Back from the Rural outskirts of Vellore

Vanecome! (greetings)
As this will be my third attempt to post the bulk of my life for the past week, I will try a slightly different format that is less chronological, and hopefully adequately paint a picture of Southern India in Tamil Nadu. After arriving at the hotel early in the morning, we slept for a couple of hours and then caught a private set of 3 buses to Vellore, which was about 2 hours of driving. It was supposed to take much longer, but traffic must have been good, and we were soon there. The main campus of CMC (Christian Medical College) in in downtown Vellore, which is a substantial but by no means large town, and is easily much smaller than Chennai. If the hospital were not such an important presence there, Vellore would likely be a place of little to no consequence to those not living near by. But, CMC is famous across India and internationally, and even though it is a private hospital the poor and rich travel from out Tamil Nadu to seek care rather than go to the free government hospitals because they are corrupt and do not always give proper care. I have heard rumors that in government hospitals, one must bribe the nurse or other staff to gain food, a urinal, or other means of satisfying basic bodily needs. I think the government sets forth fairly sound policy, but the executers of policy are often accused of corruption. Our living area is the Alumni house, built to house visiting alumni and give them a comfortable place to stay. It is on the medical campus, Bagayam, which is outside of town, so we must take the bus to get to the hospital and school of nursing. It is very clean, and there is almost no trash on the ground, even though the medical campus, which is bigger than the main campus is practicaly a town in itself, as most of the doctors live there in residential neighborhoods, with a school and park and store included. I am there now, in Gault library, finally using the Internet again. The Alumni house is also very nice, and they make our beds for us everyday and give us meals, and provide clean boiled water. It does not taste very good at all, as it is kind of old and plastic tasting, but I am beyond caring. Clean water of any sort is very precious. They also give us breakfast and dinner (breakfast is usually small pieces of toast with real butter and a spicy/fruity jam, with a small banana that is so ripe it begins to peel before you even take it off the bunch. It is small, but in this climate is adequately filling. Dinner is usually some Indian fare of curry and rice with a vegetable, and it is quite spicy but good. I wasn't hear to experience it, but apparently on Saturday the cook "Money"- at least that is how you pronounce it made some kind of Greek food for lunch and Saturday night was chicken strips and french fries, though very Indianized with spices, and the chicken is much smaller and bony-er. We see the chickens running around, especially outside of town, and they are puny compared to the US variety, but I suppose chicken is chicken. My roommate is a girl named Christina, who is very sweet and a good match. The light switches are incredibly confusing, as they are all over the place and many apparently have no purpose- I'm sure they do but I couldn't tell you what as every time I use them I see no results, and they are not always near the appliance they turn on, so it is something of trial and error. The electricity is turned on in the room by sticking the room key in a slot on the wall, so every time someone leaves with the key, the power turns off. I suppose it is a good way to save energy. There are air conditing fans in nearly every building of any importance, but not all buildings in India are important, so many are simply grass huts withering in the sun. Most of the college and hospital buildings have air conditioning though- it is those big fans that turn that people in the movies jump on and whirl around the room with- they are kind of old fashioned.
The transportation is something of an adventure... my first real taste was leaving the Tridant Hotel on the first day, as the traffic was thick and dense, and the bus could not get out of the parking lot, so it just nosed its way into traffic. The traffic still would not let us in, so we became a barrier perpendicular across the entire road, and still we were not given space. We finally got into traffic, though, and that was when the adventures began. The driver is on the right side of the car and the car drives on the left. There are road markings and signs, but no one heeds them, as apparently there is little road law enforcement. At first it is terrifying chaos, where I was afraid for someones life (my own, someone elses or all of ours) but then I began to notice a system. The bigger vehicle, or the vehicle that honks the most seems to be respected as the one that earns the right of way, and everyone seems to be willing to work with that policy. Cars are speeding by each other at 30+ miles per hour in both lanes (no one even cares if they are going against oncoming traffic) and are only inches apart but the drivers are calm and collected. Road rage only seems to occur when there is a collision, and then everyone in the area gets out and starts a riot. Apparently, you can get as close to a car as you want, but it is ok unless you touch. So far, I have only seen the driver lose calm twice- once at night when a drunk driver swerved out in front of us unpredictably, and once when we must have slightly hit a motorcycle and the driver was furious and was pounding on the bus. Some well meaning person cried out to the wilderness with some bunch of signs along the road saying "live for today, drive for tomorrow" and "crashes hurt" but I doubt anyone reads them. The main traffic is "tut-tuts"- little 3 wheeled yellow rickshaw or taxi cars that are "for hire", big buses, motor bikes, and a couple of bicycles, and some ox drawn farmers carts. Everyone just pushes in for empty space- I don't recommend anyone attempt to drive in India unless native born and raised or planning to spend a long time there. I have only noticed 1 private car so far and it seemed very much out of place. Many of the roads have been made 1 way for safety I'm sure, with a barrier down the road to keep oncoming traffic from mingling as it often does. The main roads have been poorly paved, and all of the regular neighborhood roads are dirt. To be a pedestrian is a very precarious situation as there are few crossing areas, and these are rarely heeded. You must stand on the side of the road and watch for an opening (or non-opening if you are daring) and dodge traffic to the other side. On the journey to Vellore, I saw a man epically dodge traffic and safely reach the mid barrier, and I was silently cheering for him but then realized he was still in the middle, and that poor man had a long way to go. Crossing India traffic is akin to the grandma in Mulan crossing the street with her lucky cricket- which was by no means a small feet, and I didn't have a lucky cricket. Cars don't stop... they just honk. A young German doctor staying on the Medical campus with us says it is more of a greeting to honk, and a command- there is plenty of it!
The people in southern India, and Tamil Nadu are very traditional. Barbara (0ne of the professors, from Canada) says that each state finds strong identity in their own state and wont even bother to learn Hindi because it is a part of the North. The local language is Timal. The most educated people, such as doctors, have very good English and have usually studied in English land, such as the US, UK, Australia, or other parts of Europe. The standard educated person has decent English, but they have thick accents and speak softly so take much concentration to understand. These include most professors, nurses, and college/hospital staff. Everyone else knows very little English, and will sometimes run up to us excitedly and say "hello, ok, goodbye!" as though excited to speak with a foreigner and practice English. We are treated something like celebrates here, as Vellore is fairly remote in India and is not a tourist town, so the only foreigners are associated with the hospital, such as doctors like Frederik studying tropical disease, so they don't see us much. They are especially pleased to know we are American- they often ask where we are from, and when we say US, they get a huge excited smile on their face and call "American, American" and shake our hands and all of their friends and family are smiling and happy as though they are pleased to be associated with someone who has met an American. They are especially pleased with the blondes and blue eyed members of our group, for some reason. I am still unsure why they are so excited to meet Americans.. I'm still working on that mystery. It could be our appearance, or our politics, or our accent, or our wealth, or other things with bad connotations- I'm not sure. Their standard of beauty seems to be very western though, as many of the advertisements and manikins for nicer shops are very western looking. They are traditional though, and until recently only the Saree was worn. Recently, they have begun to adopt the Salwar Kameeze (the tunic with pants) formerly associated with the North. The men wear dress shirts and pants, or a tunic and cloth wrap, or a tunic and cloth wrap wrapped between the legs like Gandhi. Some wear tunics, and I have seen very few jeans- and if there are jeans they belong to men. So far I have seen maybe 3 pairs.
The people seem to keep busy- on the trip from Vellore we passed towns with a central fountain where women came with clay or plastic pots to collect water, and most craftsmen work from their homes of grass mats or stone, and sit under a grass covered porch all day. Most of their lives are right out in the open. The elderly use long grass bunches to sweep the streets, and others farm, or others build. There are cows everywhere, just as has been said. Most seem to belong to people and are tied to the ground, or sit by a house and watch their owners work- looking much like a large cat. Some wander the streets freely, and some are average sized and some look like walking skeletons. It is worse for a human to hit a cow than a human in the road. The climate is very warm and humid, but so far it has not rained much. We have had a little in the mornings before anyone wakes up, and a few sprinkles, but nothing substantial. I have not been burned though, and I have not felt particularly heat burdened, though others in my group would beg to differ. So far, I would argue, I agree with the climate and the climate agrees with me. It is rather refreshing, though hot, and I find it much easier to wake up in the morning and stay alert all day. Evening comes quickly as the sun begins to set around 6pm, and that is when the bugs come out. I have only had a few small bites, but others have fared much worse and have irritated their bites until they are huge, and quarter dollar sized bites seem small in comparison. One girl is on bite "probation" where if it doesn't get better soon, to the hospital she will go because it is so big. Another girl has been staying back sick after a trip to the hospital late last week with a severe UTI, which is apparently common around here in this variety. Another girl stayed back with a severe cold complete with fever, and another girl went to the hospital with a worms parasite invasion. It is good the purpose of our trip is health care, and that we have easy access to a hospital. I am well so far, and have been as careful as possible, but there is only so much that can be done. The group is going through the un-well rounds...
There is a lot of interesting wildlife in the area, with several varieties of pretty butterfly like those found in the butterfly house, large grasshoppers, bats a half foot long, mountain goats, and Frederik was telling us about scorpions, vipers and other poisonous snakes but we haven't seen any yet, which is good because apparently if you see them, it means they are scared and that is when they bite. There is a whole committee of monkeys on our medical campus around the alumni house, and they are quite mischievous and Frederik says they sneak into purses while people hold them, steal water, and drink it like a human. We aren't to get too close though, as they may have rabies.
The town is full of trash and dust, and looks very much like India. It is weird to see the prosperity and poverty so closely mingling, and even the nice buildings are not very clean, but so it is.
This afternoon we went to a rural clinic and hospital campus for CMC vellore, and it was neat to hear more about the rural way of life. Tomorrow I believe I do my first clinical at the main hospital in Vellore.

I have to leave soon for a lecture... and sorry I am missing many details. I still must speak of my new outfits, our hike, the fort, the Golden temple, Church, and the hospital, which each have stories of their own... oh, and the saga for obtaining Internet. I have been keeping a well detailed journal, so at some point, I will have no difficulty clarifying gaps in this tale.

Meeka Nandree!