The best of the rest

So I am now back in the UK. I flew in on Friday just in time to have a really lovely sunny bank holiday weekend in the glorious Devon countryside. I don’t mind telling you that it is a very strange thing to be home for the foreseeable future. Already I have this rather heavy feeling of needing to get on with my “real life” (well I suppose it had to happen eventually).

However if you will kindly indulge me I would like to tell you just a little about my last two weeks in my wonderful, noisy, slightly smelly adopted native land of India. Well my last two weeks for now, I know I shall be back before too long. Where I left off last time Alan had arrived and been very rapidly thrown into the thick of it. I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that I did take some time off from the hospital in order to take him on a little bit of a holiday. The first instalment of this was a long weekend in Kerala, the medical students were going so it seemed sensible to take the opportunity to tag along. I can say now that I am so glad that we did. Cochin, where we had our base, is one of my favourite places ever I think. I have visited a couple of times before but I never get tired of it.

For one thing it is a wonderfully old place, being an ideal strategic position it has of course been occupied and influenced by a variety of different ruling forces. Portuguese, Indian, Dutch, Chinese and Jewish settlers have created a wonderful patchwork of culture and architecture. In modern times it has become more of a draw for tourists and travellers but it still holds its credentials as a naval port and trading post. It manages to be touristy but also retain a degree of authenticity.

 As someone who has been in small town rural India for quite some time the main draw for me and the excitement of my Saturday was the cosmopolitan café culture (obviously with a traveller friendly touch). We had our breakfast at the Kashi art café. You walk through a stylish little art gallery and out the back there is a cool shady walled garden feel. I couldn’t fail to be excited with a menu which included breakfast cake and fruit platter as well as possibly my favourite sweet lime soda in the whole of India. Lunch was at the Teapot café, another spot which I can’t come to Cochin without needing to visit. A beautiful old building with high ceilings decorated with every piece of tea making paraphernalia that you can imagine. For dinner Alan and I snuck off to have some Indian food (the medical students were planning to hit the big city for some clubbing which we didn’t quite fancy). We went to Dal Roti, a first time for me and highly recommended by a previous med student visitor to the hospital. It lived up to its good review with simple but extremely tasty North Indian cuisine. It was also quite interesting because we met a rather lovely but eccentric Australian lady who told us all about her experiences in India as a “Dental tourist” having come over originally for some dental implants she had suffered a rather awful sounding botched job and had to stay for an extra five months or so to get it all fixed. She seemed extremely jolly about the whole affair, I am not sure I would have been quite so philosophical!

Well reader you may be starting to think that all we did in Cochin was eat but I assure you that is not true, it’s just that we did eat quite a lot and it was rather nice. On Sunday Alan and I did a day on the back waters. This was very relaxing as you can imagine, a combination of hot sun, warm breezes and dappled light reflecting off the water. In fact I was so relaxed that at one point Alan assures me I was completely asleep, such is life.

On the Monday (Independence Day in India therefore a bank holiday) we set off for a day at the beach. The beach in question was Cherai beach on another island just across the water. On some (rather brief) consulting of borrowed guide books we decided that the very best way to get there was to take the ferry, then a bus and then walk the short distance from the bus stop to the beach. In retrospect this is not a route I would recommend. The ferry was simple enough after we worked out which ticket counter we needed to queue at but the bus was more crowded than any other mode of transport I have ever tried to take. Think about the tube in rush hour then add half as many people again and subtract any western ideas about personal space. Then factor in the midday heat and humidity of sticky south India. To paraphrase Alan there were small Indian ladies in saris crammed into parts of my anatomy I didn’t even know I had!

After the bus came the short stroll to the beach, unfortunately not as short as we thought it might be and again in the absolutely boiling midday heat. I thought I was being steamed alive and I have never seen Alan that drenched in sweat. By the time we reached the beach all we could do was locate the only air-conditioned resort in a five mile radius and sit down to lunch. After a really lovely meal and a lot of cold drinks we finally motivated ourselves to brave the heat and hit the beach. The lovely thing was that being white and western we were in the massive minority. The majority of pleasure seekers were obviously Indian out enjoying their own coastline on a national holiday. I decided that if I was going to fully enjoy the Indian ocean I was going to do it the proper Indian way and fully dresses in my Salwar Kameez I strolled into the waves to squeal and giggle like the heroine of a Bollywood movie!

Well there you have the highlights of our trip to Kerala, always a pleasurable experience. I might write a quick rundown of the rest of our travels, the last part of the trip was spent in Mysore and Bangalore, but not today. I fear you are probably worn out enough by my attempts at travel writing for now. And besides back here in the real world I need to get on with job applications!

Lots of love and see you soon,

A x

Boys flying kites next to the seaside in Cochin

me wading into the sea

did the tourist thing and let some woman stamp "Henna" on my hand, I think it is actually ink

did even more of the tourist thing and went to see some Kathikali dancing

A change is as good as a rest...

So I always said that I would believe Alan was visiting me when I saw him with my own eyes on Indian soil. Now in retrospect I feel rotten for ever doubting him, true to his word and after 29 hours of pretty solid travel between St Helens Merseyside and this corner of Tamil Nadu he turned up on the doorstep of the hospital. Understandably I was over the moon to see him and had to try and restrain myself from jumping around like an over excited puppy. He had just travelled by bus from Bangalore and needed a bit of a wash and a rest but after affording him an extremely short break I couldn’t restrain myself from taking him on an extended tour of the hospital and a round of introductions.

Having worked ever so hard back home while I have been gallivanting here in the Indian subcontinent you might assume that I would want to give Al a well-deserved rest on arrival. Perhaps do some gentle sightseeing or tourist activity? But you would be wrong. The second day he was here was one of our operating days. We had a visit from our wonderful and eccentric travelling anaesthetist (there is currently no regular anaesthetist on staff) and so a list had been prepared. One of my mentors and the most senior clinician in the hospital is a very enthusiastic surgeon and was keen to show Alan how we do things here. So rather than putting his feet up I had Alan standing very resolutely on his feet for a full day of observing in the operating theatre, with teaching the medical students thrown in for good measure. He was an absolute hit but seeing as he is charming, professional and super brainy how could he fail really?

The next day dawned and you would now certainly expect me to let Alan rest, at least a little but no I had other ideas and bundled him off to see the mobile clinic in action. As the most junior doctor here (therefore more dispensable from hospital duty) and one who’s bones don’t yet mind too much being rattled around in a glorified truck over Indian mountain tracks I have taken over a lot of the mobile clinic visits and I felt that Alan would not have a full idea of what my daily routine here involved without seeing one of these first hand. Our day did not disappoint as it was a classic mobile clinic visit if ever there was one. Small children attending to have their weight charted and check-ups for those not growing as expected. The usual viral coughs, colds and stomach upsets of primary care medicine everywhere. Mostly treated with paracetamol and advice like “drink plenty of fluid” and “if it doesn’t get better in a couple of days come to the hospital”. Some of those with high fevers or who have clinical findings and are systemically unwell warrant antibiotic therapy or direct referral to the hospital and a lot of what I do is try and sort one group from the other. As usual there was at least one really frustrating and upsetting patient who despite being quite severely unwell and despite everyone’s best persuasion techniques just flat out refuses to come to the hospital for investigation and management.

One particular chap who fell into this group had essentially been too unwell to work for two weeks with cough, weight loss, fevers and intermittent vomiting. He looked skeletal and certainly needed us to investigate for TB. But even with us all (The three health animators, Alan and myself) sitting on the porch of his house and trying everything bar just picking him up and carrying him back to the van (he was certainly light enough) he just said he would come tomorrow. I don’t think that I need to tell you that he did not arrive in hospital the next day. Partly I think that patients like this are afraid to come but when it boils down to it we gave him all of the information, that it could be very serious or without treatment even deadly and he made his decision to stay in the village. I don’t for a second think this means that what we are doing is somehow wrong or not working but just that we are still part of a process that takes time. When the charity first started going into the villages years ago the tribal people were so scared that they literally ran away. Now more often than not they seek help and in the next generation I feel confident that patients like this will be more likely to come for the treatment they so badly need. We just need to keep going.

Anyway I seem to have gone on a very long tangent of thought there, hope you don’t mind too much. Friday came and still no rest for the wicked, or for Alan, as we had both been volunteered to take part in paediatric health checks at a new school taken over by the education branch of the charity. All under the full supervision of course of one of our senior hospital doctors. The thirty-odd tribal children in this school range from 5 to 14 years in age and only have one significant uniting factor, they have all dropped out of mainstream government schools. The general atmosphere was one of controlled chaos as the children lined up to be prodded and poked, have their chests listened to and their ears inspected. Because they were living in such close quarters and there were a good few cases of scabies and likely cases of worms we prescribed a blanket treatment for both conditions. Other than that I am pleased to inform that they were mostly in pretty good health and after their check-ups and a little lecture in hygiene and infectious disease from the Indian doctor they treated us all to a few rousing Indian songs complete with hand clapping. The lyrics of course were wasted on the English medical students, Alan and myself but the sentiment was lovely. After they had finished they demanded that we also sing… after a brief team huddle to discuss our options we went for “heads, shoulders, knees and toes” followed by “if you’re happy and you know it” both of which I feel went down splendidly with plenty of joining in from the kids.

Right then this must be far too much chat for now! I will write again soon and tell you all about the trip Alan and I made to Cochin. Until then much love.

A x

As an illustration of this episode of blog I could not resist this snap which Alan took of me doing an examination on a young school kid. In case you are wondering I was trying to encourage her to stick her tongue out and say "Ahh", leading by example!

Magic and green medicine

One of the aspects of the health care which I have great respect for here is the willingness of the hospital staff to be open to traditional medicine. When I first came here as a medical student in 2007 they were at that time discussing having an Ayurvedic doctor on staff. As I am certain that I have mentioned before he was one of the very first people that I met here and a very interesting guy. Splitting his time between teaching in Bangalore and practicing here he has a wonderful passion for his craft and for the tribal way of life. Part of what I find fascinating about Ayurveda is the holistic approach which it has. This type of medicine is not considered as just some compound which can distilled down and handed to you in a pill, it includes all aspects of your life and everything you do with or put into your body whether it be the food you eat, your activity levels or the way you react in certain situations.

In some ways I think traditional medicines work well here because the population are so much more clued in to their natural rhythms and the cycles of nature than the average city dweller. One very florid example of this is the fact that on full moons there are a significantly larger number of tribal babies delivered in the hospital. When I was first told this I scoffed slightly. I figured that this could not really be the case but I must admit that I have noticed the correlation myself. On a normal day/night we might deliver one or perhaps two babies. On a full moon I have delivered up to five in a 24 hour period.

Even though I am open minded about Ayurveda I do like to tease our doctor here and occasionally question his pearls of wisdom. For example you should not mix bananas with dairy products because this creates a sort of “slow poison”. Even if this is true I refuse to believe it mainly because I am a massive fan of banana milkshake! It also appears to me that almost anything in Ayurveda either contains honey or can be mixed with it. I am less concerned about this and far more likely to agree with it mainly because I like honey, a lot.

In the last week our wonderful Ayurvedic doctor has agreed to take us for some Yoga classes at the request of the medical students. I have done a bit of Yoga in the UK with a really lovely instructor who is also a friend of mine so I was not too nervous to join in even though there was quite a lot of hospital staff coming along. It was really great and I am glad that I joined them. Very simple actions and certainly not straining myself at all but I must admit that after a few sessions my muscles and joints felt very grateful for the stretch out.

Over all I feel that natural medicines can be a very positive part of the healing process although not necessarily advisable on their own. Today an elderly lady came in three weeks after a fall onto an outstretched hand. At the time she had broken her wrist but instead of coming to the hospital had gone to a natural doctor in the village who had wrapped it in a very tight herbal compress. Unfortunately this means that now the bones have partially fused in a "dinner fork" deformity which will in all likelyhood permanently effect her functioning. The message here is that we don't want people to stop using their natural medicines altogether, only that we would rather use them in symphony with what we can offer rather than instead of.

The lovely Alan arrived in India last week so in my next blog entry I will be telling you all about his visit so far. I am referring to it euphemistically as a holiday although for a large proportion of the time it has involved me bringing him along to work with me...

Anyway lots of love and catch up soon.

A x

Hope you like the pic, Alan managed to capture this little guy on film. Sometimes life is not fair, I am here for 6 months and within a week Al has a better kingfisher photo than me!

The time has come the Walrus said...

There are many things which life can be said to be, but surely predictable is not one of them. Perhaps too it should be noted that I am not the best at predicting things if my track record is anything to go by. Although in all fairness I think that nobody could have predicted the course of events leading to my premature return home from India.

It is however an inescapable fact that “whatever will be, will be” and at the moment England and to be more specific my family needs me far more than India does! How do I feel about this? Well to limit it solely to my opinions on India and my time here I must admit I am feeling very philosophical about the situation. I have had the most unbelievable time here and I have learnt so much about such a diverse number of topics from medicine, surgery and obstetrics to Indian culture, friendship, cooking and just being. I know for a fact that the door is always open for me to return here, that much has been made clear to me. This small patch of India will always be a home for me as long as it is home to my wonderful friends. I have plenty of work to be getting on with related to the hospital and the projects I have started here and I fully intend to continue my quest to speak Tamil in a comprehendible manner!

What this does mean though is that there are many things which I intended to write about but somehow didn’t find time yet which I will now be endeavouring to convey to you. As a sort of pre-warning you don’t have to try and keep up. You really don’t have to read it all if it becomes boring but I just want to get it down on metaphorical paper so that one day if I decided to read this back I could think to myself “oh yes that happened, I had totally forgotten”.

I will be leaving the country in less than three weeks and I find myself thinking back to all of my friends who have come and gone in the last 6 months. For those of them who had been here a while the last few weeks were always a mixed bag of emotions and I have had the discussion with more than one person about what they will miss the most. For me there are so many things I know I will miss.

Being a girl who is often led by her stomach the food is going to be one of the things I miss the most. Idli for example, small fermented rice dumplings shaped something like flying saucers. When I first arrived I was really not too keen on them especially at breakfast time but now I absolutely love them. Served with Sambar (lentil curry) and coconut chutney there is no finer way to start the day. Dhosa, the savoury pancakes that are also often served for breakfast sometimes thin and crisp sometimes soft and light will also be something I will be sad to live without. Egg curry, Pongal (a sort of rice based thick porridge) chapatti, Raita, paisum (a bit like spiced rice pudding) the list of food that I will miss eating on a regular basis is a long one.

It is also worth me pointing out that it will not only be the food itself that I miss but our wonderful housekeeper and chef at the doctor’s hostel. As well as being skilled in the kitchen she is also just a truly lovely person. Always smiling and with this wonderful musical sing song laugh. She really looks after me and makes sure I eat well, and plenty! I think to be honest she has to at least partly share the blame for the slight pot belly I have developed. Here is an example. When I go out on my field visits she always packs me a tiffin box with lunch in it, Chapatti and some veg curry or egg. Earlier in the year we had a slight disagreement about this packed lunch. Well maybe disagreement is too strong a word. It was a negotiation and not one which my waistline did particularly well out of. I said that three chapattis for lunch was too many, I am only little I reasoned, surely three of the circular breads and a portion of curry was too much. She looked unconvinced but the next time she made me packed lunch I was pleased to note only two chapattis. I was content and assumed this was the matter sorted. However when I went to the field later that week she gave me a cheeky grin and said “two chapattis and one very small chapatti” true to her word on that occasion the third chapatti was petite but I knew at that point that I had lost the negotiation process. In subsequent packed lunches I have enjoyed three full size chapattis. She is a wonderful woman and like so many Indian matriarchs she is a force to be reckoned with. If she tells me to eat, I eat and it is always extremely tasty!

So you may well ask why in a piece of writing considering what I will miss I have chosen to talk to you about food and not for example my friends here. I go on about them all the time surely they will be what I miss most of all? Well actually I beg to differ. The people who I have met here and who I have shared my time with are amazing people, wonderful, intelligent, funny, kind and caring people. But I have no intention of missing them. Far from it my current plan is to keep in touch so well that I have no cause to miss them. Not just the people who remain here in India but also the people who have now moved on, be it to other areas of the country or back to their native lands. So if you are reading this and you fall into that category be warned, I have no intention of losing your friendship.

Well I feel this is enough chat for now. I am already planning my next dispatch from India! I want to tell you a little bit about the traditional medicine that we use to complement our practice here. It’s a topic that I find really rather interesting and if you fancy reading about it then please do join me next time folks!

Lots of love,

A x

With all this talk of food I figured I would treat you all to a photo of us cooking poori, most things taste good when deep fried and these bad boys are no exception.

I am rubber you are glue...

Hello there, this is just a super quick entry, and if I am honest just an excuse for me to show you a picture that I liked. Basically the driver who picked me up from the airport in Kerala as well as wanting to improve my tamil skills (we spent the whole journey practicing conversational tamil) was also really keen to share with me some of the more interesting sights along the journey. One of which was Rubber trees! So here it is a picture of real India Rubber being harvested from the tree. I hope you like it, I think its pretty cool!

Much love,

A x

Delhi Belly

So my month in the UK flew by in a bit of a flash, lots of frantic socialising and spending time with all you lovely people. However this is a blog about my adventures in India so the story picks up again as I return to that wonderful country of elephants, spices and monsoon rains.

I got my flight back to India on the 28^th, leaving Heathrow again I was excited at the prospect of seeing my Indian friends and I was looking forward to getting back into the routines of my life in the small Tamil Nadu town I think of as home. However I must admit that I was also filled with a slight trepidation.  Perhaps even more than a slight reluctance to leave my family again so soon and with certain things feeling unsettled and up in the air.

On arriving at the airport I was told that I had been upgraded to club class, I don’t know about you but I have never in my life before flown anything other than economy. Well I thought to myself, I might not be worry free but at least I am going back in some style! The flight was lovely but uneventful, my seat was more comfortable than most beds that I have slept in recently and I was out like a light for almost the entire trip. Now some of you may not know this but my primary destination on arriving in India was not the south! I know it is shocking to admit but I actually went to the north of India. Why I hear you chorus? Well actually it was for a obstetrics and gynaecology basic practical skills course held in Delhi.

Delhi in July, I can say with some confidence was the most sticky and humid place I have ever visited. It was very similar to that sensation of walking into a butterfly house or the glass houses in botanical gardens. The air is hot and wet. I arrived after 11pm and still there was not an inkling of cool breeze. The muggy night air enveloped me and I greeted India with a fresh gleam of sweat on my brow.

I was met at the airport by a really sweet driver who I had arranged via my hotel and despite having worried about being a female traveller alone in the big city I am very happy to report that in the two days and three nights that I was in Delhi I never once felt threatened. After a comfortable night in my hotel I headed off to the course. Unsure of how far the course venue was and how to get there I decided to take a taxi, not too expensive at only 250 Rupees and worth it as I was already running late. The driver I am again pleased to report was a lovely man and although he didn’t know any better than I did really where to find the training institute we muddled through and eventually got there. I only had 220 rupees in small notes on me or alternatively a 1000 rupee note. The driver looked at me a little concerned, obviously he had no change. I had agreed the price with his boss before getting in the taxi and I got the impression that if he went back without the full fare there might be trouble, but it is a testament to the trusting culture in India that he agreed to take the 220 rupees on the promise that if he came to my hotel that evening I would give him the balance.

The course itself was really good, nice to be learning again and meeting some lovely obstetrics and gynaecology doctors from all over India. I was as usual a bit of a novelty, being white and British. It is going to seem strange when I move back to the UK full time not to be considered exotic! As one of the course co-ordinators said to me I was their first example of course tourism.

I decided to take the Metro back after the course and I am sure I have said it before but I will certainly say it again, the Delhi metro is really rather wonderful. Cheap, safe and air conditioned it even has women only carriages for all those independent women. The only amusing thing is that to get into it you have to pass through something akin to airport security. Although I suppose in a country where terrorist attacks are a very real danger this is not such a surprise. My favourite sign at the entrance to the metro by a mile is the one explaining what you cannot bring with you. This includes, and I am being totally serious,  manure (of any kind), rags (including oily rags), Human remains and any decayed animal or vegetable matter. For some reason this just tickles me, especially the need to be so specific. As though there was a person in the queue who thought “well I know it says no rags but surely these oily rags are ok?”.

Anyway I made it back to my hotel safe and sound without transporting any manure at all (of any kind). I was just meandering through the streets wondering what to do next when I spied my driver from the morning. He looked happy to see me and was such a gentleman that I really had to be quite forceful in my encouragement before he would allow me to tip him the princely sum of 10 rupees.

All in all it was a very pleasant trip and after the two day course I packed myself up and headed back down south with a much improved opinion of them up north. It really is great to be back in India although as I hinted at earlier things back in England are a bit worrying at the moment (not a subject that I need to go into on this blog) so I might need to cut my stay a little shorter than anticipated. All the more reason in my opinion to write plenty while I am still here and make the most of it!

So to cut a long story extremely short expect more blogs from me in the short term, I will be attempting to capture it all in writing in shorter period of time. That is a lot of shorts in one sentence but there you have it!

With as always all my love and best wishes.

A x

Curry in a cold climate

So it is almost time for me to make the big trip back to India and I haven’t even finished telling you all about what happened before I left. Its official I am a bad blogger! Totally out of date! Anyway to try and rectify the situation here is a brief run-down of how I spent my last week in India before returning to our English summer. Where I left off Lucy and I were having an excellent and very relaxed time doing very little apart from enjoying the pace of life in rural India and each other’s company.

To be honest that is what we did spend a lot of the time doing looking back on it. On a couple of occasions we had to break from the self-imposed chill out to do something entertaining or practical but we tried to keep this at a minimum.

 In order for me to actually leave the country however there was at least one very practical thing which we could not get away without doing and that was travelling up to Ooty to apply for and collect my visa exit permit! Ooty as I have told you all before is our nearest hill station up in the blue mountains. Full of slightly decaying imperial Englishness, coach parties of Indian tourists and more than a few dead rats. When I first went to Ooty I thought it was awful, massively over hyped by the guide books and generally more than a bit unpleasant. As a town it is a bit of a crumbling mass of concrete buildings with very little in the way of architectural merit. Doubtless the surrounding scenery and countryside is stunning but so is a lot of the region and I never felt that Ooty itself was much of a draw. My opinion I must say has changed. In between the nondescript concrete buildings I now notice more of the eccentric old and higgledy piggledy  brick building with their warped and wobbly tiled roofs. I like the slightly hyped up over excitement of the Indian holiday makers, as long as it’s not high season obviously that is just too extreme. I like the obvious pride that Ooty takes in its little gems of tourist attractions, the bee museum, the massive botanical gardens, the charming little mountain railway on which you can tootle along to Cooinoor, the next hillstation on the line.

I am sure that some of my affection for Ooty is related to the fact that compared to my little back-of –beyond adopted Indian home town you can get a lot more creature comforts and exotic food, for example good quality chocolate and western style cheese. Not something one bothers about when you have only been in India a few weeks but I must admit after five months I was rather excited to sit in Café Coffee Day, a large Indian chain of coffee shops and drink Choccacino while polishing off some very sweet snacks (as me and Lucy did on a number of occasions).

The main thing to mention about Ooty apart from the chocolate is that it is cold. Really blimmin cold. As the bus climbs up the mountains towards its destination you find yourself slowly layering on more and more woollens. This creates a very amusing branch of Indian fashion which I like to refer to as the Ooty look. Many layers of chunky knit wool, waterproofs in rainy season, the obligatory umbrella topped off with some variety of slightly mismatched head wear, preferably slightly comedy earmuffs or a sort of woollen bonnet specific to the region! I love it.

On our trips to Ooty we did I feel make the most of it, we went to the bee museum (highly recommended), the botanical gardens (where we were photographed by a large number of over excited Indian holidaymakers) and even took a trip on the mountain railway. We only went as far as Cooinoor but it was lovely. We stayed in the YWCA which although run by slightly intimidating people (long story) is certainly clean and comfy and joy of joy had hot water! After months of cold water washing I ran myself a bucket of water to wash in that was so hot I ended up clean but looking very similar to cooked lobster.

All in all our adventures to Ooty were rather lovely in a cold and damp way, a little bit of proper old fashioned tourist fun. Slightly reminiscent of the faded glamour of the average little forgotten English sea side town but with crazy Indian over the top ness for added effect.

This little reminiscence is all I have time for now which is a shame because I wanted to tell you about the elephant ride. Ah well perhaps another time but until then much love and ever yours sincerely,

A x

So to make up for the lack of telling you all about my wonderful elephant ride, here are some pictures!

Getting "on board"

Prime position

Enjoying the view from the Ooty toy train.

 

Disneyland India

Hello all you lovely people. Well it feels like its been a long holiday for me since mid June when my lovely friend of many years came to visit me in the small town in south India which has become my home. This post is a little reminiscence for me about the couple of weeks that we spent out and about in the Nilgiri hills.

I had decided to head down to the bustling metropolis of Mysore to meet her. Partly for the sake of a pleasant feeling of symmetry, the first time I came to India in 2007 the very same friend had come out to visit me and we had met on the lawns of a the beautiful hotel we were staying in. Almost four years on we had booked a room in the same hotel, a restored colonial era palace for the princesses of Mysore currently run as a eco friendly luxury hang out spot. In a perfect re-enactment of our prior visit we met once again in the garden restaurant, both terribly happy to see each other in such exotic surroundings.

The 24 hours we spent in Mysore itself was a lovely haze of meandering around what seemed like our personal palace and gardens catching up on each others news. One particular high point was our Sunday evening trip to the city palace illuminations. Built in 1912 Mysore palace is a serious caricature of fairytale wonderment, when lit up in the evenings with its 96,000 glowing bulbs it looks unbelievably disneyfied.

I have added a photo taken while we were there to illustrate my point because I am sure you would otherwise think it an exaggeration.

The next day we tootled around the rather charming city itself, enjoying the  feeling of being tourists. I managed to spend more than a week or two of my average indian living costs on some truly lovely Mysore silk but hey, its an investment right? Then we finally clambered aboard the bus to make our way back to our little rural out posting. Eyes pealed along they way as we bumped our way through the wild life park, eager for the inevitable glimpses of deer, monkeys and elephants.

By happy coincidence there was a dinner party that night at the lovely home of our senior doctors,  a great opportunity for my school friend to meet all of the many and varied friends I have been lucky enough to accumulate in my time in India. From the long standing permanent members of society here to the newest batch of charming British medical elective students! Also a wonderful opportunity for us to enjoy the fabulous Indian home cooking to which I have grown so accustomed.

As we strolled home across the fields later on, navigating by thin beams of torch light through the treacly darkness that you only really get in the countryside, it occurred to me that it was really rather wonderful to be able to spend time with my oldest and my newest friends at once. I had been a little worried that it may not seem like enough of a holiday for my English visitor, as I was not planning to take much time out from my hospital duties. But on airing my concerns I was glad to realise that actually for her the quiet and beautiful green mountains outside her windows and the knowledge that work was very far away in england was likely to be holiday enough!

So it began, our rambling and relaxing and not terribly busy holiday. A lot of the time it just involved the very simple enjoyment of each others company and a cup of very sweet indian tea. However in my next post I will tell you a few of the more exciting things we got up to, including our visits to the very chilly hill station Ooty and our rather wonderful elephant ride.

Until then all my love,

A x

June Monsoon

Hi all you lovely people, so here is a catch up on what happened to during last month in India, that is to be precise the month of June.

June was when we suddenly all became very soggy in my particular green valley in the Nilgiri hills. It is something that I have never experienced before, the coming of a Monsoon. Everyone spoke about it for the weeks leading up, speculation on which day it would hit. Now for those of you like me who have lived the majority of their lives in Britain may in fact like me feel sceptical about the sudden coming of rains. In my corner of south west England we get at least our fair share of rain but seasons tend to gradually melt into one another. The spring slowly starts to warm your cockles, the summer arrives with its fair and sunny days but still the smattering of rain showers, you notice the nights drawing in and the air getting crisp and its autumn, the first frost of winter can snap and crackle but you will still get the occasional warmer ray of sun. Well in India it is a little different.

One day the skies are startlingly blue and you are sweating in the heat then before you even have a chance to think to yourself "gosh that cloud over there looks a bit ominous" woosh, it is quite literally like a tap being turned on above. I have never in all my time in the UK, even when I lived in Plymouth which is a pretty damp sort of city, found occasion to purchase an umbrella. But within the first day or two of the monsoon I hotfooted it up to town and purchased a rather fetching purple one.

Suddenly the forests are even greener than before, more green than I could have imagined. When the sun shines out from behind the cloud and catches the damp leaves rippling in the stormy winds it takes your breath away. The small stream in the valley which runs along past the hospital has swelled to a river and at night if the rain stops long enough I can lean out of my window and hear it roaring past.

During June as well as enjoying the sudden contrast in weather I also noticed a small change in myself. My Tamil skills are developing, still at a rather slow pace but I feel also that perhaps my clinical confidence has grown. Early in June I was caring for a woman in labour, it was her first child and she was coping well despite a very slow labour and what on palpation seemed to be a rather good size baby. The labour progressed all be it slowly and with an episiotomy and little bit of cheerleading when the time came she delivered a beautiful baby boy at the healthy birth weight of 3kg.

The problem arose after the placenta was delivered. In some ways it was similar to the monsoon, I knew that a few aspects of her case made her high risk for bleeding after delivery, the long labour, a well grown baby and a big placenta but I was still surprised when she started to lose blood. Her uterus didn't contract well and after a small pause, like the calm before the storm, she started to bleed. And I surprised myself to be honest, that with the assistance of the incredibly competent nurses I dealt with it. My first post partum haemorrhage that I have managed without another doctor in the hospital. After a flurry of activity, some medications, some common sense measures the tap was turned off and we controlled the bleeding. Once she was stable I phoned the senior obstetric doctor, this was late in the evening by this point. She was really supportive and it was great to hear that we had done the right stuff, she had a few other pieces of advice but overall we had done a good job.

The final note on the story is that when the time came for the lady and her very adorable baby to be discharged she came to see me at the hospital mess where I was having my 11 o'clock incredibly sweet cup of tea (a daily routine). She gave me this amazing smile and a little palms together greeting as is the tradition and in one way or another through our scrambled languages she told me that she was leaving, but that she was grateful for me being there for her and I hope I managed to convey how glad I was that she was well and that I had been able to help.

Anyway needless to say I was grinning from ear to ear all day. This is the end of my blog for now, leaving on a high. I will write again soon to let you know all the news about my wonderful visit from one of my oldest friends. Oh and I promise it will come with pictures!

Lots of love,

A x

What is yet to come

So it has been a while since I last wrote. Mostly because the charger for my computer has gone caput and this has made internet access in India more of a challenge! In the intervening time plenty has occurred in my little corner of India and I am now writing to you from the living room in Zenobia Mansions, safely back in the UK for my summer break.

My plan is to write a few catch up blogs to fill you in on the gap, namely the majority of June! So this is really a blog to explain that other blogs are on the way. Something I have noticed about myself since starting to write the blog is that I spend a lot of time thinking of titles, so here are a few to whet your appetite before the real deal!

June Monsoon- a little about the weather and a few cases from the hospital.

Disneyland India- in which my lovely friend Lucy arrives and we explore Mysore with its beautiful and ridiculously lit up palace.

Curry in a cold climate- The second instalment of our holiday in India.

Half term report- a short report on life so far in the Indian sub continent and what is happening next..

COMING SOON TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU...

Alice x

p.s. As this is a rather short posting I thought I would take the opportunity of adding a few photos, just to keep you all sweet.

A frog, no reason just because I liked him.

Another classic monsoon pic, brightly coloured truck in a flooded Keralan field.

Stomp stomp, Chomp chomp

Hello just a quick report on a rather exciting early morning visitor I had last Sunday. I was sleeping soundly in my little bed at around four in the morning and I heard a noise from outside the window. Normally a very deep sleeper I was surprised to find myself awake while it was still dark outside and at first in my sleepy state couldn't work out what had happened. The noise that had woken me continued. Stomping and chomping. My first guess was that this was some wandering herd of wild boar, not an infrequent occurrence however this seemed a lot louder. I gave in to my curiosity and dragged myself out of bed.

Standing there, directly outside my window, was a large elephant. I was more than a little surprised. When I had come to terms with this I naturally decided to try and photograph the big guy. By this point however he had strolled off towards the hospital. I thought that my chance was over but he took a left turn and went into the tea plantation next to the hostel where I live. I ran to the bathroom window for a better view and just managed to capture a picture. I think he disliked the flash because he left soon after.

Waking up in the morning I assumed this must have been a rather odd dream, the product of too much curry before bed time. But on looking at my camera and the large elephant footsteps outside the house I managed to convince myself that my vision had in fact been correct. I have enclosed the photo below, an elephant outside my bathroom window attempting to hide behind some shrubbery. Notice the large tusks and glint in the eye, this rogue elephant has apparently been up to no good! According to varying reports he has stomped on between 2 and 4 people. Not an ending I would like to come to on a dark night.

Since then the general consensus is that the elephant has returned to the forest. The more dramatic of the story tellers say that he was rounded up by the tame elephants who are cared for by the elephant sanctuary and driven back. I particularly like this version of events.

Anyhow it’s all rather exciting and I have been thrilling all those who will listen with the story of the elephant sighting all week.

Aside from elephants the only really big news here is the arrival of the Monsoon, but I will tell you all about that another time. Until then lots of love to all.

A x

Answers on a postcard

This week I have been out and about on the mobile clinic again. This is always something which I find enjoyable and probably second only to spending time in the labour ward in terms of my favourite shifts.

On Monday I was out in one area surrounded by tea plantations and the health animator had brought his 11 year old daughter along. In our charity community program a health animator (for those who are unfamiliar with this slightly holiday camp sounding job title) is a health worker who is from the tribal community and instrumental looking after patients in the field at a grass roots level. While the schools are on holiday a number of them bring their kids along on field visits.

To divert off topic for a minute, this is something that I have noticed a lot during the long school break that we have been having. In our area of India it is not considered strange to bring your young children to work with you. It seems to be a great idea because it allows them to see where their parents go all day and removes the concern about paying for childcare. Although I can’t see it catching on in the UK, from my experience our young are just a little too badly behaved for this.

Anyway the point of this short anecdote, for those of you who are wondering, is that during the day there were many times when this little girl and I were left to our own devices together, one example being when her father and the driver went off into the village to recruit patients for the clinic. At these times this very sweet and self-assured young girl took the opportunity to practice her English on me, and correct my Tamil. I thought you might be interested to hear some of the questions a bright and inquisitive tribal pre-teen girl had for me.

First came all of the routine questions, what country I was from, my full family tree with names and occupations supplied for each member etc. But then came some slightly different questions.

Girl: “In your village do you see elephants?”

Me: (trying to picture large pachyderms cruising the Lustleigh cleave) “erm no we don’t have wild elephants in England”

Girl: “Oh, what animals do you have?”

Me: (trying desperately to think of some interesting animals and failing) “foxes we have… “

Girl: (trying to help me out) “and dogs?”

Me: “Yes, dogs and cats and sheep and cows”

There then followed a little discussion about whether we had puppies in England because she likes puppies, I told her about our new puppy and she seemed pleased with this information. She also wanted to know what variety of cows we had, a question I did my best to answer. The general topic then moved to clothing.

Girl: “In England do you always where a Salwar Kameez?”

Me: “no, mostly I wear skirts and tops or dresses or shirts and trousers”

Girl: (incredulous) “The girls wear trousers?”

Me: “yes quite often”

Girl: “Do you wear Saris?”

Me: “no, not really”

Girl: (looking a little shocked) “but what do you wear when you get married?”

There then followed me trying to explain U.K. wedding dresses, an endeavour which ended up including a rather poorly drawn illustration. “Ah” she said knowingly at the end of this “you wear a frock!” and I guess we do usually. After this she told me a little about her grandfather’s house which was surrounded on all sides by tea and asked me what food grew near where I was from.

Me: (thinking of the two lovely fruit trees in our garden) “We have apples”

Girl: “and bananas?”

Me: “no, we can’t grow bananas in England it’s too cold”

This won me a seriously sympathetic look from her. At the time I thought to myself that it was sweet and naive of her to imagine bananas sprouting in the green and often rather cold climate of the U.K. Although later on I told this anecdote to one of the Indian doctors here and he said “oh you can’t grow bananas at home?” and it made me realise that things that I take for granted are not necessarily particularly common knowledge. Yes we have no bananas!

The conversation then turned to our houses, where they big? (Yes sometimes), did they have grass roofs? (also a yes sometimes, thinking of the thatched cottages in our village at home). Did we have rivers in England? (Oh yes certainly) did we bathe in them? For this I was stumped for an answer. If she meant swimming then the answer was yes, in the summer we would often go to a river for a dip, however many people here in India bathe more literally in the rivers, with soap and shampoo and a towelling down at the end of it. I tried to ask her what she meant but she hadn’t heard the English word “Swimming” before so we got a bit stuck.

The last thing she asked before the clinic started really made me chuckle.

Girl: (pointing at my freckles) “what happened to your arms?”

Well I tried my best but how do you explain freckles to someone who has never come across them before?

Until next time then, lots of love from one very freckled lady far away from home.

A x

Rat Curry...

There is a rat living in the refrigerator. The fridge in question is the one situated in the doctors’ hostel where I live. The rat in question is a medium sized pale brown fellow.

A couple of days ago I had stored half an avocado in the aforementioned fridge to eat later and when I went across to retrieve it the rat was just sitting in the little shelf in the fridge door. Needless to say I was a little taken aback and I emitted a noise so shrill that (when they realised what had happened) the people in the next room asked if it was me or the rat which had squeaked. I was ashamed to report that it was in fact me.

At first we thought that perhaps the rat was just visiting the fridge but evidence actually points towards it inhabiting it in a more long term fashion, it obviously likes the air conditioned lifestyle. With this knowledge last night I was making a cup of tea. The milk was in the fridge and I knew at some point I would have to open the door however I could hear the little tyke in there rummaging around eating his dinner (previously our dinner). Strange as it now sounds my method of dealing with this seemed very natural at the time. I knocked on the door of the fridge to allow the fridge dweller time to scurry into his hole. We assume he lives in the lining of the fridge while not at dinner. It was only in retrospect that it seemed a little odd to be knocking before opening the door to my own fridge, but there you have it.

Anyway the housekeeper/ cook who runs our hostel like a very tight ship indeed has now been informed and seeing as the first line of management (i.e. a full clean out of the fridge with more rat tight vessels) has failed it would appear our old fridge’s days are somewhat numbered!

On the topic of food and our lovely cook it happens to be her day off today so without further ado I am off into town to buy some ingredients to cook dinner. I have some vague plan to attempt Thai Green curry and I will let you know how I get on, I may even supply pictures!

Hope you like this short rat based report. Lots of love to everyone at home and I look forward to seeing you when I visit England in the summer, less than 6 weeks now!
A x

p.s.

I feel that this note deserves a post script to tell you all how events panned out.

When I suggested to my friend, the other junior doctor here, that I cook for a change his eyes lit up and he enquired whether the recipe was going to involve some meat. Both he and the other doctor currently staying in quarters are omnivorus and like a bit of "non-veg" when they get the chance. Here in our fully vegetarian doctors mess that chance is not frequent.

At first I was a little bit nervous about this, I am not a big meat eater at the best of times and I have seen the chicken stalls in town and to be frank they don’t look too sanitary. But my friend knew a place where he said the chicken was good and we agreed on a chicken Thai green curry. I said that if he could it would be better to get chicken breast and preferably boneless. Just enough for three people was the plan. What he brought back from the chicken stall was almost one entire chicken which had been plucked, skinned and then attacked with a very large knife. Ribcage, heart, lungs, neck all were present and anatomically intact enough to be recognised.  When I recovered from my shock I was in some ways quite impressed at the way that nothing from the chicken is wasted in India, unlike in the UK where sterile looking battery farm chicken breasts reach the general public in little Styrofoam dishes covered in Clingfilm. However this didn’t solve my problem that we had way too much chicken.  

Luckily my side of the shopping had also gone a little differently to my original plan. Buying small quantities in India is difficult bordering on impossible and I had way too much of all the other ingredients too. So I just cooked what we had and the final product was enough Thai green curry to feed a small army. Doing our best to remove the bones we ate our fill and there was still plenty left. So we sent one large tiffin box full down to the nurses in the hospital (Tribal people being generally non-vegetarians it went down quite well) and saved enough for our housekeeper and her assistant to eat it the next day. Interestingly despite the fact they run a completely vegetarian kitchen they both cook and eat meat at home. The feedback I received was constructive and not entirely critical, all I needed it seems was to add more salt, more pepper, and more chillis!

On the fridge invader front our little friend has been evicted along with his old pad and a brand new shiny refrigerator is now standing pride of place in the kitchen. Generally speaking a good result, although perhaps not for the rat and certainly not for the chicken.

 I forgot to photograph the curry so instead here is a photo of a very handsome rooster from one on the villages. I felt it was a fitting accompaniment!

About Time

When I was living in England time felt mostly linear. It was a flowing river of minutes hours and days from here to there (wherever there was). Occasionally a long stretch at work or a complicated shift pattern (especially one involving nights) would warp it somewhat, telescoping from one island of relative freedom (be it weekend or holiday) to another. I would be busy caught up in something and the little raft signifying my concept of “now” would rush along the river, days passing without me realising.

Here in India my already slightly vague concept of time has been shaken significantly. Having heard and read other westerner’s experiences in India this is by no means an unusual experience. India rushes along from day to day, week to week with sun rising and setting, moons wax and wane like any other country but time itself does not seem to be as firmly set as other places, particularly in comparison to the U.K. It does not run from A to B.

Some people explain this Indian concept of time as cyclical. When you consider the widespread Hindu belief if reincarnation you can understand why time might go in circles. From birth through childhood to the point in adulthood when you have your own children, then old age and grandchildren, then death and ultimately rebirth, forever looping around into infinity.

To our tribal population, even more than most Indians, time is an abstract concept. A very practical example of this is if you ask the age of a tribal patient. At best you get a general answer which you can almost guarantee is a guess. The woman glances around at her young children and pronounces herself 25, or the girl who has just got married tells you she is 19 (although she looks about 15). More often you just get a blank stare as though you were asking “what is the square root of 47?” age to them is entirely irrelevant. Traditionally birthdays are not celebrated, or even known about. Although there is no shortage of calendars to follow here with the western, the Tamil and the Malayalam months running at different times they really don’t care much for dates. So you might ask a mother when her baby was born and rather than getting a day and month she will say “just after the neighbour had her baby” or “before the last rainy season”. Very often I will be trying to ascertain the duration of a patient’s symptoms and stumble into trouble with the timings. I ask a patient with fever how many days he has had it and he answers “night time”. At first I thought it was my rather dubious linguistic skills but even the doctors who are fluent seem to find it difficult to pin down time periods.

I must admit in some ways this relaxed attitude to time can be quite appealing. So here are a couple of interesting things which have happened recently and I haven’t placed them in any particular time order.

So here is something I found interesting while at work. A visiting paediatric surgeon came to do a day’s surgery at the hospital. Unfortunately as staff levels are low I was needed in the outpatient’s clinic for much of the day but luckily I got to sneak down and watch a bit of the action. There was one young boy having a small lump excised from the corner of his eyelid. At first when examined in clinic this was thought to be a dermoid cyst (a benign lump usually containing skin cells) but at the time of operation it was not behaving like a dermoid would and the surgeon said that in his opinion it was likely to be a cyst due to a parasite infection. Perhaps not everyone’s idea of something exciting but I thought it was cool. Being here has really made me realise how interesting infectious disease is, especially all the tropical stuff. At the moment our small hospital is just developing a microbiology lab. It's going to be really great when it is up and rumming properly and I feel like it will make such a huge difference to our antimicrobial prescribing practice.

Now for something completely different, here is something I got up to outside of work. Our friend at work who just got married finally came back from his honeymoon. Of course we were all very excited to see him and meet his lovely new wife, so there have been lots of lovely dinner parties! This for me means lots of exciting opportunities to eat lovely food while chatting with friends. For one of the parties we made a pudding which one of my friends adapted from a magazine clipping. We took a large amount of fruit and liquidised it to a pulp (mango and banana because they are in season) added equal quantities of cream and milk powder, enough sugar to make it sweet and some milk to get a good consistency then put it all in the fridge to chill. Once it was really cold we topped it off with pomegranate seeds and chopped almonds, it was really great.

So this is a really long letter and I hope you are not too bored. Thinking of you all at home obviously and missing you and wishing you well. I will write again soon perhaps if there is some good fruit at home you could try an adaptation of the recipe, when I get home I want to make something similar but put it into the ice cream maker, I bet that would be awesome.

Lots of love

A x

p.s. here is a photo I took in Cochin a while ago of a nice tree, I know its not recent but I like it and as we are talking about a lack of concept of time I thought it was a good opportunity to sneak in a less up to date pic.

One man's trash

According to the saying one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now I am not certain how true a statement this is but it occurs to me that in the UK we don’t think about our rubbish enough. Speaking from personal experience when I am at home I produce a lot of garbage, scraps of paper, food wrapping, plastic bags, bottles and cans etc. I try to recycle what I can but a lot still goes into black bin liners for collection by the council. The problem here in India is that, at least where I live, there doesn’t seem to be a particular system for waste collection. You have no option but to think about your rubbish because it is still very much surrounding you.

I remember the first time I noticed this on my original trip about three and a half years ago. I saw an elderly woman stooped over sweeping up all the rubbish outside the old hospital. She swept it all together into a pile and then, much to my surprise at the time, just dumped it over the wall into the neighbours’ front yard. I presume what happened next was that the neighbours just swept it up again and delivered it straight back, although I can’t be sure.

Today one of the other doctors mentioned to me that the nurses were going to clear up the big pile of rubbish just outside the front gate of the new hospital. I decided to come and lend a hand. The nurses gave me a pair of gloves and we got cracking. It stank. It was an enormous pile of all sorts of household waste. The plan appeared to be to collect all the plastic so we set about it with gusto. We had a big black bag and before long it was full to the brim with all types of plastic junk. The whole expedition had a slight air of holiday about it in some strange way and I barely had time to wonder to myself what was going to happen to all the other rubbish that wasn’t plastic ie all the paper, cardboard, cloth etc when my question was answered. It was shoved into a pile and set alight. Although not ideal this did add even more jollity to the gathering and a degree of risk as it was decided after a short discussion that the fire needed assistance and petrol was sent for.

I can’t deny that fire is fun but it does make you think a little about waste in general. Can we really as a world go on producing as much nonsense as we do and just chucking it away when we don’t want it? It might be quite shocking for me to see a pile of rubbish being burnt in the street (a very common sight here) but really is it any different to our attitude to much of our rubbish at home? We have our landfills and incinerators we just don’t happen to deal with it in such plain view. It is the classic western philosophy of “out of sight out of mind”. I was happy to hear that the plastic at least would be taken to a man in town who does recycling and I do think that trying to clean up our immediate area in a good step in the right direction but there is such a mountain to climb, not just in developing countries but all over the world when it comes to waste disposal and perhaps more importantly minimising the amount of waste in the first place.

Right then, I am off to take a shower because I smell like the bottom of a bin.

Love to you all.

A x

P.S. Sorry about these two blogs going up at the same time but such is the way with my rather erratic internet, I tend to just write when I feel like it and upload whenever I can. Also sorry that there is no photo but I figured that a photo of a rubbish heap might be rather unpleasant.

A week of weddings part 2

So I managed to entirely miss the Royal Wedding, although a group of the UK students did manage to find a TV to watch it on and the lovely Indian lady hosting them even provided tea and biscuits, very British indeed. I must admit I am not too heartbroken at missing the full coverage. I have seen a few photos and that is enough for even the most girly and wedding obsessed sides of my personality. Yes she looked lovely on her wedding day but when it comes down to it most women do look pretty nice on the day of that particular life event.

The wedding that I did experience in full glory on Wednesday however was a slightly different affair (although needless to say the bride looked very lovely indeed). The event I am referring to was the tribal wedding of one of our wonderful nursing staff, which I was lucky enough to attend.

The difference in the style of wedding was quite marked from the outset, starting with my invitation. No gold lettering on embossed ivory card, I was invited in a much simpler and arguably more personal way. Sat here at the desk upstairs in the hospital last week I looked up from whatever work I was doing on my computer to see two of the nurses standing in front of me. The nurse who spoke the better English pointed at her friend and said “Alice Doctor, next week she is getting married. You are coming” this was certainly not a question, more of a statement.

True to this statement I did attend her wedding and I am really glad that I did. I was not the only westerner in attendance with all of the medical students, the girl volunteering at the school and a Dutch social work student here on holiday all joining in. We piled into a big hire car and made the journey early in the morning to the bride’s village. The wedding ceremony was not a traditional tribal one as we might have expected but actually a variation on the Hindu wedding. Short and sweet the whole thing was over quite early. There was just some blessings, the tying of a thread loosely around the brides neck, a chance for us all to throw a small palmful of blessed rice at the couple and then the main event with the bridegroom leading his bride three times around the fire in the full view of the community. Short as it was it was really rather lovely and the bride looked amazing in her red sari and copious jasmine flowers woven through her hair.

After the ceremony itself there was a selection of tribal dances performed for us guests. Every song in their culture has a different dance with unique dance steps performed in a circle around a ceremonial lamp. The music is provided by the clacking sound of the lengths of wood which they hold in each hand and hit together to produce a rhythm. There is something about it which I must admit made me think of Morris dancers at an English fete. Although to be honest they looked like they were having a lot more fun than the average Morris dancer. Each dance seemed to start slowly then gather more and more pace and enthusiasm, finishing with the dancers giving a final cry of joy and then standing sweaty and beaming proudly in front of the audience.

When the dancers had been persuaded that we might have had enough and every one was getting hungry tables were brought out and set in rows in the wedding tent. Always enthusiastic when it comes to food I grabbed a chair next to my friends and was fed in the first sitting. I was quite glad that I had had previous experience with south Indian Thali and therefore didn’t find eating in front of the crowd without any cutlery too daunting. First came the banana leaf, an ideal disposable plate being easily available and fully compostable, then a man with boiled water for you to wash your banana leaf and your right hand. Once you were satisfied with the cleanliness of both leaf and hand the men came around with serving dishes. A small scoop of salt and one of chilli powder in case you thought the food too bland (which in my opinion it was not and at the end of my meal the only thing remaining on the leaf was said small piles of seasoning) this was the first thing to arrive. Then poppadom, chutney, lime pickle, veg curry, samba, chickpea curry, a large pile of rice (always a major staple in the South Indian Veg Meals) curd and a banana. It was amazing. And just when I thought it couldn’t get better they brought round the payasam, a truly delicious south Indian desert which is a close relative of the rice pudding. Totally full and very happy we cleared off to leave space for the next sitting of guests, there were a lot of guests! The wedding feast felt something akin to the feeding of the five thousand but with curry not loaves and fishes.

On reflection this was one of the most genuinely lovely celebrations I have been to. So welcoming and relaxed. I think that this is what a wedding should be, in fact both of the Indian weddings I have been to although very different in many ways have a deep rooted similarity in their inclusiveness, a celebration of two families and their communities.

Anyway on that note, in the spirit of love and celebration I will leave you for now. I promise to be in touch again soon. Love.

A x

Walking the circle around the fire

Tribal dancers

A week of Weddings Part One

So the wedding season is in full swing and this week I have had the honour of being a guest at two very different weddings.

The first was the much anticipated wedding of one of the Indian doctors working in the Hospital here. He is a Catholic from Kerala and in January via many happy coincidences he was introduced to a very lovely girl from a very suitable family and they got on like the proverbial house on fire. This prompted much teasing from all of us of course as he was soon spending all evening, every evening on the phone getting to know her and after a short while planning the wedding. Forget Prince William, he really has not had a look in here in this corner of Tamil Nadu, the only wedding we were interested in was to take place on Monday 25^th of April in Cochin.

The invitations arrived amongst much excitement, well much excitement for me as this was the first formal wedding invite I had ever received. My outfit I was quite settled on, my favourite salwar kurta in orange and purple, the only concern in my eyes was what present to get the happy couple. I had big plans to find a nice gift while travelling in the North of India but for some reason nothing seemed quite right. My friend the American paediatrician and I were going to split the cost but what to get? Other friends had gone down the classic route of home wares, for example two of the guys had bought a very handsome electric kettle, but I was stumped. Eventually in true last minute style, once we had arrived in Cochin I decided upon a nice French press coffee maker from café coffee day and a pretty painted photo frame from fab india.

My little sister Harry is still in the country and because of various friend overlaps with the medical students and “oh what a small world” moments it was possible for her to come along to the wedding. Travelling down on the Sunday night meant that we all got a little much needed time to relax in beautiful fort Cochin together, friends from the charity, medical students and Harry and I. We wondered around in the ridiculous heat, thoroughly enjoying ourselves but unable to shake the slight feeling that we were in some sort of Butterfly house/ tropical botanical gardens. The air was wet and heavy and the instant you stepped outside there was a noticeable beading of sweat which would form across foreheads and top lips. Luckily we remembered some of the more chilled out hang out spots from our last visit. We had a delicious breakfast involving lots of fresh fruit at the Kashi Art Café and then after some light shopping we found our way on Harry’s recommendation to the Teapot café. If anyone is going to Cochin soon I suggest a nice cold glass of ginger sweet lime and a slice of cake. The high ceilings and relaxed atmosphere were exactly what we needed.

Fully refreshed we went to prepare ourselves for the wedding. Dressing in very elaborately embroidered salwar kurta for the ladies (yes we were a little overheated) and a strange combination of outfits for the menfolk we were with. This ranged from shirts and trousers to a Lungi worn by my lovely friend the American anthropology student. A lungi for those who don’t know (including me until recently) is the name for the traditional attire worn on the lower half by many Indian men, it consists of a length of cotton fabric wrapped around the waist and then either left to hang long down to the ankle or flipped up to create a shorter garment for coolness or ease of walking. That my friend wore this is perhaps testament to the fact that he has been in India too long, although as he pointed out it is pretty practical in the heat!

The wedding itself was in a large modern Catholic Church in Ernakulum and involved a lot of singing hymns along to what sounded suspiciously like Keyboard demos from the electric organ. The happy couple looked so ridiculously happy and well matched and although significant language barriers forbade me from actually understanding what was said it seemed to be a beautiful service. The reception was (thankfully) held in an air conditioned meeting hall nearby. It was such a relief to be somewhere cool by this point as I realised that my outfit in true Indian style had been dyed with dye that had no intention of staying on the cloth and with all the sweating I had started to go an interesting shade of purple. The reception had even more people present than the wedding itself and was a very jolly affair with everyone wandering about chatting and some pretty delicious Keralan food at the buffet counter. Before long the time had come for us to make our sleepy way homeward in the big minibus, back up into the mountains.

On eventually arriving back at the accommodation in the early hours on the morning I was a little surprised to see that my bedroom light was on. One of the medical students reminded me that on leaving there had been a power cut and I must have accidentally left the switch on. I also noticed that my window had blown open. A minor annoyance at any other time but unfortunately due to the thunder storms recently a rather epic problem. Let me explain. In spring and autumn, usually after a thunderstorm you will get termite swarms. Literally thousands of king and queen termites with wings take to the skies on one night. They happened to do this on the night I was out. Hundreds and hundreds of them attracted to the lights in my room had flown in and promptly shed their wings and started crawling around in my stuff. When I arrived home my bedroom looked like a cross between a horror movie and a biblical plague. I was stunned, I had had such a great time away but now my room was full of creepy crawlies! Unable to deal with it all on Monday night I just went to bed in a spare bed in another part of the house. When the housekeeper arrived the next day she bravely did battle with the insect hoard and I am relieved to say that my room is back to normal now.

This is a very long blog, I am tired of writing so I am certain you will be tired of reading it. I will stop here for now. Wedding fun, dying myself purple and having a plague of termites is as much as I can deal with right now. I will tell you about the second wedding in one week next time.

Lots of love.

A x

The boys looking dashing.

At the reception. 

 The Happy Couple.

The termite swarm!