Big happenings.

Tuesday June 12^th 4pm

The past two days have been quite the change for little old me. Over the weekend I was told that I needed to give a worker my key so they could move a fourth bed into my house. I was pretty shocked, since I didn’t know I would be sharing my living room/dining room/bedroom with another person. I was told another French girl would arrive Saturday night. So of course I kept waiting and waiting, but no one ever showed up. I was a little suspicious of this information to begin with, so around 11pm I decided I shouldn’t worry about it. And no one ever came….until yesterday. I was in my office and they said the other girl had just gotten here, so I should come meet her and go with her back to the house. Well, to my surprise, she was not French at all, but Indian. She was a PhD the organization had just hired and she was here for 3 days to tour and meet people at the research station. When we went into the house she was, shall we say, shocked and appalled at the “condition of the facilities” She said she had just started 5 days ago, but the facility she was staying at, about 45min away was much nicer and she was very surprised that the organization would have such facilities as mine and my neighbors. I have to say, I was a little offended. I had to stick up for my little house that has treated me so well over the past week. Sure, it is a little rough around the edges, lizards crawl around inside, you use a bucket to shower in place of an overhead faucet, but its good enough. The lizards eat the bugs and Im just as clean. It’s also very safe and quiet and the people are really nice. She is supposed to stay three nights, but Im guessing she makes it two. She is very nice otherwise, but with my roommates getting home too, its quite a full house! I went from being all alone to having three roommates in one afternoon. It was a little bit of a shock. Just after a week I had established my routine, so its strange to see the other way of doing things, like eating outside when its hot in the evening and eating with utensils! For the most part people in this area (I can’t speak for other areas of India) don’t use utensils. They use the chapatti bread to pinch the vegetables and stew dishes and then either do the same with the rice or eat the rice with their hands. Well I have been living by the motto, when in Rome!! And I rather like it I must say. My roommates also don’t like spicy food and since Mrs. M makes all or our food together, I will so no more of that. But I think the hardest thing to accept is they let the roaming cats in the house!! This morning, as I brushed my teeth, the stray cat wandered around at my feet crying the whole time. They feed the cats out the back door and let them come into the house. Im not a huge fan and I really don’t want to get fleas, but I guess I can put up with it for a little company.

They are both very nice, so im hopeful. If I knew French, I would really be in business. They speak in French to each other (obviously), so I cant really jump in on any conversations. But it will be fine im sure. They were both very impressed and surprised with my solo trips into Pune. They said they had never even taken the train, even with each other, so I think I’ve made a good impression. They also said the go there almost every Sunday b/c with only one day off it is hard to get anywhere further, and its pretty boring around here. They have offered to show me more places to buy clothes and other things they’ve discovered.

On the work front, things seem to be making a little progress. Dr. K called me yesterday at 2pm and asked if I could make a formal presentation at 3pm to the technical board of the organization on the research I plan to do and my objectives. I thought I misheard him when he said formal, so when I asked him to repeat it, he said, ‘ok, maybe just informal on you main goals” That I could handle! Since I hadn’t seen or spoken with him in over a week, I wasn’t that psyched about formally presenting anything. But at this meeting I did find out a ‘preliminary report’ is expected at the next meeting, July 11^th, so I think I will be pretty busy until then.

Today I went with Dr. K (and two other employees) to another village about 20 min away to spend the day conducting women’s health exams. It was pretty interesting to observe. They took all the supplies to a two room house/clinic and examined about 25 women. They took their weight, tested their eyes, took blood and urine samples for iron and protein tests, and then did a very basic physical exam in the other room. I wish I had taken some pictures to show you all, but I felt a little shy about making these women’s health visits my tourist attraction. I will try to be more bold next time. We were there for 3 hrs or so and then they insisted on feeding us all before we left. They said they wanted to see how I ate the food. But I think I did ok, no one laughed at me anyway. I’ve started to notice a lot of things happen slow around here, and its common to wait hours for something that should take minutes, but eating is not one of them! I consider myself a pretty fast eater, but I am nothing compared to my three co-workers! Since you sit on the floor, you naturally bend over the plate when you eat, and not one of them looked up or even took a breath the whole time. I thought maybe it was because our driver, and the bus load of school children he had just picked up on his way to meet us, were waiting, but no. They had seconds and thirds, so it wasn’t b/c they were rushed, it is just the normal speed. I better step up my game.

I am writing this at my office and they have lit this huge fire outside the building and the smoke has been filling the entire building for the past hour. I haven’t looked outside, but by the amount of smoke, I can only imagine it was must be trash heap the size of a small house! And I cant imagine why they couldn’t have moved down wind, but who am I to question things like this.