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Pride in Delhi

Last night the three of us took part in the Delhi Gay Pride Parade. It was a blast! The thing I appreciate most about Pride parades held true here, as well – the immense joy and lighthearted enthusiasm that comes with being able to express who you are and be proud of it. It’s a beautiful thing to see. In India, homosexuals are, by law, partaking in criminal acts, so although there is an obvious movement, it isn’t openly accepted and many people hide it. Even in the parade, a lot of people wore masks to hide their identity, or to symbolize the fact that India still forces them to do so. There has been talk recently, however, within the Indian government of repealing the law (which has been here since the British put it in place), so there was a lot of celebration. The parade was pretty much left alone by the police and everyone just had a good time, dancing, singing, chanting, blowing whistles, and waving our rainbow flags.

The rain has started to come – a HUGE relief, even if it’s still just a tiny bit – and the intense heat has been traded for intense humidity. I haven’t really decided which is more uncomfortable. The temperature was substantially cooler today, but I was drenched within five minutes out the door this morning. During the parade was even worse – everyone was soaking wet, water constantly streaming down our faces like we were all in some big Gay Pride sauna. But no one seemed to care. We were gay. We were proud. And the rain is coming. :)

We finished our first 100 surveys today! It feels good to be done with that much, even though we have a lot more work to do. Now, I think, we can move on to the more interesting part. Get down and dirty. Tomorrow we will get to spend a glorious air-conditioned day at the office, selecting people from our database to target for our second round, trying to remember where they lived (thank god for GPS!), and refining our survey. We’re going to focus on women who are pregnant or who have young children for a more in-depth maternal and child health survey. I’m excited. Here’s hoping it goes as well as the first round.

Weekend, It Is

I never thought I’d have the problem of a shower not cold enough. I don’t know if perhaps the water is boiling in the pipes or what, but the cold water comes out warm and I want to be bathing in ice cubes. It’s fairly upsetting.

The temperature remains around 112 and it’s not looking like the monsoon’s coming anytime soon. They say it’ll be mid-July at the earliest, and even then, we’re expected to get about 20% less rain than usual. If it cools things off a little, I’ll be happy. It feels hotter every day. Or maybe it just gets hotter earlier. By 9:00 am it’s already well into the 90s. I think our low the other day was 91 degrees. It’s insane.

We have almost finished our first 100 surveys – only 14 left to go! Part of me wants to just power through and get them done tomorrow, but I think the consensus is to finish on Monday. We are beat. This week was surprisingly draining, and each day I seemed to feel worse by the time we were done. I think a restful weekend will do us good, to refresh and perhaps step back and see things more clearly. It’s hard to think straight after standing around in such heat for 3 hours. By the time we’re done, we’re done. I can hardly tell people what my name is, let alone think critically about the work we’re trying to do. The three of us, normally bright, conscientious, meticulous people, fall into a sun-induced stupor by 1:00 and our brains turn to mush. It’s kind of comical, really…would be funnier if we weren’t actually trying to accomplish something meaningful. So, weekend it is.

We’ve been invited over to Charu’s house for lunch tomorrow, which should be fun. I think she’s concerned that we don’t eat enough. She can’t believe we don’t have anyone cooking for us at home. And apparently our daily PBJ doesn’t sound like much. It isn’t, but it’s hard to eat when you’re being roasted alive.

Traffic

I know I’ve mentioned traffic before, but it really deserves its own entry. Especially today.

Riding in Delhi traffic is like being on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, except with a bazillion more obstacles, blasts of 100-degree air, the sound of gratuitous, ear-shattering horns in place of silly music, and no safety bar. Every day is like its own little life-or-death adventure.

Sometimes about half way into the ride it becomes evident that the driver has no idea where he’s going. Colette has had to direct on several occasions already…thank god she knows where she’s going. The quality of rickshaws also varies tremendously, from clean and shiny complete with hanging handles, to pretty near falling apart. It’s really a crap-shoot. You just say a little prayer and hope for the best. We haven’t run out of gas or had any wheels fly off yet, so I think we’re doing pretty well so far.

We also haven’t hit anyone yet, which I think is a minor miracle. The way these drivers weave in between cars and mopeds and buses and other rickshaws, while managing to avoid the pedestrians that fearlessly dash out into the road – and let’s not forget the cows! – is truly incredible. If not for the recklessness of it all, I would actually be impressed by their skills. And from what I hear, you do not want to be involved in an accident in India. It seems to be pretty well-understood that if you are, especially if someone gets injured or killed, you flee the scene as soon as possible (hopefully to the nearest police station), or face the mob. The person at fault will often be seriously beaten by a crowd of angry onlookers, sometimes even killed. That’s definitely something I hope to never witness.

Sitting at a traffic light, people will often come up trying to sell slices of coconut, books, strings of jasmine, or beg for money. Today, a man approached our rickshaw holding a small child. We immediately noticed the child’s hand, wrapped in gauze soaked with blood that still ran down the child’s fingers. His wound was seriously infected – a burn, maybe a dog bite. The kid was limp in the man’s arms and his head was oddly wrapped up in a handkerchief, so it was unclear whether he was even still alive. Maybe he was just in shock. With a wound like that, the child should have been screaming. The man waved the kid’s bloody hand at us, then gestured that he wanted money. The three of us just sat there, in horror. What the hell do you do? Vomit? Cry? Pull the man into the rickshaw and take the kid to the hospital? We just sat there. Finally, Colette pleaded, “Bhaiyaa, bas!” – Brother, enough. And the light turned, and we drove away.

It was a hard ride home.

111 Degrees

This weekend was good, equally active and refreshing. Sarah and I ventured out on our own a little, did some sightseeing and improved our haggling skills with the rickshaw drivers. My Hindi vocabularly is growing day by day. We went to India Gate, which was full of Indian families on their Sunday afternoon outing, having picnics and riding in paddle boats on the little pond. From there, we decided to walk up to Parliament, which didn't look that far... of course, in the noon-day 110 degree heat, it felt much farther. But we resisted the calls from numerous rickshaws, that basically followed us the whole way, just in case we might change our minds, and it was actually a nice walk.

There weren't many foreigners out there, so the two of us became the focus of the touts, vendors, beggars, and fellow sightseers. We were asked to be in several people’s pictures, which always cracks me up. Why would you want your family photo at India Gate with some random white girls in it? It’s kind of amusing to think I might end up in some family's photo album. We've also been catching numerous young men taking pictures of us with their camera phones. Some are definitely stealthier than others, but none really seem to care whether we notice -- or like it -- or not. It’s a little unsettling, but I suppose it’s pretty harmless compared to other incidents we’ve been reading about in the Delhi papers. Besides, maybe if they have a picture, they’ll stop staring so much.

Sarah and I met up with Colette later at another market, had some lunch and shopped around for some clothes. The patterns and colors are so beautiful here. I might spend a fortune by the time I leave, just on cloth. Things in Delhi are not turning out to be as cheap as I thought they’d be. In fact, Delhi’s proving to be a relatively expensive place. Prices for a lot of things are comparable to what they’d be at home, maybe just a tiny bit cheaper. I’m going to have to watch my budget a lot more closely than I have been. With food, especially…might have to limit my trips to Cocoberry (our favorite frozen yogurt joint) to once per week.

It reached 111 degrees today. Our first day of surveying went fairly well, considering. We were late getting started because we realized we hadn’t actually made copies of the survey yet (wah wah), so we had to stop off at the JMC first. Then Mitlesh, the one who is accompanying us along with Charu, was late to the GRC, and of course, we had to have chai before venturing out into the heat. So, we didn’t actually head out until after 10:30, and by that time, it had to have already been over 100. But the five of us made a fairly efficient team – Charu translating, Sarah recording the answers, Colette taking down observations about the living conditions, sanitation, etc., myself on the GPS, and Mitlesh keeping our entourage at bay. She is going to be so helpful – built a bit like a linebacker, it’s clear she means business. At one point, a crowd of photo-seeking children was forming and she only had to tell them once, and they were gone. In a little less than 2 hours, we did 10 surveys…which was plenty for the day, as far as we were concerned. We shuffled back to the GRC and downed about 3 liters of water.

Tomorrow, we’ll get an earlier start and hopefully will be able to get closer to 20 before heat stroke sets in. I’m trying to be careful…I had a scary experience with heat exhaustion in Zanzibar (passed out at the dinner table and created quite a scene), and I didn’t even feel it coming. We Scandinavians are not meant for this kind of heat. I literally wilt.

Today also, apparently, was harassment day. For some reason, it was the day for cat calls, crazy old half-dressed men ranting and making kissy face, and for nearly running us over on purpose, more than once, because it’s funny to scare the sh*t out of the white girls. Hot, sweaty, dusty, and sapped of energy, I was not having any of it and had to control my urge to bludgeon somebody with my empty water bottle. I lose all composure when I’m that uncomfortable, it’s really not pretty.

After an afternoon in a/c, a run, a shower, and a delicious dinner, I’m feeling pretty good about the day. Looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow.

Tests and Rest

The weekend is here and we are looking forward to the rest. We have a big week ahead of us. We took our baseline survey for a test run yesterday and, for the most part, we were pleased with how well it went. There were a few things, we discovered, that needed to be added or tweaked, so the test was a wise decision. We, not so wisely, chose the middle of the day to do it, and after only two hours, we were soaked through with sweat and ready to drink almost anything put in front of us. We opted for orange soda – not my usual choice, but it never tasted so good.

We hope to knock out this first round of surveys in 5 or 6 days, doing about 20 per day. We’ll do 100 surveys this first round, just getting baseline information to then do a more intensive survey, focusing more on Maternal and Child Health and health facility utilization. For that one, we’ll do about 30 – at least, that’s our plan for right now. We’ll see how all this goes. Getting 20 surveys done in a morning seems a bit ambitious…especially since the three of us whiteys draw a bit of a crowd, which can turn a simple individual interview into a neighborhood caucus in no time at all. Charu is an excellent translator and already an invaluable part of the team, but she was a bit overwhelmed at times, trying to ask the survey questions, translate the answers and help us understand the bigger picture, and explain to the community members what we were doing snooping around their homes with clipboards and cameras. Next week, we will have another person accompanying us to help with the crowd control and mitigate the chaos.

It will be hard work. Adding to the physical toll the heat and dehydration take on our bodies, the severe and often appalling conditions we come across is emotionally draining, as well. Yesterday, we happened upon a group of families living amongst piles of brick that only 10 days ago were their houses – the police came and destroyed them, saying they were not permitted to live on that property. According to the families, they had been living there for 40 years. Now they have no roofs, no privacy, no dignity. The stream next to their rubble homes is full of suds – runoff from a nearby factory. Stuff like this is hard to just walk away from, knowing you can do nothing about it except take a picture and mark it on a digital map. People at the office give us a hard time about not working Saturdays (at the JMC, everybody works on Saturday), but I think we might need the break to keep us from losing our minds.

Our work is off to a good start, I think. It always takes a little adjusting to the pace of things outside the U.S., to re-invoke that patience so important to getting anything done, anywhere else. “India Time” isn’t quite as lax as “Tanzania Time,” but it definitely requires a go-with-the-flow attitude. We spent yesterday shuffling around in the 102-degree weather, exploring the areas the JMC has identified as highly vulnerable, to get an idea of what we’re dealing with, what the conditions and obvious needs are, and to better determine our target areas. It was an exhausting, but interesting day. We saw a lot, and definitely drew a lot of attention – even as “inconspicuous” as we were, in salwar kameez and head scarves…just trying to blend in. It felt rather intrusive at times, wandering around taking notes and sometimes pictures of people’s homes, usually in pretty awful conditions with open sewage drains running between them or trash heaps outside their doors. Once our Indian counterparts from the GRC (Gender Resource Center, operated by the JMC) explained what we were doing there, the suspicious looks on their faces usually faded to ones of interest, but it still made me uncomfortable. I don’t like making people feel like they’re being studied, especially by outsiders, and I’m realizing that might be difficult for me as we go along. I suppose as long as there’s a greater purpose and benefit of the research – like improving services and people’s access to them – instead of just research for its own sake, I can live with it.

Yesterday was extremely draining and, after we finally summoned the energy to leave our air-conditioned rooms in search of dinner, all three of us were passed out by 10:00. Today, we spent the day inside – a treat for yesterday and the many days in the sun to come. (We read in the paper this morning that the monsoon might be late this year…or not come at all, and that we should expect temperatures in the 40s (Celsius) over the next week or so. Joy. The paper, of course, blames El Nino.) We spent the morning and late afternoon at the JMC working on our surveys, trying to focus our goals and decide what’s most relevant and realistic for our purposes. We’ll meet with Vimala tomorrow to work on focusing them even more and hopefully we’ll have them finalized on Friday and ready to use on Monday.

From 12-2, we were invited to the weekly Health Camp at the GRC, where people (mostly women and children) can come to see a doctor and receive medications, stocked by the Delhi government, free-of-charge. It was pretty interesting to observe, and we were fairly impressed with the organization and efficiency of it. There were probably 100 women and children who came through today. It did raise a lot of questions about what people with more serious health problems do, since the doctor just gives a presumptive diagnosis based on the patient’s description of their symptoms, they receive their meds and verbal instructions, and they are sent on their way. We had Charu, our translator, ask the doctor if she gives referrals for more serious-sounding conditions, and she said she refers people to a hospital that offers services free-of-charge to the poor – the hospital is a good 30-minute rickshaw ride away, and I’d be surprised if any of these women could afford that kind of trip. I’ll be interested to find out more as we go about our surveys, to see exactly what services are available to these women and what they are being denied.

First Days in Delhi

I have been in Delhi three days now, and it’s just now starting to sink in what I’m doing here. We – Colette, Sarah, and I – arrived Friday night after about 24 hours of traveling. It was exhausting and the jet lag has been difficult to get over this time around. We spent all weekend resting and trying to acclimate ourselves to the food and the heat, finding time in between our frequent naps to check out some markets and let Colette show us around.

Our living situation here is pretty great. We are living with Prem and his wife Abha, a very sweet and welcoming couple who rent out rooms in their flat to foreign visitors. Sarah and I share a room with our own bathroom, TV with Indian cable (Bollywood movies, Indian music videos, and the BBC – what more do you need?), and AC. The house also has wireless internet and a lady who comes every weekend to give Abha massages and pedicures…will definitely be tapping into that! There’s also an air-conditioned gym right around the corner – the Barbarian, owned by a famous national trainer – which I think will be crucial to my personal sanity, as well as my waistline.

The monsoons have not yet arrived in Delhi (they will hopefully be here mid-July…hopefully) and until then, it’s bloody hot. It’s been consistently in the 100s since we’ve been here. The humidity isn’t horrible yet, but it’s already been a challenge to stay hydrated, and I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated air-conditioning and cold showers as I do here. It’s the kind of heat that sucks all of your energy, as well as your fluids, and makes eating the last thing you feel like doing. It will definitely take awhile before I feel normal.

It was good to start work today, sort of snapped things back in focus for me. Our rickshaw ride to the office this morning was a perfect introduction to the rat race that is Delhi traffic. It’s really quite impressive, the pure chaos that it is – a cluster of dented rickshaws, scooters, bicycles, cars (from rusty Peugeots to shiny BMWs), and buses boasting “world’s largest eco-friendly bus service,” as plumes of black smoke billow out from underneath. There are lanes painted in the roads, but they’re really just used as guidelines in what becomes a skillful game of maneuvers, weaving between vehicles and edging others out of the way. Sometimes it’s more like a game of chicken, or to see if we can cross three lanes before oncoming traffic reaches us. In the little open-air rickshaw, you get a pretty exciting, and occasionally terrifying, ride. But the view definitely can’t be beat.

Everyone at the office is great and all seem to be extremely good at what they do. I think we are in good hands here. Vimala, our supervisor and one of the Directors, is a powerhouse and I think we stand to learn quite a lot from her. New Concept Information Systems is the business behind all the work they do – it’s an organization that provides technological and communications support to various social development projects, from local organizations to FHI and UNICEF. It’s really impressive, all the work they do. The Jaishankar Memorial Centre (JMC) is their NGO/NPO arm that we’ll be working with to do our research. We’ll be working with them to identify two or three vulnerable communities in which to conduct our surveys, trying to determine barriers to accessing health care and government social services. In addition to the surveys, we’ll also be using GPS units to map the communities – including the households we survey, available water sources, sanitation facilities or problems, and the various health facilities in proximity. It will be an interesting and challenging project. To a certain extent, I feel like we’re being tossed into the deep end, but I think the three of us will make a good team and, with help from the JMC team and our professors back home, hopefully we can produce something useful in the end. I’m looking forward to it.

"Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say, all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world -- the fight for the liberation of mankind. And one must make use of every moment of life, lest some sudden illness or tragic accident cut it short."