Michael's Travel Blog Extravaganza Pt. 4: Bolivia

2007-06-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

Last Farewell

This will be my last post in Bolivia. I will try to post when I'm home to sum it all up. I don't know how I'll sum it up. It's hard for me to think that a year ago I was in China. So much has happened since than I don't remember it all.

I suppose it's high time I talk about public transportation which has given me wonderfully horrifying stories in the previous countries. Sadly, Bolivian transportation involves no livestock, no vehicles that will fall apart at a moments notice, and no strange hand signals indicating what part of the city you want to go to. There are three forms of city public transportation: micros (mini buses essentially), trufis (the ghanaian tro tro, just not as run down but certainly not new), and taxis, both line taxis that run a route and drop taxis that take you wherever you wish. The Bolivians have taken out the guess work of catching one of these means of transportation by wisely posting numbers and/or signs on the vehicle indicating it's route. This was much easier than in Ghana where you would either have to yell where you were going or use some crazy hand signals then wait for a taxi or tro tro to stop. The driving, although not conventionally safe doesn't keep me on the edge of my seat. Then again, I don't know if much could at this point. But traffic hear is rather tame all in all. There is, however, one quirk. In Ghana, many of the cars were imported from germany, imported being a generous word. In Bolivia, Japan supplies many of the cars here. This causes a problem because the Japanese drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right whereas Bolivians drive on the right. To adapt these japanese cars to Bolivian road rules, it is not uncommon to see a taxi with the big gap on the passenger side where the steering once was and no fixed to the left side of the car. The readouts are, of course, still on the right side.

As for my living arrangements, I stay with a lovely old woman who just became a grandmother. The house is small and quiet. She works for a hotel, far more hours than for someone her age. She is a very warm and gracious host. However, she is one of the most racist people I've ever met, but it comes across is that nice old woman sort of way... if that's at all possible. She uses the 'n' word freely and seems to have no trouble with how derogatory it is. I thought that she was possibly unaware. However, she lived in the Houston at the height of the civil rights movement and is very knowledgeable about what is PC and what is not. She also frequently blames all the troubles in the country on the natives and said that if the US government were to come and get rid of all the indigenous people, she would have no problems with it. Afterwards she gently scolds herself because she knows it's not the "right" thing to say. I find it quite funny that my roommate is a hardline liberal/vegan/hippie going to law school. She doesn't tolerate the racism so well. I let it pass, not much else I can do.

Last weekend was a holiday called San Juan (day?). Basically everyone lights off fireworks and bbqs hot dogs. Sounds familiar... Thier fireworks put out 4th of July fireworks to shame though. It wasn't quite on the scale of in India during Diwalli. And the fireworks seem better manufactured and more stable unlike some of the indian fireworks which seemed little more than a wad of gunpowder wrapped in string or cardboard with inconsistent fuses. The fireworks here in Bolivia are just MASSIVE. They have plenty of the nice fountains and cones and other small ground sparklers, but they also had roman candles and rockets. We have roman candles at home at well, often 10-15 balls per candle around a foot and a half in length. The roman candles here came up to my chin and I have no idea how many balls it fires. The rockets were attached to a dowel of equal length. They reminded me of a steroid abusing pop-bottle rocket. I doubt these could be launched out of a pop bottle. The next morning I awoke to a hazy sky and a faint smell of burned gunpowder in the air. Apparently, last year it was so bad that planes had to be grounded until well into the afternoon when visibility was good enough to take off.

Bolivian food isn't quite what I expected it to be. I foolishly thought most latino food was similar, so I basically expected a variation fo mexican food. Let's just say Bolivian cuisine isn't one of the strong points of the country. That's not to say the food is bad, just more or less bland. Which took me by surprised considering how much seasonings, spices and hervs are available. They do have some spicy sauce, but it always comes on the side. The traditional cochabamban meal is either beef patty or chicken leg with fries and rice. Bolivians may not consume a lot of spices, but they make up for it by gorging themselves on meat. I went to dinner the other day with some of the interns from the hospitals to a Churasquieria (i don't know what is means). Everyone was getting Churasco (the standard meal people get at a churasquieria), so I joined the bandwagon. There were seven of us and we got four orders of churasco. Basically, churasco is beef, lots and lots of beef. They plopped down a thick wooden cutting board in front of me with three large steaks and a small side of fries. Needless to say, I was unable to finish my steaks. It didn't help that I was having a rough battle with some bacteria in my stomach at the time. No worries. I eventually won.

That's all for now. Nothing else too exciting. I'll probably spend my last weekend buying souveniers and spending time with patty and her family. I look forward to seeing everyone when I return.

2007-06-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Riots and Protests and Demonstrations! Oh My!

This post is long overdue, I realize. I just haven't had much of anything to post about lately. That's not to say I've been bored, I've just had so many good stories in the past that my standards for literary material are a wee bit high. Also, in my last post I mixed up east and west in Bolivia. West: jungles, East: mountains.

Bolivia is a very... active place, especially among the youth. I'm not just talking about the pint sized mugging glue sniffers, but the university students like to be quite active themselves. Riots and demonstrations are no oddity here in Cochabamba. Last week the university students rioted because they were unhappy with the newly elected president of the school, there are roughly around 40-45 thousand students (I think). They damaged many of the buildings on campus, and in the surrounding area (small business owners who have no involvement whatsoever with the university goings on). There were many injuries and even a death. I fortunately was at work, unaware and didn't learn of the troubles till watching the news at lunch. The interns who I dine with daily seemed unconcerned and unsurprised, because it seems to be a frequent occurance. Why is it that university students are always the instigators in riots, demonstrations and protests?

In other news, I've spent the last two weekends in Cochabamba, for several reasons. First off, my roommate went traveling to peru a week ago and has clearly not been available for short weekends trips around the country. Secondly, I really don't know any other volunteers. I'm not too sure why I don't have the motivation to socialize with the other volunteers unlike in most countries. There aren't too many TPA organized events where I could meet and greet other volunteers and my cell phone doesn't work here, making it difficult to stay in contact with anyone. I've become quite close with an intern at the hospital, Patty (the lone english speaker at my hospital), and have spent most of my time with her and her friends and other interns. I think I enjoy making more local friends than I have in any of the other countries. I think I may also have just had my fill of 18 year old british girls. Fortunately, the cultural barrier isn't as pronounced between my bolivian friends and me as it was in the other countries. Then again, the language barrier is staggeringly large. But we still manage to laugh and joke and have a good time. Last weekend Patty invited me to attend her church and go to lunch with her family. Once again, the language barrier never ceases to be a problem, but I still muddle through and end up enjoying myself along the way. I even went to see Shrek three the other night, in Spanish, and still managed to understand the gist of things and get many of the jokes.

I've found a quality in myself that has become far more pronounced since starting my travels (partially out of necessity). I am incredibly adaptable. This spans from being able to eat most any food (even things that I don't like, which I haven encountered occasionally) to picking up habits and methods specific to the country where I am. Perhaps I want to be viewed as local and not stand out because of my western behaviors. In some countries I have had little choice but to stand out, but here in bolivia, I blend in quite nicely... that is until I open my mouth to speak spanish.

I don't have much else to write. Work goes well enough. I spend most of my time in pediactrics listening to breathing and heart beats and stomach parasites. Sometimes it can be slow, but I'm no stranger to that. My hospital is slightly removed from the city, so we serve many of the indigenous people in the area. One of the problems with natives is that many of them don't speak spanish, but speak some blend of native tongue and spanish. This can cause some communication problems for the interns that don't know this language. Another problem is that they don't like to wash much, or at all. The room can be pretty pungent when the windows are closed. It's even more nose-wrinkling than in India, and that says a lot. Anyway, that's all for now. I'll update at least once more while I'm here and maybe once when I get home to sum it all up in thoughtful reflection. I hope all is well at the homestead.

2007-06-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

Che vs. Mickey or The Escape from Monkey Island

Sorry for the odd title. It's a bit of a throwback to the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. Which, by the way, I never really liked when I was little, but my brother always wanted to watch it. Who knows?

So of the few common denominators in all the countries I've been to, the most interesting are the icons that cross cultures and oceans to become a commonplace everywhere. Of these, the two most recurrent images I've seen depicted are Mickey Mouse (in various forms) and Che Guevara. While there's no mistaking Che (it's always the same picture) Mickey comes in so many shapes sizes and colors it's sometimes difficult to recognize that it is even Mickey at all, but upon close inspection, the he shows his true colors. While I think most people know the symbolism of Mickey Mouse (if there is much symbolism), I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Ghanaian that knows who the man is on their shirt. It's understandable that Che appears in Bolivia with that whole latin america connection, but in China, India and Ghana? I also don't know what's more interesting (or scary), that Mickey is as recognizable as Che or visa versa. While I love the animals, the food, the public transport systems and the methods of dress, it's the little things like this that make other countries so much fun.

Last weekend I left the hills of Cochabamba for the jungles of Chapare in western Bolivia, where the mountains flatten and opens into an expanse of jungle that turns into the Amazon basin. We stayed in a not so quiet little town of Villa Tunari, which is much like a glorified truck stop. I say not so quiet because, although it was tiny, there was a brass band that had gathered for some celebration. At first, I thought it was an old man band. You know where there talent is betrayed by the lack of dexterity due to old age. But then I realized they weren't good enough for that. I'd say more like a high school band... a really miserable high school band, playing really awful music. Every once in awhile someone in the back would hold up a roman candle and let the fireballs fly (for dramatic effect?). The small party seemed not to notice or care that the band was horrid and proceeded to dance about. I don't know if I'd call it dancing, more like drunken stumbling around, but they weren't drunk. And they all seemed synchronized, like it was a rehearsed dance. Certainly a good laugh for the first ten minutes, but then it dragged on a bit longer than I would have liked.

The next day we headed to the nearby national park for a good hike. The park was also loaded with monkey; friendly, meddlesome, kleptomaniacal monkeys. Fortunately, they have lockers to store your bags and other valuables you're afraid will be filched if left unguarded. Ok ok, so the title is misleading, it wasn't an island, but monkey island sounds way more exciting than monkey park. Anyway, you don't have to go far into the jungle before you start seeing the monkeys. They have no fear of people or cameras whatsoever. This was made clearly apparent to me when a monkey came over and grappled with my leg for a minute or two before climbing up my body, checking every pocket she passed, to rest gently on my neck while she picked through my hair. She was also a jealous monkey because whenever my friend, Alyssa, came close trying to take a photo, the monkey would lunge out and grab her arm and try to take the camera. It was quite an entertaining spectacle. She stayed there for quite awhile before we started moving down the trail to another area.

The jungle was hot and humid, but since it's winter here the mosquitos are few, fortunately. We saw many many more monkeys along the way, red and green macaws, beautiful butterflies and some amazing ant colonies. The trail led up the hillside for a great panorama then to some meager but tranquil waterfalls. I imagine that during the wet season it's far more dramatic. After the hike we had some lunch in a quaint restaurant where a kitten became very friendly with my lap and my lunch. We had dinner at the same restaurant where another kitten, probably of the same litter, took a little nap on my lap (but had no interest in my food, which was a nice surprise). It was strange because on both occasions there were other people in the restaurant, but the cats came straight to me. This prompted Alyssa to call me Dr. Doolittle and say that maybe I should go into veteranery medicine instead.

Other than the parks, there was very little to do in the town. It wasn't even a relaxing getaway because the highway ran straight through the town where there was a steady stream of bus and truck traffic. The next day we ventured to a nearby 'Orquidario', which was apparently an orchard, in a way, but also had orchids so I don't know what the translation is. There were also a couple of crocodiles and turtles in a small pen. I don't know why, but it was still interesting. We then hopped on the bus and had a beautiful ride back through the mountains to Cochabamba.

As for things here in Cochabamba. Things are moving along well. I'm becoming good friends with the interns at the hospital, despite the immense language barrier. We went out to dinner last night, then to coffee where we played cards and just had a general good time laughing. I wish I could stay longer and spend more time with them. I'll just have to make the most of it. Hopefully I'll be able to have a whole conversatoin with them before I leave.... haha, who am I kidding? I can't learn spanish that fast.

As an aside, the big news lately is that the Harlem Globetrotters are coming to Bolivia. Nice to see that they're living up to their name, but I find it strange since Bolivia isn't a big market for basketball. Oh well. Take care all.

2007-06-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

Now I remember why I wanted to take Spanish in College...

I'm in Bolivia. Finally. My flight from Miami was delayed and I missed my connection from La Paz to Cochabamba. I bused it instead, which was actually a pleasant seven hour trip. For those that don't know, La Paz is the highest capital in the world, somewhere around 14,000 feet I think. The city is amazing. It's built in a bowl shape. Most of the buildings are made of stone and seem to grow out of mountainside as part of the mountain. I would not have seen so much of the city had I made my connecting flight.

As for Cochabamba, it's the most modern place I've been to since China. I said a silent prayer when I noticed that sewage was below ground (not everywhere of course, but at least in the major cities). There are plenty of fast internet connections, multicultural restaurants and easy public transportation. I only have one problem: I don't speak a lick of spanish and you'd be hard pressed to find an english speaker. This makes work quite a challenge. I fortunately found an intern that speaks english so I usually follow her around most of the day. While I'm sure I would have plenty of hands on experience if I spoke the language, the barrier is more inhibitory than I would like. Fortunately I'm taking spanish lessons and picking up the language rather quickly. While I can't speak much, I can understand quite a bit. Surprisingly so. Aside from the language barrier, Bolivia is a lovely and colorful place. Apparently it is 80% indigenous. So you see many women with the colorful panchos, poofed out skirts and bowler hats, or a wide brimmed straw hat. I live just a block down from the soccer stadium which makes for some loud and enjoyable evenings. Another source of excitement are the ¨cleferos ¨ or glue sniffers. These are apparently glue sniffing teenagers that group mug people. I haven't run into them yet, but partially hope that I do. Things like that make great stories!

A month to volunteer in a country is far too short. I feel so strapped for time and I've only been here a week. I was feeling a little morose when I left because for once in a very long time, I wanted to be home; to be around friends and family and comforting things I know. When I left I thought of the poem by Davy Crockett

Farewell to the mountains, whose mazes to me
Are more beautiful far than Eden could be.
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild.
The home I have loved as a father his child.
The wife of my bosom, Farewell to ye all.
In the land of the stranger, I rise or I fall.

It's a strangely wonderful feeling to miss home this much and to know that I'll find contentment there, which isn't something I could have said a year ago. Fortunately, Bolivia has ample amounts of charm to keep me satisfied and excited and my time is so restrained that I won't have the opportunity to get homesick. Heh, ironic that now, finally, in my last month of travels, I finally miss home. Farewell all. Take care and I'll be seeing you all soon.

2007-05-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Away Away Away

Two months goes fast. More than two months... It's hard to believe that a year ago this time I was still finishing up school. As I'm approaching the end of my travels, I'm getting far more contemplative. I've been thinking about how I'm turning 25 in august (that's scary enough) and that I was only 23 when I left for China. My 24th year has somehow been engulfed by all the countries I've been to. Soon I'll be done and I will have to get back to my life. And while I have enjoyed my time immensely and look forward to going to Bolivia, I partly wish I was finished. I feel like the reasons I left have all been addressed, the demons have been battled, the fears overcome, the maturity... well I don't think I'll ever be able to address that problem ;). It's comforting actually. Having overcome a lot of the problems in my personal life, I now find myself thinking more and more about my future career. That's not to say that I wasn't serious or sincere about med school before, but it's much easier to think about my future when I don't have other distractions getting in the way. I think that's why it was difficult getting rejected from med schools. I felt prepared, more so than I have in a long time. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like another year is better for me. I think I've somehow managed to find some real contentment in my life. This coming year will be the most fun I've had since I was young. Medical would have been fun, but I think the stress would have outweighed the enjoyment. Whoever said limbo was a bad place? Let's just hope I can find a job. Any suggestions are welcome.

As for Ghana, I'll miss it... to a degree. With each country I travel to, the less and less attached I become. That's not to say I get less and less out of the experience or immerse myself in the culture less and less. I think I'm just getting stretched a little thin. In China, I made a large number of close friends. Here in Ghana... I don't think there's anyone I'll stay in contact with (aside from my ghanaian family). That could have to do with the social structure in Ghana compared to that of the other countries. It could have to do with the other volunteers here. Or maybe it has to do with me. I had always prided myself on being a loyal caring friend. That quality, however, sometimes resulted in my being hurt, taken advantage of or disregarded. That did not deter me from getting close to people. That was most likely due to loneliness. Being so desperate for friendship can make a person very vulnerable. Perhaps now that I am comfortable in my friendships and content with my life the desperation is gone... and so is the ability to get attached to people. I suppose that's just a part of growing up though, becoming detached, less emotional, jaded. It's strange to think of the things we unknowingly concede. No matter, I'm still going to act like a little kid.

When I leave, my host mother said she would cry and that everyone would be sad. I am their sixth volunteer, so I thought she was just being kind. However, she told me that I am better than all the other volunteers before because I eat whatever she makes, sit with her in the kitchen while she cooks, and play and laugh with my 12, 14 and 17 year old host brothers and sister. She (and some others) call me a simple man. While in America that might be a little offensive, in Ghana is means easy going. The funny thing is that many of the reasons why she likes me so much is why I'm looking forward to coming home. The food is fine and I don't mind spending time with the kids, but I look forward to getting my freedoms and my privacy back. I look forward to decided when to eat, what to eat and how much to eat. I have had a lot of fun with my host siblings, but sometimes they can be draining and downright annoying. I've always been the baby in the family, so I've never really known what it's like to have younger kids around. It's been a good experience I think. While my host sister was on break, she also took care of a 4 and a 5 year old that stayed at our house for about 3 weeks. That was quite a handful, but loads of fun. I've never said I was "good" with kids. I wasn't bad, per se, but I had no talent in dealing with them. I think this has been a great experience and growing opportunity. Hopefully they don't cry too much.

There were some other fun tidbits of Ghanaian life that I have previously forgotten to mention. The tro tros and some other trucks and cars have a lot of German writing on them. I eventually learned that this is because when cars become to old or they fail the emissions tests, they get sent to Ghana. Then the Ghanaians run them until... well until an axle breaks and the car crashes and is totaled. Way to help solve that world pollution problem Germany! Secondly, I saw my favorite t-shirt of all time the other day. While I covered this topic already, I feel that this requires it's own acknowledgment. I've seen shirts of pizza delivery companies, department store spring blowout sales and even Disneyland rides but nothing compares to this shirt. It said "Howard Dean for America". Priceless.

2007-05-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Fastest C-Section EVER

So I'm in a bigger hospital now. Not the big hospital I was supposed to be in, but at least this one does some major operations. Apparently the big hospital in Kumasi (the biggest outside of Accra) has had a falling out with TPA and no longer accepts volunteers. Don't ask me why.

Since Tafo Hospital did practically nothing by way of surgery, I plan on spending the last two weeks of my stay here in the operating room. Unfortunately, it's still a little slow. Today, for example, I spent all my time folding gauze. No patients came in. There's also apparently a health workers strike so the amount of surgeries done is decreased for some reason. While it can be slow, I have seen some interesting things. Yesterday I saw a gargantuan hernia repair and two and a half c-sections. I say a half of a c-section because this woman came in needing a cs because of fetal distress, but by the time they got her on the operating table the babies head starting poking out... I guess he didn't want to be a c-section baby. This little bugger was huge too. He weighed about 4 kilos, should consider a career as a linebacker. Unfortunately he was so big that he kind of "split" the mother. She had a female circumcision (I have no idea what that is) and the size of the baby caused tearing. It was a pretty hectic moment when they all realized the baby was coming out.

The other two c-sections I saw were crazy fast. They pride themselves here by saying the baby is born within one minute of the operation. Basically true to their word, within a couple of minutes after the first incision, the baby was out. The whole procedure took around 20minutes (including the sutures) For comparison, the c-sections I saw in India took around an hour, 40 minutes at the shortest. I've come to realize that the main procedure done in the operating room is a c-section. There is an occasional hernia or historectamy, but little else. I can't complain though, the nurse said that by the end, they might let me assist in surgery. How sweet would that be?

As for some other peculiarities that slipped my mind before, I've remember a few... some so strange I don't know how I forgot. Hair is an interesting thing here amongst the ghanaian women. Most have very little hair on their bodies and short hair on top. However, it is not uncommon to come across a very hairy legged woman (which apparently the guys like). While the hairy legs is a little off putting, what's even stranger is the facial. Many women get a small collection of chin hairs that they seem to cultivate and grow as long as they can. It's not enough to call it a beard or really even whiskers, I just call it gross.

Food is always a good source of oddities. They eat snails in Ghana. Not unheard of. It's considered quite the delicacy in France. Ghanaian snails, however, trump French snails ten times over. These guys are massive. I'm talking radioactively mutated to be super snails. They shells are almost the size of conch shells, to give a comparison. The like to tote these around in buckets on their heads selling them to passersby. OH yes, the head thing. It has become so commonplace I almost forgot that no one carries boxes or buckets or really anything on top of their head. Ghanaians carry EVERYTHING on the tops of their heads. The balancing act is an amazing sight to see. Sometimes I want to run over to them and give them a little hip check to see if they can keep it together without dropping anything. I've yet to work up the audacity. That's all for now folks. I'll write again at least once more before I leave. Take care.

2007-05-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

Travels, Tombstones, T-Shirts and other Peculiarities

I have finished my travels along the coast and am quite happy to return to Kumasi, not only because of the inordinate amount of mosquito (and other unknown bug) bites I accumulated on the coast or because of the lack of internet, but also because the coast is mostly just pretty beach. Not that I don't enjoy the nice beach every now and again, but I can only spend so long staring at ocean and sand before I get incredibly bored. It was a nice get away, I'll have to admit, but when I travel within a country, I usually like to see something unique the country has too offer. Beaches really don't fill that role. I suppose I should be thankful for the slave castles. Those made the trip more than worth it. As well as the stories I got from the journey.

Most good stories occur when reality borders on the rediculous or when my life is being threatened. Fortunately for you all, I have both! Goats are everywhere in this country. Everywhere! On the way back to Kumasi from the coast, we plowed into one with the tro tro. For some reason I wasn't phased. I wasn't phased when the door fell off my tro tro either. While I was concerned when we had passengers on top of our tro over a dirty/bumpy road, I was a little concerned, but not surprised at all. But all of that takes a back seat to when goats were placed on the top of our tro tro and tied around the waste. Throughout the journey his hooves were clanking on the top of the tro. Sure enough, at one point during the ride, the goat tumbles off the side of the tro and dangles there by the rope for a few minutes before the driver realizes and the tro stops. I couldn't stop laughing. It was priceless.

Tros come in various shapes and sizes... and various rust to actual metal ratios. Several times while riding along the coast I was fortunate enough to get into a tro that was definately more rust than actual metal and the seats weren't really bolted to the floor, so they freely swayed to the whims of the road. Now, I realize that this is a feature that they use in amusement rides and people pay good money for. In this case, my only consolation was that the tro tro was so beat up and old that it's top speed wasn't horrific. So instead of a speeding death trap, it was just a death trap. I often thought of the stories I've heard of when the axel snaps off a tro tro and what's usually left is a heap of twisted metal. You'd think that with all the traveling I've done and all the near death experiences I've had in various vehicles, I would have lost the impending sense of doom by now. And yet it's still that imminent threat of danger that makes the ride that much more exciting.

Aside from transportation, there are a large variety of other perculiar things to see in Ghana. Funerals are abig part of Ghanaian culture. They are quite similar to weddings in the sense that there is a huge crowd, musical entertainment, food and formal invitation. It is always an open casket ceremony and the tombstone is always large and ornated and frequently has a portrait of the person being laid to rest. I had thought of this as a great respect for the dead, but then I noticed at this cemetary I pass by to work every day that taxi drivers, tro tro drivers, and other laborers often take their breaks in the cemetary and stretch out across the tombstones. It's a shaded area, so I imagine it's quite cool and it's better than sleeping on the ground.

While people speak "english" here, the complete understanding or context of things escapes them. T-shirts are a great form of expression (I should know, all mine have cartoon characters and superheroes on them). Of the various T-shirts I've seen being warn by ghanaians are: Kiss me I'm Blonde, Hold my beer while I kiss your girlfriend, and fcuk (French Connection United Kingdom) like a bunny to name of a few. I would be surprised if they actually knew what the shirt was saying. Aside from the gratuitious ones, there is also a random assortment from old pizza hut deliver shirt to U. Wisconsin lacrosse. I think many people have relatives in the States and want any shirt from the US, no matter what it says.

There are other oddities that are escaping me at the moment. I'll think on it and post them next time. Two weeks from today I fly out and arrive at home for a few days before I depart again for Bolivia for one month. Traveling is wonderful, but I can feel it starting to drain me a little, and I even have a three month break in the middle. I hope everyone at home is well and are highly anticipating the fast approaching summer. Take care everyone.

2007-05-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

I'm getting fat...

So Ghanaians eat a lot... A LOT. I don't know what people are talking about when they mention starving africans because it's not hear. Well... that's not entirely true. The northern part of the country is pretty destitute and they are often in need of nourishment, but the rest of the country is relatively well fed. Especially the large women. The food is also very heavy and starchy. They eat the casava root more than anything else. It's similar to potatoes. The most "ghanaian" dish would probably be fufu which is casava and plantain mashed together. They get this large wooden morter and massive branch with a flattened end to pound the fufu. Pounder goes in a rhythmic fashion while another person places pieces of casava and plantain below. I can't believe there aren't more broken fingers. I asked my host mother if she had ever gotten her finger smashed and she gave me a look a extreme incredulity. Fortunately ghanaians are very rhythmically gifted people, so the fufu pounder generally has good tempo. My host family gave me a shot at it and I was actually quite good. My rhythm is ok but sometimes I would stop because I was afraid I would hit her fingers. They would then think I was tired and someone else would take over. Ghanaians think white people are pretty soft and weak. In my case, that's not entirely untrue... but I can take care of myself ok. The fufu itself goes through a strange transformation because it's pounded so much it eventually turns into a really goopy playdoh type substance. You then eat it (with fingers of course) and dip it into a soup, usually chicken soup at my house, but an be other types.

Aside from the starchiness and heaviness of the food. It's not bad. Sometimes a little spicey, but nice and flavorful. Although it is getting a little old. It's either a heavy starchy food or rice. On top of that, my host mother feeds me way way way way more than I could ever eat. The first week I would eat myself till I was about to burst and still have hald a plate of food left. She would then insist I keep eating despite how much I implored her. So I would eat more, till the point where I would almost vomit, and there would still be a mound of food left. I'm used to the large portions now and my stomach has stretched to accomodate the large quanitities of food going down, but every meal is still a struggle. Everyone also knows that I'm a pretty slow eater, so meal time for me tends to last quite awhile.

My favorite food would be, of course, street food. There are these barbequed sausages you can get with this powdery pepper mixture on top. Reminds me a little of the skewers I got in china. I've been eating a lot of the sausages lately because I've been traveling. I left Kumasi friday morning for Cape Coast. The main attractions at Cape Coast are the slave castles. The most famous is the portugese castle built in the late fifteenth century and is the largest slave castle in all of africa. Quite a sobering sight. They also had a bit of a museum and a guided tour. A bit of a downer, but well worth the time. We spent a few days there each night going to a bar where they played music so loud a conversation was impossible, but that's the case at any bar in ghana. It's a very loud country, although the ghanaians still manage to communicate with each other while speaking at a normal volume. Must be an acquired skill. We are now at Axim Beach which is just a little bit of a nice beach get away. We'll spend two days here then head off to Green turtle lodge not far away. I'm not too sure what's there, but people say it's paradise. We'll see. I'll try and post again soon. Finding internet is no easy task, and it's usually painfully slow. Take care everyone.

2007-04-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

Holy Mole!

Hey there folks. Today I'll cover my recent weekend and the safe and enjoyable method of public transportation I use to get to and from work each day!

The Trotro is easy enough to describe. Take an old caravan style van, place 4 rows of benches in it, add fold down chairs on the ends for maximum accomadation, take it out of the junk yard and place it on the streets of Ghana with somewhere between 15 and 17 people! Sometimes they are loaded on top as well with all manner of things. It is not an uncommon thing to see trotros that have tipped over on the side of the road. Never in town however, only between towns. The other day on my way to work the door on my tro actually fell over. That should give you a good idea of how beat up these vehicles are, and I use the word vehicle only because it has four wheels and an engine, but then again, a lot of things fit that description. Trotros go on predetermined routes, similar to buses, but unlike buses stop anywhere to load or unload and have no time schedule. Basically, the rule in ghana for all public transportation is "it will go when it's full". This can be a little inconvenient when taking a bus to another town and it stays at the station for 3 hours waiting to fill up. Besides trotros, there are also taxis. There is a drop taxi, which works like any standard taxi and a line taxi which also goes on specific routes like the tros, but is a little more spendy. When I first arrived in Kumasi, it took me ages to get to work because getting on a trotro or taxi is no easy task. The first step is recognition. Sometimes the "mate" (one who collects money) opens the door and yells the destination. Otherwise, the mate does a serious of hand motions and pointing. The direction the finger points determines the tro destination. Of course, for an out of towner, these hand signals make no sense to me and the tro would often pass on by unbeknownst to me that it was the one I needed to jump on. However, sometimes there isn't even a word or a hand signal, people just pile in. I believe this is because many people have learned the mates and drivers and what destination they go to. This becomes a huge problem when needing to board the tro. Often there is a mass of people waiting at various location to board a tro. The minute one stops, there is a mad rush to get in. Pushing, bashing, fighting, nashing of teeth... well maybe not the last one. Once you have finally crammed yourself into a tro with 15 other people it takes off and at some undetermined time, the mate decides to collect money and when you want to get off, you yell "Mate", and say the drop area or just point if you're nearby. Welcome to my primary method of transportation.

As for this past weekend, I went with the UW med student and another 4th year medical student from Chicago to Mole (pronounced mo-lay). We snagged a bus from Kumasi to Tamale at 5pm and it only too a little over 7hrs! Much like the tros, this bus had fold down seats in between each row. So, suffice it to say, the bus was brimming. On top of that, much of the road between kumasi and tamale is dirt. It was relatively smooth, so bumpiness wasn't too much of an issue, but dust was. Since no car, bus or tro has AC in ghana, the windows are always down. While this is a relatively effective cooling method, it also lets more dust in than I would prefer. The dust likes to stick nicely to sweaty skin turning slightly muddy. We arrived in Tamale tired, hungry and covering in a very very thick layer of dirt (I felt gritty). We then tried to figure out when the bus left for Mole, which was no easy task at 12:30 in the morning. After getting lots of people to point us in the direction of the bus terminal where the bus for Mole departed we then asked the people around (mostly sleeping) when the bus left. The answer we got was "3 to 4". Not "between 3Am and 4AM" but "3 minutes to 4AM"... Considering that the ghanaian sense of times doesn't really work in minutes, we decided it would be best to show up at 3AM. The others were pretty desperate to wash up. Using our travel guide we took a taxi to the closest hotel (which wasn't too far, within walking distance) and woke the staff to get a room for a couple of hours. After the he showed us the room he said, "ok, so two rooms". It was a tiny room and certainly 3 people usually wouldn't want to stay there, but we were only there for 3 hours. So it took us about 15 minutes to convey to him that we only wanted one room. At which point he went and talked to the manager and returned to tell us we had to get two rooms. We then took matters into our own hands and had words with the manager. He was completely drunk and irrational. He said it was impossible for three people to stay in one room. We then left saying it's one room or none, we're leaving. He then caved of course and then probably went back to his drunken sleep and remembered nothing when he woke up. We also noticed that there were quite a few girls standing around outside the hotel. We had decided at that point it was probably a "multi-service" hotel. After washing and resting briefly in our tiny, run down, and filthy room, we left again for the bus station where we eventually learned that all the tickets had been sold for the bus to mole. After much running around, we eventually negatotiated a private trotro to take us to Mole with about 8 other abrunis. I had had very little sleep by this point and kept drifting off on the ride there. The rode to mole is mostly a dirt road and severely washboarded. The repetative bumps weren't terribly uncomfortable, except when I fell asleep against the window and got a series of lumps on my head in different locations from each time my head hit the window. On occasion the driver would also hit the breaks at which point I would slam into the seat in front of me. I was basically a human pinball.

We finally arrived in Mole around 8:30AM, rested and washed up. Mole is the largest reservation in ghana and is unfenced. The main attraction: elephants, of course. there is only one hotel in the park, which has a watering hole right behind the building. Each morning, the elephants come to cool of and bathe at the watering hole. It was quite a sight. We took several guided trips into to and around the watering hole to observe the elephants and any other animals in the area. There were baboons, several variety of deer and antelope and a few warthogs. There was one family of warthogs that grazed around the hotel and paid little attention to the humans there. While getting close to wild elephants was an amazing experience, my favorite part of Mole was the many large beetles that would come out at night. We fondly called them the retarded beetles and pondered at how they were extinct by now. When they decided to fly, they wouldn't be able to control their momentum and smack into walls then plummet to the ground. More often than not, they would land upside down and not be able to turn themselves over. The best part was when you would nudge them with your shoe they would hiss at you and it would sound like a wind up town. When they were overturned and their legs were going, they perfectly resembled a wind up toy.

We left Mole at 4AM (because that's the only time the bus left) and made it to Tamale around 9. Of course we then discovered that the only bus back to kumasi that day was full. So instead of renting a hotel and staying in Tamale (which was none too impressive), we bit the bullet and got a taxi to take us to Kumasi. It was more comfortable and much faster than the bus (which we passed because it had broken down. A common occurrence). but it was closer to the ground which made it all the more dusty. When I went home and showered (bucketed water over myself) I shampooed my hair and it was a beautiful brownish red. I don't know if I've ever been that dirty... not even in India. Anyways, this has been a long enough post and this internet cafe has had the same song on loop for the past hour. It times like this when I really really miss fast internet. Time to go. Take care everyone.

2007-04-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

The slow life

I met 4th year medical student today from UW, of all places. Random but good to have another white guy in kumasi. He's not a volunteer. He's here through UW, but it's nice having him around the hospital because he is very good at explaining things I don't know, which is a lot. The hospital work so far has been rather slow. Then again, the pace of most things in Ghana is rather slow. I'm in Tafo Hospital, which is a government hospital. It's not a large hospital and they don't have a big operation theater. They only have a few units: Recovery, x-Ray, Psychiatry, Maturnity and family planning.

The first few days I spent in one of the consulting rooms. About seventy percent of the time, it's malaria. I now know all the tell-tale signs of malaria. Most of the symptons are expected; sore joints, fever, diahrrea, vomitting, etc. But one of the early symptons I hadn't heard of before was having a bitter taste in their mouths. If the person doesn't have malaria, they usually have hypertension. Otherwise, not much else comes through the door.

I then spent a week in the recovery room, which is very very laid back. The recovery room is where patients are sent after seeing a doctor and are monitored, given IVs and given shots. When I was working, I spent my time giving injections, putting in IVs (which is a little scary the first time) and taking vitals (BP, respiratory, heart rate). Otherwise, I just sat and chatted with the nurses. On my busiest day, 5 people were admitted to the recovery unit. On the slowest day, 1 person was admitted. Even the nurses think the recovery ward is a little boring. It's such a strane contrast to the American perception of medicine. In American hospitals, if you aren't busy, then you're slacking off. People are busy, always running around. Here, people are rarely in a rush in all things.

I spent another week in the psychiatric unit, which I had thought would be interesting. Unfortunately all the examinations are done in twi, so it was a little anti-climactic. From what I could tell, most of the cases were epilepsy. Although the psychiactric unit wasn't terribly entertaining, at least they kept me busy doing paperwork and filling out perscriptions. While this particular hospital doesn't offer much variety, they manage to keep me far busier than I was in China and India. Everyone speaks better english here as well so there are always people to talk to and eager to make conversation. Ironically, while everyone can speak good english, they all speak twi to me and try to teach me as much as possible so by the end of two months, I'll be fluent. I'm skeptical.

Yesterday was a bit more eventful. The other volunteers and I did something called outreach where we went to an orphanage and cleaned and dressed wounds of the children. It was a nice change of pace. Most of the time was actually spent playing with the children rather than doing any medical work, but was still enjoyable. One of the little ones crawled up on my lap and took a nice little nap. We get to go next week as well and will get to also care for the adults. Hypertension is the most common problem so we will be taking blood pressure and educating them on hypertension.

Today I spent time in the small theater where they only do minor surgeries. The dermatologist was taking skin samples for biopsy. The UW medical student is going to do his residency in dermatology so he was very knowledgable about the conditions. I think I learned more today from him than I have anywhere else during my travels.

I move to a larger hospital in another week or so where I will have the opportunity to see more. I know this blog is a little uneventful, but so is my work in the hospital. While I do very little, it's still nice to get a general sense of what medicine is like in other countries. Maybe next time I'll have some good stories to write about. I hope everyone is well at home. LEt me know how all your lives are going.

2007-04-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Buzz word: Religion

In light of the recent holiday, I think it apropos to discuss the excessive amount of Christianity in Ghana. The ubiquitous word of God is typically manifest in shop signs. Amongst my favorite are "Thy Kingdom Refrigeration" "Jesus is my Redeemer Real Estate" and "By the grace of God Rasta hairdoo". Not to be outdone, even a little bit of Islam slips in there "In the name of Allah fresh produce". The missionaries clearly sunk their teeth rather deeply into this country early on. While many of them are strong and good Christians, you sometimes get the feeling that they missed to point. I've heard some people spewing out so much religious jargon that it doesn't even make sense. More like they were regurgitating a bunch of phrases and terms they've heard along the way.

Everyone here assumes your christian, so those volunteers that don't even believe in God are put in a rather awkward position and often just play along for the sake of argument. I don't know if Ghanaians would understand if someone said they don't believe in God. While I, myself, am christian, my views aren't entirely traditional in an American sense and are maybe even borderline heretical in Ghana. One of my favorite instances occurred when I was talking with an old nurse, a lovely woman. She had commented on how quiet I was. I said that I'm more talkative when I drink, with a bit of a wry smile. She then ask and confirmed that I was christian and said I shouldn't drink alcohol. I then asked her about Jesus turning water into wine. She said it was alcohol free wine. Even if I had wanted to argue the matter further, I would have no idea what to say, so i let it stand there and shook my head in agreement.

Easter itself was a bit of a marathon. I say marathon because it lasted a little over 4 hours and resembled a dance-a-thon more than anything. There we also three offerings (for non-churchgoers: the time when you give your money donation to the church). I still don't know why there were three. The pastor was also "kind" enough to recognize me in the the crowd (around 400 i suppose, i guess I stood out) and welcomed me to the church. This of course was followed by stares from the rest of the congregation. He then gave the sermon in english instead of twi, which i was very grateful for... I would have been even more grateful if his sermon was more than him saying "Jesus was dead and then rose three days later" in as many different ways as possible. We then went home and slaughtered a goat, then ate it's entrails... I like saying entrails because it sounds far more disgusting that way. Don't worry, they were cooked... and gross and rubbery.

On another note, for those that were wondering, I just found out that I did not get accepted into UW Med school, much to my dismay. I'm a little bummed out at the moment, but as I've been saying, med school is a big commitment. I should be thankful that I have another year to live my life freely without obligations or responsibilities. Now I just have to figure out what in the world to do with my life while I start the laborious application process all over. I hope everyone is well and healthy. Keep in touch as always.

2007-04-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

Introductions

I supposed jumped into things too quickly last time without giving some more general information. I realize the last post was rather short, but I hope to be posting on a more regular basis than before. I don't want to run out of things to say, so I won't drown on too long for each post. Secondly, while Ghana is a totally different developing nation, I don't forsee myself having crazy stories like I did from India. I could be wrong though! So here we go.

I'm living in Kumasi, which is the second largest ciy in Ghana after the capital Accra. It's busy... really busy. The streets are more crowded here than in China or India, which boggles the mind since the population of Ghana is burgeoning. I'm livig with a family of 5 in a house about 30min from downtown Kumasi. I'll say more about this later. As for Projects Abroad, they have volunteers in four regions throughout the country: The Hills, The Coast, Accra and Kumasi. There are about 15-20 volunteers here in Kumasi and I somehow happen to be the only guy. Most of the girls are brits and 18-19yrs old doing their gap year. I get on with them well enough, but I often find myself adrift in a sea of estrogen. Another male doesn't come till early may. He will also be my roomate. Until then I will be the only white man in Kumasi... what a responsibility. I'm currently working at a small government hospital which is rather bare bones. They only have a maturnity ward, a psych ward, a dermatologist, and a few resident doctors. They also have a small operating room, but only deal with minor surgeries. I'll talk more about my medical placement later on, after I've experienced a bit more.

That's the basics i suppose. Each country has offered a different experience. But this one feels very different from the others. I think I'm so used to being in a different culture that all the strange little quirks this place has tend to pass me by a bit. It's hard for me to keep from comparing ghana to the other countries I've been to, and even harder to relate to the other volunteers. I suppose it's just not as "fresh" for me as for them. I imagine I'll eventually settle into my own though and things will work out well. Otherwise, I have no real complaints. Hopefully somethig crazy will soon happen so i have an exciting story to relay. As for now, I hope everyone is well.

2007-04-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hot Hot Hot!

Hey there guys and gals. Sorry I've been late in my first Ghana blog. Facilities aren't always readily available. Well, after my long moratorium at home, I have returned abroad to try new foods, experience new cultures, see new medicine and basically sweat like a pig. There is so much to talk about I will try to give it in installments. Each post will feature an interesting aspect of Ghana and my life hear.

Today, let's talk about... talk. Suffice it to say, I was well excited to come to a country where i can finally understand the language which is being spoken around me. Much to my dismay, the moment I stepped off the plane and was picked up by the TPA employee, he started teaching me 'twi', the most widely spoken african dialect in Ghana. Apparently, there are 36 different dialects. While English may be the official language, it is not commonly used, however everyone knows how to speak it. So once again, I am in a sea of babel. The english they do speak can be confusing at times. For example, instead of saying "I'll be back", they say "I'm coming". Image arnold saying that instead... just doesn't have the same ring to it in that thick austrian accent. Language was a major barrier in china and india primarily because english was rarely spoken. You could also say the same thing about Ghana. It often takes me several tries to determine what it is they are saying even when i understand all the words. This is especially difficult in the hospital. It is also interesting that not everyone speaks any english. I believe this is because people only learn english in school, or if there particular tribe speaks it. My host mother, for example, speaks very little english and has to communicate to me through my host sister. For all i know, she could be playing some crazy game of telephone with me. If i end up doing all the house chores, I might start to suspect something... Anyways, let's hope my "talk" today wasn't too mundane and will keep you coming back for more installments. Hopefully they will be far more frequent. Take care all of you.

2006-12-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

Another sad farewell....well maybe not sad

Back in Sivakasi now, packing up and getting ready to head out. But let me wrap up some last bits of my travels up north. The Taj Mahal was not really what I had expected. I thought of some big bustling city, crowded streets, beggars everywhere. After all, it is the marquee attraction in India. I thought I'd enter some big square and immediately be overun by small children grasping whatever part of me they could asking for money while I had to simultaneously fend off the venders trying to sell me miniatures of the Taj and constantly be asked which country I was from and what my name was... That wasn't it at all. The area around the Taj doesn't allow cars and for some entrances, you can only take a horsedrawn or bicycled rickshaw. The streets weren't too crowded, almost a little quieter and more peaceful than other places we'd been in northern India. The Taj is surrounded by four big gates, where people by their tickets and get in line... well, indians don't quite understand what a line is and the authorities shouted and shoved all the of the people that blatantly cut in front. After passing through the big gate, you came upon a large garden area and a stunning view of the Taj. Trees and grass and ponds littered area. There were many people, but I'd call it far from heaving with people. We eventually manuevered our way inside, which wasn't nearly as impressive as the outside. We then sat on the grass and watched the sun fully set, then set out for dinner.

The next day we got a taxi we had hired to drive us the 5 hours back to Dehli, where Adrienne and Hannah had to fly out of at 4:30. Sander and i then made our way to a hotel that said they had english movie channels, but didn't. The guy that carried sander's bags to the room also snatched his ipod in the process. This all occurred quite quickly and we fortunately hadn't checked in yet. We managed to get his ipod back which was "left on the bed" (yeah right" and grudgingly made our way to a hotel much closer to the airport and with much nicer staff. We then were scheduled to fly out at 9:15AM Dec.5. Of course, nothing is ever on time in India and our flight was delayed for 4 hours. We arrived late in Trivandrum and had to catch a late train back to Satur. We didn't arrive in Satur till 3AM and had to catch a one hour rickshaw ride back to Sivakasi because no buses ran that late. Not only was the rickshaw driver slow, but every time a truck approached, he would slow way down and stop in the middle of the road until the last minute when the truck was about to smash us he'd swirve out of the way.... Don't ask me, Indian logic.

Sander and I spent only a few days in Sivakasi before we left again for Varkala. It was our last weekend and our favorite place in Southern India. We wanted to get a nice tan and relax once more before going home. We unfortunately had to grab the late train back from Trivandrum again. Taking a train isn't always easy. You have to keep a sharp eye out to see your stop. It isn't announced, and no one tells you anything. When it's 2:30AM my observation levels aren't always 100%. Unfortunately, the platform was located on the side of the train where all the doors were locked in our carraige and all the windows had grates pulled over, so I needed to run halfway down the next carraige to see the stop. I realize it as Satur when the train started moving, ran back, awoke Sander who was slumbering away and ran back. The train had gathered a deceptive amount of speed, but that didn't stop us from jumping ship. The train was moving much faster than I thought so when I hit the ground I really 'hit' the ground. I tore a hole in my pants and gashed my right knee. I also accrued various cuts, scraps and bruises on my hands and feet. My body seared with pain.... why do we say the word seared? to associate pain with burning? That sounds too much like an STD, I think I'll use the word shot... Pain "shot" through my body (yeah, that sounds better). Fortunately I wasn't bleeding too profusely because we needed to grab a rickshaw to drive us the hour back to Sivakasi. All I could think about was infection, I wanted to clean my wounds. I had falled and got cut on the rocks beside the tracks, the tracks which are covered with human excrement flowing from the train toilets. Awesome.... I hadn't been worried this much about my health since the time I was bit by a dog riding my back through sivakasi. Should I get the rabies vaccine which involves certain blood products? In india blood products usually involve HIV, Hep C or other nasties. Or should I risk getting rabies which has a zero percent survival rate in the existence of the disease save one girl which happened very recently and most likely not in a developing nation? Well, I convinced myself that the dog wasn't rabid and the wound was very small and any saliva it had should have been soaked into my pants instead of my skin when it bit through. I still have no rabies and hopefully no serious infection of my wounds by the time I return home.

I leave tonight for Chennai, spend the day there, then fly out at 4AM the next morning to London where I spend 6 days visiting friends. I'm really looking forward to it. I wish you all well and can't wait to see everyone on my return home.

2006-12-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

Get me away from rickshaw drivers!

So much has happened since last post. On our last day in Bombay we were treating ourselves to some delicious western cuisine at McDonalds when a man approached us and offered us parts in a Bollywood film. Much to our dismay, we were unable to take him up on the offer because we were leaving that evening, otherwise I would have totally been down for it. All you need to do is be really melodramatic and have minimal dancing skills. Basically, the hip thrust will get you by in India as far as dancing in bollywood films goes. We hopped on a train that evening at a really really sketchy train station and embarked on a 20 hr journey to Udaipur. What an awesome way to spend my Thanksgiving! A bottle of water, a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and a packet of milk cookies... Wish mom would make me such a feast at home for future Thanksgivings. On the plus side, I saw som monkeys out the train window... big monkeys. They are honestly really disturbing with how many similarities they have with humans.

We arrived in Udaipur in the evening. It's the "white city" with some beautiful palaces on ome lakes. It was a relatively pleasant place with beautiful views. The people weren't overly pushy (but still pushy, they are indian after all) and the city was relatively clean (once again, lan for indian standards). We saw some palaces took a boat ride and just generally enjoyed the views of the city from rooftop cafes. I also wrangled some apple pie from a western bakery to make up for the deliciousness I missed out on during Thanksgiving. One of the most notable differences up north is that we finally started to realize "Oh yeah, it's winter time". While the days are still quite warm, the evenings can be rather brisk.

After two days and a night in Udaipur we hopped another train to Jhodpur, the blue city. My first impression of Jhodpur was not a good one. We arrived in the evening and hopped in a rickshaw. Apparently, all the rickshaw drivers try to charge commission from the hotels from taking you there, so the hotels have you get dropped off elsewhere and they come pick you up. After telling the drivers multiple times to take us to the clock tower and get seemingly compliant answers, they took us to a totally different hotel. Apparently, the owners son raped a girl recently and he has fallen out of favor with most everyone, so he pays rickshaw drivers to take people to his hotel. We finally got sorted and managed our way to the hotel where we actually had reservations. The people were very friendly and laid back. When we awoke the next morning we went atop the roof and had breakfast where e had a beautiful view of the Fort overlooking the city on top a huge rocky cliff, the city's primary attraction. That day we visited the amazing fort, learning about its history and the battles fought there. It was an impressive piece of work and beautiful to boot. In all it's history, it had never been conquered. It also gave us a wonderful views of the blue city below. The city itself had a very crowded feel. The alleyways were narrow and covered in cow pies. Although it had underground sewage, which is better than anywhere in tamil nadu, the streets were filthy and the people very dishonest. What little trust I had of Indians left me in Jhodpur. I eventually came up with the name Indiots, which explains the people of this country pretty well.

The next day we let our hotel to embark on a camel trek into the desert. After driving for an hour and a half and listening to the same indian song over and over, we arrived in a small village where we mounted our camels and took off. I was "lucky" enough to get on a camel that was a little ornery. After much coercion and groaning from the camel, they managed to get his saddle on. I then proceeded to mount him with a little apprehension. The apprehension was well warranted because once I had swung one leg partiall over, he stood up and started spinning in circles with me clinging to for dear life dangling half way off the saddle. They finally calmed him, I straightened myself and they then decided the saddle was crooked so I needed to get off. They retightened and straightened the saddle and told me to mount again, once again with much groaning (maybe more from me than the camel). I got myself upright and asked in earnest if it was safe. The man answered "Oh yes yes, just hold on tight". At this point, I decided to call my camel sweetums. We then rode off. Camels are NOT comfortable in any way, shape or form. After several hours of riding and several instances of sweetums acting up, we stopped at a sand dune and set up camp for the night. My entire lower half was sore from both bumping and chaffing. That evening we had a meal cooked for us and music entertainment was acquired from a nearby village. I don't know if I would really call it entertainment.... or really musical for that matter, but the indian camel drivers really got into it. We then crammed underneath surprisingly warm blankets (but not quite warm or big enough) and watched the stars as we fell to sleep. The next day we arose with the sun and had breakfast. The camel driver then took sweetums and whacked him several times with a sitck, made him run around in circles and get up and down several times. Sweetums was really not a happy camper... neither was I when he told me to get back on. He said "it's ok, he's had good training this morning". I gingerly mounted the massive animal and set back for civilization. Clearly the training wasn't good enough because every time I shifted my weight, sweetums would rear his head and shake his back. Exhausted, we made it back to jhodpur and moved into another hotel for the night, once again encountering problems with rickshaw drivers not taking us where we wished.

We left the bothersome city of jhodpur for Jaipur, the pink city. We were only in Jaipur for the day, but made the most of it by eating both pizza hut and subway. Yummy! Jaipur was a little like jhodpur, dirty and dishonest. We visited the palace where the current maharaja lives and also made our way to the monkey temple. There were a lot of monkeys.... so creepy. We boarded a bus and made our way to dehli. Dehli is a HUGE city.... After dealing constantly with annoying rickshaw drivers and stall owners, we made our way around the city seeing the Gate of India, the presidents house and a couple of tombs. The next day we made our way to the largest mosque in India (India muslims are very very unwelcoming and aggressive) and the red fort). We then left on a train for Amritsar.

Amritsar is a wonderful place. It is where the Golden Temple resides, holiest place of the shiekhs. Shiekhs are much much more tolerable than other indians. The shop owners weren't pushy, nor were the rickshaw drivers and the people were all quite friendly. Plus, many of them carried around swords and axes, which is just cool. The Golden Temple was possibly the most beautiful thing I've seen in India. It is surrounded by a white marble palace and extends into a small enclosed lake. Chanting is projected from the inside throughout most of the day. That evening we left for Wagha which is right along the pakistani border. Every evening at 5pm there is a military "Stand off". It has become so popular that both sides have built stadium seats for people to come watch. It was absolutely rediculous. It basically involved a lot of shouting and feet stomping at each other, followed by a handshake. We then left that evening and made our way to Agra, to see the Taj Mahal, which is where I am now. The Taj Mahal is truly an amazing sight, but marred by the immense crowds and the leering eyes of the indian men for western women. I'm running out of time so I gotta wrap this up. I hope you're all well and I'll write again soon. Take care.

2006-11-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

We're not in Tamil Nadu anymore Toto

Hiya folks. Lots to report on. But lacking time, so we'll see how much we get. I am not officially on VACATION. It's wonderful to having time to just travel and see things. Although, it has been a little harder on my wallet. No matter.

Two weeks ago, I left my place and the wonderful little town of Sivakasi to go to Varkala in Kerala. I had been to Varkala before, for my first weekend away. It's a lovely sea side town with a long boardwalk stretching down the coast up on high cliffs. Absolutely lovely place. We spent several days there and didn't do much other than sit on the beach, sit in hammocks, or sit in cafes on the cliff side. It was wonderfully relaxing. I also performed the service of a jukebox by taking requests and constantly singing backround music. Disney songs were quite popular, especially the Little Mermaid. One evening we had a campfire on the beach. I sang, another guy played guitar and we lit off some very unstable and cheap Sivakasi fireworks. The night eventually degraded to us throwing large explosives into our fire, sending hot embers and other explosives in all directions. It was a lot of fun.

I left Varkala on tuesday afternoon with Sander and Anup, two other volunteers and met up with Adrienne and Hannah in Trivandrum where we caught the express train to Goa. Well... it was supposed to be the express train, 14hrs supposedly. However, after leaving trivandrum and pulling up into Kollum (the next stop) we were delayed significantly and stuck at the stations for about 40min. The train finally left the station, but made it a very short distance before it stopped, and started going in reverse. We then went back to the station on and sat there for another extended period of time. Knowing that the train would be there for awhile, we exited the train and stretched out legs. We saw a large group of indian men looking a the back of our carraige, which just so happened to be the back of the train. Funny... it wasn't the last car when we boarded at Trivandrum. We soon realized that they had somehow lost the back half of the train when leaving the station and were completely baffled as to how to rectify the problem. It was immensely humorous at first, but then the delay just got annoying. We finally managed to attach the back half and get off to Goa. We finally arrived 20hrs later.

The long train ride was most definately worth it. Goa is gorgeous. It was similar to Varkala in the sense that we spent most of our time relaxing, swimming and eating western food. We also went to a large market where we practiced our refined haggling skills. Indian people really don't listen when you say know. They all know what it means, but they just don't listen. I much prefered shopping at the Tibetan stalls (which there were many of). Sander and I also go matching straw hats, which for some odd reason made us very very popular with the locals. Despite how many westerners were there, we found ourselves constantly getting photographs taken of us. One day we headed to Old Goa to see some of the remnants of Portugese architecture. On the way, I was able to identify a beggar that had leprosy which I thought was pretty cool. Well, awful for him, but made me feel good that I can diagnose it. Old Goa had some lovely old churches. One of which contained a priest that was over 4oo years old and was still well preserved, which was probably a result of him being burried in the salty ground of China for 50 years. There are really no other amazing stories from Goa. It was just a wonderful little "peace" of tropical paradise where we let our worries melt away in the hot sun.

We caught a train to Mumbai (Bombay) on Sunday and arrived 10 hours later. I'm having a hard time believing that I'm still in India. It is incredibly modern. It is very easy to see the British influence from many of the old building still in existence. The architecture is beautiful. We've spent some time wandering around, looking at buildings, going into museums and telling guys wanting to sell me marijuana to go away. After living off southern indian food for over two months, we've been gorging ourselves on western delights. We even went to a movie theater and saw the new Bond film. Before the film started, they put up advertisements for what to do in case of a bomb scare, but said nothing about cell phones (which is too bad because everyone's phone kept going off... and they answered them!! crazy indians). Before the movie started the indian national anthem was played and we all stood up and sang along... well, we didn't but all the indian did. The movie quality and sound was poor and had some awful editing jobs to keep out the "raunchy" bits. They also added in an intermission for our convenience.... so wierd.

Tomorrow we leave for Udaipur in Rajistan. It should be great fun. Hopefully I have the time to post again soon. Take care everyone. I wish you all well

2006-11-10T02:12:00.001-08:00

Sweet Relief!

I'm sorry if it seems like I've been remiss in my repsonses lately. I've had my nose to the grindstone lately while working on my medical school secondary applications. I finally finished them today and mailed off the ones that needed mailed. It's a huge weight off my shoulders.... and a huge divit out of my pockets to post four envelopes to different locations express mail, but worth it I suppose. I have some catching up to do, so here goes!

Two weekends ago I ended up staying in Sivakasi. We had a celebratory dinner for someone's last night and I wanted to stick around and work on my applications. Maybe it was wise that I staying in Sivakasi because I ended up falling ill on Sunday (the first time since I've been in India! Over a month in. Not bad). I wasn't even that ill. I was well enough to leave that evening with two other volunteers to trivandrum, which was a 5 hour drive away. We spent two days at an ayurvedic clinic! Let me just say, it is one of the most rediculous forms of "scientific" medicine I've ever encountered. I think the fact that they insist on it being scientific and interspersing scientific terminology when talking about it that makes it even more rediculous and frustrating. The clinic was subpar, probably because we never actually saw anything, just got dictated to by an overbearing woman that kept making judgements about our character. Apparently, part depending on your personality depends on the treatment you receive and for how long. I apparently don't smile much and am unhappy and am very arrogant. Another volunteer is very dull and shy around women. This woman wasn't exactly scoring points in my book. She also said I was childish, which I won't disagree with, but that doesn't put her back into my favor. After half a day of dictation, we all splurged three hundred rupees to get an ayurvedic massage. Basically, it was a 45min rubdown with smelly oil during which point I felt very violated.... especially when he bathed my oily body. But it was still an interesting experience, albeit one that I'll never repeat. Oil fomentation is one a primary healing method in ayurvedic medicine. Depending on where oil is placed depends on what symptoms it can cure. Oil on the head can get rid of headaches, the chest get rid of asthma, and get this ladies, an oil massage can tone muscle and remove excess fat... this is particularly funny when being told to me by an overweight indian woman... of course, most indian women are overweight. They also employ methods such as enemas, laxatives (apparently every headache is caused by constipation) blowing powder or oil up your nose, and two others which are my favorite: Blood letting and indiced vomitting! Blood letting can be done with needles, blades, or the most common choice leeches. Apparently, once all the bad blood has been sucked out, the leech dies... how scientific. Induced vomitting can be used to cure headaches, epilepsy, asthma and mental disorders. How ironic! In my country, making yourself vomit IS a mental disorder. I guess that just culture clash for you. haha...... What hogwash. It was interesting to learn about, but really the most rediculous thing I've ever heard.

After a lackluster week of listening to my doctor speak to patients in tamil and berate his staff, we took off for a tpa weekend in Kanyakumari. It is on the southern most tip of india where the bay of bengal, arabian sea and indian ocean all come together. It was an alright weekend with a few interspersed sights of beauty, but what I can't get out of my head is what I saw on the bus ride over. We hitched a bus from Sivakasi to Nagercoil and Nagercoil to Kanyakumari. On the 45min bus ride from Nagercoil to Kanyakumari, we crammed onto a crowded bus and managed to find a few seats towards the back. Two volunteers ended up sitting next to a man that was drooped down in his seat and not really moving. We tried to gain his attention, even shook him, but received no response. One of the members of our group reached to feel his pulse and could feel nothing, only cold. There was also a small bit of blood that had dripped out his mouth and onto his white shirt. The tpa employee that was with us at that point told us to move away from him and leave him alone. We thought he meant because the guy could have some disease we don't want to catch. When in actuality, he just wanted us to move away because it wasn't our problem. We tried telling other people on the bus, some said he was just drunk or didn't seem to care. We also told the conductor collecting money, but when he heard, he just continued to collect money as if nothing was wrong. Clearly distressed by the fact that we were on the bus with a dead guy and that nobody seemed to care we hopped off the bus at the next stop. Apparently in this country, when something wrong happens, nobody wants to do anything or report it, because that means you have to go down to the police station and make a statement, which is clearly far to much work for an indian to do. These people are rediculous. I wonder what about that man's family who is waiting at home for him, and he never comes... He got on the bus either go home or going to work, and passed away. I will never travel alone in this country. Ever. Well, I think I should quit now before I really get worked up and tell you more awful things about indian culture, like how one month ago, child labor was still legal and only two weeks ago, you could beat your wife and not be infringing on the law. Whoops! Maybe I should stop now.

I don't know when I'll be able to write again. I leave for Varkala this weekend and then go from there to Goa and work my way north for three weeks. I will most definately be stopping at several internet cafes, so if you bear with me, I'll get to you all in due time. I hope you're all well and healthy and maybe avoid buses for a short while. Tata!

2006-10-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

I think I'm starting to smell like curry...

Well it's been a wild couple of weeks and I have loads of stories to share. Two weekends ago we all felt like a little treat and ventured to the town of Pondicherry on the east coast. It was once a French colony so it had a very nice western feel to it. It was a nice change to be in a place that actually had sidewalks, street signs and blossoming trees lining the streets. We went into a supermarket and marveled at the broad selection of western foods, hair care products and deodorant. We even managed to find a Pizza Hut. Other than the good food and cheap wine, Pondicherry was still very India; croweded smelly and full people people trying to take your money. Nonetheless, it's still always nice to get out and explore more of India.

The following week was relatively lackluster at work. I spent most of my time sitting in the doctor's office difting away as he talked to patients in Tamil. Sivakasi, on the other hand, was bustling. There was some big election happening at the end of the week. To advertise Indians like to blare "propaganda" from giant speakers strapped to the top of their autorickshaws. It even served as an alarm clock some days as a rickshaw would scuttle past my window. When the ballots had been totalled and the victor declared, supporters of the winner marched through the streets whistling, cheering and singing at the tops of their lungs. Part of me wanted to join in with the celebrations, however I think I might have been a little out of place.

This past weekend was also the start of Diwali (or in Tamil Deepawali), the Festival of Lights. It is to commenorate when Lord Krishna vanquished a mighty giant that was killing many innocents. Basically, it's just an excuse to eat a lot of sweets and blow up an extravagant amount of fireworks. Sivakasi just so happens to be on of the firework capitals of souther India... maybe all of India. As the week progressed, the explosions of firecrackers and other "small bombs" increased in frequency. Due to the complete lack of saftey employed by Indians and the instability of the fireworks, I had suspected to see many children visiting my doctor with blown up hands, but strangely enough the office was relatively quiet. He said that very few people come into the doctor during Diwali because everyone is spending time with family.

We headed off to Madurai, a nearby big city, for the big celebrations on Saturday. We spent the day wandering the surprisingly empty streets looking for the few shops that were still open. Everyone was apparently at home celebrating the holiday with family. It was a nice treat being able to walk the streets without having to negotiate a large crowd. However, that just made it easier to see the mounds of garbage that piled the streets of Madurai. Madurai was really filthy and full of beggars and smarmy salesmen. It made me appreciate the small, uneventful town of Sivakasi. As few shops were open we ventured to the temple in the center of town, one of the city's biggest draws. Sadly, the elephant that usually occupied a space outside was absent. It seems as if I'll have to wait a little longer before I can be blessed by an elephant. While walking the city, not a minute would go by without hearing a loud bang. At times the explosions would be so deafening we couldn't even make conversation. One of our party joked it was like being in Iraq. That evening we reserved a table in the restaurant atop our hotel. The evening was amazing. All over the city large fireworks were being lit. Explosions of all sorts of colors would be happening in all directions overhead. The funny thing was, I'm sure none of them were "shows". They were all groups of individuals lighting the fireworks they bought several days before. With the occular symphony proceeding above, we celebrated the festival of lights in grand style.

The next day we spent making up for the shopping we missed the day prior. We went to the market which is housed inside an old temple like structure. It was a pretty impressive sight, slightly marred by the constant badgering of salesmen. After a successful day of shopping, I returned to Sivakasi. The week has been slow as usual. But today had its moments of excitement. In the morning, my doctor took me to his private family temple, where his extended family all gathers during the holidays. I don't know the number of people attend, but he said there are currently 48 families that gather. Must be quite the crowd. We then headed to his family farmhouse where they grow mango, coconut, sapota, guava and a myriad of other fruits. We loaded his trunk full of coconuts and headed back to the hospital. I then saw him perform a tonsilectomy (spelled right?). It had been awhile since I had seen any surgery, so it was nice to finally have a little excitement. I hadn't seen that operation before either, so it was a nice treat. It was surprisingly bloody, but not as bloody as the femur head replacement I saw shortly after. We went upstairs to an operating room I'd never been in before. It seemed much nicer and more modern than the rest of the hospital. I deduced this was where orthopedic surgery was performed. I had seen this procedure once before in China, but it was still very exciting and informing. It was also interesting to see the subtle differences between the Indian method and the Chinese method.

When I was riding home the other day, I think I finally obtained a level of comfortability in Sivakasi. Between all the car horns, bike horns, bus horns, between the fragrant stench of open sewage, between the yelps of stray dogs and between hot sun burning the back of my neck, I could hear the breeze blowing through the trees and the sky slowly changing color as the sun set and I could sense the pleasantly slow pace of life in this place. I realized that India has a beautiful sky... Then a car almost sideswiped me which caused my bike to swirve into a cowpie which my bike smelled like the rest of the ride home.... Ah yes, now there's my India.

2006-10-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

I feel so White...

Hey there folks. I know it's been awhile, so I suppose I should make this a long entry. I suppose I should give you all my first impression of India. LANDFILL. However, as I've been here for some time, I've changed my opinions. Only Tamil Nadu is a landfill, the other parts are actually quite pretty. You may think I'm just using my powers of exagerration, but in all honesty, the state of Tamil Nadu is a dump. Garbage blankets the ground. I've stopped calling them garbage fields though. I've changed to calling them the pig and goat grazing areas. A lovely spectacle I assure you.

When I was in China, I was quite aware of how westernized it had become, but I still thought it had a long way to go to catch up with the west. However, now that I've been to India, going back to China would be almost like going back home. I feel fortunate to even have internet access. It's been good though. It took me awhile to adjust to the Indian pace of life. Shanghai was constantly entertaining, constantly things to do and people to see. India on the other hand, has absolutely no source of entertainment and very very few volunteers within close proximity to each other. Fortunately, I've gotten into a routine that gets me through the week and look forward to the weekend.

I suppose I should start off with my actually placement: Graham's Nursing Home. It's not really a nursing home, that's a misnomer. It's more or less a hospital with one primary doctor, a few assistant doctors and a handful of nurses. While my place is going well, the most exciting part of my day would probably be the trip there. It's about a 10 minute bike ride from where I live and the hospital abd each time I get on that bike, I fear for my life. First off, I hadn't ridden a bike in years... maybe since I was 12. Secondly, it's more or less an old rusty bucket of scrap metal with a seat far too high that can't be adjusted. I get on my bike and venture out onto the street. Of course, calling it a street might be a bit too generous. It's a rough strip of pavement hardly big enough for traffic on both sides. Aside from the constant excitement of dodging other bikers, motorbikes, buses and trucks animals also pose another obstacle to avoid. Since I've been here I've had to swirve through a goat herd, play chicken with a few trucks (and lost), almost T-boned a cow (pun most definately intended), and was even criminally cut off by an elephant. With my life amazingly intact, I arrive at work with a nicely tenderized buttocks due to the constant potholes and excessive speed bumps. I then proceed to sit with the doctor while he sees patients, speaking in Tamil for several hours. I usually drift off till he says something to me in english or lets me leave for my lunch break. However, I also get to see a significant amount of surgery. He's a general practitioner and a general surgeon, so I see a nice variety of operations. He is apparently also one of the most accomplished and respected doctors in the area. He is often called away to other hospitals to perform certain procedures other doctors cannot. During my first week we hopped onto his motorbike and drove to another hospital in town to do a C-section. A motorbike ride is quite similar to a regular bike only.... much faster. Fortunately he was driving. I spent the first couple of minutes of the ride trying to figure out how tightly I wanted to grasp the back of the seat. Should I hold on with all my might for fear of flying off? Or should I relax my grip in the event that the bike crashes and I can tumble free? While contemplating this I soon noticed that we were following close behind a large yellow truck with the words "Danger. Explosives" written in large red letters on the back. At this point I realized that my grip on the motorbike had little bearing on my overall safety. Last week he drove me to other towns nearby to perform some pretty gruesome operations. Fortunately we were in a car... still immensely dangerous the way they drive, but at least I had the comfort of a seatbelt. The experience is quite different than shanghai and I think more enjoyable. I find myself getting more out of my placement now than I did before. Still, the weekend trips are nice.

Every other weekend TPA "organizes" things for people to do in certain cities. Most TPA volunteers are spread out all over southern India, with only three or four in each city. So organized events in various cities is a good way to get everyone to meet each other. My first weekend, most of the other volunteers came to Sivakasi to play cricket: Volunteers vs Staff. Since cricket is basically the only sport they play in India, the staff was really excited while the volunteers were... less enthused. It was still a good time. I learned the intricacies of this odd sport and managed to get horribly sunburned in the proccess. It was still nice to touch base with other volunteers. The next weekend many of the volunteers decided it would be fun to go to Varkala, a nice town on the western coast. The was my first chance to get out of Tamil Nadu and go to Kerela, which was a far more beautiful area of India. Varkala was gorgeous. I made some good connections with more people, got to walk on the beach, and finally eat something other than curry. It was a quaint seaside town, geared towards tourists, but fun nonetheless. After another week or work, we took friday off work and ventured to Kollam thursday evening, another coastal town. Kollam is less of a seaside village though. It really wasn't that beautiful or enjoyable. Most people don't go for the city itself though, but go to boat around the backwaters of kerela. We took a nice little push boat through the lush jungles of the kerela backwaters. It was lovely. We would stop at various places so they could show us how they made the boats, dried coconuts or created rope from the hair around coconuts. Saturday, TPA had organized a boat ride to some museum/temple 4hrs away. Some of us weren't too keen on the idea, so we decided to rent a house boat for the day and night. It was not a large house boat. We managed to squeeze 7 of us into two bedrooms. We spent most of the time talking, reading or listening to music. It was very pleasant. The houseboat came with a driver and a cook. The food was spectacular. Kollam wasn't stellar, but the houseboat the and backwaters made the trip worth it.

I got back to Sivakasi Sunday night at 11pm and and ended up getting up at 5:30Am the next morning to leave for a leprosy clinic. I spent Monday and Tuesday at the leprosy clinic with another volunteer and I'm sure that we will never see another thing like it again. Let me just say, leprosy is an awful awful disease. Fortunately it is easibly curable now, but if the infection isn't stopped in time, there is permanent nerve damage and the person has to live the rest of their life suffering from awful ulcers and infections. This causes significant deformities that are too dificult to describe here. This clinic was an amazing place. It was actually a mission, completely nonprofit. All patients receive free treatment and medication. The mission makes special footwear with a special rubber for those with leprosy to decrease the chance of ulcers on the feet. They also train the patients how to perform certain occupational tasks in order to prevent unjury. Their mission statement is to eradicate leprosy, help reintigrate people back into society and spread the word of Christ. Those suffering from leprosy have an awful stigma attached to them and are greatly ostrasized by society and even their family. To help reintigrate these people back into society, the mission helps the patients to by a house, put their children through school and buy their family food. They give some patients an allowance, and once that person has a steady income, their family often takes them back in.... doesn't exactly say great things about the India Family. It was an amazing, enlightening and disturbing experience.

I'm sure I'll have more stories to come. I shall try not to delay so long in updated. I hope you are all well. I miss you all.

2006-09-18T01:38:00.000-07:00

So Long Summer

My flight leaves Pudong International Airport. After three glorious months in this screwed up country I've accrued more memorable experiences than in a whole year at home. Good bye China. Good bye Shangers. Good bye Pudong. Good bye Zhangyang Lu. Good bye overcrowded buses, overcrowded metro, overcrowded streets and overcrowded restaurants. Good bye family mart with your chewy dragees (mentos). Good bye big daddy roach that lives under my sink. Good bye fake rolex peddlers. Good bye street food... mmmm street food. Good bye "Jackie Chan" and your scrumptious noodles. So long "Jet Li" and your horribly addictive smack grass (bamboo) and pigs heart skewers. Good bye wagas, element fresh, malone's and all other western food establishments. Good bye Cloud 9, Bar Rouge, Barbarossa, I Love Shanghai, Windows Scoreboard, Face Bar, Red Room, Manhattan, Peoples 6 and your all you can drink nights, ladies nights, chilled nights, overpriced and underpriced drinks. Good bye KTV and all the shenanigans involving tambourines and microphones whilst singing Backstreet Boys. Good bye Rojam and your foam, Guandii and your wannabe-black chinese dj and his hilarious texts to Ras, Zapatas for your old and sleazy germans and italians, cheese music and dirty pints, Bon Bon for such incredible guest djs, Babyface for your rude locals. Good bye creepy rundown apartment with an underground party for trendy contributors to art galleries. Good bye Nanjing Lu for all your Beijing students wanting to sell me art, Maoming Lu for the pub crawl, Tongren, Hengshan and Julu Lu for your over abudance of hookers, Peoples Park for everyone wanting to speak english to me. Good bye Xintiandi and brunch at Kabb with fantastic BLTs, Eggs Benedict and Banana pancakes. Good bye Antiques Market, Fabric Market, Fakes Market, Qipu. Good bye Old Shanghai Tea House and everything you embody in Old Town. Good bye to all the hacking, spitting, nose picking, ear picking, long fingernails and all unhygienic behavior in general. Good bye Shanghai rain, Shanghai sun, Shanghai lightening and thunder, Shanghai humidity. Good bye "watch, bag, dvd, sexy dvd, yellow". Good bye illegal dvds shops. Good bye Asian Colonel Sanders. Good bye Take My Taxi, white taxi, wu chi wu chi wu chi chi chi and all drivers that let us cram five people in. Good bye and good riddance to all the taxi drivers that could never understand where I wanted to go and couldn't even read chinese directions. Good bye Fuxing tunnel and thank you for never being jammed. Good bye Bund, roller skaters, kite flyers photo happy tourists. Good bye bund sight seeing tunnel and thank you for showing me what being on acid is like without me actually having to do it. Good bye fake EVERYTHING and I do mean everything. Good bye poker nights, dvds nights, football (soccer) nights and clubbing nights. Good bye getting stared at... Good bye TPA Shanghai, Kay, Carrie, Tommy, Kevin, Lilly, Jeff, Chrissy, Pauly, Scott, Starbucks Girl, Dream Bar Girls, Angel, Little Fish, Bin Bin, Aileen, Donna, Alex, Rodell, Benny, Aussie Jeff and all other non-tpa people I've met since being here. I won't say good bye to TPA people because you all know I shall be seeing you again, in England, in America, wherever you are. Good bye to dodgy food, dodgy stomach and the inability to flush toilet paper down the bowl. Good bye Xinhua Hospital and all the doctors so willing and helpful and all the nurses amazing at my ability to use chopsticks. Good bye to throwing caution to the wind, avoiding responsibility and forgetting all the obligations I have at home. So many things to more to say good bye to, so many things I feel like I'm leaving behind. I know most people have left Shanghai feeling like they've left a part of themselves behind.... I've felt like I've found a part of myself that I can take with me. Question is, will I find more with each country I go to? Will I lose those pieces when removed from those countries, from that atmosphere? What new adventures will India bring? What else will it reveal to me about myself, about the world and about medicine? Let's wait and see what happens. Oh yeah, one last thing. Good bye hair! Hello mohawk! MMMM smack grass.

Stronger

Miles and miles ahead to go
Rain may pour and wind may blow
Higher mountains you will climb
Go on
Taking one step at a time
Come on

Though your weary body ache
And though you ask what it will take
And though your head keeps saying no
The more you tread the more you grow
The more you know

Oh Breathe it out and breathe it in
And don't give in
Don't give in
Yeah

Miles and miles you will have been
Mountain views you will have seen
And though it felt like a bitter pain
Come on
All you had you had to gain

Strong, getting stronger
Pain, pain no longer
And so, still you grow

Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
And don't give in
Don't give in

Stronger
Stronger
Give it all, give everything
Give it out and don't give in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in

Before you know it, you could win

Public Symphony

2006-08-27T02:16:00.000-07:00

Birthday Post

Hey gang. I realize it's been quite awhile since I last posted. Sorry for that. I'm still alive and well and more or less in one piece. Maybe if you all would comment more I'd have more initiative ;). Heh. Ok, what to write about...? Strange thing about being abroad is that so much is always happening that it becomes routine. While I'm sure there are many things I could tell you about, there's nothing that really stands out in my mind. If you have any queries, just send them my way and I can answer them in my blog. As it is, I'll try to fill this blog with content and not ramblings of a madman.

Since I last posted, I did a bit of traveling. I spent about 5 days on the beautiful island of Hainan, "the asian hawaii". It was quite beautiful. I also didn't realize how massive the island itself was. It's bigger than Taiwan! Much to the dismay of my parents, I was going there at the same time a massive typhoon was creeping across the island. Fortunately for me, I was there right after the typhoon hit. I was also in the most southern city of Sanya while the typhoon only hit up north. The weather was gorgeous. With the exception of a torrential downpour for about 2hrs on a random day, the sun was hot and the sky was just a shade bluer than the sea. I traveled with another tpa friend named ruthie. We felt like we needed some time out of Shangers. Some time to kick back and relax; detox if you will. Aside from the fact that she's a fun girl, Ruthie's family has accumulated a rediculous amount of credit at the Marriot because of her father's job. Through the immense generosity of her parents, we basically ate, drank and slept at the Marriot Resort for free. It was quite possibly the nicest hotel I've ever been to. This picture on the left is the view from our balcony. The structure on the right is part of the hotel where on the first floor all the restaurants are located an on the third floor is a big open ballroom area where live music is played each night. The odd thing about this beautiful locale was that there was nothing else there. NOTHING. There were a handful of other resorts in area, but no restaurants, no bars, no small shops even. We had to take a bus about 40minutes to get into town to buy anything. The town itself was large enough I suppose, but horribly underdeveloped and not meant to cater to tourists whatsoever. So we stayed at the resort for the entirety of our stay, which was just fine with us. We spent our days laying on the beach or sitting at the outdoor bar relaxing and have pleasant talks. I occasionally joined the staff in playing some beach soccer at which point I got quite burnt, but it was more than worth it. We actually became quite friendly with the staff. Everyone was wonderfully pleasant, always willing to talk and ready with a quick smile. Not all spoke english, but after being in Shanghai where nobody even tried to speak english, it was a nice change. It had been awhile since I was treated cordially by a chinese person so my faith was reaffirmed that only the Shanghainese were rude and pushy. We also befriended one of the bands that traveled from restaurant to restaurant within the hotel played acoustic chilled out music. They were all brothers (and a cousin) from Bahli. The one which spoke the best English, Benny, would come over and talk to us frequently and our discussions would often drift into southeast asian economics and politics. A fascinating fellow. He also took us into town and showed us what little there was to see. We also befriended another band that did evening shows. It was three girls singing and dancing and one guy accompanying them on the piano, all filipino. They did a range of music from Hotel California to Scrubs by TLC. It was quite entertaining. After some sad farewells to the wonderful people of Sanya we hitched a plane to Guilin. Well, we were supposed to have a direct flight, but had our flight cancelled and diverted to another city whose name I can't evening remember. We had a 7hr layover in the airport before we got a connecting flight to Guilin. We were picked up in Guilin by a taxi organized by our hotel in Yangshuo which is about 2 hrs away. Later that evening we met up with other friends that had come from Hong Kong and all had a much needed sleep. This photo is the view from our window in the little hotel where we stayed. It was called the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat and was filled with the most wonderful people. The main girl that checks people in was named Angel and was born with brittle bone disease and had extreme stunted growth because of it. She was not formally educated but taught herself english and hotel management skills. an impressive girl to say the least. She was always willing to organize our transportation, get us cheap tickets to certain surrounding events and advise us as to what was a good way to pass the hours. We spent one day taking a river cruise. Angel's brother came with us and spent the whole day showing us around. He took us to an acient fishing village, where he was from and took us to his house. He never asked for money (although we gave him some), only that we help him improve his english. We spent another day taking a 4 hour van to Longshan which was a village in the mountains surrounded by terraced rice fields. It was absolutely amazing. It was a wonderful week and hard to come back to shanghai. It was also difficult coming back to Shanghai because all the people I was traveling with had only a few days before they went home. Since returning it's been the regular shanghai life. Saying hello and goodbye, eating out, drinking out, playing some pool, etc. It's been good. These last few weeks will cruise on by. I have more I could write, but the evening is wearing on and I'll be going out for a birthday dinner here soon. Take care everyone. I'll write again soon.... hopefully. Heh. Stay in touch.

2006-08-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

Gone but not forgotten, here but not around

Hey gang. Sorry for the delay on the updates. Lots has been happening, and... well, nothing as well. I almost went to puotoshan one weekend (an island off the coast near shanghai) but had other obligations. I almost went to Yellow Mountain (a beautiful mountain range nearby) but decided to decline so I could save my money for a trip to Tibet this upcoming weekend. However, we put off the planning till it was too late to go to Tibet. I will not let my travel plans be thwarted however. This upcoming week I'm going to Hainan (basically the asian hawaii) for four days and stay in a five star hotel for free, then jet on over to Yangshuo (a beautiful mountain-lake area with terraced rice fields on the mountain side), apparently a wonderful place. So I should have lots of lovely pics from next weeks endeavors. The past two weeks have been pretty standard fair. I was without my camera for about 5 days because I'd loaned it to a friend, so I don't really have any wonderful pics to post this update. Once I get picture off other people, I can place those up here.

I guess I'll begin with work. It's my last day in pediatric surgery tomorrow and it has been a much better experience than the previous two departments. To begin with, surgery is just far more engaging. Secondly, the types of sugeries being performed makes it twice as interesting. For some odd reason, most of the surgeries have been to correct various congenital rectal conditions, all of which are far too graphic for those of you who are faint of heart. Let's just say, it's intense stuff. Today however, was a bit more gut wrenching than others. This baby girl, probably just a month old or so, was suffering from jaundice. The doctor expected it was most likely due to billary atrisia. Don't ask me to explain, it because I'm still not entirely sure. but it has to do with blockage in possibly the gall bladder or the ileum... Anyways, he performed a labroscopy today (basically sticking a camera inside the belly to see what's going on) and injected some serum to x-ray. There are apparently two kinds of billary atrisia, one intrahepatic and one extrahepatic. The extrahepatic atrisia is easily fixed, where the intrahepatic atrisia usually involves a liver transplant. There's also another procedure to prolong the life of the child till she's older and has a better chance of a doing a liver transplant, but I can't spell it, so I won't try. The x-ray concluded it was intrahepatic and he went to talk to the parents. He came back obviously agitated and said they wanted to open her up and make sure it was intrahepatic, and if it was, they would do nothing and just have another child later on. So cut her open and made positive it was what he originally diagnosed and said "ok, we're done. You can go home." He was not a happy camper. It gave me far more respect for him than I already had, because I'm sure he deals with this situation a lot in this country and clearly it always effects him negatively. It was basically the worst case medical scenario and the worst decision one could make in the situation. What a screwy country.

On the other end of things, I've been living a bit beyond my means. Last sunday we decided to treat ourselves to a nice night out. We went to a place called New Heights which is similar to M on the Bund, but a little less expensive. We have a beautiful evening view of the Bund, some really good champagne (I never have liked champers in the past, granted this bottle was about $80) and some nice white wine as well (again, same story as the champers) . Fortunately the alcohol was split 6 ways, so that made it far more affordable. Still, all said and done, I spent around $40-$50 dollars for that meal, which is a substantial amount in Shanghai. Well worth it though. All in all, it was the perfect end to a great weekend. Earlier that weekend we had an extraordinarily late night out and decided, since we were out so late, we should just stay up and see the sunrise on the Bund. Usually, the Bund is jam packed with people, many of which are trying to sell you roller skates or sketchings or flowers, etc. In the wee hours of the morning there are nothing but a few old men flying kites, old women doing tai chi, and the occasional drunken westerner sobering up to the sunrise. It was the clearest day I've seen in Shanghai. Couldn't have picked a better morning. Granted, I was wrecked for the rest of the day, going home to sleep a mere 4 hours, but still well worth it. Otherwise, things are stable. I get up at 7:30, go to work, go to dinner, go to a lounge or bar, eat some late night skewers (which are so addictive I'd almost say they sprinkle crack on them) and go to bed around 1:30. A more fast paced, rigorous and sleep deprived life than I'm used to, but it's something I needed I think. A real chance to spread my wings that I wasn't able to do before. Despite the excellent times I'm having here, I still think of all of you often and miss you more than I can describe. You are all in my thoughts and in my prayers.

2006-07-18T02:06:00.000-07:00

Typhoon!!!

Yes, there was a typhoon that was fast approaching. However, it skirted the coast and didn't come inland. It got a little windy here. Which was actually quite a relief because it cool things off. Sorry for not posting in awhile. I like to having stories to post and pictures to accompany them, but I've a lack of both. Oh and also, I found a way to read my blog, so I can see your comments!!! And my mdoberg@gmail.com email works.... just not for my parents charter.net email. So use that one.

The past week or so has been a constant efflux of TPA volunteers. Most of my photos are just of us going out at night and staying out waaaaaaaaaay past our bedtimes. It's a good things none of us are actual employees or else we'd have been fired long ago for constantly coming into work tired.

As for my placement, I'll give a bit of the low down. In truth, it's not terribly exciting. The first two weeks I spent in the Emergency Department, which I was under the impression would be pretty freakin sweet. Sadly, the emergency department is more like a second outpatient. Not a whole lot goes on. Fifty percent of the people that come in have a cough and fever or a little gastritis. Nothing warranting going to the ED back at home. The thing is, there is no privatized medicine, so no real family doctors or clinics. All medical care is given at the hospital. So no matter what you have, you go to the hospital, and usually the ED. I've been in TCM (traditional Chinese Medicine for the past week and a half and it's a bit more of the same. I'm only in the acupuncture department, which is interesting, but two weeks of it is a little much. Not many people come in for acupuncture to this particular hospital. Most people go straight to a TCM hospital. So most of my day if filled with making small talk with the doctors. Not too bad, but not always easy, especially when I'm fighting off sleep. I start pediatric surgery next week though, which is supposedly pretty intense. I'm looking forward to it.

Things have been chugging along otherwise. It's been really difficult lately though. In the span of 5 days all three of my flatemates have moved out and left for home. It's pretty rough. It's odd to think that I only knew them for a few weeks, but everything seems amplified in this place. You can get so close to people in such a short amount of time. This picture was the last time the 4 of us were together. Gemski left the next day, Christof left 3 days later and Jen just left yesterday, as did Holly (the girl pictured below). I pretty fond of Holly as well. Really one of the most interesting people I've ever met. She doesn't much like people posting pics of her, but she'll have to deal with it :) Yesterday was a hard day though. Miss those girls like crazy. In their last few days (and for chris's) we went clubbing (one of the clubs the DJ was Jazzy Jeff, Will Smith's friend on Fresh Prince of Belair. his djing was awesome), did Karaoke TV, went to a foam party and frequented several bars. I'm emotionally deflated and physically exhausted, wrecked. I've also been sick for most of this. Dancing till 3Am and singing at the top of my lungs isn't the best way to get over a bad cough and fever. Not the best company for my new flatmates. They're alright. It'll take some getting used to but I imagine I'll grow close to them as well... then have to say goodbye to them as well. Most people are only here for a month or so. During my 3 month stint, I'll have about 3 complete overhauls. By late august, no one here right now will still be around. It's something I'm going to have to get used to though. Not only in Shanghai but I imagine in every country. If you know me well though, you know saying goodbye so often to people I care about isn't easy for me. I think Shanghai is a little different though. In many of the other countries, people stay with host families. In Shanghai we're all in flats so we all spend time with each other, maybe more so than if we lived with other families. Maybe the other countries won't be as heart wrenching.

Like I said, most of my pics lately are just of people when we've gone out. And I haven't taken my camera to work yet. I will soon and you can see all that good stuff. I think I'll just post more pics and let them speak for themselves. Just to give you guys an idea of what we do together, how many there are, etc. I'm awfully glad I have permanence with you loved ones at home. Thanks for always being there for me guys. You mean the world to me.

This last one is of the foam party, fun stuff. Crazy stories from there, maybe not ones to mention on the blog though. I've loads more photos, but it takes tons of time to upload them all, so these will have to do for now. Seeing a Black Eyes Peas concert Thursday, so I'll have photos from that and I might post them soon. Wouldn't usually got to a concert of there's in the states, but here I gotta take advantage of every opportunity. Take care everyone.

2006-07-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

Shanghaied

Hey gang. I must first apologize for the delay of my first post. I fortunately was not shanghaied, but have been extraordinarily busy since my arrival. Not to mention the fact that I've been having various technical difficulties with the internet. For some odd reason, I can receive emails, but have had not success in sending them. My gmail account seems defunct, so I'm going to try to switch over to my hotmail account. Hopefully I'll find it to be more successful. md_oberg@hotmail.com Secondly, I can post on my blog (assuming you're reading this) but I can't view the actual page, or any of your comments (Yay communism!). Please, don't let that keep you from commenting for i shall read them eventually, but don't don't think ill of me if I fail to respond to a comment. I shall try to make up my absence with a very long post today. Hold on to your butts.

This is the beautiful city of Shanghai. A city of incredibly sights and sounds, and unbearable heat and smells... and even more unbearable cabbies. It rained the evening I arrive, an unfortunate omen for the week to come. I've never been one to shy away from rain, especially warm rain, but when it burns your skin and turns your white clothes wierd colors I tend to draw the line. Shanghai is an exceptionally metropolitan city. Apparently it was one of the most exciting cities in all of Asia pre 1950's. (Yay communism again!) After a half a century hiatus from the party scene, Shanghai is starting to emerge once again as "the place to be in China". I have to admit, never have I been to a city quite like this one. If there are two things I've learned about Shanghai so far it's this: you can't take ten steps without someone trying to sell you a fake rolex and they are obsessed with the Brazilian soccer star Rhonaldino. I mean, the guy is practically a soccer god, but the amount of billboards graced by his face are inumerable. Maybe they like him because he has even worse teeth than they do.... and that's saying a lot.

These are two of my flat mates....and me. Jen is from the Bay area and Chris is a brit, but we still like him anyways. Actually, since this is an english organization, us Americans are outnumbered by the English, which is fine with us. We just get to rub July 4th into more peoples' faces ;). They are a lot of fun though. We go out almost every evening and spend the weekends touring around the city. All of the volunteers generally spend time together. There is usually a group of about 20 of us that go out in the evenings for dinner and drinks and the occasional disco or karaoke. Unfortunately this proves to become rather expensive between the food, drinks, cover charges and cab fares. But it's fun nonetheless. However, since I have 3 months ahead of me in this country, I should start going out in moderation. When we're not out, we bought extremely inexpensive (and probably illegal) copies of tv show series. We've all been addicted to the show House, Arrested Development and Grays Anatomy, all splendid. In this picture, the girl on the left, Gemma, is also living in my flat. She is, as well, English. She's incredibly entertaining. The one on the right is French Anne. She's french, in case the name wasn't explicit enough. Unfortunately, Gemma is leaving in a week. Since everyone is here for different lengths of time, with different starting and leaving dates, the turn over rate is extraordinarily high. People are constantly coming and going. It's great to constantly be meeting new people, but sad that the ones I've become good friends with have to leave.

This past Sunday, my flat mates and I (and two others) took a day trip to the city of Hangzhou. It's a lake city and is supposedly one of the prettiest places around. When we got off the train, we headed straight to the Lingyin Temple. This is a picture of the hillside outside the temple. There was a small cave/tunnel system amidst the rocks with dozens upon dozens of other fantastic carvings like these.
This statue was inside one of the buildings of the Lingyin Temple. I believe that it is the protector of mankind, holding a dragon in one hand and a piece of fruit in the other... I think. This statue was big and I mean big. I was only about a foot taller than that wood banister in front of him. Also in this temple complex was the tallest statue in all of the Chinese Buddhist temples. It was 36 meters tall. I neglected to take a photo however because I didn't want to disturb the multitude of Chinese Buddhists praying. I also neglected to take a photo of the outside of any of the buildings in the complex.... I have no good reason for why not. fortunately for me, almost all of the temples look the same! So I'll get pictures from ones later on, and you'll get the general idea.

After the temple and a bite to eat, we went to the lake. It's a beautiful lake about a mile in diameter. After taking a shot walk along the lakes edge. We managed to haggle a boatman down to an acceptable price and set off in the lake. This was a quaint little boat power only by a single oar and the boatman's muscles. It was a very pleasant ride. In this photo is Gemma, Ling and Ras (and the boatman in the back). Chris, Jen and I are sitting on the other side and there is a small table separating both sides which people often dine on. It would be a great place for a date.

He paddled us out to a small island in the lake called The Island of Small Seas, which actually had small lakes within the island. The lake was doubley awesome because it gave us a chance too cool off in the swealtering heat. He then dropped us off on the other side of lake and we took a nice walk along the causeway, which was a small strip of land cutting through a portion of the lake, during sunset. The day couldn't have been more perfect... except for the heat and humidity.

That's all for now. I'll update again soon, I promise. Now that I'm settled I should post with a greater frequency. Maybe next I'll give you a virtual tour of my flat and the area around, write about my place of work, or just complain about the grastrointestinal distress I get from the food. Who knows! It's a crap shoot.... maybe that wasn't the best word choice. I'll hopefully upload more pictures in later posts, this slow connection takes forever to upload photos. I'm currently leeching wireless internet from a router near my flat, it's slow but free. Stay tuned for more updates. I miss and love you all.

2006-06-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

A New Beginning

After all the build up the time has finally come. Tomorrow at 7:55AM I leave on a grand adventure filled with mystery, intrigue, action and suspense. I hope to make this blog as exciting as my actual experiences, and if not, I'll just make a lot of stuff up to keep you guys entertained! To all of those out there that check this blog, I shall miss you dearly and hold you in my heart throughout the duration of my sojourn. Feel free to comment often and let me know the ongoings in your life. LET THE EXTRAVAGANZA BEGIN!!!