In the Hospital in India
So it finally happened. I got sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that people in the U.S. expect that you would get if you come to India. The kind of sick that keeps tourist drinking bottled water and eating toast instead of curry. According to locals–I shouldn’t have “taken food from outside” not ever, but in this weather (over 100 F) not at all. As an American eating out is so normal, it’s hard to change that habit. It’s what we do for fun. My friend and I ate at a delicious Tibetan resturant in the refuge colony in North Delhi by the University. It is one of the only places in Delhi to get beef with steamed bread called Tingmo, chicken momos steamed, and I had a ginger, lemon tea. We also drank what I assumed was filtered water. I think I’m switching back to vegaterian eating and mineral water at least for a time.
I will spare the details, but about 24 hours later I was running to the toliet the whole night and by morning I had a 105 fever and was so weak I could hardly walk. My mom and the lady who washes her floors (luckly I was over at my parent’s place when this happened) put wet rags on my head, stomach, and feet. They gave me a fever reducer and Gaterade. My mom said we better go to the doctor. I agreed, but thought “what are they going to do?”
“The worse thing that could happen is that you could be dehydrated and have to be put on IV,” my mom said. Still I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t even bring a book with me to the hospital. When I got there, my blood pressure was low. My heartrate was fast. My fever was high. I got hooked up, admitted.
They wanted to know if we wanted a private or a semiprivate room. When we said private, they told us there were no private rooms available. It’s like on a menu here, you ask for the murg mali tikka, they said they don’t have it or that it will take time. You ask for something else. They don’t have it. You ask what they have, and they point to the menu and say whatever is on the menu. Then it turned out there was no one else in my small wing of the hospital, so it was like a private room anyway.
The hosptial was clean. The people were nice. Even the costodal staff wanted to look over me–I had to yell for a few bystanders to go away at times, but over all I was impressed.
Except for the rat incedient. My mom took the day shift, my dear friend Abby took the night shift–staying with me. In the afternoon of the first day my mom saw a rat. She freaked out. She got a guy to come get the rat. He chased it out of the room–but my mom was not convienced it wouldn’t return. She was right, the next morning in ran back through the room and into it’s hole. At that point, my mom went on the rall. I have not seen my mom like this. No matter who entered the room she kept yelling about the rat and how they needed a trap or posion and i didn”t want to sleep with the rat in the room. In Hinlish, in English, something might have even come out in Italian. Then she was sent to chemist to buy me more medicine. To fight cooruption, they have you buy your own meds. to give to the nurse to put in you (or rather your family). The staff had come to see what all the fuss was about, but other than a few giggles, shrugs, she curious peaks into the place where mom had seen the rat disapear into, nothing happened. So, she returned from the pharmacy with not only medicine but rat posion. She gave it to the orderly and demanded they put it around the room.They did. And, a few hours later they installed a refrigerator in our semi-private room.
Lessons: don’t eat meat in the summer in Delhi, drink bottled water, and bring your own rat posion to the hosptial.
Ps. I am feeling much better and am hoping to feel great by Friday because I am supposed to go camping.
Dating American 101
Many Americans date and pursue marriage in a poor manner. There have been times in my life when the dating process has seem like a strange set of traditions to observe…they have seemed foreign to me…until I have been face to face with a new set of values and behavior observed in regards to determining who to marry.
High School Senior Formal (Dustin was never my boyfriend--just my date a few times)
Dating in America is something that every kid looks forward to. Usually, for a boy it involves getting up the guts and asking a girl to the movies, mini golf, the mall or a dance. Before and even after one or two such events the boy and girl start talking on the phone and emailing, sending SMS. Sometimes people call this “talking to someone.” After a few more dates or a few more weeks of hanging out, the guy and girl might start calling this “seeing each other” or “dating.” Some one can talk to or see more than one person at a time. They are still not a couple until they have the D.T.R. (a conversation to define the relationship). At this point, one of the parties (traditionally the guy) expresses is feelings by saying something like, “I really like you,” or “I dig you,” or “I’m really into you.” And, if the girl feels the same way, or wants a boyfriend, she will also confess her feelings, they might kiss and from then on they are considered “going out,” “boyfriend and girlfriend,” “a couple.” Most of the time at this point it is agreed that the guy and girl will not “see anyone else” or even “talk to anyone else.” It doesn’t mean that they do not have friends of the opposite sex that they talk to, but it means that while they are going out with each other, they will not enter into other relationships like this one. From this point the couple hangs out a lot, both with other friends and one on one. They get to know each other, they get to know each other’s friends and family. After few months or more into it, if things are going well the boy or girl will get up the guts (once they are very sure) to say “I love you.” People I hang around call it the “L Bomb.” It is a big deal. It means you are serious. It means that (depending on your age), you might be heading toward marriage. But at any point (1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years), the boy or girl might decide to end the relationship—to “break up.” No one likes to break up, but most people experience it. And, breaking up is by far better than divorce. If the youth of India want to adapt dating…as a means to love marriages the “break up” is essential.
From what I understand about arranged marriage the families to the hard work of finding out if this guy or girl is really the best for you. They think about family, education, religion, career, and hopefully if this other person would do a good job of loving and taking care of you. In many more modern families in cities, the boy and girl then meet and if they are agree then the marriage is “fixed.” It is a good system if you have a great family.
Dating is essentially a different route to trying to figure out if the boy or girl in front of you is the right person for you to marry. Instead of basing the evidence of whether or not this person is right for you on a CV, photo, and information about a person in dating the evidence can only be build up over time, through experience with a person. If my parents do not want me to marry I person I choose to date, it will be not because of information about him but because of experience with him. So, a good first impression is key (Think “Meet the Parents”). Dating must begin with both the boy and the girl being interested in one another, but both the boy and the girl must be unsure of the extent of his and her own feelings. Many counselors suggest that a couple date for a year—go through all four seasons together before deciding to get married. If they last that long, then it might be time to consider marriage but not before. If the couple is not very compatible (if they do not get along), if the girl and guy bring each other down, or are not going the same direction, then the best thing for them is to break up.
SHANTARAM
My friend Saroop said that “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts was a book that everyone who loves India should read…I agree. Not only that, but it is a hilariously entertaining and educating book. It is about an escaped convict from New Zealand who takes refuge in a slum of Mumbai. It is a 933 page book, I am 371. The following are a few more of my favorite quotes so far.
“There was an anouncement. It might have been in English. It was the kind of sound an angry drunk makes, amplified through the unique distortions of many ancient, cone-shaped speakers… (Roberts 100)”
Setting: the Victoria Terminus train station, Mumbai
I recently discovered the the only way to find out accurate information at a train station in India is by asking a coolie. They know everything. The catch is you have to know a little Hindi to be able to ask them your question and understand the answer.
“As the minutes passed I relected on that particulary Indian custom of amiable abduction (Roberts 185).”
In my experience people say, “Come.” You ask, “where?” “why?” and they say “Just come.”
Then there was the time that a friend sent a hired bear to give Linbaba (as the main character is affectionately called)a hug. But let me start at the beginning of the incident:
“We stood together for a moment, and then he reached out impulsively and enclosed me in a warm, bearish hug. I laughed as we came apart, and he fowned at me, clearly puzzled.
‘Is it funny?’ he (Abdullah) asked.
‘No,’ I reassured him. ‘I just wasn’t expecting a bear hug, that’s all.’
‘Bare? Do you mean it is naked?’
‘No, no, we called that a bear hug,’ I explained, gesturing with my hands as if they were claws. ‘Bears, you the furry animals that eat honey and sleep in caves. When you hold someone like that, we say you’re giving them a bear hug.’
‘Caves? Sleeping in caves?’
It’s okey. Don’t worry about it. I liked it. It was…good friendship. It was what friends do, in my country, giving a bear hug like that (Roberts 213).’
……a month later…..
A bear with her handlers comes to Lin’s door. The handlers who are painted blue from head to foot tell him that they have a message for him, but they will not tell him what it is or who it is from until he hugs the bear. The crowd starts shouting “Karo, Karo, Karo” (Do it! Do it! Do it), and he has no choice but to hug the bear–which is so big that it knocks him over. But the bear is quite tame. Lin is then handed this note:
“My Dear Brother,
Salaam aleikum. You told me that you are giving bear hugs to the people I think this is a custon in your country and even if I think it is very strange and even if I do not understand, I think you must be lonely for it here because Bombay we have a shortage of bears. So I send you a bear for some hugging. Please enjoy. I hope he is like the hugging bears in your country. I am busy with business and I am healthy, thanks be to God. After my business I will return to Bombay soo, Inshallah. God bless you and your brother,
Abdullah Taheri (Roberts 235).
