The day after I returned, I went to Connaught Place, in the northern part of the city, which is a set of buildings in three concentric circles that houses shops and restaurants, apparently originally supposed to look like Bath's Royal Crescent and recently refurbished for the Commonwealth Games last year. I also took the metro for the first time - which is so nice! Very cheap, new, air-conditioned, and fast! Women-only cars are a great bonus. Like most places (including the KFC that used metal scanners when we walked in to ask for directions), you have to go through metal detectors, get patted down, get your bags screened to enter the metro. At first, I thought all this security everywhere you go was kind of overkill, and although I still think it's not terribly effective, in light of everything that just happened in Mumbai and in India over the years, I understand all the precautions.
The next night, we lost power for 21 hours in the apartment - devastating. The worst part is trying to sleep in the heat without AC or fan. Ugh.
That same week I went to N
izamuddin with colleagues from work, which was a completely different side of Delhi than I had seen. In what seems like a tiny city in itself, a tight, dizzying maze of alleys lined with merchants leads you into an opening in the center of this district where Muslims gather around shrines for prayer (and exorcism, judging from the terrifying screams we would hear from time to time). When you reach the shrines, you must take off your shoes and cover your head. The wonderful thing about Thursday nights is that a group of Sufi men will sit on the floor in the middle with a harmonium and a drum for "Qawwali" (devotional singing) and perform these incredible, rhythmic songs while people sit and gather around - it sounds amazing. Afterward, we dined at the famous Karim's in Nizamuddin - delicious Mughlai non-veg curries!That weekend, our CHAI global nutrition guru, Andrews, arrived from Malawi. He had the weekend in Delhi free to explore before he would take off for field visits on Monday. So I, with my scarcity of knowledge of India, was his tour guide :) On Saturday, we didn't make it too far since we were catching up with work-related stuff and then it started to really pour outside - we got stuck in it of course. So we shopped a bit and got some great Punjabi food. On Sunday afternoon, we made our way north to the old Delhi area. First we went to Rajghat, a big, lovely park, centered around a memorial that marks the spot where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. We then went over to the outdated but free Gandhi museum across the street. We went into the heart of Old Delhi around the giant Jama Masjid (mosque) and wandered around in the chaos and bustle there. This is also another very different view of Delhi, with its loud, tight, congested, chaotic markets - that may sound like the rest of Delhi as well, but Old Delhi is definitely something of its own. We found our way to the hidden other location of Karim's (I've heard different stories as to which one was the original) for more delicious meats!
That night, I went with some colleagues to my first Indian movie! We saw "Delhi Belly" - the big summer blockbuster here, filled with crude humor and poo jokes of course. They made a "Hinglish" version, so that I could happily understand most of it (and when I don't understand - I imagine what I think they're saying and I think "ha! that would be funny!" and then I'm laughing with everybody else). This wasn't the traditional Bollywood flick with the sudden break-out of song and choreographed dance though - I still have to catch one of those.
The following Tuesday - the 19th - I set out for 3 days of field visits. I first caught a 5:30 am flight to the city of Nagpur where I caught up with Andrews, our country director Amita, and my buddy Anita from Hyderabad to visit a factory that is making therapeutic milk powder to treat severely malnourished children in hospitals. Later that night, we spent the night in Nagpur - had dinner in the hotel restaurant where the waiter kept looking at me and insisting that they also had Chinese options when we were trying to order Indian dishes.
The next morning, Andrews and I flew to Indore where we met Fabian and Caitlin who took us on a 3-hour drive to Barwani, one of the rural tribal districts where we are doing our nutrition pilot. Once we got there, we checked into the 'fanciest' of three hotels in Barwani. At first sight - 30 flies on the bed, bathroom floor covered with dead bugs and dirty water marks, and a toilet that was a terrifying, opaque, rust-colored abyss - my hotel room was a little unsettling. Oh, and no water or electricity. It was a major improvement when we came back that evening and they had cleaned up the bugs, turned the water and power on, and I had working AC! (But still no toilet paper or tissues in the hotel or at any store in the district it seemed - thank God for restaurant napkins)
We spent that afternoon and the next day reviewing, discussing, and debating our implementation plans, and going over our training materials with the local trainers and a practice group of community health workers.
Three days in the field starts to feel like a week. Especially when, after 7 weeks of trotting around blissfully unscathed by the everyday germ pools of Delhi, I got hit with the full fury of India's biggest weapon (other than soul-crushing bureaucracy) - Delhi Belly. Well, not quite. In defense of my warrior stomach, it wasn't the food, judging by my series of symptoms. Tuesday started with what seemed like my usual sinus allergies, followed by what started to look like an eye infection, then a full cold on Wednesday, then terrible flu-like aches all over by Thursday, and an intolerant stomach by Thursday night - which was of course when we had to get into a 3-hour bumpy ride in the van back to the Indore airport and get on a flight back to Delhi. Not comfortable. That was likely the peak of the illnesses, where when I thankfully got back in my bed in Delhi, I still spent most of the night writhing around in pain, and wanting that one thing that you need (other than Cipro - thank God for my stash of that) when you're sick - MOM. Friday I stayed home, and pretty much stayed in bed the entire day trying to sleep off the aches everywhere in my body and the chest pains. You know you're pretty sick when you start to forget what it was like to feel normal. To add to things, I had to get up early the next morning to go to Kathmandu for the weekend - so I had to recover as soon as possible. And for the most part - thankfully - the flu aches went away just in time Saturday morning :)
So everyone has to get sick at least once while here - another war story - I think (and hope) I've got it all out of my system for the summer.
To be continued... in Kathmandu!
:)
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