Day 104: Doctor Nerds

Aside from the mild ego stroking we have received from having people other than our immediate family read our blog, it also adds an element of mystery. As in, these people don't know us. As in, maybe when I tell you about my day, and you see it next to Claire's day, it will lead everyone to believe that I would never be as lazy as Claire even if we do happen to essentially share a liver currently.

So...here's my day:

9 AM: bollywood tune alarm goes off.

9:15 AM: Awake to find that the chai has been drunk and that the person who guards our door and hates me for reasons unknown to anyone will not make me more. sigh.

9:25-9:45 AM: Rickshaw to municipal state hospital of Mumbai. Narrowly avoid 5 million rickshaws, 30 billion people and 4 TATA buses on the way.

9:45 AM -10 AM: Sit with group as we get vaguely yelled at by the head of our program because our entire group is not there because some of us are sick. We fail to point out that a lot of times the doctors that are supposed to be leading us around don't show because they are on "indian time" also known as 'four hours late...no excuse necessary.' We let it go because they serve us chai.

10-11 AM: work in municipal hospital. Here I see a baby being born naturally, though te mother changes her mind about this entire idea halfway through the ordeal. And to add insult to serious injury, there's no husband or family members present. Just nurses...and the nurses kind of smack the mother on the face a lot and tell her she's not pushing hard enough. This slapping on the face thing sounds really mean, but adults also do it to children all the time around here. I don't really get it. It kind of looks like it hurts, but apparently it can be a sign of affection...for kids anyway. The nurses in the labor room didn't seem that affectionate.

11-11:05 AM: Walk from the delivery room to the NICU. this would seem unremarkable, except that on the way, I passed three interesting things. 1. Latex gloves hanging out to dry, some of which the kids waiting for appointments are playing with. these are the gloves they WASH AND REUSE here becuase it only costs patients about TWENTY CENTS to stay in the hospital and receive treatment for TEN DAYS. It is madness. 2. A sign sayign that it is illegal to disclose the sex of hte baby under any circumstances. Sex selection continues to be a problem, though. and 3. Approximately 300 people waiting for appointments.

11:05-noon: Tour the NICU and watch rounds. The baby we saw delivered was small for its gestational age so I saw it again when I was doing rounds in the NICU. We also saw other teeny teeny tiny premies, and other low birth weight babies. Some looked like old men. Some looked like dolls. All looked like they were recovering well, which apparently they were, so thank God for that. Interestingly, there were 2 babies there who were the surviving siblings of a triplet birth the day before...becuase the mom had been on infertility treatment, the two babies were two weeks apart in age. I don't really understand this, but people who don't know me might think I do and that I am smarter than I am. We left when the resident started yelling at us pre-med students for not knowing enough anatomy and physiology...when he started explaining that in India you had to be smarter than average to go to medical school while that clealry wasn't the case in the U.S. we peaced out. but the babies were sweet.

Noon-3: Get crushed and lose a shoe getting on the train (a nice person handed it to me after). Get mauled on the train. Get shoved off the train. Go to Russian consulate. Find out that AGAIN they are not open to give out visas. So me and the guard (he's on my side after he thought Claire and I were funny the other day) break in the back door of the consulate office and find someone to fetch us our passports. I thought he was just nice. But apparently the guards who had watched me come back 3 days in a row unsuccessfully had been laughing at me to him so he pitied me for being pathetic. Sigh....repeat train experience in reverse.

3-4: Eat lunch. Clean room...read good book.

4-7: work with Claire via G-Talk. Work...gossip...find out basic geographical facts we should know by now. whatever. Potato Potatoe.

7-on...I think it will include getting dinner, and going out to bars to say goodbye to people that are leaving tomorrow. Then hitting some extremely uncomfortable mattresses to start it all over...

I think we all know what these schedules show. Claire is lazy and she watches lots of reality TV and thinks about how her abs look in her bikini by the pool. I work with the sick in India and am there to tell Claire that she does in fact look very good in her bikini by the pool.

And note to Claire...just booked my own flight to Goa. Tell the pool to get ready for me...