Bombay
Sorry to everyone who i left off these email lists! here are my emails from mumbai where I've been working at KEM hospital on a pediatrics rotation.
1/20/06
I spent yesterday contemplating postponing my next rotation of third year and staying in Mumbai for another month. This trip has been a godsend in so many ways. For one I feel like this city, with it's multiple lives, is a place that I would find hard to get tired of. Priya and I are continuing our double lives of slums by day and clubs by night. We have met so many fascinating people. Today I traveled to the Bhiwandi red light district to see the work done by the NGO Aapne Aap Women Worldwide. The woman who I was put in touch with in the NGO is one of the many fascinating people that have enclosed us into their lives. Mumbai-ites have a way of swallowing you whole into their lives. This women, a dental surgeon by training, is a activist of my moms generation who instead of practicing got a masters in social work and now works at aapne aap's two centers in mumbai. Her husband is a former doctor turned police officer responsible for the recent (last year) closing of mumbai's dance bars (bars where female dancers could be chosen as escorts for an ight) who also heads the cybercrime division and just flew back from a meeting in New Zealand of Interpol. He is now looking to get a PHD and just last month hosted Yale Prof Kaveh Khosnood (small world!) and may come to yale as a fellow. These people are inspiring.
Moreover, the work they do is inspiring. In this center we learned about and spoke to women sold into the commercial sex trade from villages of karnataka to work for the areas mill workers (themselves immigrants from india's poorest state, bihar). The center houses, feeds, and teaches their children to help break them out of the cycle of prostitution and pimping. I played with the most adorable children and learned about the practice of marrying women to Temple goddesses in the village and shipping those same women in the name of this goddess' temple to the city where they will service men. Sickening. We will travel out there next week after stocking up on antibiotics to do check ups for the children, and I'm working with a friends family to try and connect a doctor here who does immunizations to go out there. Moreover we have started to talk about education for HIV screening as the women are afraid to go for testing and moreover suffer from the illegal status of prostitution and are working with an infectious disease hospital here to go out next week and do the first round of grass roots education (working the way up to aids). We talked about ways the group is trying to get them on the first ladder of economic development, from starting sowing classes to purchasing a loom for the center so the women can learn skills. I for one will happily sell the stuff they make in the US, and you all will but it (right?) They want English classes for the kids so that they could potentially find jobs that will help get their mothers out of the cycle of prostitution.
This entire paradigm is shifting how I view everything from my life's work to theories of globalization. I spent every evening frantically reading about treatment of infectious diseases (often in the dusty hospital library as my books have a paragraph at most on things like typhoid/enteric fever, Protein energy malnutrition and congenital syphilis) and cycling between three books on globalization by economists jeffrey sachs and thomas friedman. we can protest GAP all we want but jobs at factories and by multinationals are the next step up the development ladder and an escape from subsistence living and extreme poverty and I am seeing and hearing that first hand. I am learning how to align my idealistic US perspectives with economic realities and trying to make ethical decisions for myself on what I believe.
Other mumbai-ites who have included us really range the spectrum and are contstantly amazed that we even take the second class train compartment to work. Priya's friend's cousin's family is connected to the Shiv Sena nationalist Maratha party and lives in opulence in the Fort area of bombay. With her cousin we hang out at coffee shops on the ocean seafront and chic bars and clubs. We debate hindu nationilist politics and the role of india's wealthy classes and castes. (ok and yes we also hang out with some of her very beautiful friends, including a very hot guy in the Merchant Marine). We drive in air conditioned cars with drivers, but then stop by the roadside to eat dosas from a wooden cart. They are planning a beach vacation to Goa (international party central) the second week of feb and have told me more than once - why dont i just stay an extra month? ah yes and then there is anjalis family friends who are in the diamond business and who in one breath enclosed us in a world of massages, facials, good food, and jewelry salesmanship.
the contrast of the extremely rich and the extremely poor living side by side is that which is India, and when our two worlds seem impossibly different and we feel like we are leading two bombay lives, we remind ourselves that this is the nature of city itself.
oh and i forgot to mention it is 70 to 80 degrees here and i've been running around in flip flops. and the most heavenly ice cream shop ever is on my street.
1/15/2006
Bombay continues to be exciting, crazy, and intense. This is the > halfway point> of my trip and I have finally started to make this place home - > only to leave> in two more weeks! Priya and I have met up with all kinds of fun > people here -> from Harvard Kennedy school kids touring NGO's to British medical > students> doing electives - and have been having a blast going out to trendy > restaurants> and bars/clubs. Last night my british friend and I spotted a famous > indian> model at a club and she spoke to him! It is an odd lifestyle - > slums by day and> clubs by night - but a constantly challenging one. We constantly > grapple with> this double life but in some ways we need both elements to stay > happy and> centered.>> This week I will be going with a women's NGO to work in the Dharavi > slum -> Asia's biggest. Priya has started working with Spark, and NGO > dedicated to> housing reform in the slums, and I will go with her one day to see > the work> they do. Being here is such a lesson in globalization and economic > reform. Even> the books at all the roadside stalls for $2 - from NY times Thomas > Friedman's> WOrld is Flat to Jeffrey Sachs The end of Poverty - inspire me.>> SO much to describe and I can barely do justice to it. Here are > tidbits -> learning about protein-energy malnutrition and trying to explain to > the doctors> here that kwashiorkor, marasmus, nutrient deficiencies, and fulminant> presentations of TB (meningitis, abdominal tb) and typhoid are > small footnotes> in our curriculum. High point being opening to the two page > nutrition section> in Blueprints peds where allergy to formula is listed as a primary > cause of> failure to thrive in infants in the western world. large open room > wards with> rows of beds where infection control involves wiping hands on pants > between> examinations. Very different here. But also sheer numbers of people > treated.> Touring the HIV clinic at the hospital and learning about pre and > post test> counseling and the free HAARt therapy provided to seropositive > individuals> through the government (wish we had that there). Considering > starting import> export business as bought doxycycline and cipro for approximately > 24 cents.> stupid drug companies. Going from the palatial homes of South > Bombay to the> crowded food markets of Parel to the slums of Dharavi...to the > designer> boutiques of shopping haven Linking road nearby...developing a > chronic cough> from bombay pollution...holding my nose as the train speeds by the > polluted> rivers....
1/20/06
I spent yesterday contemplating postponing my next rotation of third year and staying in Mumbai for another month. This trip has been a godsend in so many ways. For one I feel like this city, with it's multiple lives, is a place that I would find hard to get tired of. Priya and I are continuing our double lives of slums by day and clubs by night. We have met so many fascinating people. Today I traveled to the Bhiwandi red light district to see the work done by the NGO Aapne Aap Women Worldwide. The woman who I was put in touch with in the NGO is one of the many fascinating people that have enclosed us into their lives. Mumbai-ites have a way of swallowing you whole into their lives. This women, a dental surgeon by training, is a activist of my moms generation who instead of practicing got a masters in social work and now works at aapne aap's two centers in mumbai. Her husband is a former doctor turned police officer responsible for the recent (last year) closing of mumbai's dance bars (bars where female dancers could be chosen as escorts for an ight) who also heads the cybercrime division and just flew back from a meeting in New Zealand of Interpol. He is now looking to get a PHD and just last month hosted Yale Prof Kaveh Khosnood (small world!) and may come to yale as a fellow. These people are inspiring.
Moreover, the work they do is inspiring. In this center we learned about and spoke to women sold into the commercial sex trade from villages of karnataka to work for the areas mill workers (themselves immigrants from india's poorest state, bihar). The center houses, feeds, and teaches their children to help break them out of the cycle of prostitution and pimping. I played with the most adorable children and learned about the practice of marrying women to Temple goddesses in the village and shipping those same women in the name of this goddess' temple to the city where they will service men. Sickening. We will travel out there next week after stocking up on antibiotics to do check ups for the children, and I'm working with a friends family to try and connect a doctor here who does immunizations to go out there. Moreover we have started to talk about education for HIV screening as the women are afraid to go for testing and moreover suffer from the illegal status of prostitution and are working with an infectious disease hospital here to go out next week and do the first round of grass roots education (working the way up to aids). We talked about ways the group is trying to get them on the first ladder of economic development, from starting sowing classes to purchasing a loom for the center so the women can learn skills. I for one will happily sell the stuff they make in the US, and you all will but it (right?) They want English classes for the kids so that they could potentially find jobs that will help get their mothers out of the cycle of prostitution.
This entire paradigm is shifting how I view everything from my life's work to theories of globalization. I spent every evening frantically reading about treatment of infectious diseases (often in the dusty hospital library as my books have a paragraph at most on things like typhoid/enteric fever, Protein energy malnutrition and congenital syphilis) and cycling between three books on globalization by economists jeffrey sachs and thomas friedman. we can protest GAP all we want but jobs at factories and by multinationals are the next step up the development ladder and an escape from subsistence living and extreme poverty and I am seeing and hearing that first hand. I am learning how to align my idealistic US perspectives with economic realities and trying to make ethical decisions for myself on what I believe.
Other mumbai-ites who have included us really range the spectrum and are contstantly amazed that we even take the second class train compartment to work. Priya's friend's cousin's family is connected to the Shiv Sena nationalist Maratha party and lives in opulence in the Fort area of bombay. With her cousin we hang out at coffee shops on the ocean seafront and chic bars and clubs. We debate hindu nationilist politics and the role of india's wealthy classes and castes. (ok and yes we also hang out with some of her very beautiful friends, including a very hot guy in the Merchant Marine). We drive in air conditioned cars with drivers, but then stop by the roadside to eat dosas from a wooden cart. They are planning a beach vacation to Goa (international party central) the second week of feb and have told me more than once - why dont i just stay an extra month? ah yes and then there is anjalis family friends who are in the diamond business and who in one breath enclosed us in a world of massages, facials, good food, and jewelry salesmanship.
the contrast of the extremely rich and the extremely poor living side by side is that which is India, and when our two worlds seem impossibly different and we feel like we are leading two bombay lives, we remind ourselves that this is the nature of city itself.
oh and i forgot to mention it is 70 to 80 degrees here and i've been running around in flip flops. and the most heavenly ice cream shop ever is on my street.
1/15/2006
Bombay continues to be exciting, crazy, and intense. This is the > halfway point> of my trip and I have finally started to make this place home - > only to leave> in two more weeks! Priya and I have met up with all kinds of fun > people here -> from Harvard Kennedy school kids touring NGO's to British medical > students> doing electives - and have been having a blast going out to trendy > restaurants> and bars/clubs. Last night my british friend and I spotted a famous > indian> model at a club and she spoke to him! It is an odd lifestyle - > slums by day and> clubs by night - but a constantly challenging one. We constantly > grapple with> this double life but in some ways we need both elements to stay > happy and> centered.>> This week I will be going with a women's NGO to work in the Dharavi > slum -> Asia's biggest. Priya has started working with Spark, and NGO > dedicated to> housing reform in the slums, and I will go with her one day to see > the work> they do. Being here is such a lesson in globalization and economic > reform. Even> the books at all the roadside stalls for $2 - from NY times Thomas > Friedman's> WOrld is Flat to Jeffrey Sachs The end of Poverty - inspire me.>> SO much to describe and I can barely do justice to it. Here are > tidbits -> learning about protein-energy malnutrition and trying to explain to > the doctors> here that kwashiorkor, marasmus, nutrient deficiencies, and fulminant> presentations of TB (meningitis, abdominal tb) and typhoid are > small footnotes> in our curriculum. High point being opening to the two page > nutrition section> in Blueprints peds where allergy to formula is listed as a primary > cause of> failure to thrive in infants in the western world. large open room > wards with> rows of beds where infection control involves wiping hands on pants > between> examinations. Very different here. But also sheer numbers of people > treated.> Touring the HIV clinic at the hospital and learning about pre and > post test> counseling and the free HAARt therapy provided to seropositive > individuals> through the government (wish we had that there). Considering > starting import> export business as bought doxycycline and cipro for approximately > 24 cents.> stupid drug companies. Going from the palatial homes of South > Bombay to the> crowded food markets of Parel to the slums of Dharavi...to the > designer> boutiques of shopping haven Linking road nearby...developing a > chronic cough> from bombay pollution...holding my nose as the train speeds by the > polluted> rivers....
posted by pavstheway @ 4:10 AM
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