Vellore

Yesterday was the most eventful day yet. We travelled to Vellore by car and I experienced true locomotion here. Driving in India is completely different than anywhere else I have been. I thought it would change once we got out of the city, but it didn't... it only got worse. Remember the racing video game when cows, deer and people would run out in front of you without any notice? Well I think that was originally a training video for Indian drivers that made it's way to the Western world as a challenging racing game. I am not exaggerating! While we were driving along the main thouroughfare (a toll road, btw) between Bangalore and Chennai, we had to avoid: goats, cows, rickshaws, motorcycles (that sometime carry up to 4 people) wagons carrying fruit, oxen and at one time an old man walking against the traffic in the middle of the road. The only way you could survive the roads is to understand the heirarchy. It's bus/semi, truck, car, rickshaw, two wheeler, bycycle then lastly people. The opposite of the law in the states. As crazy as the driving is, I never saw an accident.

We finally reached Vellore around 6:00 p.m. on Sunday and were greeted by a huge fort, evidence that at one time it was a garrison town. The fort seemed very interesting, and I would have liked to have visited it, but due to all of the events of yesterday, there just wasn't any time.

Vellore is known throughout India (and the world) for it's medical school, Christian Medical College. The college has a great history and the employees are very proud of it's heritage. Everyone that we met is committed to maintaining the universities mission. (I'll give a brief synopsis of it's history in another post.)

The purpose of the visit to CMC is to meet with the head of the RUHSA program, Dr Mony John. REACH is hoping that the RUHSA program can help them with research that will help them present significant evidence that REACH is a self sustaining program. First, we met with Dr. John in an impromptu meeting in the hallway in front of a lecture hall at the university around 9 am. During this meeting, he did not seem convinced that REACH was a feasible program. He stated that it has happened before and failed in other programs. Remember CMC is a charitable hospital committed to the poor and they do not force people to pay the 10 rupees required to sustain a good program in a community. This is primarily how their programs have failed at showing sustainability, but worked in other areas. After this initial meeting, Dr John arranged for us to tour CMC, a 2,000 bed hospital. This tour took about 2 hours, then we met him back for lunch. He invited us to join him with RUHSA in a 2:00 meeting. After about 3 hours of discussions in English and Tanglor (? the native language for that region), and Tanglish. Dr John finally stated that he liked the REACH model and would like to help, just the kinks need to be resolved and another area for a second pilot needed to be assessed for the program. This work is going to take some time. One of the things I have learned in India is that nothing is as easy as 1,2,3. It's more like 1,1,1,1,1,1.5,1, 2,1,1,1, 2.5,2.75,1,1.....3. That has been my experience on a small scale, I'm sure it isn't much different on larger scales.

After this meeting, Dr. John invited us to visit one of the RUHSA meetings. On the way to the village tons of litter could be seen throughout the streets. There were goats and cows living where people performed daily life activities. At one point I saw a person sitting on a porch eating a meal while the cow directly next to him urinated all over the place. So you can see the conditions are not the most sanitary. I was expecting similar situations in the village. However, the effects of RUHSA were effident. There was not a speck of litter through out the village (at least not where we were). It was unbelieveable the difference the cleanliness made. I was such a pretty area. We were invited by one of the women to join them in a self help group meeting in another women's homes. As we walked to her home, we saw an area in which the livestock were contained in separate areas. Compared to the other people I have seen in the area, the people in this village were healthier and happier. RUHSA has really made a huge difference, this is promising for REACH.

That is all I can write for now. I need to make my way to the rickshaw and negotiate a ride so I can be at the hotel by noon to check out. Tho I am only a few blocks away, nothing in India is one, two, three and this may take an hour. I would walk, but I'm afraid of getting run over.
~Lisa

Bannerghata Biological Park

Today I met with Dr. Lyttle and his family. We rode about an hour outside of Bangalore to Bannerghata to go on a "safari" in the biological national park. On the safari we saw white tigers, bengal tigers and lions. The bears were not being shown.

I saw a much uglier side of Bangalore today. There were more shanty towns in this area. When we drove pass an alley, I saw a house covered in trash, literally. There was trash on the roof and the trash draped over the cover of the porch. It was unbelievable! But that is the norm here. I really believe that the money used to place lanes in the roads would have been more useful for trash pick up. Dr Lyttle informed me that Bangalore is far different than the rest of India. Due to it's technological advances, it is more western than the other cities. I will get to see the differences tomorrow in Vellore. We will be there visiting the medical school to obtain information about starting a second pilot program. During this time I will learn more about what the organization it trying to accomplish.
I am not sure how easy it is to obtain internet access there (probably not too bad since there is an affluent medical school there), but I will definitely share what I learn with everyone. Until then, take care!

Bangalore

After a 4 hour drive to Lufkin, a 2 hr ride to Houston 25 hours on a plane and a 9 hour lay over (the flight was delayed) in Bombay, I am finally in Bangalore.

Bangalore is far more beautiful than I expected, even the trash lying around looks as though it is part of the landscaping. This is a stark contrast to the view I had of Mumbai! From the plane, I saw the slums that outlined the runway. I could see large group of children playing cricket and king of the mountain on the dirt piles. Shanty towns were seen through out the city of Bombay, completely interspersed with upscale hotels. This is definitely a kind of poverty I could not comprehend. Since I did not venture out of the air port, I did not encounter any beggars. In Bangalore, which is quite opposite, the shanty towns were hidden by hills and very hard for me to notice (at least in the area I travelled through).

The ride over was quite interesting. Really the lanes in the road are kinda pointless. As no one stayed in their lane and only move over when they were honked at by another car. I rode my first rickshaw today. It was a little fun and will probably become my basic mode transport within the city (very cheap), but even after the ride, I a had a hard time finding this internet cafe and I had to walk a bit. With all of the anxiety I had prior to coming, I feel quite comfortable walking here during the day (I would not dare go out by myself after dark).
Tomorrow I will meet Dr. Lyttle and his family. He is the physician that runs the organization I am travelling with this week. We are planning to go to a national wildlife park here in Bangalore. I looked very interesting and will probably be my closest experience to a safari.

I will keep writing posts as I can, some internet cafes are hard to find.

Lufkin, TX

So now I am preparing to leave for Houston. My flight is at 3:45 pm. I will arrive in Bangalore at 7:45 am on the 27th. Fortunately, the organization has arranged for a driver from the hotel to pick me up so I do not have to worry too much about street navigation.

I have been trying hard to prepare myself for the culture shock of going from Austin to India. Of course nothing I do here is going to help. I will just have to ease into it and being with people for the first week is definitely going to help me adjust.

I will keep everyone updated on my travels. Feel free to post any suggestions or comments.