Daily Happenings

This is the area of town that I was lost in during my second day here.  It was me with another girl, and the sun was going down fast.  Luckily I no muggings or pick-pocketings happend...  HOORAY

My day started with me waking up at 6, rolling over, waking up at 8 and reading a bit until 9.  At 9:30 we left our hostel to travel to Dr. Bahkti’s office where he gave us a 2.5 hour lecture on leprosy.  The subject matter was interesting but because of the language barrier Dr. Bahkti kept repeating himself 3-4 times and talking to us like we were four.  He wanted to make sure we understood what he was talking about (which we did).  After the lecture our local coordinator and the India coordinator met up with us and took us out to lunch at a nice café.  I split two dishes with another member of our group, which turned out to be too much food.  Next it was off to Dr. Hajari’s clinic/hospital.  Today his nephew was visiting/job shadowing him.  Because the nephew had just finished his 5.5 year medical school program and was better at English, it was nice to have him there to explain things more thoroughly.   In India students go straight from high school into medical school where they spend 4.5 years.  Next, they have a one year internship.   If they want to specialize (he wants to be a cardiologist) they must take an entrance exam.  He told us out of the 11,000 yearly applicants, only 4,000 will be selected into specialty programs.  Also, in India it is rude to sit quietly in the corner while job shadowing and watch the doctor to patient interaction.  If I were to do this, they would think that I was uninterested.  His nephew told us we are supposed to ask the doctor questions while he’s talking with his patients, and almost interrupt their conversations.  It will take some time to get used to.  After we finished clinic, we went to “the hub” which is a westernized shopping mall with American groceries!  I bought Nature Valley bars, Indian Oreo cookie knock-offs, and Doritos knock-offs.  After storing the food back at the hostel, we left to catch the train to downtown Mumbai to do some bartering with the street venders and have a nice meal.  Our local coordinator told us to ask for ¼ the price that the sellers are asking and then haggle from there.  After at least 10 minutes of arguing, I bought my first souvenir (not sure yet who it will go to).  He wanted 750 rupees and I talked him down to 300.  I was very proud of myself until I asked him if he still ripped me off and he just laughed in my face.  Oh well.  On our way home after eating we decided to take taxi’s because the train station might be closed and a taxi is only 300 rupees (a little of $6) total.  Our group of 5 students had to split into two different taxi’s so we ended up egging on the two taxi drivers to race us home.  The trip was about a 40 minute taxi ride but we did it in 25 min.  Each taxi passed each other multiple times, ran red lights, and swerved dangerously close to oncoming traffic.  Because there are no traffic police in Mumbai and the fine for hitting somone is supposedly $20, traffic is chaotic.  It ended with their taxi driver swerving in front of us to park in the driveway, then our taxi driver swerving around him to park on the lawn a foot from the doorway.  In the end, my taxi won the race but both taxi’s saved us twenty minutes.  More coming soon!