that offers boat excursions,
parasailing, spas, city tours, bargain shopping, and drinking. I don’t have a lot of beach experience, but
the beaches were the warmest and sandiest and beachiest that I’ve yet
seen. The humidity was about 3000%
because it was just at the beginning of the rainy season, which was great
because there weren’t many tourists. It
was... just so perfect. I may have taken
a ton of pictures, so enjoy!
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| "Heeeyyyy" from the balcony of our resort in Goa |
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| I was pretty fascinated with this sunset. So there are many pictures of it. |
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| Because, holy shit, look at it... |
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| Mm, yeah, I was here. |
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| Treanna has been my Indian roommate and American friend. USA! USA! |
Also, the final game of the Indian Premiere League of
cricket was showing the night we went out clubbing, so there were good feelings
and free drinks all around.
Surprisingly, I am a cricket fan when I’m piss drunk. I am also a fantastic Bollywood dancer.
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| A little Canada. A little America. A little Jenga. A little cricket. A lot of whisky. |
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| The first drink of the night - watermelon martini |
Oh! Lesson of the week: Indian clubs are exponentially more fun than
American clubs for the simple fact that everyone dances, actually dances. Men and women both get into it. None of this grinding twerking bullshit,
no. Passionate, give-it-everything-you’ve-got
dancing. It’s beautiful; I very highly recommend clubbing in India.
After saying goodbye to my Canadian friends, Treanna (I
don’t know if I’ve mentioned her, but she has been my buddy for the past three
weeks, and she is pretty awesome) and I returned home.
A Weekly(ish) Update
My second to last week in Malavli was pretty standard – I
haven’t been anywhere new, but I’ve been loving getting comfortable with the
hospitals that I am at. Getting to know
the doctors and sisters and patients has been an eye-opening experience, to say
the least. I now have a partner that
will be with me at my placements for the next month, Cecilia, who is in the
same program as I am. They say that you
really don’t know how well you know something until you try to explain it to
someone else. Showing Cecilia around the
villages and to the hospitals, trying to explain subtle and not so subtle
cultural differences and imparting my mediocre wisdom upon her has been that
test for me. I’ll be sad to leave this
area next week.
In other news, I saw a cesarean section and an abortion this
week. In the words of an Indian gynecologist,
“Gynecology is very bloody. Ladies have
a lot of blood.”
Yes, we do, sir. Yes,
we do.
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| This baby is fresh out of the womb. It was actually pretty special. The family was so happy! |
I’m running low on blog-writing energy, so I’ll wrap it up, but
a couple more interesting things before I begin my nightly ritual of eating
dinner, taking my malaria pill, and promptly falling asleep.
When the Canadian students were here, half of them were
working with an orphanage in the area that sounded phenomenal but I never got
out to until this week. Shikshangram houses boys and girls of all ages and, as
one who is not fond of children, these kids are pretty cool. I was only there for a few hours so I don’t
know much about it, but I would like to go back. I’ve never been so entertained with balloons
and 30 children.
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| The kid to the left of me is bakshi, which I thought was a name but really is basically Marathi for little shit. |
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