what does {LOVE} look like: {India thus far}

I thought I'd give you all an update on my time in India so far.

I guess I should start at the beginning or our crazy travel story. We were supposed to leave for India on 6/29 at around 3:40pm. I had left diabetes camp that morning, rushing home to shower, switch a few things from one bag to another and then headed for the airport. After tearful goodbyes I got in line to get my ticket. The women working at the ticket line were not very nice. My bag was over weight and instead of informing me that I could check another bag they made me pay the $150; I am hopefully getting that money back now. They put us on standby for an earlier flight since they didn’t think we would make our connecting flight in Chicago. Wing another girl on our trip was directly behind me and was told she could not get on our flight. After I argued with the lady for a couple minutes I finally backed down, still letting her know I was not happy. Emily and I went up to our gate to find out our flight was delayed by 2 hours.

We stood in line at the gate desk to ask about our connecting flights. After standing there catching up on our last weeks we finally talked to someone who informed us that we would not make our next flight and there were no flights that would be leaving for Mumbai at any location that we could get on until Monday; we would either be stuck in Des Moines, Chicago or Munich for a couple days. We decided to stay in Des Moines where we at least had places to stay. I called Shelley to come get us. Luckily we were able to get our bags back so we had clothing to wear for the next couple of days. Shelley and Chris took us in for the weekend since all of my stuff had been packed away at my house. I was glad to be able to sleep in a normal bed and catch up on a little bit of sleep. Our weekend at Shelley and Chris’ though not what we planned was really fun. We went to eat and then to the drive in our first night and to the art festival the second day. We helped Shelley clean and I took Emily for a walk around my “second” home’s neighborhood. We grilled out for our last supper in the U.S. It was a relaxing weekend. I was thankful to have a couple more hours at home.

Monday morning came and we said our goodbyes to Shelley again, this time I did not cry (I was proud of myself). After checking in (I checked 2 bags this time) we found out our flight was delayed 45mins. They boarded us in hopes that we would leave. After sitting on the runway for an hour waiting our turn to take off they told us it was going to be another hour before we left. Finally we took off for Newark, a 3 hour flight. We landed in Newark and had about and hour before boarding for Mumbai. We grabbed some food and called people to say our last goodbyes. And then we were off on our 14 hour flight to Mumbai, which we slept most of.

We arrived here Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. As soon as we landed and walked off the plane the wall of humidity hit us- my glasses fogged up instantly. After retrieving our bags we walked out to what felt like a horse carousel where people stood with paper signs with names on them. Luckily Em spotted our names quickly and we were herded towards a parking lot. We loaded our stuff into a vehicle and took off through the streets of Mumbai. It sounds weird but as I sat in the back seat with my window down and the smoggy air hitting my face, with car horns chiming and traffic swerving here and there inches away from each other, with piles of garbage on the streets, stray animals all about, tin shacks and scaffolding made of logs I felt at peace- like I was going to be able to do this. Most people would be panicking taking in short breaths but for me this was what I knew, and felt comfortable in after spending time in Addis Abba and Haiti. I wish that feeling had continued once we left the city and drove into the dark black night.

Our two drivers did not speak much English so that was a little difficult. Em and I dozed off here and there until we would come to a stop. Our drivers would pull over multiple times on the side of the road get out and leave us in the car. This worried me as one of or stops was in an area where a transgender male to female came up to our window cat calling us. Needless to say I did a lot of praying. At one of our stops at about 2 am our drivers decided they needed to eat. Emily and I were not hungry but after 40mins of sitting on the side of the road we needed to relieve ourselves- of course there was no toilet so we grabbed our toilet paper from my backpack and found a spot on the side of the road- thank God I have an amazing best friend who laughs these things off with me. So our adventure in India began only 5 hours after enter the country we were literally popping a squat on the side of the road.

We made it to the campus around 5am and were able to sleep until 8ish. Luckily the others (wing, heather and jill) knocked on our door and invited us to go with them for the day. We showered, changed and met them after breakfast. We ended up going to the office of the man who was supposed to come get us, and we are pretty sure he would not have come if we did not actually go visit him, we would have been stuck in the hostel all day.

The first 2 days were tours or the sugar cane factory, milk producing factory, alcohol factory and then a million schools The sugar cane factory was cool since this has allowed Loni to thrive and provide jobs for it's people. It was interesting how it was self-sufficient and uses all of the byproducts to allow the factory to have energy. The farmers get a fee for their sugar and also byproducts of the manufacturing that is used for fertilizer. I loved how the process was cyclical, helping all aspects of the process.

The tours of the schools was where my attitude really went downhill. I just did not understand the purpose of taking us to all of these different colleges, universities and primary schools in India and especially when we did not go see the college of pharmacy- they did not seem to understand why we would want to see that school. After one day of the school tours I thought I was going to break down, and we still had another. I kept my patience for the most part, but I will admit I was not the best sport or team player.

Friday was our first day of our actual "work". We met with one of the staff to talk about what we will be doing and to see our schedules. I am paired with Emily for the entire time- Thank God! It sounds like for the first 4 weeks we will be shadowing different departments on the campus for 2 days at a time. At the end of each week we write a reflection paper and then at the end we will put together a larger paper with pictures. It sounds like the certificate in social medicine stuff is going to be the same as my rotation work, which is a little sad because I was hoping to have more hands on experiences for my rotations. However, I am still not 100% sure what exactly we are doing so there is still a possibility that we will be doing other work. I guess we will find out as our time here progresses.