Wakes, Lakes, Cakes and Breaks

There is a lot to say from the last few weeks so I’ve decided to report on four completely unrelated random highlights with no clever segues.

Wakes –

As you should remember from one of my earlier posts, I have had the pleasure of being awoken by some friendly creatures in the middle of the night, such as the preying mantis that landed on my pillow. Since then, there have been lizards, ants, mosquitos…nothing major. 

A few weeks ago though, I started seeing more and more cockroaches and the distinct sound of their shelled bodies scurrying across the tiled floor of my bedroom soon became the norm. Despite the fact that I would sleep with my flashlight in hand to confirm my suspicions every few hours for my own personal reassurance, they never really bothered me enough to file a complaint with Dinesh (caretaker).

About a week ago, however, I was lost in my habitually vivid dream world (no, I am not on malaria pills), when something unfamiliar started repeatedly poking up my nose. In dream world, I disregarded it and made an unconscious effort to ignore that which was desperately trying to disturb my happy place. After what felt like 15 minutes  of continual assault (possibly 15 seconds of real time), I awoke to the realization that it was, in fact, an antennae that had been selfishly interrupting my sleep. Still confused and in a semi-lucid state of mind, I itched my face and came to the rude awakening that a cockroach was comfortably resting on my right cheek. It was not so pleasant. After a spastic jolt, I jumped to turn on the light and saw many of the same critters hurrying to retreat to a new darkness. I lost some serious sleep that night... and the nights to follow, though I do believe I handled myself well! Just ask my friend Maya who was fortunate enough to catch a frenzied - yet collected - skype call with me at 4:30am. I've come a long way since the preying mantis freak out.

The perpetrator moments
before execution.

Anyway, this intrusion obviously crossed the line - I tend to take matters more seriously when its a matter of losing precious sleep. I informed Dinesh the next day and a chemical of some sort was sprayed all over the apartment that smelled absolutely lovely. I was unsure of whether or not it had worked until there was no longer a need to question after witnessing an apocalypse the morning after. I awoke to about 7 dying upside down cockroaches on my floor. I was left no other choice than to channel Kevorkian and put them all out of their misery with a shoe. Apparently the chemical screws with their centre of gravity and forces them upside down to eventually die. Perfect moment for a photo shoot! I am happy to report that no cockroach has been seen since.

Lakes –

About to board the coracle

Me and Nicole!

On a completely separate note, last weekend a friend (Nicole) and I visited Hogennakal Falls. Known as the ‘Niagara’ of India, it should be of no surprise that it is a waterfall…but not just any waterfall – this one is sacred. The falls are believed to have curative powers attracting those with a variety of ailments to bath in its waters. Hogennakal is also known for its massages with special mystic oils. Adding to the coolness factor of this excursion, the common way to experience the falls is in circular basket boats made of bamboo called 'coracles'  that navigate through the lakes and head straight toward the powerful currents. We even got a fantastically disorienting coracle SPIN from our strong and capable paddler just in front of one of the falls.

Currently the background on my computer.

Woman selling freshly
caught fish

Men getting massaged with
mystic oils

Right next to the falls, fresh fish is caught, spiced, barbequed and sold amidst the constant slapping noises of men getting river-side massages. As we soon learned, women have special rooms where massages are done in the privacy of other women. Nicole and I endured a slimy and aggressive massage, obviously unwilling to refuse the $5 bargain. My neck was non-consensually and unexpectedly cracked and we left the room in pain from lying on the rotten wooden tables and absolutely drenched in the mystic oil. Luckily for us, there was an area for women to shower – unluckily for us, we had to shower with our clothes over our bathing suits to fit in with the other unexposed women in their sopping kurtas. There were huge clumps of hair on the flooded ground and dirty diapers lining the stairs, but it was nice to be in water on such a hot day – despite the fact that it was literally repelling my skin from the oil. So much for a clean 3-hour drive back home! Oh India.

Cakes –

In response to all the wonderful birthday messages, I’ll fill you guys in about my celebration in Bangalore. It began with an amazing dinner the night before consisting of wine, pasta and crème brulee which couldn’t have been topped. On the day of the 16^th,  however, Asha (from CFAR) got into a motorbike accident and broke her shoulder and the woman helping us unexpectedly quit, tripling the workload, so it wasn’t exactly all fun and games. In addition, despite the several reminders and sly hints I gave to Chethan leading up to the day he still forgot! I gave him some time to remember but it just wasn’t happening. Eventually, I decided to trigger his memory with a casual giveaway at which point he scolded himself and gave me an extremely enthusiastic handshake. Once we were back at the office, he told David and within 10 minutes I was presented with a very spontaneous “Happy Birthday Jane” cake and serenaded by the whole CFAR team to a Korean version of Happy Birthday from a youtube video. Although I am still baffled as to why it was in Korean, it was pretty nice! I seem to have grown accustomed to celebrating my birthday in foreign countries with bad cake so I’ve learned to embrace it. I’d even go as far as to say that I now prefer it.

Breaks –

Street Dosas
(South-Indian delicacy)

Temple!

It seems that just as I start getting really antsy in Bangalore, I get to take a good break from the chaos and noise pollution. Whether through Koppal, Mysore or Hogennakal, it’s always nice to change things up a bit. This weekend, though, I had a bit of a break within the city limits. Elayne came to visit and we went to some amazing restaurants (sushi!) and cafes. We vented lots and walked all around the city, stumbled upon a beautiful temple, and tons of food stalls. Note: Elayne's bus station experience was entirely different than my disaster…she effortlessly hopped right on…how unfair. How am I always so lucky?

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately! I’ll post again soon as I am now aware of how discombobulated the entries become when too much time has passed.

Miss you all!

Koppalin'

I’m back! I have finally managed to stop procrastinating and give you all another update on the second field visit from last week.

Loving life on a rock by the water

The second trip to Koppal was even more fruitful than the last. Though we participated in some interviews with journalists and health officials, we were mostly there to observe and monitor the resource persons (RPs) in how they conduct interviews and focus groups. We also spent some time creating a database for analysis for our sample size of about 2000 people (not including focus groups). I am happy to report that I officially know the basics of SPSS and Excel and learned more in 15 minutes with Raghavendra and Ravi (the quantitative guys working with us) than from an entire semester of Thursday morning tutorials of SPSS in biostatistics. After training the data entry operator woman I began to feel so sorry for the horribly tedious work that that woman will have to do but so unbelievably thankful that its not my job. In India, I am free from the frustrations of menial intern tasks and given tons of responsibility…and a team of RPs. How glorious.

Just outside of a temple
on the mountain

Every village we visited was about an hour or two from the next and drives were unbelievably scenic. One of the villages was on a hill station, so you can imagine how beautiful, remote and peaceful it was…although once the scary researchers stepped out of the car there was a discordant symphony of wailing and whimpering from terrified children (three even

                                                         wet their pants at the sight of me). 

Each focus group presented its own unique distinctions. Some were shy, some outgoing, and some too nervous to even state their husbands last names for record. Some were illiterate and gave fingerprints as consent, while others could sign. Some groups averaged age 13 at marriage, others were more progressive. Some sold hand-made hair combs, while others roasted ground nuts. Some were far from primary health centres (PHCs) and had much to say, other were so close they almost had no complaints. 

Villager in a mountain of groundnuts
(she gave me a heaping bag of them)

All of them, though, were vibrant, opinionated, and obsessed with serials (soap operas). They were also all completely decked out in tons of beautiful and shiny bling (as many ear piercings as could fit, 1-2 nose rings, 12+ bangles on both arms, 2+ necklaces).

Focus Group Discussion

After one of the focus groups, Chethan wanted to give the women some cloth pieces that he brought with him from his fathers tailoring business. I expected to just hand them out but it turned into a whole gift-giving ceremony, of sorts. In a moment of sheer honor and intimidation, as the foreigner and the on-call celebrity, I was elected to hand out each cloth to the 20 women with garlic cloves, rice and spices piled on top (to symbolize the good wishes of never going hungry). I was asked to apply a bindhi between their eyebrows and dot the same powder on their nose rings, bangles and necklaces with Hindu goddess charms on them. It was pretty spectacular to be a part of such a genuine, spontaneous religious ritual. Once I had gifted, bowed and namaste’d all the women, they decided to pay back the favour and conduct the same ceremony for me with the gift of 5 green and gold bangles. Pretty cool eh? It’s all on video. I shall show you guys when I return.

Gift ceremony post focus-group

Sharanappa and his wife

We were also invited for dinners at the Taluk (district) coordinators’ houses in the villages which was quite exciting. The learned technique of eating with my hands (or unlearned technique of not eating with my hands) was truly tested in this final exam of Indian gobble. I strongly believe that I would have passed with flying colours if it not have been for the fire building inside my mouth. Nonetheless, it was great to see inside some of the homes and try some home-cooked village food. The Indian custom, though, is not to eat until your guests are finished so we were served a ton of food but the couples never actually ate or sat down with us.

Dinner at Sharanappa's house with
our driver, Pavan and Chethan

It was also a bit of a struggle to politely refuse the water and the endless heaping mountains of rice shoveled onto my plate (even after the 4 chapatis I was force-fed earlier). I had a bit of a hard time from the unaccustomed food the next morning, but Chethan was reallyyy not in good shape after the second village dinner. I’ve never seen him so quiet. My stomach must be made of steel because I seriously upstaged my Indian colleague.

One of the many bullock-carts
(FYI: Horn-painting festival is next
month...hoping to be able to see it!)

Driving the bullock-cart!
(the car ruined the picture)

 The trip was once in a life time. There are some pretty awesome perks of traveling with locals (driving my own bullock-cart being one of the highlights). There were no annoying tourist gimmicks. I was the first foreigner to ever visit some of these places. But while it was amazing to visit in the company of my Indian friends, my stardom in the villages got very exhausting. I was unrelentingly swarmed by huge crowds of children every step of the way but I fully realize it comes with the territory and I also know that I would react much worse if I saw a celebrity in my [the] ‘village’.

Unsurprisingly, I was forced to pick up a bit more Kannada and am proud to say that I have a vocabulary of about 20 words. Learning the word ‘toombah’ (very) was pretty helpful. I like to use it as often as possible and attach it to every other word I know to make it seem like I know more than I actually do. As a result, every one I meet thinks I am toombah enthusiastic.

After the first few days, I trusted the villages enough to leave my bag completely unattended with absolutely no apprehensions. Contents of bag include: laptop, kindle, camera, ipod, hotel advances in cash, passport etc. It took a while to relax about it, but I soon learned that theft is just not something to worry about in such welcoming villages. Also, when you walk into a room of skeptical women trying to figure you out (and your intentions), it’s best not to be clutching onto your belongings for dear life. The only way to evoke trust, is to trust!

CFAR and KHPT
(Somya, me, Manju, Asha and Chethan)

So, after a week of excessive eating, sweating, a flooded hotel room after rainstorms, no showering (a circumstantial choice) and lots of road trips, I have lived to tell the tale.