The Mysterious Rash: Part 1

This is going to be a personal post,and medical in nature.Consider that a forewarning.

     Two weeks after I arrived in India from the United States of America, I have had a mysterious rash, and it has been an adventure in and of itself.I began getting very itchy everywhere, and would get red from all of the scratching. Small bug sized bumps were all over my body, and so for over a week I thought the it was just a horrific case of mosquitoes bites. About a week and a half later this impression quickly disappeared.

     While sitting in the room I share with my fellow Alliance student roommate I thought I was having a horrible allergic reaction because I started coughing and my throat was getting tight and itchy. I drank a bunch of water, and scared began to feel mildly panicked.  My roommate helped me out, she made some phone calls, but when that failed we tried knocking on our neighbor's door. She wasn't home, but some of the neighborhood children we play with saw us. We all returned to the apartment. One of the children, who was horribly distressed that I was unwell, was so concerned that he went to fetch their grandmother who has worked as a nurse for years. She came and unofficially diagnosed me with"acidity." A few minutes later my host mother and an Alliance staff member knocked on my door- they had gotten my roommate's voice-mail messages. A doctor was called and acidity was confirmed as the likely culprit. Medicines were gotten. Yet, I had gone to another doctor just two days before because I was also suffering digestive problems, and was already taking medicine.

     I just obliged, and the medicines knocked me out. After a good long sleep I felt a little better but needed to know what "acidity" was. In short, too much spicy food, eating too late at night, not getting enough exercise, and waiting too long in between meals causes the acids in the stomach to overproduce and this can cause both the rash and the stomach problems. I kept my diet more or the same, and still felt horrible. I visited the same doctor two more times, was given more medicine and now told I might just be allergic to something, and so should restrict my diet. I did all of this to no avail. I decided I might want to stop eating so much spicy food, and so I went out bought some food and prepared my own lunches. This didn't stop the itch. At this point my itch was so bad everyone knew about my situation because I was itching myself so much. I was desperate for an answer as to why I was so itchy and how I can stop it.


       -    -      -     -     -    To be Continued    -     -     -   -   -     -

North India

         North India. Dangerous- especially for women,being young and being a "foreigner" makes it even more dangerous, or so it may have seemed from the conversations I had with several people from Pune before I embarked on a solo week long adventure to what is commonly called "The Golden Triangle," the cities of Jaipur, Agra, and New Delhi in the Northern portion of India.

        Yet this regional prejudice, almost as common as North and South in the United States of America, was unfounded in my one week experience in North India. I was told to buy pepper spray and to ensure that I had a GPS tracking device switched on on my cell phone (an impossibility on my low tech Nokia). I was beginning to get the feeling people in Pune, Indians, not international visitors, were afraid of Indian people in the North and wanted me to be afraid as well.

       In my twenty years on Earth I have learned that fear is usually not healthy, so I put on my backpack and set off for the airport with a heavy sigh, feeling sad for all of those I'd be leaving in Pune who would spend a week worrying about me, and feeling exciting for my week of travel, by myself, at my own pace, and on my own terms.

     When I got off the plane in New Delhi and out of the cab of a taxi driver who was just as confused as I was about the lack of an exact hotel address on the hotel voucher (lesson learned here- from now on I'll triple check addresses), I found myself in the main bazaar. I wandered around the bustling market and a tourist hotspot, where hotels, eateries and shops line the pedestrian crowded streets, trying to find the hotel I booked online, Hotel Malik Continental. A shopkeeper asked if he could help me, and after telling him I was looking for the hotel, he pulled out his iPhone, looked the hotel up, called it, got an address, and helped me hail an auto-rickshaw driver to take me there. Twelve kilometers later I arrive safely at my destination. This was just one example of the kindness I experienced on my travels.

    Aside from a brief verbal dispute between a rickshaw driver and man on a bicycle who bumped into us, which was quickly resolved when a third man intervened, I encountered no mishaps in my week alone in North India. Not a single dangerous thing happened nor was I in any precarious situations, aside from being faced with the air pollution and lack of public toilets that plague many parts of India. Inside, I was inspired by the kindness of the people, the beauty and historical significance of the history of the architecture, and the peace of mind a week traveling in North India brought. While I acknowledge bad things have and do happen, they happen everywhere, and so debilitating stereotyping is more harmful than good.

And to prove my wonderful experience, enjoy some photos:

Holi!

      People across India and the world celebrated Holi. The celebration in the neighborhood, or society, that I am staying in began Saturday night. My host mother and my roommate and I were all invited to the bonfire ceremony.The ceremony was the construction of the goddess Holi with wood, leaves, etc. and her subsequent burning. Holi is a phoenix goddess. Hindus who worship her during this ceremony are symbolically giving her their woes and evils, and in her fire she burns them, transforming them into a new season of blessings. Holi also coincides with the change of season, from the rainy season into the hot season, or from winter to summer, where Nature is born again, new sprouts raise up, animals are born, etc.
      At the ceremony there are usually also drums, and once the fire is lit, each participant makes offerings to and prays to Holi. This is done by walking around Holi, the fire, in a clockwise circle once, and then tossing the offering, be it a coconut, food, papers, etc. into the fire. Some participants also pour water on the ground as they walk around the circle. As the participants walked around the fire, an older male family member would shout, in Marathi "End to Corruption" and then the rest of the family and participants would make a fist, open them mouth slightly, and quickly put the top of their fists on and off of their mouth, to make a noise signifying agreement.
      The next morning the children of our society invited my roommate and I to another art of the Holi celebration- water play. At 7:00am armed with green water squirt guns and two packets of water guns my roommate and I entered into battle. For over an hour the children played, and everyone got soaked. Having changed our clothes we went to classes. While Maharashtra, the state Pune is located in, usually practices color play for Holi five days after the water play, some people play with colors the day after the fire ceremony, as do most Northern Indians. During lunch and after classes we were pelted with rangoli colors. The college campus on which we attend classes is next door to another college, and so all on BMCC Road and FC Road Alliance students and Ferguson College students played Holi, throwing colors on each other, and water. I had a great time and I felt renew. Holi, to me, is a beautiful celebration of life.

                     
                                                     Photo Courtesy of Lily Stern

                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                        

Mumbai

          This past Wednesday the Alliance program took a trip to Mumbai for the week. Though I have always considered myself a city person, because I was born and raised in New York City and am currently living in Washington D.C., Mumbai overwhelmed me. The sheer number of people and things was more than I have ever experienced at one time in one place before. Aside from the sensory overload, some social and economic aspects of Mumbai proved surprising to me and my mostly American sensibilities. Yet, after a deeper investigation of the city, I also learned of a number of similarities between Mumbai and my hometown. Yet again, to get a fair sense of any city I prefer not to compare cities with each other.

            The first evening the group arrived in Mumbai a few of my fellow students and I walked to the Gateway of India and then to and into the Taj Mahal Hotel. During that excursion my jaw literally dropped at the opulence and wealth on display in the Hotel. On the walk back from the Taj Mahal Hotel to the YWCA Hotel where we were staying, and which was rather nice, we passed by some shanties and some poorly dressed people living in them, selling some wares nearby them on the side of the road, and others with a few blankets sleeping underneath a close by tree. This instance of economic disparity is unfortunately common around the globe, so it in itself was not very surprising. I was unsettled by the proximity of the disparity. Most American cities are highly segregated along class and socioeconomic lines. There, again unfortunately, exists a negative image of poor people in the minds of some upper class people which causes such socioeconomic segregation in American cities. Furthermore, ghettos are part of the structure of many American cities. While Mumbai is home to one of the biggest slums in India, the amount of urban poor living in some of the wealthiest areas of Mumbai was interesting.

            The group also spent a day visiting Dharavi. The vibrancy, industry, and population density of Dharavi stood with me, as well as its dearth of a sanitation infrastructure, and transportation infrastructure. The interaction the group had with members of the LEARN organization and our visits to a recycling plant and a potter’s home and workshop left me with some very positive impressions of the community  in Dharavi. The amazing stories of the obstacles some women in the LEARN organization faced in their efforts to organize, fight for their rights, and for equality will never leave me. Such instances left me with a feeling for the strength, determination, and intelligence women in Dharavi have. Similarly, the work I saw and learned that men do in recycling and pottery also left me with a sense of the knowledge, skills, and strength of the men in Dharavi. I have never experienced a community with so many contradictions as I have of Dharavi. While so many of the people living in Dharavi are industrious and intelligent, the basic infrastructure for toilets, for trash, and for transportation is almost nonexistent. Everything is cleaned, moved, and handled by hand. Such conditions left odors of human urine and feces in many parts of the community.

            Furthermore, the discussion the group had with a professor on the last day of the visit about Dharavi enriched my understanding of the community. I instantly related the history of Mumbai going from a mill city to a mall city and its relevance in the current fight the people of Dharavi are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods to the gentrification process happening in both New York and Washington DC. The professor noted that 50% of the population of Mumbai live on 6% of the land. Most of this 50% can be accounted for by Dharavi, and almost all of the people of Dharavi don’t own their land, but are legally seen as squatting on city land. The current push towards moving people into vertical slums and the problems and attempts at solutions to these problems hit me on a global scale. The effects of globalization on Mumbai, influencing it to seek to become an “international city,” are similar to the process cities in America, Europe, China, and Japan underwent and in a different way are undergoing now. Ultimately, learning about this global phenomenon left me asking more questions about its causes and solutions to problems people face because of it.

                          

                                             
                                                  Photo Courtesy of Isabel King

Goa

It’s Friday, February 21^st and at 8:45PM Kate, Angela, and I are sitting outside on a stone bench on Paud Road waiting for a bus, which we booked online a week in advance for 1350 rupees each, round-trip, to Goa. After catching a minibus to the bus actually going to Goa we are sleepy, but after the twelve-hour, three-pit stop, bumpy, noisy bus ride to Goa, when we arrive at the taxi stand, we’re still sleepy.

After the pricey autorickshaw ride to Anjuyna beach we arrive at the Red Door Hostel, which was brand new and very hospitable, two hours before check in at 11:00AM. We drop off our bags and get some tea and eggs at a café right down the road. Several showers later, the entire group of Alliance students, fifteen or so, all meet up at the beach and have a relaxing, fun filled day in the water. Along the road to the beach we see cows walking and roaming about freely, a Catholic church, a Hindu temple, and lots of shops. The shopkeepers, as well as jewelry sellers, ice cream sellers, fruit sellers, drum sellers, café workers, and men offering foot and leg massages persistently vie for sales from the tourists on the beach. The tourists hanging out at the beach were mostly Russians, and so almost all of the local salespeople spoke Russian, and many signs were in Russian.

The influence and influx of East Europeans to Goa was even more apparent at the night market we went to for dinner. The hundreds of shops haphazardly lined up, selling scarves, clothes, shoes, jewelry, bags, spices, food, and almost anything else one can imagine, even chair hammocks, were frequented mostly by Russian, Ukrainian, French, German, and British people, as well as by Indian Goaians and Tibetans. A significant number of shopkeepers at the night market were European as well. This immigration, according to my tabla (an Indian drum) instructor was because of the poor economic conditions many East Europeans face in their home countries.

After a second day at the beach, we all headed back to Pune on Sunday night, for a long day of Monday classes; but Goa was worth it!

Class FIeld Trip- Baramati

On February seventh and eighteenth the Alliance students in the Development Economics class offered and I, along with two program staff members and Professor Kulkarni traveled to the Baramati KVK in Maharashtra, India from Pune, India. The class trip proved interesting, challenging, and educational- not to mention fun. The eight students slept two to a tent. That may sound austere, but each tent was twelve by twelve feet and had a toilet, shower, sink, and full-length mirror in a room separated from the bedroom by a zip up canvas tent wall.

            During the experience of the trip, the diversity of India and how that diversity manifests the unity of India unrolled a deeper layer of itself to me. This trip was my first, intensive, tangible experience of and interaction with rural India outside of books and movies. From conversation with women running a self-help economics groups, to tours of the KVK (a Hindi abbreviation for Agricultural Science Center) farm and teaching facilitates for farmers, to an interaction with agriculture college students on their campus, to a visit to the current Prime Minister of Agriculture's museum or display of what seemed to me to be an ungodly amount of wealth and opulence, to conversations with men who ran the teaching and other facilitates for farmers at the KVK, I walked away with away with a brief introduction to the progress and practices of agricultural technologies in India.

            The exchanges I had with my fellow Alliance students also proved enriching. India is a progressing rapidly; though it’s progress is at times and in ways lopsided, from this two-day trip, at least, I felt that a thorough and concerted effort and pathos exists in India to make India truly great.

Mahabaleshbwar!

            The first trip out of Pune as a group of students from the Alliance program was a blast. Sheila, an Alliance program staff member, helped arrange the transportation details. Twenty-one students in total split four cars. The drivers hired drove us to Mahabaleshbwar, around the mountain top lookouts, to lunch, to the Mapro Garden markets, and to the lake where we could go on the lake in a rowboat or paddleboat.

            Upon arrival we all stopped to get breakfast at a small outdoor restaurant on the mountain. Most people got poohai, a rice based breakfast dish, chai, and coffee, though Angela, my roommate, and I were blessed to eat the sandwiches Geeta, out host mother, packed for us. Then,  we were off to the mountain top lookouts. There were many of them, though we only stopped at four.  The first mountaintop lookout was gorgeous; it was the first time I was up so high, and it was stunning. The second mountaintop lookout almost blew me away, literally! It was very windy. There were almost men with horses looking to get us to ride them for rupees, but we declined. The third mountaintop lookout takes the cake! There was not only an echo point, but also a “Kate’s Point,” named after the daughter of a British man who had once ruled over the mountainside during the colony era, but that was not the reason for the extraordinariness of this particular mountaintop. For me, and for the other students in the group it was because of the monkeys. Families of monkeys, over ten individual ones, roamed freely, and often got very close to people. One monkey even stole a lady’s lunch bag and her lunch, only to be chased away by a man who retrieved the lady’s bag.

            After mountaintops visits we all had lunch in a restaurant in the main mountainside town, and had ice cream. Then we visited the lake, and five of us went paddle boating and saw a beautiful lakeside temple. The visit was concluded in the only way fit for such a fun filled day: a flurry of strawberry buying at Mapro Garden! The men who drove us all bought, and helped us bargain. Though I learned many things on this trip, one of the things that stands out most, be it good or bad is up for debate, was the amazing sweetness of a Mahabaleshbwar strawberry.

Kate looking over Kate's Point