Children, Chai, and Chocolate

June 7, 2011

                It has been way too long since I have written a journal entry. I have been way to busy. I plan on writing more from here on out. Last week was spent In the community group. This entailed working with children and mapping out certain villages with known TB and TB resistant patients. Patients come from up to four day trips to Lady Willingdon Hospital, the hospital in Manali that we work at. Though our mapping of specific villages and determining the amount of TB resistant patients in these villages Lady Willingdon hospital will be able to determine if when a new patient comes in to the hospital if it is beneficial to do a TB drug resistant test. This test is fairly expensive so at the time they only administer it if the patient has had no benefit from four months of typical TB treatment. This information, which is the key reason we are here, was just recently given to us. This gave a bit more emphasis to the group to do TB research as most of us thought we were simply doing menial work to aid a graduate school project. The community group began with us playing with children, awkwardly denying water that would have caused us more harm than we gave by offending the locals by denying it and attempting to work the GPS program. I have to interject at this point. There are a variety of people who are going to read this from family, to friends to those who are grading it ( Hello). I am a very snarky, cynical and interesting* writer. If this is your first time reading something I wrote and are offended, please look back on my old writing and get a grip on the way I write, convey stories, and bring humor to situations. (those of you who are reading this and are not my teacher, thanks for working through that little tid bit). Moving on:  

                Through the community group we learned how to approach some clinical situations though the help of Dr Kathleen, an american (wohoo white people) doctor who came with us to each of the villages. We went over basics from pulse rate to respiratory timing and all the way though histories etc. All though this “clinical” time we mostly just played with the children with butterfly stickers and amazed them with the Japanese brilliance that are our digital cameras. Domo Ari gato. Through photos and videos we captured the attention of these young minds taking them away from the frightening situation we ourselves threw them into by intruding into their lives. As we* weighed and measured the children documenting* our efforts, the cultural barrier began to fade. (*we didn’t weight or measure or document, but we watched it happen). Several of these moments are documents in previous picture sets. Im working on some more. This is kinda the blog for those photos anyways. DWI. (Deal with it). Throughout this week we witnessed some of the most heart wrenching and thought provoking concepts masked in the faces of malnourished and sickly children. Looking into their cream white eyes, it brought on feelings of awe, humility and guilt. Each village varied on the heath of the children but all were so far bellow anything you could find in America. There is no comparison. Four year olds with rounded ringworm bruises and frail little boys with the lungs of an 80 year old smoker. The unworldly poor health exhibited by the children was only outdone by the love and compassion shown by the workers in the schools and orphanages. One of the little boys, obviously suffering from severe mental retardation, could not hold up his own head let alone eat or talk or walk. He required 100% attention in the arms of a very caring woman, likely not his own mother. They had no cribs, no beds, no facilities to deal with a problem like this, only the man power and constant vigilance of the staff. This was my first two days. Then it happened.

                On the third day I fixed the internet. I will preface this with, I am not saying I will not help but I do think this is a humerous situation and I am always willing to aid in any way I can. Our internet here is awful to say it kindly. This is due to number of factors including Manali’s faulty wiring thoughout the city and the face the computer was connected to the power through raw cords for most of the first week of this trip. So one day the internet went out. I went to the office. Realized the power cord fell out, plugged it in. turned on the computer and router. Boom internet, BOOM Technical genius. I was at this point put on internet fixing duty (which is fine, I am not upset) as well as mapping and Excel. (I would like to get a name tag saying “Jake Seidenberg Master Technical Genius”). If that could be arranged, it would be most appreciated. Moving on…. So I was put on map duty with my roommate Nathan. We scoured the skies for signal finding bits and pieces of connection with limited success. By thursday however we did it, we got all the pieces together, mapped out our entire trek and mastered the software. Wohoo! This was especially entertaining as Nathan had the GPS in is backpack and had been running around with the children so the tracking software made a bunch over overlapping circular lines in some areas.

                Each of our outings with coupled with tea time, a practice I believe should be incorporated into the American college system. A tea break between neuroscience and chemistry would be greatly appreciated. Tea is especially nice in india because you don’t have to worry about drinking it as it is boiled as opposed to juices or water. We had tea at some of the school and some of the health care workers invited us back to their houses for chai as well.  This was essentially the nuts and bolts of the first week in the community. At least in terms of the village part. I will not go into detail about this next part as I only write about things I enjoy….. I spent most of my TB research time, we are required to spend a certain about of time working on the TB research every day, organizing a large list ( big ass list) of names and details in an excel document of somewhere between 250 and 600 TB patients in the area and surrounding villages. I had to compile, with help, 8 years of excel documents into 1 single document while giving each of the patient a unique ID so that they could remain anonymous. Just to say, I am not entirely sure but I believe a new development of information may make this entire set of data somewhat useless in comparison. Oy.

                Well that’s enough of that. On to the nitty gritty exciting part of the trip. Me aiding the community did not stop me from going out on the town every night of last week. From quiet cafes to bustling bars Old Manali became a safe haven for the group to unwind after a day of excitement, work and miscommunication*. Our nightly excursions much like those of the first weekend were full of interesting people, new stories and a worldly view not seen in the bland melting pot I have found America to be. Though not all our excursions were treated as a beneficial addition to the research component of the trip, I still find them to be some of the most eye opening unforgettable moments of my entire life. (Don’t you hate when you parents are right… actually not really in this situation). I will be having very extensive  blogs on this topic of OLD MANALI. But just to name a few of the interesting places:

People: Yes this is the name of a restaurant, I believe I brought it up before. Great food, great atmosphere. The walls are littered with colorful, “inspired” drawings. I have even posted some of my own drawings at this point. There are those who are reading this, thinking about my ability to command a pencil even to write out common prose and laugh at the fact I attempted art. They are probably correct. My drawings were not that great. O well. They were always appreciated. Good fish here crispy, savory, buttery while falling right off the bone I didn’t see in my first bite.  great omelets, hashbrowns and amazing, amazing chicken sandwiches! To die for. They make their own chicken patties stuffed with herbs, scallions, onions and the perfect about of season breadcrumb stuffing. However chai leaves something to be wanted. Addition of real hot chocolate which incidentally after ordering it is simply melted chocolate, was a good fix for this bland chai.

Dylans: This restaurant which has a very open airy feel as it is directly open to the street with no walls on the outside, houses the worlds best chocolate chip cookie. No your mother doesn’t make the best cookie, they do, get over it. That and the chocolate chip cookie milkshake. Wow. Brownies were not that great but the amazing, home grown, home roasted, home ground coffee, which everyone like but for one reason or another I am still waiting to try…. I will get to that in the next blog

 Moon something café: nice little bar/ restaurant, nothing special.

1947: café with nice lounging areas that seat roughly 6-16 depending on how friendly you are. Hit or miss with the music.

More pictures

Attractive

Errybdy

Office picture #2

King of the rocks

Aubrey stop creepin

Epic

One of many adorable children

What a badass

Yes, this is a man crapping in the river

Doctor Jr.

Not impressed

Random pictures expect more (some taken by Kelly)

Me and the manager.

This is actually the only time he frowned

The view out the window of the plane

The view is amazing everywhere

They were lifting this huge water container with like 15 people

A beautiful way to express you feeling:  a wide range of cotton panties

Put good in get good out

MOooooo

Living in a cloud

This river would be so much nicer if people didnt use it as a toilet

I found Waldo

NO DISCOUNT

Sara is way too popular

Shabbat Shalom!

Best Pants ever!

Life is what happens when you dont go with the plan

May 25, 2011

                 Today’s entry which is a day late is going to be quite short and without photos as internet is scarce and I am not sure when I will be able to post anything let alone pictures. We woke up rather late today, getting an easy start to our last day in Delhi. This was exciting as we could sleep in for the first time in several days. We started off the day going to the Humayuns tomb. It was beautiful and the geometric and symmetrical pools and manmade water ways were extraordinary. Gandhi’s cremation spot was nice but nothing too special. Gandhi Smriti was much more interesting. The Gandhi Smriti is the place in which Gandhi lived for the last 5 months of his life and was eventually assassinated in 19.. something. We grabbed a few pictures with our fantastic driver Jesse, and our ridiculous hotel manager who was very happy by the fact that me and Kelly we just friends.

May 26 2011

                This was our first day in Manali, We left for the airport at 1:00 am. Then we met the group at the airport. An interesting bunch by the time we had reached the gate of the airport we were fully assembled and entirely too tired for good first impressions. I believe I introduced myself to a few people several times as I was too tired to remember which of them I had. I have actually started and ended this paragraph 4 times in 3 days at this point… I have been increadibly busy!

                So this is going to incorporate all the first few days in Manali I hope. We arrived in the Kullu for an amazing view. The mountains extend all around us and its hard to remember that they are everywhere and I cant take a picture every time. On the way to Manali we stopped at a little resturaunt, the green shadow I believe. This was my first chai tea of Manali but I was unaware the extent of chai I was about to consume. Every meal and every where we go offers chai. The road to Manali was littered with trash and small towns containing mostly shoebox stores and advertisements for the larger Indian companies. More then the views was the increasing smell…. While it went back and forth from the sweet smell of the forest to the smell of bus traffic, the smell was apparent, (Cannabis).  Many munchies jokes were made. We spent the first day getting lost. There are 6 guys on the trip and 8 girls. Me and Kelly included. Four of the guys and me went into the town with no idea of where we were going. Our plan: go up. We did a great job as we went up and up into the residential area till we ended up in a field. It is beautiful up here. My pictures will tell more than my words.

                I will begin with what my family wants to hear and end with the exciting part of the trip. Those who are reading this for interesting stories, still read this part Disclaimer: I am staying safe and not getting into trouble. You don’t need to worry too much. We spent most of the first few days in what is known as New Manali. New Manali is the area where all the Indian tourists go to shop for over priced shirts and plastic childrens toys. Though the area is beautiful, it is full of traffic, cars and what I have found to be straight from hell, horns.  I have bought multiple gifts, most in the form of beautiful pashmina/wool scarves that if you lucky enough could be yours! But probably not. Don’t get your hopes up. The mornings have been spent perusing the city watching it come to life. Its begins around 6 or 7 with store owners opening the gate to their store and small restaurants beginning to cook the food that could be regarded as fresh for at least the morning. The air is moist and cool as people follow along their daily routine. One interesting one we unfortunately had the pleasure of viewing first hand is the morning dump in the river. This is a river, the nicest ive ever seen, that runs through and around the town. Turns out, lots of people use it as a direct toilet and paper. Some people not even making it to the river but only the walkway to the river… have some modesty! The morning we spent at the river was exciting. We found a buddist temple and were invited into the home of the caretakers. Calling this place a slum would be too nice. It was a trash dump located under the temple. We accidentally stumbled in as my legs tend to carry me farther than logic tell me to go. These people, a family of 4 or so men and children had nothing. Absolutly nothing short of what I would consider obvious trash. They invited us in and offered us chai. You may consider me rude but the need to keep my stomach in check bypassed the need to be respectable and we graciously declines. Background: foreigners cannot drink the water here unless it is cleaned, this chai was probably made from the river water( yes the poop river water). I don’t think I could stomach it.  Another interesting part was that the son, a boy of around 11 was dressed very well and getting ready for school. It makes me happy to see those who have nothing care about the education of their children. It represents a move in a positive direction for this city.

                We have spent a lot of our time trekking around the area, through the mountains and up to the countryside. Each day is more amazing than the next. The mountain peaks white with melting ice pose questionable challenges for the future as we plan on taking a multiday trip up to one of the peaks . Pictures will suffice for this part of the trip.

                Travelers Travelers Travelers. I have met some of the most amazing people in my life in the past 4 days! All thanks to an amazing place called old manali. When you think of manali,you think of old manali. It is a small town consisting of several shops with a quiet street running up to the top of the mountain area in which it is located. It is full of crazy people that live their life day by day enjoying it more than any of us ever will. From the shop owners to the waiters, people are happy, glad to see you and ever more hospitable. Every other store we walk into ends in a 30-90 minute conversation with the owner about their shop, their travels and life. While most store owners are Indian, a very large amount are Israeli. I never thought my Hebrew would be useful.

                We have been spending most of our downtime in a small little restaurant called “people”. This place gets its own paragraph. I have met people from Sweden, france, England, germany, Israel, southern india, and south Africa, just to name a few. Each person has their own story of how they ended up there and how they ended up traveling with certain people. Two guys, Leo and Will, from Sweden and England respectively, met up in in one country and hung out there, they said there good byes and a month later wound up in the same country, thus decided to simply travel together. These guys, who brought us to this restaurant were a bit too crazy for us to follow in their footsteps but lead a life of excitement and spotaneosity (whatever it is kinda a word). We have heard a multitude of music ranging from a saxophone and guitar band to deederidoos (how ever you spell that). Everyone brings something with them to this place, either music, stories or fun. People leads up to its name as I have never met people like this in my entire life. Leo, a 19 year old from Sweden, told us “Life happens when you don’t go with the plan.” Though I understand that is not always how life should be, it’s a refreshing concept in a world of premed.

Agrably the most interesting day yet

May 24 2011

                I am writing this on the 25^th because I was too tired to do anything when we got back last night.

                This was our big trip to Agra. Located about 200 km south of New Delhi. We woke up to a jolt from the front desk informing us our cab was here. Rushing around to get together we got outside to find it was the same taxi driver as the one that took us from the air port to the hotel the first night, Jesse! Jesse was all smiles as usual as we departed on our four hour drive to Agra. We stopped at a “rest stop” about 1 hour 45 mins into the trip. Jesse went with the other taxi drivers as we cautiously attempted to use the restrooms. After being hassled by random Indians in the bathroom turning on the water and giving us napkins in exchange for rupees, we checked out the “restaurant”. It ended up being a souvenir store having a vague resemblance to large general stores out in the country of USA. There were painted silk to hand bags to Pringles, all “handmade, very good quality”. I was skeptical but more interested in perusing this store than that of waiting outside in the sun for Jesse.  Then we were off to Agra, stopping first of course at the Taj Mahal.

                The Taj mahal was unlike anything I had ever seen. We picked up our tour guide at a bus station and were off. He was a man of great studiousness and greatly dyed hair, dyed partly red and constantly combing it over. 

Gate to the Taj

You know, casually being awesome

This is the picture that the office will be seeing. Dad get on that

The Taj Mahal was full of people but apparently much less than normal as it was a tues and during the hot season. The white marble was exquisite and translucent in the light. It was the brightest part of the area. Moving from place to place around and inside this magnificent palace, our tour guide was very influential and gave us a wide array of interesting information in which I remember the important parts. Each of the walls was decorated using a single type of the worlds hardest marble (hardness of 7, see dad I did absorb some information from this trip) and decorated with a multitude of different semi precious stones and gems. Each decorated marble segment had carved out sections in which the perfectly shaped stone piece was placed and glued in using what we later found to be secret recipe glue, The locals compared it to the coca cola recipe. You know, American equivalent to the secrets of the Taj. After taking some choice photos, pointing out to everyone in a 3 mile radius that we are such tourists, we were taken to the center where the descendents  of the families who originally carved the marble were working to restore some of the pieces from looters who had removed the stones over the years. They also were making some new art. We were given a show on how each piece of stone was cut, how it was placed and how they engraved the marble.

They say that the people who do this only can for for 20 years as there hands become unsensitized and they lose their sight

We also joined in on some of the fun. 

I felt their hardships

Taking photos and Kelly was given a few stones to be used as “beauty marks” or Bindi  made of lapis lazuli. He informed Kelly that even though it is known to show a women is married that is usually the case only for red stones. Our waiter at the restaurant thought otherwise, marriage jokes followed

Kelly: Happily married women. Charli less happy about the situation

We then were taken into the real reason we were brought here, the store… After being given another show by our fabulous host Charli on how great his marble was and the exquisite and unique qualities of the art, it was actually believable. The art was really made by locals who had learned the trade and the quality was true!

The intricate nature of this marble plate could be yours for only 200,000 rupees. thats only $4500 american. I got 8

We perused the store for about an hour looking at the magnificent inlay work done on everything from marble elephants with 20 stones to whole tables with thousands. He told us how some things took 15 -30 months to make, including some small plates and marble pieces with intricate stone work too perfect and stunning for words. 

Charli, he loved us. "You stay at my house" "Bring your father, he spend money"

These pieces were very expensive. We stuck to the less expensive items. I did end up purchasing some items and am Damn Well Glad I Did. They weren’t cheap but their beauty was unique and refinement extraordinary enough to persuade me to spend a few rupees.

                We were then off to the agra fort. The Agra fort,  an immense fort made of red sandstone on the bank of the Yamuna river had a shocking resemblance to the red fort in Dehli. We decided that if you’ve seen one red fort you have seen them all and crossed red fort off our list as well. The Agra fort, which still holds thousands of people and military personnel, was amazing frankly due to its immense size.  I took great liking to this fort. It was built by a Muslim emperor and was decorated to well incorporate many of the religious practices of the people in the city. There was artwork with both monotheistic and polytheistic representations. From Jewish starts to Hindu swastikas. Yes Hindu swastikas, it was not originally a symbols of Nazis you ignorant people reading my blog. Seeing all of these religions come together so long ago gives me hope that maybe history will repeat itself slightly, but I digress. So we had not eaten all day at this point as we missed breakfast so they took us to a restaurant and promised a hygienic and clean eating experience. So we ended up at Riao restaurant; it held up to its promise. Asking what was good and splitting an order of Murg Botiwala: “chicken cut in small pieces simmered in a thick gravy”, we greatly enjoyed the meal. We ordered naan (bread) and garlic naan (garlic bread…) and a bowl of rice and went to town on the food saving none to spoil. It was very good and filling just what I needed. 

Nom Nom Nom, and then 20 mintues later there was nothing

Or so I thought… ever get really dehydrated, go to a restaurant, order and drink an entire liter of water before beginning to eat that then gorging on spicy oily Indian food? For your sake I hope not. The last stop was filled with groans and exhaustion as I waited for the tour to be over. Luckily immodium was unnecessary but it took several hour for our food to digest and give us our second wind of the day. Side note : we have also learned, that the bathroom system is very different here…  toilet paper is now a valued commodity and not available in most areas…

                Our last area, of which I recall the least as I spent the entire time wondering if reversed removal of the contents of my stomach would be the better option, was the Fatehpur Sikri ( I had to just look that up). Though we were nauseous and tired it was a pretty interesting place. The area inside the place walls was filled with gardens and extensive patio area made of red sandstone. This like all the other things in agra was built by one of the members of the ruling mughals from Uzbekistan (I think…). It like the other temples was very multireligion and secular. However one of the members of the family that seized control destroyed many of the statues and carvings of humans or animals as they are not allowed in strict Muslim religion. The emperors bed room had a secret passage to allow all of his private concubines and slaves to come to his bedroom without anyone knowing. If we know now, people probably knew then. He needed some way to deal with his three wives, all of different religions.  Out in the square was a table in which they played a high stakes gambling game using women in brightly colored dresses and placeholders. Like human Roulette.

"Woman to C3, I said WOMAN TO C3" "You win 8 more women" horay!

We left the palace and spent a good 30 minutes discussing politics and American versus china power with our tour guide who often slipped in the idea that it was the slow season and this is his only job…. It was like buying a used car. Very interesting and helpful guide though. One of the best I have ever had. Like a history book wrapped in a Britishlike Indian accent. This was the end of our tour set and we began the more interesting part of our day, the four hour drive back. 

Perfectly combed hair.

                The first 2 hours of this drive were very exciting. Through the country roads we got a better idea of Indian culture than any of the tourist spots had shown us. Jesse was kind enough to slow down to let us take pictures of camels, peacocks and for some reason naked children that Kelly was exstatic about. It would take forever to explain what we saw though I do posses the eloquent and logophilic nature to describe the depth of the drive.So i will just put those pictures at the end of the blog. 

Young love and goats

 Best Friends: "Hey dude check out that tire."

Green Delhi Clean Delhi: Indias hardest working garbageman

The best cow is a clean cow

Yes, that is a woman drying and packing cow poop in order to burn or make buildings out of it.

Mehhrrr

After two hours we stopped for some coffee and checked out the menu of the local mcdonalds with its vegi burgers and mcpaneer sandwiches on the dollar menu. We left and it got dark. Kelly passed out in the back where I hung out with Jesse in the front. At one point all the trucks began pulling to the side of the road and stopping. Everyone got out of their cars, People were everywhere and we could not move. There seemed to me a whole nightlife world in the middle of the road rivaling that of day time in the city. People were selling things listening to load music, singing and running around. Children hanging out with friends and a whole cultural world I had not expected was opening outside my window. I just stared as it was too dark to take pictures and took in the power and energy of the world around our car. Kelly slept. As amazing as it was, I wish I would have slept a bit as well.