Epic

I’m officially in week 3! Can’t quite believe I’ve been away for such a short space of time – it feels like forever but time has also flown by. One of those weird phenomena that we’ll never be able to explain…

I feel like this week has been a successful one as far as work goes. Firstly, I had a breakthrough on the fundraising side of things (although time will tell how it pans out) and I also sorted out the fine details of the work I’m doing on child malnutrition. I’m especially excited about this project, both because I’m interested in the subject area and because I’m going to be able to see it through in its entirety. There are still some frustrations on my part with regard to some areas of work, however I’m finding diplomatic ways of working with things and also coming to realise that no matter how strongly I feel about something, sometimes it’s not best to blurt it out….. Many of you will know that I like to stand up for and share what I think, but I’m now thinking that maybe it’s not necessary of effective to share it on every occasion… could this be the end of the gobby me?!

This week I attended a presentation by some ICICI fellows who had completed some field work for Aarohi. They had visited 3 areas in the area collecting data on healthcare and there are a few interesting points that I thought I would share – some will be familiar to those of you who are familiar with development issues.

Firstly, there is still great scepticism surrounding the administration of ‘western medicine’ and in many cases they will only resort to this after they have tried every other method. These other methods include visiting shamans, herb doctors as well as carrying out traditional rituals in the village. This really interested me because it demonstrates that there is still so much belief placed in these traditional healing methods. They also spoke about so called ‘sickness from fear’ which is whereby people fall sick because they are scared of becoming sick. After performing a ritual it is believed that the fear will be removed from this person and they will be cured – apparently this has cured jaundice in the past…

This also relates to the widespread belief in cultural taboos in the area. For example, pregnant women have to eat very strict diets when pregnant and when breastfeeding as they believe certain foods are bad for the baby. The foods believed to be bad are actually those which are essential for a healthy child and the restriction of these in the mothers diet both results in both the mother and baby being malnourished and in poor health. Women are often pregnant every year (usually until they produce a boy) so you can imagine how detrimental the restrictions on food are on their long term health.

Furthermore when it comes to giving birth, the majority of women still give birth at home (although there are an increasing number of hospital births in families with higher incomes). This often takes place without a trained midwife or nurse present, thus decreasing the ability of being able to respond to complications. The fellows told us of a woman they met while conducting their research. This lady was 9 months pregnant and was still working in the fields – she didn’t know how or where she was going to give birth to her baby. I was almost struck for words when I heard this and demonstrated to me that while there is progress being made in some areas, there is still such a long way to go – especially in terms of education and awareness.

In other news, 2 leopards were spotted right by my house about 10 days ago. We’re now scared to go outside in the dark! I also did my first longish trek yesterday. I think it was in the region of 15-20km, however the first half was entirely uphill so it was rather painful. Yes, this is what I now do on days off to occupy myself….who would have thought it? It was wonderful to see a different part of the area – it’s amazing how the hills change so much in the space of a few kms.

Hope the update is interesting….I’m now off to prepare photos for a presentation I have to do in our weekly meeting about myself. Needless to say I’m having problems finding appropriate pictures because my main source is Facebook. Not sure that the office will appreciate my references to ‘wankered Wednesday’ and other such events..

And I nearly forgot – I’ve begun to introduce the phrase ‘epic fail’ to Uttarakhand. We were having dinner with the director of the organisation a few nights ago and I referred to something as being an ‘epic fail’. After explaining the meaning, I think he was quite taken with the so I’m now promoting its use. Epic. 

Any requests for my next blog post? 

B xxx