Meenakshi Temple, Female Sex Workers, and Final Presentations

I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.

Mary Anne Radmacher

On Monday we spent time in the Meenakshi Temple, a famous temple in Madurai.

The temple is so beautiful. It has 4 main entrances and covers 17 acres in the middle of Madurai. No traffic is allowed for the block around the temple because it is usually so crowded with people that there is no room for it anyway. The streets around the temple are brick streets, which are very nice here. We had to go through security to even get into the temple. When I went through I got padded down and she went through the things in my purse and she pulled out lip gloss (of course!) and she looked at it like it was the dirt of the earth. She said "lipstick?!" in the most disgusting voice and I told her it was and she stuffed it back in and waved me on. It was so strange. Usha thought it was hilarious and wouldn't stop giggling once we got in. This is a picture of one of the four entrances of the temple. All of them are repainted every 12 years.

Usha and a few others and I were walking around the outside of the temple and she started speed walk, so I started to walk faster to keep up with her. Pretty soon it was just us and she told me she had something to talk about just between us. I got a little worried and she asked me what was not ok about asking me if I was fatter in my license picture. I tried to explain to her that its not kind to make comments about weight to someone--she listened so intently. After that she asked me which person I had met in India was my favorite. I looked at her like....are you serious Usha? And she started laughing and asked me if that was an ok question. I told her, sure it is ok, but it's akward. Then I told her she was my favorite:)

On the way to the museum part of the temple, there is a god in the form of a bull. Usha said it is the god that relays messages so people tell the bull their worries and concerns. People would touch their heads and then touch it's head on their way by. There were also several small lit and burnt out candles around it. Here is the messenger bull:

Remember when I said that people will ask to have their pictures taken? These were a couple of people who asked me inside the temple. The man in black just pointed at my camera and smiled, so I took a picture. The little boy was begging and asked for a picture, and the older man asked was just walking by outside the temple and asked for a picture. Usually I show them the picture after I take it and they always thank me. I haven't come upon anyone who doesn't want their picture taken, even for sick/recovering/injured people in the hospital. Uma says they like it, and everyone seems to enjoy it. Isn't the picture of the older man just perfect?!

People here are funny about getting your email address/phone number. Men will ask for your telephone first and then if you say no, they ask for your ID. At first I was like, UM no, I am not giving you my license, but then I realized that meant e-mail. They also ask for your date of birth so that they can wish you a happy birthday.

Siva, a translator got my e-mail address (ID) a few days ago. I have gotten an obnoxious amount of random emails from him since then. The last one said 'I am very very happy today'. I think what he meant to say was that he had a good time today. Akward. Professional relationships here are not like they are in the states.

I thought there would be some sort of inside type grocery store here. The only place I have found to buy food is on the streets or in side shops that are open to the streets. If I get a diet soda, which I search a million shops for, I will have to take it home and wash off the outside of the can because it is caked in dirt and oils if the place is also selling food. I got the cookies we have been served here to bring home and the chocolate that they sell at all of the shops too.

Here is how the majority of the food is sold. Its beautiful and fresh but so dirty. One macho man in the mountain ecosystems class ate food from the roadside and he puked all the way to madurai until his eyes were blood red. It was awful.

I practiced my gaydar with Usha when we were walking around the temple. (Gramps/Granny: gaydar is supposedly being able to tell if someone is gay or not by observation. :)) We had talked about what is male heterosexual touching this weekend, but apparently I hadn't learned well enough. I told her how/where people accept homosexuality in the states and she said she knows her professor is gay, but he asked her not to tell because it would ruin his position.

So men wear these skirt like things here, called dhotis/lungis. Some are considered really nice and some are just cloth tied around their waists. Sometimes they retie them/adjust them and I have seen a few things I wish I hadn't. My friend Megan got two for her brothers. Oh, dhotis.

When I try to buy scarfs, people selling them try to sell me 'Sunday Monday' scarfs. Its supposed to mean reversible. They always put it in your face and flip it back and forth and say 'Sunday Monday Madam, Good Quality!"

Sometimes parents will point at our white entourage or sometimes just me and Emily, and their kids will just stare. Usually if its a little kid I will wave at them and squat down to their level and smile at them. If they are really brave they like to touch my hands. The mothers think it is so funny.

Today is the first day of Pongal, a harvest festival here where they thank the sun. It is a lot like our thanksgiving. They buy new clothes and it is especially important for people who have cows. We are going to go visit a place where female sex workers go for healthcare on Wednesday. Prostitution is legal here and in Mumbai, the city we flew in to, there are 100,00 sex workers and 1/2 are HIV positive.

The salwar/kameez I wore yesterday was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever worn. There aren't really sizes on clothing unless you get in made, so the pants are all HUGE in the waist. It didn't have a drawstring and I had to wear a belt to keep it up. There was tufts of cloth tucked everywhere. Must not have looked that bad, because my professor really liked it and said she would buy it off of me. We bought her the exact one in pink today for a gift. We also are framing some cute pictures of her and her husband on the trip. Here is a picture of the class, with the professor in the back. You can kind of see my salwar. Our class is a mixture of PhD, grad, and undergrad students. Most people are grad students.

Inside the temple there was a painted elephant that blessed you by putting its trunk on your head if you put money in its trunk. Usha said that it was trained to not bless you if you didn't give it enough money---as in it can tell the difference between the coins. I couldn't believe the coin didn't disappear down it's trunk. Usha said that even the animals here are taught to beg...

Inside the temple there were a lot of statues. For Hindus, these are a variety of gods. There are gods of all manifestations, like birth, education, marriage, etc. There are three main gods though: God of Creation, Destruction, and Preservation. The temple is named Meenakshi Temple after Meenakshi, the consort (wife) of one of the gods. Most cities are based on a certain male god, so kings are more important. The nursing superintendent said that here in Madurai, queens rule, so it is a good place for me:)

Normally you find tons of candles lit in front of the gods that people light and leave there. They are little tiny ones so there are just as many burnt out ones as burning ones. There is a god of childbirth, and she wears several skirts tied around her frontside. Usha said that most people will not see that part of the god. People pray and offer to it for a healthy childbirth. Here, you can see it with the skirt tied around it. They sell the same skirts at stands.

The ceiling was beautiful inside the temple. Here is a little bit of how it looked.

Each of the designs inside the circle is unique throughout the ceiling of the entire building. In the middle of the temple there is an area that is open to the air and it has water and a giant pure gold flower. Here is a jpeg of what the pure gold flower looks like, because it was too dark to take a picture when I was there. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7sOKtDgvbA-8MB8qxY4I2hUH-JeX1a6gU2SEBxWS8k0tuD6PoIq9SnaPoR-FhyphenhyphenGllOyqp1SpGZYwDoh_UTv1APLQkQrXaOrTAW1zqAfrbezVUwj5tQHPaEIedCcFKQ2hzlTAzSSOow6s/s400/LOTUS+IN+TANK.JPG

The line to see the Meenakshi god (godess which the temple was named after) was several hours long. One of the girls in our group said that you only get a second to see it when you get to it anyways. As always, if you pay, you can get ahead in the line. Also, there was a huge golden pole next to a statue of meenakshi and shiva getting married and when people walked in the would drop down to the ground, belly and face down, completely flat. Some would touch their forehead and then get back up. Hinduism is the most common religion here and it has affected the way I work with women a lot. Some think that cancer is just bad karma and if they have it it is a death sentence or that they deserved it. A lot of women (Liz told me) say that all they know that is if you have cancer you die. Because everyone hears about cancer on soap operas, she thinks they get the idea for TV, but who knows. Rose mary said that women don't know anything about cervical cancer, or that it even exists. Some women in rural villages say that they think it is such a problem because women's health problems are less than mens. Also a rural woman said that women should teach each other about cervical cancer, which is basically how our project functions, from bottom up---from woman to woman and from village health nurse to woman. It will also be in hospitals and working it's way down to women, so our project will be functioning in a variety of different ways after we leave.

There were hundreds of beautifully sculpted pillars/columns in the temple. There is a myth that one of them plays music if you hit it. Angana, a translator, and I ran around and were wacking columns. We found the one that plays music but you have to hit different parts of the column to make different pitches. We thought it would be flute music or something. Rosemary paid the guard off to let us play the musical column.

Usha got Emily and I a beautiful bangle!

There have been these men walking around in black dhotis (skirt like cloths) and orange necklaces since we got here. They always scan us and just stare. I found out from Usha that during the months of November and December they dress in black and have a set of rules they have to follow. They can't eat any meat and they have to resist sweet and indulgent food. Also, they cannot talk to women or think about them sexually, even their wife. They can't do anything sexually with her for the two months. They are also supposed to resist anger and extreme emotions. Here was a picture of them walking down the streets. These aren't wearing dhotis, but most people in black are, because it gets so hot in full outfits.

So, I saw a guy get hit on the street the other day. He was just walking down the street and someone came whizzing by and hit him. The only thing that happened were a few scrapes and his button up shirt got ripped off. I also saw a bus hit a jeep like thing. I got tapped by a motorcycle the other night. I about crapped, but he just drove off.

Remember a long time ago when I said that there were earmuff stands everywhere? Usha told me it is because of the chill in the winter season. FYI it has been 85-90 the whole time we have been here....I tried to explain the 'chill' at home to her.

Women honor you by putting a powdered bindi on your forehead or by putting jasmine flowers in your hair. They smell so wonderful. Before we entered the temple, Rosemary put them in our hair. Here is Em and I with our jasmine. It's wonderful how close I have become with some of the people on this trip:) We are planning a bar crawl when we get back, and we will go bindis, saris and all!! Also, the other picture is of me in my salwar/kameez. They are more informal than saris. You take off your shoes before entering the temple, as you can see. And there are cows and babies pooping all over the streets...

Speaking of babies pooping on the streets, one of our groups did a program working with infant diarrhea. They said they asked the mom if her baby had ever had diarrhea and she said no. He was naked and had diarrhea all over the floor after that. Megan also said that there was a woman walking down the street and her baby had diarrhea on the street and that the mom wiped the baby's butt clean with her hand. Awesome.

So, we went to a house supported by Russ Foundation. It was a home that female sex workers (prostitutes) can get support and healthcare. Its focus was HIV/AIDS education and prevention. There is 6000 female sex workers in Madurai, 2100 of which are served by the Russ Foundation. While we were at the drop in health clinic, we got to hear a lot of interesting stories.

To help reduce HIV/AIDS transmission they were really pushing male and female condom use. Male condoms were very cheap because they were government subsidized, whereas female condoms were expensive because they were imported from the UK, because they are not made here. There are little things like this that I see a lot that remind me over and over that women are not equal here. The manager said some doctors don't even know what a female condom is. He also said that even though they are running a HIV/AIDS prevention program, they don't tell the sex workers to not continue working when they have HIV. Uma said that if the program told them to stop having sex for money that they would have to give them money to live and they don't have that money.

We got on the topic of domestic abuse because the younger HIV+ sex worker there was from Chennai and has lost her mother and her father was abusive. She left the home and got into the sex industry. Her name was Priya. The manager of the center, a SOCIAL worker, said that almost all men physically abuse their wives or children and that no one would complain unless got serious. He acted like we were stupid and naive to think a woman should report domestic abuse. We also asked if they offered/could refer the women to any other homes/opportunities instead of going into prostitution, and he said that there was only so much work that he could offer. He started to defend himself and he said that there was no way prostitution could be eliminated and as long as there are humans, there will be prostitution. Again he said it in a really disturbing way. Sometimes the women only get 5 or 10 rupees for a 'client' as they called it. Just for comparison, an orange is usually 5 rupees and a bottle of water is 20-50 rupees. A woman would have to have sex with 4 men to get the bottle of water I am drinking now. It's very sad. Even though Priya is HIV+, she still works...

The clinic is for health/mental health services. Mental health reminds me that being gay/lesbian here is still written in books as a 'psychiatric disorder'. There is obviously some advancement needed there. They also offer educational support there. There was a lady there name Nila (moon) that served us coffee/tea and cookies. She was a post operative transsexual that had lived at the clinic for 2 years because she left her family to go through the transformation. Nila was her new name that her mother had picked out after her surgery. Her mother visits her every now and then but her father does not at all. She is going to college now, whereas most transsexuals are involved in the sex industry here. She was beautiful. Our professor told her she was beautiful and asked her if she was happy, she said she was. I asked if she had been on hormone therapy and she said she was for about 2 months, until she got the results she wanted. I told Uma I couldn't believe that they offer sex reassignment surgeries here, with all of the poverty and other issues going on. It was a dumb thought, because no matter where you go in the world, there will be people facing common health issues, like sexuality. I asked them if there is vaginal reconstruction and he said there is. He also said it is extremely expensive, so the people in the situation save for years. He said that to raise money, they will go in front of shops and do this loud clap noise and the shop is supposed to give the person who clapped money or there will be violence. I'm not sure if I understood that right, because that seems very strange. Nila showed us how she had gotten really good at this clap noise. I asked her if she had a partner and she said she didn't but that there was someone that was in love with her. (Remember, love is more scandalous here. Everyone giggled when she said that.) She said she cooks well and makes good coffee.

Prostitution is completely legal, except for brothels. Sometimes women do get arrested (the men with them usually get no penalties) and the women go to jail. The manager said that sometimes, if the girl is really pretty, advocates (lawyers) will bail the girl out of jail and then own her.

Women have to pay a price/dowry for a man.

There are over 250 characters in the Tamil alphabet.

Women go into prostitution for a lot of reasons. One that was common that really surprised me was that the husband will force his wife to go into the industry, to make more money if she cannot get a job. I asked Uma if they weren't aware of how much harm they would end up causing themselves and he just shrugged his shoulders. Also, women as young as 13 are forced into it. Women who are widowed or feel that they have no other options to provide for their family do too. One of the older prostitutes (Uma said they are as young as 13 and as old as 50) said that she had been in the industry since she was 20. She had deep black bags under her eyes. She was widowed and was struggling with money and her friends suggested that sex work would be better than suffering.

We asked the women how many men usually use condoms and they said that sometimes when the men are drunk they will threaten to kill their children if the woman makes them wear a condom or threaten them in some other way. They seemed so nonchalant when they told us all of this.

We asked the women what they would do if they got pregnant and they both answered (as well as the manager) that they would just get an abortion. Like it was no big deal. If that older woman had been in the industry for ~20 years she has to have had at least 20 abortions. Government hospitals provide them for free, but Uma said some 'quacks' do it to. As in some random people do it too. He said he has heard of self abortions by using a hair pin/stick/knitting needle. I'm still upset writing about it.

We learned where prostitution usually occurs. Usually it is street based (pick up client on street and go to a 'hot spot') They really used that term. They said that condoms are handed out at the hot spots. He said there is no 'red light district' like in bigger cities in Madurai, but there is in bigger cities. Also, there are brothels or whorehouses, which are illegal. Some are also lodge (hotel) based.

During pongal, there is sugar cane being sold/being used as a decoration/being processed EVERYWHERE. They peel little strips off of it and you can suck on them. We had some for lunch today.

Yesterday, I was the arm used in a mehandi competition. It was only for doctors at the hospital, and a dermatology doctor did mine. It was her first time doing it, and she did a wonderful job. We weren't close to winning, but here is one side:

There is a carnival going on at the hospital for the whole month of January for the doctors. After the mehandi competition there was a team looking up you tube dance videos in the telemedicine room and trying to practice them. It was so hilarious. I told them you would never see doctors in the states doing that and so they got more obnoxious:). I'll definitely still dance to bollywood videos when I'm a doctor!!

I experienced my first rain here. We were at an HIV/AIDS community for families in which the parents were HIV+/had AIDS. I had to go the bathroom so bad, so a older lady held my hand and took me to and indian toilet. I checked it for snakes and was about to go but she wouldn't shut the door. She said "Please, sit." I did and just went the bathroom while she was there. Whatever. She started to tell me about her sons and how educated they were. Mothers here love to share it if their kids are 1-married 2-have kids 3-are educated. It seems to be the ultimate pride.

Today we did our final presentation to the hospital. It went awesome and went over very well with everyone. Dr. Umashankar was especially excited. My professor said she was very proud too. Overall-- good results!

I am leaving Madurai for Chennai in a few hours, at 4AM here. From there on our I will either be on plane or bus until Iowa City: 12 hour bus ride, 2 hour plane, 8 hour plane, 8 hour plane, 4 hour bus ride, not including any layovers. I can't wait to share stories, gifts, and food from here with you! Thank you Chels, Em, Mom, Dad, Dusty, Em, and Livfor meeting me in Iowa City! Yahoo!

LOVE YOU!

Jackie

Mehandi and Shopping

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Yesterday, Sunday, was our free day. I slept in and went to get henna done at noon. Four of us went to the Ghandi museum after that, then I spent the rest of the day bargaining for your gifts! That evening we went to Madurai Residency Hotel to have dinner.

We got henna done in the morning at a salon. The salon was the nicest place I have been in so far on this trip. It cost 300 rupees for one arm ($6) and this is what it looks like. Uma said that is expensive. It is done with a cone shaped squeezer type thing, (like cake frosting), and just flakes off. It stains your skin and stays for about three weeks. Here, women and their wedding parties get it done for weddings ceremonies. My friend told me the application takes all day and the wedding party feeds the bride because her arms and legs are covered in henna (mehandi) and she can't move. It costs much more than mine did, and is more intricate. Also, I just talked to our doctor, Uma, and he said that we can enter a mehandi (henna) competition later this week where someone competes to do the best henna on our arms. I told him I would enter.

After the henna we started to walk to the Ghandi museum and caught a rickshaw on the way there. Four of us fit in there, with me on the sidebar. What a ride:) The Ghandi museum was fun and they had the cloth with bloodstains on it that Ghandi had died in. You had to pay to take pictures, so I didn't. When we were in there we entertained all the little kids by the color of our skin. They would follow us around and giggle. Every now and then they would get the courage to ask questions. On the way out we signed a guest book and people gathered around to see our writing. Emily and I waited outside on the steps and a group of college girls gathered around and stared at us. They walked off with their professor and one came barreling back and snapped a picture of us and ran off giggling. The classic sequence of questions/statements from little kids, mostly girls (when you are in public) is: What is your name?/How are you?, You are beautiful!, and then Coins?.... :) I have gotten told I am beautiful more times here than I have in my life. Probably just for coins! :)....

After the museum we got on a rickshaw to get back into a shopping area by the temple. We never get in without asking how much first. Then we saw no, too expensive and walk away. By the time we are walking away they drive up and offer a lower price. :) Thats just about how I bought everything yesterday. A rickshaw for a few kilometers for four people was 50 rupees, or a dollar.

We were dropped off at Jayarum Bakery, a good bakery in town. I know it because we were served food from there one day at the hospital and it was safe. It would be like a candy shop to us. There was beautiful cakes and all sorts of desserts and other things I wasn't familiar with. In the back there was cases of candy. Here, cadbury is really popular. I got a loaf of wheat bread for 20 rupees (less than 50 cents) and it is the best sliced bread I have ever eaten. The food seems to be hit or miss here. Either you puke from it or love it. Speaking of which, a lot of people in our group are sick again. They are puking/diarrhea/fevers. If they have fevers again they are going to be admitted into the hospital. Somehow, I am still feeling great. I think it might make a difference that I have been taking a multivitamin/fiber and making sure to eat plenty of cooked vegetables/ washed and peeled fruit. Who knows though. I might have just been lucky enough to have avoided a dirty plate.

These trees are everywhere. They look like a bunch of trees wrapped into one. Aren't they amazing? It is my background now, and if it is bigger you can see the goats (my friend argues that they are sheep) eating on the tree.

I have yet to see any animal fed here. They just eat whatever they come across. Not many animals are tied up and most just roam. There are cows eating from dumpsters in the city. On the way to dinner last night, there was a cow walking down the street next to a rickshaw. You can get an idea of how much is squeezed on a street by how close they are.

We went into this little basement place behind the temple where there were a lot of sewing machines. There were also a lot of fabric shops and places with very nice scarfs. They can get very expensive ($80) VERY expensive here and can be as little as $1. All of them are beautiful. I hope I picked out good ones for you all!

We normally eat on top of hotels. Here is the view of the city from it. You can see the entrances of the Meenakshi temple sticking up. Each big one sticking up is one of the entrances to the temple! Can you tell how huge it is?

Today we finished cutting out translated self breast exam cards. We showed them to Uma, the doctor, and he said to bring some to the final presentation. I said "Why, it's only going to be men there" and he said just to bring them in case they want to practice on their wives. He didn't mean for it to be funny, but we were so bored that Em and I both thought it was really funny.

We are going to go inside of the temple and we are leaving in about 1/2 hour.

Chao,

Jackie

Cesarean Section, School girls, and Cancer Patients

“Of all the joys that lighten suffering earth, what joy is welcomed like a new-born child?”

Today has been eventful! I saw my first c-section, went a visited an all girls school, and visited with the cancer inpatients. I also finalized my project and am very happy with everything!

So when we got to the hospital today we finalized our project with our doctor, Uma. He is very pleased with it and is planning on using it in the gynecology clinic, and more so in rural clinics and at women's health camps. He also is starting a women's health project soon---all of the work is done he just needs to implement the project. I say women's health because that is what anything dealing with women is called here. If it was called something else (like cervical cancer screening camp) no one would come because they wouldn't want anyone to think they had something wrong with them. Obviously getting screened doesn't mean you think or do have cancer but many women where camps are held (rural areas) are very uneducated about cancer except for the blurp they hear about in indian soap operas. Uma said that our flip book is exactly what he was thinking and wanting. I am really excited that he will continue to reproduce and use it after we leave! He is also going to be using our information from our evaluation in his women's health project (actually a family planning project), which is very pleasing to know what we are doing can help women in a number of ways. Our translator of our flip book and breast cancer cards (different than Usha, our vocal translator) finished the translation of our flip book from english to tamil today. Hopefully it can be printed and be ready for presentation to the mahasemam women on Monday! Everything else is ready to go---including chocolate and gifts for the women. Yeeha!

For lunch today we had drumstick soup. I asked one of the vocal translators, Angana (I had a really hard time not called her Angela!!) tried to explain to me what it was. I obviously didn't understand, so the man that in charge of food for us at the hospital (literally, he serves and waits on us ALL day long. Tea/coffee/cookies at 10, lunch at 1, tea/cookies/coffee at 4 EVERY DAY. The jobs people have here are really surprising. People are hired to press the next button on slides during a presentation or to sweep the sides of roads. Pondi, in the picture, serves us food when we are at the hospital---and thats all he does all day long!) Anyways, here he is showing me what a drumstick is. The soup was bright green and is apparently an aphrodisiac. After our doctor told us that I was like "Then....why are you serving us this?!" He said that it is used for people who have fertility problems.

After we showed Uma our final project (We do a final more serious presentation on Thursday to more hospital staff then just Uma) he asked us if we needed anything else. I was like...so how 'bout them babies Uma?..... After our tea/cookies we marched down to the gyneacology (that's the right spelling here!) and we got dressed in scrubs, hair nets, and masks and went right in to 'operation theatre' which here is surgery. Once we got dressed we had to take off our shoes, switch into two different pairs of flip flops and then we went into the 'labour' room. The scrubs we put on were all stained and we put them on in the nurse's bathroom, where the floor was soaked. In almost all the bathrooms the floors are soaked because people don't wipe, but spray themselves off. It also causes a very icky musty smell. I went to a really nice rooftop restaurant today (most nicer restaurants are on the top of hotels where the bugs are not as bad and the breeze is better! You can also see all of the 5 Meenakshi temple entrances from that high. Each tall building is an entrance and the whole space inside is a temple. Check it out: http://india.arzoo.com/ImageReader?mm=image/pjpeg&path=/17/741/741%201.jpg. I have pictures of it at night too. Back to the cesarean section. The bathroom floor was soaked and My scrubs had a few wet spots on them once I finally got them on. I walked into the labour room and the woman was already under anesthesia and was undressed. There were probably 5 people in there and the gynecologist. One woman was sanitizing the woman's midsection. We stood at her head for the initial cut and moved to her feet to get a better look after that. After the initial cut about 4 inches below the belly button and it took a few more cuts to get to through the abdominal fat. Thats about the only time a lot of bleeding happened. Once they got that deep they pulled the skin/fat towards the head to clear more area. They made a few more cuts to get through some (what looked to me, like fascia, a fiber like tissue) and then they pushed the bladder down out of the way. Next she cut open the sac and the amniotic fluid went everywhere. She was using scissors as clamps to clamp different tissues and other things to keep them from bleeding/moving too. She pulled the baby's head out and suctioned some fluid out of the abdomen and suctioned the baby's nose and throat. She cut the umbilical cord and clamped that too. A lot of suctioning was going on to remove the blood in the beginning too. After suctioning the baby she pulled it the rest of the way out and a nurse took it to another room along with some blood in a test tube (to test for genetic issues? I think it was the baby's blood) The baby looked very gray when it came out. We watched part of the sewing back up, but went to see the rest of the shots/preparation of the baby. When we got in the shots were already done, I have it written down what ones they do here somewhere... And they put really small tubes down the little girl's throat and nose and did more suctioning. She looked precious and healthy. Here is a picture after everything was done. It was so exciting and awesome to watch. It was so quick and fast. It made me VERY excited for my future.

After the c section we went to the palliative care area, where there were cancer patients getting treatment. They do free meals for cancer patients at Meenakshi, and we went to see the meals being handed out. It was very strange and people took a few pictures of us and we really didn't do any good. I felt awful and I couldn't leave without talking to some of the patients. There was one older woman who was getting treatment who also had a skin disease, my professor thinks it was the same skin disease michael jackson had, vitiligo. She had some very white skin and some spots of brown skin. I sat down on a stool next to her bed after everywhere had left except me and one of the translators, Siva, pronounces Shiva. I asked her if I could sit and talk to her and she was delighted to. We talked about her life, my life, her recovery, etc. All of the talking was done through a translator, but I try my best to look at her and pretend the language barrier doesn't exist. I asked her what she liked to eat and that she could tell me but I probably wouldn't know what it was. I told her that I could bring her chocolate and she said she would love that. I went to a shop and got a small bar of milk chocolate and went back up to the big room. When I went to the shop, I asked Siva if I should just get several for all of the patients in the room, and he said "Are you rich?" and I told him I wasn't but I would like to since the bars were cheap. He said to not 'waste my money'. Even people in the healthcare field (Like the guy who called the people in the leper colony inmates) don't seem too concerned with being passionate to their patients. Maybe just a cultural difference or possibly a lack of compassion. Anyway, I got back up there and she touched my face and was so happy. She gave me a kiss thing (it was very weird) and invited me into her house for tea when she gets out and invited me to share her lunch with her on her bed. I told her I had to catch up with the rest of my group for lunch, but I really appreciated it. She told me she had been suffering and I told her my cousin had suffered once too. I wished her the best in recovery and told her I would pray for her. I hope I made a difference in her day. Here she is.

People eat off of banana leaves here. The will just sit the leaf on the floor and eat off it. I ate off of one in a restaurant. People, especially women, will offer me to eat food with them. I wish I didn't have to be rude and say no, but I know that would cause some serious issues:).

Today our translator that you saw a picture of in our last blog explained to me the touching between men/men and women/women. If a man holds hands with a man it means homosexuality, whereas over the shoulder just means brotherhood. One of the other translators, Siva, asked me today if I had any siblings. I told him I had three sisters. He said "No brothers?" and I said no. He said "I am not your brother?" Here, people call each other brother and sister. When I heard someone talking about one of the nurse superintendents, Rosemary, they called her sister Rosemary.

I ate lychees, a type of fruit, at lunch yesterday. I also had lychee juice today. YUM. Without they skin, they look like flesh. Nothing like a lychee after seeing a surgery:)

I'm really embarrassed about this next little thing. So, I bought some peanut butter at the only american type shop I have found so far, and I was trying to find some bread to eat with it. I wasn't sure if I could find any bread that was safe to eat on the streets so I went down to the hotel desk (because I had eaten bread at breakfast there several mornings in a row) and asked if I could buy a loaf of bread from them. A guy got on the phone and talked in Tamil (pronounced thumber) to someone for quite a while. When he got off he said that the hotel bread was too expensive and that he had SENT someone out to buy me some. In a half hour someone came to my door with my bread and charged me 50 rupees. The actual cost of the bread was 120 rupees and I was only charged 50. I felt so bad. People (most) treat us so well here. If we are standing they will go to all costs to make sure we have chairs to sit in and today we just walked in on a c section. I feel like we get special treatment for no reason. I have nothing more to offer than everyone else around me. It is strange. By the way, the bread was absolutely delicious....

Skin lightening creams are popular here. When I took a picture with Usha, our translator, she was worried about how dark she was going to look next to Emily and me.

After lunch, we went to a school for girls. Three translators went with us, Angana, Siva, and Usha. On the way we went past the college his girlfriend goes to. They all got all giggly like teenagers and he showed me a picture of her on his cell phone. (Cell phones are like $20 here!) We started asking him questions about the marriage (if it was set up....blah blah blah) and Usha told me that boys can't get married in a family until girls are married! One of my friends, Sriya, said her dad's sister was 5 years younger and got married several years before he did. Siva was going to have to wait until his sister got married until he could marry his girlfriend, which could be more than 5 years.

All schools here are all boys or all girls. Today we went to an all girls school and it was so much fun. We just went to observe and talk to the girls, since our stuff was in the process of being printed, but some people have projects in the schools. The girls were just ecstatic to see white people. It made them giggle like they had crushes on us. They could barely focus on the lesson we came to see them learn. The translator told us what they were learning the whole time. The lesson was from the Aparajitha foundation, the one that teaches lessons that aren't taught in normal curriculum. The lesson was over emotions and concentration. They had to go in front of the class a lot and tell a story of when they felt a certain emotion. One girl said (by translation I know this) that she has felt really jealous when her friend had scored higher than her on a test, so she waited until sports later that day and beat her in the game later that day... After the lesson, we asked each other questions. They were really nervous to try to use English in front of us, and one little girl stood up and told me I was very beautiful!!!! Another one told me she liked my dress. (I wasn't wearing a dress:)) We asked them to sing us a song in Tamil and then they asked us to sing our national anthem.... If any of you have heard me sing, oh lord. We couldn't say no so we all just belted it out together. It wasn't beautiful---I hope they don't know what it sounds like! When we had to leave, they all wanted our signatures in their books where they took notes. I wrote my name and little notes for the girls. They were shoving their notebooks at me and the other girls so fast, I couldn't even see the one I was writing on! They were precious. They were all wearing the same uniform and had their hair the same. When I bent down to get a picture with them one of them kissed me! I also realized after I left that I wrote 'Your beautiful' instead of 'You're beautiful' on a few of the girls' notebooks. How embarrassing! I guess I couldn't think with 20293835 notebooks in my face...I took a picture of the girls' feet. It still blows my mind that people don't wear shoes for the most part here. Everything is SO dirty and unsafe. Also, girls wear two anklets. One of the girls in our group wore one anklet to a village yesterday and one woman asked her if she had lost the second one. Emily tried to buy only one anklet at a temple the other day and they said "No, here in India we wear two".

Today when we were walking around town, there were several cows just running around eating out of the trash, whatever---between all of the traffic. It still blows be away how tame they are!

Tomorrow, Sunday, is our day off. I am really excited to get a little sleep, shop, workout, etc. I think we are going to try to get some ladies to come to the hotel to do henna (called mehandi here). We also might go to Avatar in Tamil...:) Hopefully my henna will still be there so you can see it when I get home!

Love ya! Jackie

Leper Colony

The greatest wealth is health. ~Virgil

Today we went to the leper colony.

On the way there, we saw elephant rock. We can also see it from the hospital.

When we drove into the area it wasn’t an enclosed area as I had expected, and the people are by no means quarantined. It is just like a small, jail-like village---except people can leave if they want to. There were lawn chairs set up in rows for us and we sat down and listened to a doctor, whom I couldn’t really understand. There were people walking about it pretty ragged clothing and some just sitting and not really doing anything but existing. It was ver

y quiet and dull compared to the rest of the loud and bright India I have seen. Not dull in the sense of boring, but sad and depressing. There was a sick ward that the doctor talked about, but all it really was was a row of one room sized homes all together where the sick people stayed. We got a tour of the kitchen and saw the days lunch for the ‘inmates’ as the doctor called them. All it was was a bunch of rice spread between two blankets on 4 crates the size of the seed ones we use at home. One of the girls in our group asked if any of them are depressed before we went to see the colony and Uma said that they have horrid stories to share and that some of their body parts had ‘melted’ away, which we soon saw. We went into some of the backs of shed type buildings and saw some women working. For some of the people who end up with fingers and ability, they put them to work. The first lady we saw was making straw mats for the people to sleep on. She had some knubs for fingers left as you can see. She gets paid 1.5 rupees, which is close to nothing. The mats are made in the colony and used in the colony. Here she is: Notice her fingers up close.

The second lady we saw was making the bandages that the people use to wrap their (for the most part, toeless) feet, ulcers, bed sores, etc. She was wrapping and wrapping string around a wheel, that was wet. I accidentally brushed against one of the ones she had made and it was wet. Here she is and the other is a picture of the wet bandages drying

The next woman we saw was making what I presume was cloth. She was not affected by leprosy but came to the colony with a Christian group where she met her husband. They got married in the colony and have lived here since. She has two children, 2 and 4 years old, that go to school. Her husband only has a few patches on his skin and has all of his limbs and digits. Here she is

It is not uncommon, from these people’s stories, for 1) a woman or man to be admitted into this colony and then get married to someone else in the colony to have children. From what my translator Usha said and the way the people talked, women in general and at the leper colony will have ‘no protection’ if they don’t get married. She also said that only about 5-10% of marriages in Tamil Nadu were ‘love’ marriages and now about 10-20% are ‘love’ marriages. By love marriages I mean when two people just fall in love. (Usha told all of this to me) She said love marriages are looked down upon, like falling in love is a mistake. She said her parents didn’t want her to fall in love and it’s only ok if the people have a lot of money. She said that the three main religions (Hindu, Muslim, Christian---in that order) marry only within that religion and that in her religion (Hindu) that they only married within their caste, or social class. They wouldn’t marry someone with less money. She was surprised to hear about my dating past and how we broke up and how it was all for love. She was interested in why people would break up in the states and asked she asked Emily if her parents were mad that she fell in love. She says she will do as her parents wish, as far as marriage goes. She also said that male domination is present here and she asked how it was in the states. I told her that we play equal roles in our relationships and that it is looked down upon for a male to be very dominating. She also said that 8 or 9 out of 10 men will cheat on their wives and only 1 or 2 women out of 10 will cheat on their husbands. She said in love marriages that sometimes they will say it is ok and sacrifice anything for the one they love. One of the hospital staff here said that rather than suggesting limiting partners to reduce chances of cervical cancer, saying to be loyal to your husband/wife, which is a much bigger issue here. Here is Usha:

She and the other translators also came and ate lunch with us at the hospital. They thought the meal that had been prepared for us was very bland. It was chicken, spiced vegetables, tomato soup okra, and fresh juices. I thought it was delicious! I showed her my ID when I had long hair in the states and she asked me “You were fatter then?” and I was like, oh maybe….with big eyes. Dad, you needed to be there to teach her to never comment on a woman’s weight!! J She is a doing hospital administration pos graduate studies. After we saw the woman making thread we went into one of the rows of buildings and talked to the man making shoes. For the most part, people aren’t doing anything because they are not able, but some people are assigned work. They make soft shoes with straps across the thicker part of the foot because most people have few or no toes. Here he is with a nurse that works there. Notice the artificial leg on one side:

This is a picture of the open space down the middle of the buildings. It looks pretty here, but it was dirty and sad. The buildings have small rooms made of cement with open doors. There is a sewer system from the people washing pots etc that you can see at the right of this picture.

This next picture of four ladies that were sitting outside of their room/home.

The one standing was blessing us for a healthy, happy future with an education. She stood up later and wished us blessings and blessings for generations. People are old at the leper colony and for the most part and dying. The nurse said that ~100 people have died from last year. There is a total of 200 people left at the colony, 160 are affected with leprosy and 40 are just family members/supporters. The doctor said that if a husband in a marriage gets leprosy the woman expected to go with him and support him but if the woman gets leprosy that the man can choose/may or may not support and stay with the woman. Again, most people seemed to have come to colony and met and married there. The other one is a closeup of one of the ladies. This lady had serious eye problems and no fingers as you can see. The other ladies were telling her who we were and what we looked like because she can’t see. Her hands are in the position that means ‘thank you’ or ‘its an honor’ or ‘bless you’.

This man was in the ‘sick ward’ or a line of rooms where sick people went. To me, all it meaned was that they got extra attention because they couldn’t get around/fend for themselves. As you can see he has no fingers and now lower legs. He also has sores from the cement he is on. He showed us the way he eats. They wrap a bracelet around his hands and he sticks a spoon in it to eat. Also, our doctor Uma said that leprosy can affect the nose bridge and said that this man’s facial structure was different because of it.

We talked to these two women by means of our translator, Usha. The bald one (which you almost never see. Everyone has long long beautiful hair that is normally braided, so I imagine lice was the issue. My friend Sriya that I am sitting next to said it is very common here.) She was diagnosed at age 13 and has been at the colony since. She got married there when she got to the colony (at age 13!!!!) and had 2 kids. The other lady with the glasses never got married. That’s all people wanted to share—was whether they had kids or not and how healthy and successful their kids were. It is very good to be fertile here. Women try to get pregnant right after marriage to prove their fertility.

This is the same woman with her antibiotic leprosy pills.

We asked her her favorite food and she said she is ready to eat anything because she can’t taste anything because of the pills. We (Meenakshi hospital) are sending food there later this week and we are also going to buy something for them as a group. Their lives are so dreary. They are just waiting to die. One man wouldn’t take his pills and he told the nurse that he didn’t want to live depending on other people and would rather just die.

This woman was not affected by leprosy, but came here because her husband has it. I don't think she could see us but could hear us scurrying around and started trying to talk.

She could barely speak and said she had been here for 36 years. A murder in prison=15 years in prison here…. She had lost the ability to speak for the past 10 years. It was so upsetting to listen to her that my partner just walked off. I don’t think she could handle it. See her stretched ears. That is popular only here in Southern Tamil Nadu. Lots of older women wear very heavy gold earrings in their ears like that with two fan like diamond nose rings. That’s what I see most often.

We went to the gynecologist to talk to her about our flip book just a minute ago. She said mammograms are not recommended at all unless a woman or doctor finds a lump in her breast….no wonder there breast cancer rates are increasing here. Pap smears are only recommended every year after 5 years of married life. If you get three normal paps in a row you only have to go every three years… On our way back from the gynecology unit there was some students in the hall and one of them talked to us. They were grown women and they just giggled at every question they asked us. People are so amused/interested by our skin color.

I just got home from the hospital and tomorrow just my partner and I will go while others are going to other places (rural villages/schools). Uma, our doctor, is flying to Bangalore tonight to provide a public health view for a womens health conference. I mentioned something about going to a wine shop and he had a nurse bring him in a package. Inside was a bottle of whiskey and red wine for Em and I?.... All of us are meeting up now to go get some beer (choice of like….3 varieties at a very nice place) and chocolate.

Home sweet home. This is the place to find happiness. If one doesn't find it here, one doesn't find it anywhere.

Can't wait to share more with you when I get home. Love ya!

Projects

The past two days have been finishing everything about our projects. In a few minutes I am going to go to my professor’s room and have her look over the pages we have made/the self breast exam card we made.

1-It is very strange trying to make this flip book of information for these women for a number of reasons. First and foremost—it will be translated into Tamil, so who knows how it will be translated or in what manner. It is difficult to say whether the questions and information on our evaluation and information book will mean the same thing in Tamil as it does in English, and that certainly makes a difference to women who have never heard of cancer. Second, our translator (Ushalani) said that most women have only heard of cancer in soap operas. That is the second time I have heard that!!! Apparently there are tv’s in most of the very poor/slum area homes. Otherwise, we are starting from the basics: what is a cell, how does it develop cancer, how you can prevent it, where breast/cervical cancer develop, how you can screen for them, signs and symptoms in the later stages, and looking at the barriers that cause the women to not get screening. From what I have heard---the top reasons are that they are scared it will hurt, that they think it is a social taboo (only people that are sexually dirty and promiscuous would have these problems/they don’t want anyone to think there is something wrong with them.), and that they simply don’t know they need these screenings. Our doctor Uma said that one woman came in and had had excessive white discharge (to the point where it was flowing down her leg) for 5 years and hadn’t come in because she didn’t know it was irregular. He said that and lumps/pain in the breast are reasons women come in as far as breast and cervical cancer goes. Last, not only do we have to try to keep it very general and clear, only 50-70% of the Mahesemam women will be literate, so we tried to incorporate as many pictures as possible. After we share the information on the pamphlet, we are going to do an evaluation on where there comfort level on the information is/what they need more info on etc. so our doctor, Uma, can use it in making his family planning sessions he is going to do most effective. Because we don’t want any woman to have to admit she is illiterate (they probably wouldn’t anyways) we are going to use a color coded system we came up with. The translator will read the multiple choice questions while each woman has a copy of the questions and answers in Tamil. When the translator reads the choices for the questions, we will hold up a specific colored dot which corresponds to a colored dot next to one of the answer choices. That way, if they can’t read, they will still know which answer they want to circle by the colors we hold up matching the ones on the paper as the translator reads it aloud. I hope they don’t need the answers repeated over and over, because I bet Em and I will start whipping around the wrong colored dots and end up with some really weird data. Whatever J

2- A lot of people smoke here. Only men, and usually while biking or driving---smoking WHILE biking. Men are always biking their goods around. The other day I saw a man biking a cart of eggs into town. Cars were whizzing around him and people were honking (which reminds me, most of the time I can’t tell if the honking is from animals (like elephants) or cars here. How weird) and all I could think of was how that would never happen in the states. We would have a regrigerated semi cabin with special egg crates blah blah blah. It’s nice to see things simplified. Simple fruit stands. Everything just seems to be functional even though it’s not by any means up to ‘our standards’. The trucks that carry goods in from the country are in worse condition than our old straight truck. Take the doors off of that you have trucks here.

3-When I first got here, I thought the colors and shapes and schemes of the buildings and homes were so cheesey. They are usually a mixture of bright colors and obnoxious shapes. Signs are also this way, most of which are painted on sides of buildings or on walls. There are not many signs that are actually coming from the ground, there just isn’t enough room for that. I’m really starting to appreciate the commotion of the traffic and colors of the buildings and signs and clothing. They are so much less stark and structured like our super functional things back home.

4-The electricity. Sucks. It goes on and off at least twice a day, including the hospital. It also zapped my friend’s computer charger.

5-So I got a new camera. Similar price to at home (which means much less spending money for your gifts L). It was about $180 with a 2gb camera card, charger, camera case, and warranty. It’s very nice. Mom and Dad: If you come and meet me when I get back to Iowa City I might beg you to buy me some fruits and veggies to survive on because of this silly camera purchase I made. Oh my, what’s a girl to do with no camera in India?

6-I met our translator yesterday. She is very pretty and is getting a master’s in some sort of administration (I think) I couldn’t quite understand her. I think that we are both in for a learning experience…!

7- Nicer vehicles have license plates here. Most other have painted their vehicles with decorations, flowers, eyes on the front!!, license plate number, etc.

8-I mentioned that there aren’t many signs coming out of the ground and most are painted on things. In more rural areas there are black and white checkers painted on trees. They are supposed to act as reflectors. It’s funny to see.

9-My partner for my project (Em) has been sick lately so we searched the city for some American food. We found a box of cheerios for 525 Rupees. That’s more than $10. You can get a very nice meal here from 100-200 Rupees. Any imported American stuff is expensive!!!

10-My translator did something I consider somewhat akward. I had known her for a total of about 5 minutes and we sat down to look through some of the work we had done and she asked me if she could have a drink. I look around for the waiter guy at the hospital (we are hosted in the conference room with about 4 guys to tend to us: give us water, tea, coffee, cookies, and food!) and then I realized she wanted some of my bottled water. I said “My water” and she goes “Is that a problem? There’s nothing wrong with you is there?”… Obviously there is no concern for spreading germs. Even from some random person from another country. She gulped some of my water down, no bigee….

11-Bindis are the dots/jewels people wear in the middle of their foreheads. Some ladies who you are shopping from take it upon themselves to stick one to your forehead without your consent. It’s funny/akward. You don’t know whether to say thank you or what. They are pretty though!

12-There are some English movies here. A friend from here, Shruthi, said that she saw Harry Potter here. I think we are going to get Henna done and then go to a movie this Sunday, our next free day.

13- Yesterday we visited a very rural health clinic and watched Uma work with some patients. It wasn’t very clean and when I got back on the bus I felt something tickle my forhead. I had a big hairy spider on my head. I flicked it off onto the ground and chased it down and ended its life with my water bottle. Unfortunately, it got the best of me and bit my neck before I could kill it. We watched the bite for the rest of the day, but nothing cool happened. How boring.

14-There are stunning cashmere scarfs here with designs and handmade sparkling beading or sewing done on them. They are expensive for here ($10) and I was planning on bringing several home for you all, but after my camera died and I had to buy a new one, I can’t do it for all of you reading this L. I would be happy to get anything anyone wants though! Other beautiful things here are purses and wall hangings.

15-People on the streets get paid from the stores if they bring people into them. This means that men see our white skin and start going ‘Madaam, madaam, very nice quality this or that’ and try to get you to go into a store anywhere you go.

16-I found a building today with rows of men sewing. They we’re making all sorts of things: shirts, purses, pillow cases-anything. One offered to make me a shirt for 50 Rs, a dollar. I said no.

17- I am sticking to food I think will go down well and still am healthy!! My professor said I must have been one of those kids that ate dirt. I was, but it was more like sand and a few bugs. I wish I could have an apple with the skin on it!

18-I am the only one on this trip who hasn’t gotten puke or poop sick, including our professor and her husband. Thanks for letting me get a little bacteria in my system growing up ma and dad! Oh the luxuries of growing up on a farm!

19-I don’t want to speak too quick, because I do have a load of bug bites.

20-Our project is finished except for one statistic on it that I need to talk to the gynecologist about in the morning! Once it is translated (the book will have one side Tamil one side English) we get to start working with the women!!! We are going to bring them chocolate and cookies and goodies and talk about our hobbies/work before we begin our session. I am going to tell them about our farm at home and how different it is from here, yet it is still the rural form of our country. Oh how I miss our farm!

21-The gum here sucks. I get it off of road stand and it is so hot that the paper is stuck to it and it isn’t very sweet. Regardless, I still let myself get ripped off and buy and eat a ton of it.

22-Food is cheap. I got a soda for 16 rupees (47 is a dollar) and packet of gum for 10 rupees. Both were made here. At the nicest place I have eaten at, my meal was ~200 Rupees, or ~$4. Alcohol seems to be relatively expensive, but I haven’t been into a liquor store yet. Don’t worry mom and dad, I will before I leave so I can bring you some goods home!

23- We are going to the leper colony tomorrow. I am going to take notes and let you know how that goes.

24-Sorry if I repeat myself but I can’t remember what I have told you and what I haven’t.

25-Mom and Dad: I would love if you came and met me in IC when I come home! That would rock! Everyone: Thank you so much for reading my blogs! It makes me happy! I hope they are interesting or at least make you laugh!

Love ya!