We made our first dinner in our new apartment last night. Bhindi (sautee onions and chilis, add ginger/garlic paste, salt, garam masala, and tumeric, cook for awhile, add tomatoes) and tomato chutney (sautee onions and chilis, add tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar, and cook for awhile) with rice. The freshness of the vegetables, especially the chutney was delicious, and even though the bhindi was cooked, it wasn't cooked into mush like the okra at the canteen often is.

In the jeep in the way home, we heard a story about a patient who had been in the hospital for two weeks with an abdominal infection. The night before he was scheduled for surgery, he ran off, taking his IV drip and nose tube with him. He buried them along the road somewhere and ran off to his village, where he died the next day. The surgeon at JSS is the one I would go to if I needed to be operated on in Chattisgargh, but the thought of surgery must be scary for someone not used to technology.

We had weighed ourselves shortly before we moved to Ganiyari. I weighed just over 60kg (132 lbs) and Dolly weighed just over 50 kg (110 lbs). We weighed ourselves again yesterday, and I was down to 55kg (121 lbs) and Dolly was down to 47kg (104 lbs). The take home lesson is the all you can eat rice and potato curry diet (with occasional diarrhea) in an effective weight loss regimen. BTW, this puts both our BMIs right around 18.5, the cutoff for being underweight.

This morning while shuttling things between our place and the guest house, Dolly heard a guitar and cam running to find me. It was a school boy playing guitar, and his father is an evangelical Christian and as part of their thing they have a rock band. Next door is a drum set, and he says they have bass guitar and amps. So I may have a chance to play some plugged in electric guitar, or at least find a place to buy new strings. And a chance to bang on some drums. (There is also a tabla teacher across the street where I will soon be taking lessons, and Dolly will learn singing).

Before we left Ganiyari on Saturday morning, Sharta, the girl who has a crush on me came by our room to say goodbye. This was the first time she had come to where we were staying. She was talking about how nice American weddings look in the movies, so we showed her some pictures from the weddings we've been to. She started out surprised by the tightness of our friend Germain's wedding dress, and the picture of John way up under her dress to get the garter. We then showed her pictures of my sisters wedding, where many of the pics were me giving Dolly a kiss or holding her close. Sharta flinched visibly each time she saw one of those. (This may have been more due to her crush than to cultural standards) She also asked if (said that) that Dolly wore short dresses, even though by American standards they were entirely appropriate. Her last comment was "I guess you live a different kind of life".

Yesterday there was some confusion as to where the key to the computer room was, so Dolly and I went and hung out in the lab, where we know most of the people (and its air conditioned). Surrinder was showing us the instrument that tests for blood sugar, and someone came over from surgery with a bag with a giant translucent bubble the size of my fist. We looked in the records (India is not as strict as the US in terms of medical privacy) and found that it was an ovarian cyst. Ewww. It was probably still warm.

I had forgot how strong and foul the smell of the city was. We noticed it as we were walking towards the bus stop. In the JSS campus the sanitation is good, and in the village of Ganiyari the population density is low. In the city, the density is high and the sanitation quality is "open sewers" so you are assaulted by new stenches at every turn.

We do have our new apartment, sparsely but thoughtfully furnished by the Doctors and Jacob. Our first night back was spent in the guest house, however, as we did not have a way of hanging our mosquito net. There is a hot water heater in the guest house, so we were also able to take a warm shower, which was nice.

It is also Dolly's birthday today (call her! 9406433262). We went out for chicken (Tandoori and Curry), and I made her a breakfast of French toast (one of the few American foods we have the ingredients to make). Last week we bought cloth for a new outfit, and had it tailored last week. Though the tradition is to wear it on your birthday, she wore it on Saturday instead, as that was our last workday living in Ganiyari, and the German med students were also wearing their new Indian-style outfits.

The med students and Jaya, a village health trainee from Assam were both leaving, and Jaya brought henna, a paste that stains the skin and acts like a temporary tatoo. She was decorating people's hands, and the German girls had some done. One of the henna artists entheusiatsically started on a swastika on one of their hands, not knowing the significance. The German girl, not knowing the Indian meaning (a religious symbol that pre-dates the Nazis by thousands of years) stared in horror, and Dolly did her best to explain to both sides the other culture. She has side of the story on her blog.

Today is our last day on campus. We will spend the night and then move to our new apartment tomorrow. Dolly is very sad about this, as she is a very social person, and has made many friends. I am more ambivalent, as I am looking forward to the comforts of having our own palce, and I have a language barrier with almost all of the people here. That said, we will now have to find a way to spend our evenings, and hopefully find a new circle of friends.

Last night we had a mini jam session with me on guitar and Anil on harmonium. It was kind of messy, as I don't have a good handle on Indian music, and he doesn't have a good handle on western music. The songs to me sounded like random noodling, and to add to the difficulty he very much preferred the black keys, which meant that I had to figure out what key(s) that meant I should be playing in. He didn't know any chord names or which notes were which so I couldn't ask/tell him what to play. We got it sounding good for a while when I did show him C and G and had him playing those. Unfortunately, I don't know when the next one will be, as my guitar will be going back to Bilaspur and we won't be spending our evenings here.

In the past month, I have eaten a simple, mostly vegetarian diet. I have eaten meat once, and eggs about every other day. I have not touched alcohol or taken a hot shower. I have had tea almost daily, but usually only one small cup. I have not watched TV or listened to radio, though I have listened to mp3s. On many days I get up early to do yoga.

What has been the result of all this clean, healthy living? I have lost about 10 pounds, had diarrhea 3 times, and have generally felt hungry and weak. I do not recommend it. I think the main culprit has been the lack of meat and calories. Even a mountain of white rice can only provide your body with so much. Would things have been different if there was sausage or bacon for breakfast every day, and an occasional chicken roast or lamb curry? Possibly... the other things I have not missed so much, but there is apprehension at every meal - will the food be tasty enough that I can eat enough to fill myself up?

The yoga has felt beneficial, and I think I will continue, on those days that I wake up in time. The style of yoga is very gentle and I appreciate the stretching it provides for my back and the rest of my body.

One of the major differences between the socio-economic structures of the US and India is the ratio of the costs of materials and labor. Compared to America, Indian labor is ridiculously cheap, and materials are relatively expensive... steel and glass and other materials are moved fairly easily, levelling out their prices all over the world. People are not as mobile, especially internationally, and so the labor rates vary wildly.

This is apparent in many ways, most recently the other night as I looked at a plate made from leaves held together by little slivers of wood. In the US, the costs of the labor involved would make it much more expensive than paper plates. Here, it is a simple, economical solution. Another is example is street cleaning. They do not use big, hundred thousand dollar machines. They pay old women to sweep them with brooms, probably less than a dollar a day. Imagine how insane it is to spend you whole day literally sweeping the street of dirt and dust.

Overall, it affects the balance of what kinds of things are economically feasible. Working class families can afford a housecleaner and/or a cook, but must rely on a bicycle for transportation. Markups in restaurants are much less, as the labor in the dining room and kitchen is such a small percentage of the cost.

It also effects construction approaches. Heavy machinery is again put aside in favor of manual labor. Need 2 tons of bricks moved up to the 4th floor? Hire a few women to carry them on their heads.

Much of the staff here at JSS, who are performing skilled labor, whether lab work or computer work, get paid around 3000rps/month, or about $60 a month. Thats a long shift at US minimum wage, and some of you make that in an hour. Here, it is enough to live adequately, though not luxouriously or even "comfortably". It is still much more than manual laborers, and is also a reliable paycheck. There is no risk of going hungry, which is a comfort not afforded to a large percentage of the population.

In contrast, our apartment in a high-rise (5 floors), in a nice neighborhood rents for that same $60/month, and we will be getting paid a few times the amount of the local workers. It is a struggle to balance the feelings of worrying how to get by for a month on what used to be a days' pay and the sense of guilt at getting paid so much more than the people we work next to.

We went into Bilaspur yesterday to see our new apartment, pick up a SIM card, and eat some chicken. The apartment is identical to the guest house, and though there's no furniture yet, its pretty nice. We should be able to make a home out of it.

Unfortunately, with respect to the chicken, we were not able to get any, as it was a festival holiday. We knew that it was a local thing where wives fast for their husbands and single women fast inhopes of landing a husband, but we did not know that it was also Ganesh's birthday, and the first festival of festival season. Long story short... on this festival day, no chicken.

We had gone to the restaurant with two German medical students visting for a month. Both are women and very light skinned, and one is almost 6 feet tall and blonde. I thought I attracted attention, but it is nothing like the attention these girls get. Men stopped and stared, or catcalled, and there were flatbed trucks full of young men who all stared and waved. They took it pretty well though, and pointed out that it was all just staring and no one said anything to them or did anything, and they had gotten used to it.


When we got back, we heard the sounds of tablas and singing while we were eating dinner. We were going to go out to find it when our friend Surrinder told us he knew where it was comign from and took us there. The sounds were from a temple where they were singing song-stories from scriptures. I had planned on just sitting by the edge and watching, but that proved to be impossible, as my white skin made me a celebrity. They took us on a tour of the temple, and the various shrines, and there was a very cool and ancient tree growing in the center, with long vines coming down from the branches, which would themselves take root and from new trunks. It was then explained to us that Ganesh was invoked when new things were started, and this (being Ganesh's day) was a day to start new things. I will take it as an auspicious sign that this was the day we saw our new place.

We stayed for awhile until food was served... I don't think they would have let us leave if we had wanted to. Part of these festivals are apparently free food. We sat on long mats, and plates made of leaves were place in front of us. They were made of 4 or 5 leaves, held together with pieces of toothpicks, and must have been assembled by hand. The food was rice and a chickpea curry with a side of fresh salad/salsa. The freshness of the salad (onions, tomatoes, chilis, and corriander) was especially refreshing, as fresh veggies have been very much missing from our diet. After the dinner we, left along with many other people... apparently many people show up just for the food.

I have a new girlfriend now. I had noticed her staring at me at the canteen during meals. I would look over at the other table and she would be looking over at me. One evening I was reading a book by the a light near the clinic and she shyly came over and asked my name (in English) and where I was from. I asked her the same questions, and then she ran off.

She's not really my girlfriend... just an admirer. She told Dolly that she is so interested in finding out about America, and in (Hindi) movies, Americans are always such bad guys, but I seem so nice (and have such nice eyes). We heard through the gossip circle that one evening last week I came to dinner and she made her friends change seats so I would have to sit next to her.

Also, for the single ladies out there, if you are looking to marry a young Hindustani man involved in the medical profession and working for social equality, we have a couple of eligible bachelors you may want to check out... get in touch for details.

Its also beginning to cool down here. Days have been in the mid 80s and nights have been as low as 72, and we have started getting up in the night to turn off the fan. This is a bit of a nuisance, due to the mosquito net around the bed, but I'm no longer damp from sweat every moment of the day, and I don't have to force myself to gulp down water by the liter.

Our phone got cut off today. We had submitted the documentation, but the driver's license of our friend had a scratch on it, so the paperwork was rejected.

Getting a SIM card here is harder than getting a bank account, or even a passport.

I would just like to give a big F&^* YOU to all the Indian politicians and bureaucrats who have conspired so effectively to make what should be a simple task so difficult. You are making your great country look bad.

(I suppose, on the order of things, making phones difficult to get is no less an pointless reaction to a terrorist attack than declaring war on a totally unrelated country. It is also less bloody and wasteful.)

On the JSS campus, Dolly and I often addressed as "sir" and "madam", and not just in direct address. I may be asked "Sir, where is madam?" if I show up somewhere without Dolly. Some of it may be the difficulty many have with my name. The "th" sound at the end is uncommon and I think the exact vowel sound of the e is too, so I often just introduce myself as "say-t". Dolly's name is easy, though. Some of it is that at first they didn't know our names, and sir and madam were polite ways of referring to us, especially since they didn't know if we were doctors or important.

There are a fair number of people who live on campus. Out of the twelve doctors, two live on campus. One stays next to where we are staying above the lab, in a small room that is at least larger than ours. She has worked at missions in the past, and I suspect that the simplicity of her accomdations is some type of devotional choice. The other doctor is married to the agricultual outreach guy, and lives with him and her two children in a small house on the edge of campus.

Most of the people who live on, or right next to campus are regular staff - nurses, kitchen staff, farmers and lab workers. They are stuck out here with not much to do - there is no entertainment available in the village, the only gathering places are work spaces and the canteen, and even social drinking does not exist. They seem to gossip a lot and Dolly and I, as both newcomers and Americans, are a popular topic. Sometimes it is like talking to a large collective consiousness with many faces. They find out we are not married, and soon everybody knows. They find out I eat cow and pig, and soon everybody knows.

Another component of the dynamic is that most of these people are from small villages, and have not been exposed to ideas that an American would take for granted. So when I try to explain that ethnically I am Christian, but don't associate with any particular religious faith, it is not an idea that is comprehensible. It took a while to figure this out, as these are intelligent, educated young people who remind me of many of my friends back home, and I assumed some exposure to American culture, at least through TV. But this is not Bombay or Hyderabad, it is the tribal heartland of India, and though there are American movies on TV, few know enough English to make watching them enjoyable, so for now this is one part of the world American culture has not conquered... although I CAN buy a Coke at several places in the village.

Today I learned how to ride a motorcycle. Ragesh took me to the field across the street, where after stalling about 10 times, I got the feel of the clutch. After a little spin around the field, we went a kilometer or so down the road and back. The motorcycles here are small and efficient, and not the powerful speed demons you find in the US. They don't get ridden much faster than 30-40 mph. (and yes mom, I know thats fast enough to get hurt, but the danger in motorcycles is when you ride like a maniac. Also, there are no seatbelts in the Jeep.)

We have also gone to villages the past two days where Dolly and I have sat in on meetings with local groups of farmers. These farmers are getting incentives from AID Boston to practice SRI in half an acre of their land. They meetings are in Hindi, so all I understand is pani (water). Its an especially dry summer, so a lot of what the farmers are saying is pani this, pani that.

Today's meeting was a little more interesting, mostly because of one farmer who was complaining about monkeys in his fields, along with imitations of what they do. One of the things they do is grab at snakes and play with them until they're dead, listening to the head every now and then to see if they can hear anything.

There was also a funny exchange (translated by Dolly) where Jacob told the farmers that two of them willing to work with water harvesting would be sent to Orissa or Jharkand (neighboring states), to see how they do it there. He asked them if they knew what Jharkand and Orissa were, and most admitted they didn't and one said it was a train station he had been to. It shows the type of life these people live... they know a lot about their local environment, and the neighboring states are just not in any way relevant to what happens in their lives in their village.

As Dolly posted, I was sick on both Thursday and Saturday due to poop water. We do our best to stick to clean (and treated) water sources, but its just not possible to do 100%. The most likely suspect is the canteen, which did test positive for fecal bacteria. We use the water there to wash our hands and dishes, so thats going to cause some illness. Exposure to poop is pretty much inevitable, as there is poop everywhere. There are cows. There are dogs. There are open sewers, and there are even little kids running into the grass for a squat. Luckily, we are prepared, and have enough antibiotics packed with us to handle multiple such incidents.

There is a small but interesting library here at JSS, and I've found some interesting books on the subject of India that I thought I'd share.

The first one is called Leaves From the Jungle by Verrier Elwin. Its about a British man (who eventually became an Indian citizen) who set up an Ashram in the general area I am staying. Its in the form of a diary, and from the 1930's, and an interesting look at village life and dynamics from that time.

Another very good one was India in Slow Motion, by Mark Tully, formerly a BBC journalist. Its about governance in India, which seem like a dry topic, but each chapter focuses on a particular event or personality, and reads well. The general theme is that India is corrupt and changes slowly, and its interesting to see the analysis of the power dynamics that make it so.

As an aside, the politics here are kind of weird. The major parties (BJP and Congress) don't stand for anything in particular. For the past while, they have been trading off being in power, and the agenda of the ruling party is consistent, as is the platform of the opposition. When they switch power, they switch agendas. Its like if all of the sudden Obama was for the war in Iraq, and the Republicans were suddenly against it. Here, the party in power is mostly for the status quo and in the vested interests, and the opposition party is pro-reform and anti-corruption... until they get elected and benefit from the control of government funds and planning.

One last book I just finished reading is called India After Ghandi, which is over 800 pages if you include the index and footnotes. It is a very detailed and interesting look at the formation and stabilization of the Indian nation, the conflicts and political movements, and the leaders and their policies.

For the past two and a half weeks that we've been staying in Ganiyari we have mostly stayed on the JSS campus. Except for one brief ride I took into Bilaspur, we hadn't gone more than a short walk away. We have also been eating all our meals in the canteen, occasionally supplemented by a curry we've made ourselves in one of the kitchens here. All of the food has been vegetarian... we usually get some eggs with lunch, but there has been absolutely no meat.

Dolly and I went into Bilaspur on Thursday, mostly to open a bank account, but also with a strong craving for some animal protein. The first thing we did when we arrived was to find a restaurant reccommended by our friend, where we ordered and devoured a tandoori chicken and an order of lamb briyani. It was one of the most satisfying meals we had had in a while.

The bank account isn't open yet, but it was easier than the cell phone. They were willing to accept separate proof of address and ID (which makes sense to me...) and the branch manager was very friendly and willing to work with us in getting the account approved with the paperwork that we have. It seems that the worst case is that the account gets delayed until we are physically moved into where we will be staying.

Also, today is Indian Independence Day, commemorating the day they were officially freed from British rule. There was a ceremony on campus, with a flag unfurling (done by the oldest members of the staff) and then some songs were sung and samosas were passed out. Its mostly a holiday, but some people are working, and while sitting in front of the lab we heard something about someone testing positive for cholera, and it was said in a way that sounded serious. So lets hope that there isn't an outbreak, and that I don't get it.

Some new pictures:

Click here to view these pictures larger

Cows are everywhere here, and not everywhere like they are in Wisconsin or any other dairy country. These are not farm cows, these are street cows. They hang out in the streets, get in your way, and eat your garbage.

Here at JSS, the cows aren't all that urban. Ganiyari is a rural village, and the JSS campus is mostly just grass and trees and dirt. Because the building and concrete density is low, the space is fairly cow friendly. This lets us see cows in a fairly natural habitat. However, cows have been domesticated for millenia, and no longer suited to any kind of "natural habitat."

The cows here mostly just wander around... they're pretty dumb. They walk around slowly and apparently randomly and sometimes poop. In the canteen, there is a big pot where peels and scraps are dumped. There is usually one cow standing by with a blank stare on its face waiting for some food to be dumped in. Sometimes if a cow is eating from the bucket, it won't even flinch when you dump some rice on its head. On at least one occasion, a cow wandered a few feet over to the fire and started eating dal from the pot before it got chased off.

No one ever hurts the cows, but they are always being chased around, and they look funny when they are being chased. To me, it looks like they have a look of blank and uncomprehending panic, especially when the guard dog is chasing them. The guard dog is always on a chain, and when he sees a cow, he will start chasing it, dragging its human behind it. The cow doesn't go much faster than the dog, and it runs like a middle aged fat woman not used to running.

People chase the cows too, when they wander into the farm, or into people's personal space. It takes a lot of work to chase a cow away, and you can hit them pretty hard without them seeming to care. They do respond to hands being raised, but they are big and slow to turn around, especially if they wanted to go where you are encouraging them not to.

Sometimes, a huge mass of cows is led down the road. This is the cows of a village being led to or from their grazing grounds, and its quite something to be walking the opposite direction through the herd. The first time I was in one, I was with Dolly, and she jumped up onto a wall, even though they are all dumb, passive animals, and were getting out of our way.

Since we've gotten to Ganiyari, we have not gone anywhere else... in the past two weeks we haven't gone farther away from our room than the village center less than 1km away.

I went into Bilaspur last night with one of the lab attendants. We went on a motorcycle. Everybody here knows how to ride a motorcycle, and are surprised that we don't. We explained that in the US highway traffic goes at well over 100km, and the motorcycles are bigger and more powerful, so people think you are crazy and want to die if you ride one. Here they probably don't go much faster than 40km, and are much cheaper and more available than cars. Several people have offered to teach us, and I intend to learn, as it is a useful way to be able to get around.

We rode in and we dropped off some blood samples, and then some body parts for biopsy. He had a plastic shopping bag, and inside he pulled out 3 bags, each with bits of human tissue in them. Two were small and white/pale yellow and looked like chunks of fat, and one was huge and reddish brown and looked like a liver. We went and got a cup of tea while they generated some reports, which we took back to the clinic with us.

The other night there was a poisonous snake, a banded krait, at the foot of our building. We took some pictures, then went to dinner. When we came back we they had killed it. I had though that this was the local standard procedure with such snakes, but one of the doctors was upset they had killed it. He said it didn't help at all with snakebites, as there were likely many more we hadn't seen.

We also saw a family of monkeys on the way to the market last week. The were hanging out on a temple fence. People were throwing things at them and yelling at them as they walked by. We saw a dog chase one across a field. The monkeys are great jumpers, but also troublemakers, I guess, which is why people try to chase them off. It was a mostly futile effort, as the monkeys are very quick.

Sometimes things that should be easy are a little more trouble than they should be. Like getting a SIM card. We started out with a Hyderabad phone that Dolly's mom had left behind. Its a pay-as-you-go, and to recharge it you need to be in Hyderabad. Roaming is expensive anyway (no free roaming here), so we wanted a local SIM card.

We are in the village, and we were surprised to find one of the local shops had SIM cards. One of the requirements of getting this SIM card (per the government of India) is to provide proof of address. We don't have that, and we won't have that. The shopkeer, however, agreed that a letter from JSS on their letterhead stating that we were working for them and they were lodging us at such and such address would suffice. We told him we would come back on Thursday with such a letter.

When we returned, he told us we needed something like a driver's license, or a voter ID card... we of course don't have either. And, if we are not able to provide some kind of ID, the SIM card will be deactivated. We went down to the shop which sells plates and bowls and kitchen supplies, where the shopkeeper, Kirti, had been friendly. He had kept us for a while talking, introduced his mother and sister, and had invited us back for tea. He was also a school friend of Ragesh, who looks after the lab above which we were staying, and whose kitchen we are also using.

Kirti did not feel comfortable using his ID to secure the phone for us, so he called Ragesh, who told us it would be taken care of by the end of the day. We were then invited to stay, and he ran next door to grab snacks and a bottle of Fanta, which his mother served to us with ice. We stayed for a while, and he and Dolly talked, and I followed along as best I could with my slowly improving Hindi. We sat there for about hald an hour, as we sat a number of people stopped by to see what was happening. So, ultimately things had a happy ending, and though it was a little frustrating, we were helped by kind and friendly people.

And PS... since I wrote this, we didn't get our SIM card registered in time, so it will be off for a few days. However, Ragesh is letting us use his phone to get the incoming calls we needed! So, more troubles, and more hospitality.

I have spent the day (and yesterday) trying to get a VB6 program to compile and run. Its the application they use for patient and pharmacy management. I'm pretty sure the code I'm looking at is not the exactly the same as the code that compiled the executable they're running. On top of that, the forms are mostly named "form1, form2, etc". It didn't compile when I started working with it because of non-existent or inaccessible functions being called. There are no comments except for commented out code. The original developer is unavailable for "mental health reasons", which look like they started before his work on this project.

In other news, we have been eating rice and potatoes (with cabbage, with cauliflower, with tindora) almost every meal for the past week plus. I don't particularly mind, but its driving Dolly crazy. She managed to get us access to a kitchen here, so we will be able to start making some foods when we want. The one thing I could use more of is fiber...

Dolly worked in the fields again yesterday, while I stayed in the air-cooled indoors doing computer work. Air coolers are combination of a fan, a water pump, and a wire cage lined with straw. The water is pumped to the top where it moistens the straw, and the fan blows in the cooler, wet air. It has been hot the past few days, so we have started using the coolers again.

Even though it was hot, Dolly went out to the fields of her own accord. I am surprised she likes the field work so much, as she would get tired biking for a mile to Harvard Square, and she doesn't generally like physical activity. However, she does like working with the other workers and the immediately visible results of a freshly weeded field.