Darjeeling

As my previous post was so long, I thought I would just add a selection of photos from Darjeeling. This will probably be my last post, as I am leaving on Friday morning!

We went and saw the sunrise from Tiger Hill. The sun lit up the Himalayas and they looked ethereal as they gradually emerged. They also appeared to be floating like clouds!

Katie and I with the Himalayas in the background

This is a temple we visited. The flags are printed with Buddha's teachings. It looked gorgeous and was really peaceful inside - we spent a lot of time watching the monkeys play.

This is a Tibetan monastery which we visited. It has young monks there as well, who had a school on the site. Again, very colourful.

We ate out a lot, and this particular lunchtime I had momos, which are liked chinese dumplings with chicken and/or veg inside. Reminded me of China. Very delicious.

Darjeeling was a lot calmer and cooler than Calcutta - it is more of a tourist destination. Climate was similar to England as well, which was refreshing! We went for three full days, and spent about 16 hours travelling each way. The hostel we staying in was funny - cost us 20 quid for four of us for 2 nights, but we had 2 single beds and a single mattress on the floor, and the ensuite had a shower but the boiler didn't work and the water was freezing, so we ended up washing in the sink. It did have a balcony and an awesome view though, so that was good. I am glad to be back in the hospital with a proper shower though!

Indian Rail Travel

We have decided to make a weekend trip to Darjeeling, to taste the tea and enjoy the mountain air. Now, I have organised trains in China, where no one speaks English, and we have passed across a scrap of paper with our train journey written on it in Chinese symbols, and trusted that we had the right train. I thought (naively) that, as a lot of Indians speak at least basic English, we would be fine. Not so. Here begins the saga of the train booking. Before I begin, I would like to reassure you that eventually we do get train tickets, but the journey acquiring them was longer than the 11-hour journey from Calcutta - Darjeeling that we will embark on tomorrow.

After trying to get onto the national train website ourselves, we fail miserably. We find a travel agent, and he tells us that the trains we want are fully booked, but we can get in on the 'foreign' quota, which is several beds reserved for foreigners. He nods enthusiastically at this forward thinking that India has adopted. He asks if England is that advanced. We hang our heads.

We have to visit the station the following day with a form and photocopies of our passports proving that we are foreign. He takes us through the form, and walks us to the station. He says that he is on holiday that weekend, and he can come with us. I say that we are fine on our own. He looks disappointed, but acquiesces. We wait for 40 minutes in a queue at the station, periodically being pushed in front of. Being British, we glare and say nothing. When we get to the counter, we are told that the station in Baruipur (the village we are staying in) is too small to issue foreign quota tickets, and so we cannot get that train. However, there are general tickets available for the return journey (and not the outward one) and Mr Man begins to book those. We stop him, saying we would like an entire journey. He shakes his head - this is not possible. We return to the travel agents.

We look for alternative trains which have space on the general quota. Mr Man's internet is painfully slow. He finds tickets in the RIC class, and joyfully points this out to us. We ask what RIC means. He answers, it is reservation in case of cancellation, and as these are RIC tickets, if 20 people cancel their tickets, then we get a space on the train! What a good system, is it not! India is very populated, and we need these measures. We say that actually, we would prefer actual tickets rather than standby tickets. His face falls. He turns back to the computer.

After about an hour, he finds a return journey that is over night, and an outward journey that is during the day, arriving at 10pm. We jump on this, saying it is perfect. He says we will have to find accommodation in New Jalipur for the first night. We are confused. Turns out that Darjeeling's nearest station is a three hour car journey from the train station, and no taxi driver will go that late. We will have to book a hotel, then travel in the morning. Not ideal, but we will do this. Before we head to the station to book again, I spot another journey, slightly later, that gets in at 5am instead. I ask if it has space. He laughs, and says I am intelligent. I think it is more common sense. We wait 5 painful minutes whilst the computer loads. It is. Indians get up at 5am, so we can get a taxi straight to Darjeeling, and we don't have to pay for an extra night accommodation, as we will sleep on the train. Perfect.

We rush to station. We get pushed in front of again, but we retaliate and push back. Eventually we get to the head of the queue, and I push our paper through the slot, narrowing missing the nose of the woman who we have been jostling with. She sighs. Our tickets are processed, and, joy of joys, our journey is booked! 

Mother Teresa's house and Victoria Memorial

On Thursday, Lauren, Jane and I took the day off and hired a driver to take us to Kolkata. This was the craziest driver ever, even by Indian standards. If he saw even a smidgen of a gap, he would barrel into it and we would all cringe in the back. He also didn't know where anything was, and had to ask for directions every 200 metres. Anyway.

We visited Mother Teresa's house, which is still an active convent and we saw the nuns wandering about and Mother Teresa's tomb (next to a copy of her very passionate speech on the evils of abortion, which we all disagreed with wholeheartedly). It was down a tiny back alley, and we passed a mother holding a baby, asking us to buy baby milk for the child. Now, slumdog millionaire has taught me well, as I have heard of this scam (the mother sells the milk back to the shop owner, and they share the money) and so we declined.

We then visited Victoria Memorial, which is a huge palace dedicated to Queen Victoria, the first Empress of India (we were very empressed...haha). It was filled with paintings of India done by Englishmen and statues of the Queen and Prince Albert.

Victoria Memorial

My heat rash has also become much worse, and so I asked Deepa (the volunteer coordinator) to write down 'antihistamines' in Bengali, so I could go to a pharmacy. She did one better, and sent me to the hospital GP. I told him about my rash, how it was worse at night and kept me awake (I woke at 4am last night because I was scratching so much, and needed a shower before I could sleep again). He said, Really? You are finding this too hot? But it is cool today.
I assured him that 32 degrees is, by English standards, very hot indeed, especially when compounded with 80% humidity. He did the Indian head wobble and prescribed me some antihistamines, which were taken straight to the dispensary and I got them right away, without having to pay. Preferential treatment or what! Another good thing about staying at a hospital!

Naipur

Today we went to a satellite clinic two hours south of Calcutta, in a village called Naipur. This is for patients who are stable and live at home, but need repeat prescriptions. I helped in the dispensary: a woman would work out how many drugs were needed for two weeks (the clinic runs every fortnight) and would ask us for the amounts, which we would collect and she would put in a paper bag with when to take them on the front. I was surprised that our work was never checked for the right amounts: she would have a cursory glance but that was all. Also, most patients were prescribed multivitamins as well, which came in a big pot. I would pick out individual tablets and put them in the bag. I was not wearing gloves or had washed my hands, but they didn't seem bothered! After that, we went for a walk by the Ganges.

The queue of people waitinhg for the clinic to open. This tiny hut was where the clinic was held: there was a tiolet, one room for the psychiatrists, one for the social worker and the dispensary, and a waiting room.

This is the room with the psychiatrists. They share a table and see two patients simultaneously. The door is also always open to the waiting room (on the left) - no privacy at all!

This is the ganges. When the Aussie volunteers got here, they showed the patients a photo of the beach in Australia. The patients were facinated at the colour of the sea - "It is blue. Is it really that colour?" Meg said, with some confusion, that of course the sea was blue, what colour did they think? White they replied. The sea is white. I can now see why they think that!

I saw a coconut, and had to have one.

Hospital overview

My room at the hospital. My bed in on the left, and Jane's is on the right. We have a bathroom across the hall.

This autorickshaw is about to pull over and pick up 6 of us for the 5 min journey into the nearest village. They officially hold 5 including the driver!

The view from my room...a grove of banana trees.

It has become hotter these last few days, and I have developed an incredibly itchy heat rash which I am constantly scratching, and taking four showers a day for light relief. Our room is sweltering at night - the hottest room in the building! - and I am finding it hard to sleep. I changed beds today to be more underneath the fan, so hopefully this will help!

I thought I would explain a bit about the hospital. It is set off the road in a really nice grove with coconut and banana trees everywhere. We saw a komodo dragon the other day wandering about! It was huge - I thought it was a crocodile. There are four men's wards (acute, sub acute, chemical dependency and a group home for patients who are stable but who do not have a family willing/able to look after them) and four women's wards with the same function. There is also a children's ward, a nurses block (where I'm staying) and an outpatient's department and pharmacy. although Antara subsidises drug costs, patients still have to pay a proportion of the cost, even for the drugs patients receive whilst in the hospital, which I assumed would be free! But alas, no NHS in India.

So far the patients have been mostly stable, and I have seen no distressing incidents! The nurses are very friendly and the patients well looked after.

Our role as volunteers mostly involves entertainment -  we organise activities such as art classes, films, games etc. The general day to day life can be very dull, as patients are not allowed to leave their wards, and so (I hope) offer relief and amusement. I have also been taking the opportunity to shadow as many professions as i can, and we sat in on a clinical Psychologist's assessment today, which was very interesting. The child has behavioural problems (he tried to set fire to the house, was restless, shouted at his parents etc) and they sent him to the psychiatrist to prescribe a drug, and then offered the family therapy.

The volunteers are going out for a meal tonight which should be good! My last meal out (which was like a kebab, but with curried egg and salad inside - sounds a bit grim but it was delicious!) cost 17p, so I am not breaking the bank at all!

I have now been at the hospital two days, and I have to say, I really like it out here! The hospital staff and other volunteers (5 people about my age from England/Australia) and patients are really lovely, and the room is basic but clean.

My first impression of India was definitely the noise. The roads are crazy: anything goes. I have seen cows on the road, crazier driving than Smoggle's overtaking in Scotland, and the horns blare All. The. Time. You know on your theory test, when you click when you see a hazard? It's like that but with horns. And you lean on the horn. And an empty road is a hazard. We were at a rail crossing today, and the barriers were down and an announcement was saying, please do not walk on the rails, a train is approaching. Anything and anyone who could fit under the barriers were strolling casually across the tracks, even when you could hear the train coming! And then the train passed, and there were people hanging out the open sided carriages. It was amazing, but also really scary. I tried to get a photo but it didn't come out.

The food is very basic: breakfast is bread and butter, lunch is rice and potato curry, and dinner is rice and chapatti and potato curry. Today was a treat: we had a piece of fish about the size of my thumb. I loved it.

The weather is not as hot as I was expecting - it is monsoon season, so it rains very hard  in 10 minute bursts about 4 times a day. Which means it is very humid (95% according to the psychiatrist!) but also a reasonable temperature: around 30 degrees. The only problem with this is that I brought a travel towel rather than a proper one with me, and those of you experienced in travel towels will know that it doesn't really dry you. Takes off most excess moisture, yes, but you need to air dry for a few minutes after. And when the air is full of water, it doesn't happen! So already I am excited for a proper towel again.

I was shadowing a psychiatrist today which was really interesting - some patients had travelled with their families for three days to get to the clinic. And three days to get home again. And some had been carried there: one guy with bipolar disorder has broken his foot when jumping off a wall when in a manic episode, and was carried to the hospital. You are allowed to sit in on much more here than in the UK, and also the family can admit the patient top the hospital without the patient's consent, which doesn't happen in the UK: you need to be admitted by a social worker and there is a lot of paperwork - here, they just say.

So all in all, a huge culture shock, but I am enjoying my time here so far! The hospital and the people are lovely, and I am learning a lot. I will be going with the psychiatrist on rounds of the wards tomorrow which should be good. I'd better go - the sides of the road are covered in mud and waste (yuck) and I stepped into them accidentally when a rickshaw came close, and now I need a shower.

Roz

Roz goes to India

So, it's been a while since this blog has been in action, but I thought I would resurrect it for my trip to India! After graduating this summer, I thought I would stave off the dreaded answer ("Um, well I'm looking for a job) when asked "So, what are you doing next?", with a month volunteering in India. I will be heading out on the 15th September to work for four weeks in an English NGO, which provides mental healthcare to those unable to pay extortionate Indian rates. I will be running activities for patients, such as painting, music, and physical games. I'll also shadow psychiatrists and nurses, and hopefully learn a lot!

I have had a lot of time to prepare for this trip, but I have accidentally left some things to the last minute...for example my visa. I now have less than three weeks before I go, which is not enough time to be sure that I get a postal visa. Furthermore, the Indian visa website really makes you work for each bit of information, but I managed to fill out a form, and settled on Monday to go to the consulate in Birmingham to get everything sorted. I was then talking to a friend, who told me that Birmingham didn't accept visa applications from Oxfordshire, which she had found out the hard way. I instead had to trek to London. I was very thankful I had found this out before I went to Brum! So, I am now toddling off to London on bank holiday Monday (Dad is worried that the consulate will be closed as it is a bank holiday, but again the website does not show opening times, only days which the consulate is closed, and as 27th August is not on the list, I am hoping it is in fact open).

The chore of a trip to the bright lights is cheered by the prospect of spending the afternoon with Claire, who after stouting claiming for three years that she hated London, has spent the summer living there with her fiancee. Hopefully the trip will be fruitful, and I shall be allowed into India in three weeks time!