यह भारत है

(This is India)

So this past week, I have definitely had some frustrations. First of all, I don’t think I have ever appreciated the United States more than I have the past week. In the states, it doesn’t really matter if you are growing a beak and have a purple face. You will still be able to walk around alone and probably even safely. In India, as a foreign woman, my energy is constantly being drained as I am trying to walk around while ignoring stares, while also trying to fend off motorcycles after rickshaws after policemen trying to help and “show me the way” as if I am a lost damsel in distress.

The other day I was hiking in the same park Hitesh had taken me to last week. A fifty or so year old man came up to me and asked, of course, if I was married. I responded, “Absolutely!” to save myself from yet another discussion about western culture and women. It is much more fun to make up grandiose stories of my wedding and how I have two children waiting for me in the US than to give a cultural lesson about the differences of values in the East and West.

Traffic laws (or more like the unspoken rules of traffic) in India:
The right of way: Cows (the mother of all humans), camels, goats and goat herders, dogs, trucks, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, pedestrians…in that order… or something like it…it really just depends on one’s perspective actually…maybe one day people go ahead of trucks, maybe the next day not so much…as Opa Ji says, “This is India.”

This week I have also really started to feel at home at the guesthouse. The other day, I was hanging out on the roof, and 14 year old Aasma (which means sky) came up. We spent a few hours giving each other dance lessons and then listening to both Western pop music and Indian pop music. She is now a fan of Elton John (<3 UDSST)! Others she liked were Sleepyhead by PassionPit, and Kids by MGMT…obviously. She then taught me how to make Chai the Assma way (5 more scoops of sugar than the already very sweet recipe) and let me help make dinner. I will definitely be coming home with some bangin Sabji (spicy vegetable) recipes!

During my stay in Kavach the past week, I have learned a ton on how to operate a truly grassroots initiative in HIV prevention. The whole operation is crude, blunt, in your face and hard core in the field. For instance, to engage the long-distance truckers in conversation about sex, the health care workers start “bodymapping” on the side of the road. Bodymapping is exactly what it sounds like. The health educator draws an outlandishly cartoonish figure of a woman and all the ways a man can correspondingly have sex with her. Then, they proceed to talk about which ways having sex are high risk for STI/HIV infection and how it can accordingly be prevented. Next, the truckers who have some kind of health concern are shown to the mobile satellite clinic. This is usually an abandoned garage or room of some sort with no walls separating the doc’s office from the “lobby”. In one of these clinics, the doc brings the patient to the back of the room underneath a dark staircase, asks him to drop his drawers, and then sees what is going on with a flashlight. So, overall the circumstances are extreme, but like Dr. Hitesh said earlier, start chaotic, and get structured later. The whole process is definitely chaotic, but I think it has to be in order to truly engage the truck drivers and appeal to their lifestyle. Overall, the process has a flow to it, and it definitely works and gets results.

Something else I have noted to be a little strange and pretty funny was the surprised look on Dr. Rahul’s face after he realized that during one of his teaching sessions with me about STIs and condoms, I had at least already been taught the basics. After his third lecture and demonstration about the proper way to use a condom, I told him, “Yep, I think I got it.” He said, “Really? You don’t know how to use a condom, a nice girl like you?” I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I then proceeded to tell him that I am no stranger to the banana demonstration because in the states, every 14/15 year old is shown proper technique. He was flabbergasted. In fact, this realization that people, especially adolescents, receive no formal health or sex education actually led me to a project I, with the guidance of Jaimala and Hitesh, will be embarking on.

During the next week, I will be heading back to Udayan for a couple of days and then two hours away to the Female Sex Worker project in Ajmer. My goals are to basically assess how Vatsalya conducts sex education to various populations and to also gauge the current level of knowledge about reproductive and sexual health. Currently, they have formal projects to educate the source population (female sex workers) and the bridge population (the long-distance truckers), but not yet the general population. In India, there is actually no public sex education which leaves the discussion of disease prevention to be quite taboo. I essentially hope to design a culturally sensitive health curriculum appropriate for the general population of street children and women who are susceptible to STI/HIV infection via the bridge populations. Each age group and subgroup will of course have a different curriculum. I will also hopefully get to discuss some acute situations going on at Udayan where there are always children in adolescence with corresponding health concerns.