November 7, 2012
Today marks two weeks since we landed in the village. For whatever reason, it doesn’t feel as foreign as a planet as it did when we showed up here for the first time in 2010. Mike describes it as “familiar filth”.
Today is a day we celebrate, as we believe we hope to have hired a nurse for the Health Center. Elsa, is a 50ish year old woman, who has been a nurse for 26 years. She worked for 11 years in Saudi Arabia(a common work destination for many Indians), and has spent the last 6 working at a hospital in Delhi. She speaks fairly good English, was great with the children today when she came to visit. She will be a most welcome, and much needed, addition to this community. We are thrilled to have found her. She is just who we were looking for, as we wanted an older woman, who could also counsel the girls, as their lives and needs present great unimaginable difficulties and challenges.
All of the girls at the school receive iron tablets weekly, as they eat virtually no protein. These tablets are to be provided by the government, but like everything else here, that really doesn’t happen. So many things here make absolutely no sense to us. For the past 2 weeks, there were no tablets, as the “government policy on iron tablet distribution“ is being changed. Whatever that means. Hence, Sam made several calls on Monday to get find out when we would be getting the supplements. We are going to purchase a quantity to have as backup when this happens again. The girls need their iron!!! And there shouldn’t be a 3 week gap between pills that we would take daily.
Today is Thursday, and we finally get to pick up the pills. Times keep being changed. Why can't they just be delivered? Why do we have to go to the government hospital, again? So, I accompany our student nurse, Rahsmi, to the hospital to pick them up. We waited 45 minutes, and were told “5 more minutes” way too many times. A “doctor”(they all call themselves doctors, but there are no real doctors here), with whom I expressed my frustration at the waiting, asked me if I was a doctor. I told him I was a doctor, from America, and was here to open the Health Center at the school. His eyes brightened, and he asked what kind of doctor I was. I told him I was a pediatrician. His entire attitude changed and the pills were delivered within 5 minutes. I think he was impressed that a pediatrician from America was in town.I also think he got tired of hearing me. If I didn't say anything, we could still be sitting there. Everything takes forever here, as all they have is time....
Rashmi, our school nurse
When Rashmi asked me if the hospitals in America were like this one….what could I say? She asked if they were clean. And how they were different? How do I count the ways? I told her they were very clean, that there were no dogs or cows in our hospitals, and that they were not open( no doors, no windows), to keep the air clean and the dirt out. We have no dead bodies laying outside our hospitals. We have no sick people laying on the grass. We have no piles of medical waste scattered on the property. Tomorrow, I will show her some photos of hospitals in America, so she can see the differences. It won’t be hard to tell. I have encouraged her to become a nurse, so that she could make a difference and teach the hospitals in India how they could be like ours. We visited a home of one of our families this week. What an experience that was! Instead of going from home to home, we went to Bharti’s home and were there for an hour or so. Her mother works in our kitchen, supervising the preparation of 3 meals a day for 1200 girls, 6 days a week. We rode one of the school buses home to her home. When we arrived at their house, she started the fire on the floor inside the house(1 room with 1 bed for all), and then went out to care for the 2 buffalo and 2 calves.
After filling a bucket from a water pump to wash the utters, she milked the buffalo by hand. She then cooked the milk on the fire, and served Jen, a 21 y.o. French volunteer, and myself, hot buffalo milk. Jen looked at me and said “I don’t drink milk”. “Neither do I, I never have, but we are today”. We had no choice as it would be rude to turn down freshly pumped buffalo milk. As always, we were served treats. We both picked up a round ball, and hesitantly bit into it. It was awful and tasted like buffalo dung!! Something I have learned from our time here before….I always carry tissue and my bag, done for a very good reason. You can discreetly get rid of those things that you just can‘t stomach. I took Jen’s from her to dispose of, as well. Our visit included: 1. the grandmother and grandfather, who had been gone the day, returning by ox cart with a bushel of grass, which they separated and hand churned through a machine to chop for silage(grain was separated out) ,
2. the aunt picking up the buffalo dung by hand and putting it into a huge bowl that she hoisted on her head to carry away(it is really heavy!),
4. The 15 year old sister telling me she is studying hard so she doesn’t have to care for the buffalo, and, 5. the grandfather walking us the couple of miles back to school. For the past few years, Bharti has delivered buffalo milk to the Teachers Colony(where we live with 2 others) every day of the week before school. She comes with a pail of milk, even on Sunday, when there is no school. Imagine sending our kids off to do a chore like that every day of the year? Monsoon season, 115 degree summer and the cold of winter? She seems to be very happy with this task.
Our days here are filled with ups and downs. There are days Mike and I look at each other and ask why we are here. There are other days, where we are overwhelmed with gratitude and experience the grace of doing what we are doing. We know, from the bottom of our hearts, that we are making a huge difference in the lives of Pardada Pardadi girls. We have become very possessive. We love and care very much for all of them. We want the best for each. We want them to be here at school, where they are safe, where they are protected, where they can learn, and where they can develop the hope for a better tomorrow.
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