New Bike and Puppets

I fixed up a green, rusty bike with the words "Lady Bird" written on the front basket that radiates Arkansas 60's suburbia ((okay, what I IMAGINE to be Arkansas 60's suburbia- my brother tells me that Arkansas 60's suburbia doesn't exist)) , but my dad insists that without the fat tires it can't be from the 60'. Before I arrived in Namakkal, my impression of the city was straw huts, red dirt roads, and practiced beggars crawling to you in a mist like awoken mummies in an old horror film. Insert banana for straw, orange for red in red dirt roads, and those images are here minus the toilet paper for the crawling mummies, but this exists all outside of the city center. Right outside of my balcony, the silence when truck horns aren't beeping is precious, almost one million people are roaming to somewhere, and I, on my Lady Bird, get to ride amidst this craziness, and it is thrilling.

One statement/image, ironic, humorous, depressing, I don't know what to call it- maybe someone can help me find the word- I thought to share before but didn't. The day I walked out of the special ward which held the girl who had terrible things done to her and the man with everything soft inside of him locked in by his bone cage, I was taking around 5 retired women from Colorado who had come to see the clinic having raised some funds. Among their luggage, they had one suitcase stuffed with colorful, graciously ridiculous finger puppets which persons from their community had knitted to distribute as gifts for the children. When we walked out of the ward, there was some silence like when someone tells you that their mother died and you don't know what to say because your mother is still alive until one lady determined and confident spoke, "I'll have to go get some more puppets."

Do you laugh? Or nod and say "Yes!" this is a difference that we can make. Or know "No." this is the difference that I don't make. Or stay silent and search through the black suitcase and find a puppet with bright colors.

A Different Ward

This weekend I decided to take a quick break from War and Peace, so someone lent me the NY Times Bestseller, Everything is Illuminated. Before I started reading, I had visited the "Special Ward" at the government hospital in Namakkal. This is the corner where the sick HIV patients are shooed off too. Well, adjacent to the man who appears caged by his own bones, there was one girl in bed with a crowd of doctors around her. The tiny girl (8 yrs) is HIV positive, and her mother is negative. This is the peculiarity. She has never had a blood transfusion nor has been exposed to blood in a way that would transmit the infection. How has she become positive? The adopted naivete concerning the only other option disappeared when her father, who also happens to be her care giver, was tested and found positive.

Right, so I was reading this book. One passage seemed pertinent:

"And we must all be familiar with that most portentous of Biblical parables, the perfection of Heaven and Hell. And as we all do or should know, it was on the second day that the Lord our God created the opposing regions of Heaven and Hell, to which we and the slouchers, may they pack only their sweaters, will be sent, respectively. And but we must not forget that third and next day, when God saw that Heaven was not as much like Heaven as he would have prayed, and Hell not as much like Hell. And so, the lesser and harder-to-find texts tell us, he, father of father of fathers, raised the shade between the opposing regions, allowing the blessed and the condemned to see one another. And as was his hope, the blessed rejoiced in the pain of the condemned, and their joy became that much greater in the face of sorrow. And the condemned saw the blessed, saw their lobster tails and prosciutto . . . and felt that much worse for themselves. And God saw that it was gooder. And but the appeal of the window became too strong. And rather than enjoy the kingdom of Heaven, the blessed were fascinated by the cruelties of Hell. And rather than suffer those cruelties, the condemned enjoyed the vicarious pleasures of Heaven. And over time, the two reached an equilibrium, staring at the other, staring at themselves. And the window became a mirror from which neither the blessed nor the condemned could, or would, leave. And so God dropped the shade, forever closing off the portal between kingdoms ..."

As I enter the glass door of the special ward, I know that the shade has been lifted.

Healthy Results

Today I received the Hemoglobin results from the 100 students at Trinity Academy, the private school that we surveyed. The average hemoglobin level was 12.7 (g/dl) which is quite good considering the high prevalence of anemia in India. The Hemoglobin levels of adolescents should fall somewhere between 11 and 14 (g/dl). Below 11 is considered anemic. I still have yet to analyze the Hb levels in correlation with the survey questions. On Monday I begin the survey of the public school children. Results will be different.

Not Quite Compassion...

Are the artificial boundaries of human creation like state, country, ethnicity necessary to make society function? Probably. We use divisions to better understand ourselves and to feel a part of something. They also create competition, catalyzing growth in a myriad of ways, may it be, moral, intellectual, economic etc. At the same time, these boundaries create a hindrance for understanding and enacting a global compassion, leading to a norm of hunger, lack of education and HIV/AIDS in some countries and the "Super Size," country clubs, and superb education in others. Here is my solution: we find some aliens living on a nearby planet. Well, no, not quite, we create them. We clone earth with everyone and everything on it and place it a couple thousand miles away. Maybe, since not out of compassion and love that people will lift up each human on our planet to a life without poverty, the competition from the alien planet nextdoor will create a natural competition. Each planet wants to be better, richer etc. etc.

Hey, John Lennon

Yesterday I finished the 100th survey at the private school. I should receive the hemoglobin results next week. Once all of the data is entered, I will move on to the public schools where the conditions will be significantly different.

My thoughts are like two children on a seesaw. The child on one end represents a world of human progression- the notion that with hard work and compassion, we will eventually arrive at a world without poverty and equality of opportunity, and that is called "good." The child teetering on the other end represents the idea that poverty and the domination of one person over another are fundamental traits in humans because they lead to a dependence on the supplier, and what provides one with a greater sense of purpose than to know that others are dependent on you? It's hard to imagine that after how ever many years of human existence, if humans really wanted to make the world more equal and without desolate poverty that they wouldn't have been able to succeed already. Think of the verse from John Lennon's song:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Okay, I can imagine that John Lennon. But John, did you ever consider the people working at all of the NGO's and Non-profit organizations, or people fighting in politics for the "just" cause? Did you think about them? Where would we find any fulfillment or purpose in life if we didn't have things to fix, make better, or someone to need our love?

15 Pregnant women will change the world.

Today I accompanied Viji to Rasipuram, a nearby village where she does AIDS education and counseling before persons are tested. We met with 15 pregnant women to discuss the myths and realities of HIV. For example, many still believe that HIV is spread through the mosquito and day-to-day physical contact i.e. holding hands. Also, if the pregnant women do test positive, it is crucial that they know to come to the clinic during pregnancy. There is a pill that mothers can take during labor that will prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.

Question: Is there such a thing as "moral obligation?"

You're Right!

The first day of a class my junior year, the teacher handed us an account of someone being drawn and quartered. After reading the document, we were asked to share our opinion. Words such as "gruesome," "inhumane," "unjust," and "wrong" were included in the long list of adjectives written on the blackboard. The teacher questioned us: "'Wrong?' 'Unjust?' Quite contrary, the king was doing what was considered exactly right and just according to the law." After a fiery 30 minutes of discussion, we landed on the theme of a subjective right vs. wrong.

Imagine walking down the street in Minneapolis. On the sidewalk, you see a bare three-year-old, crying for help with no guardian in sight. In the US, wouldn't it be considered wrong to walk right past that three-year-old and do nothing to help the child? Now, imagine you are touring the streets of Delhi. On the sidewalk you see a bare three-year-old, crying for help with no guardian in sight. Well, I walked right by, and many Americans would probably say that I did the right thing. "There are so many, and if you help one of them, they will all come after you. It's better not to look and just give to a charity." Why is it wrong to walk past the three-year-old on the streets of Minneapolis and right in Delhi? Is it because right vs. wrong is all subjective?

Reflecting on the situation, I don't think so. It seems as if opposed to following what our conscience tells us what is right and what is wrong, we habitually allow personal morals to conform to societal morals, determined by what I think is convenience. In India, it wouldn't be convenient for me to stop and help the three-year-old. As we travel from place to place or from day to day, as society changes, morals change, constantly satisfying ourselves with the delusion that we are morally progressing. Just as drawing and quartering was deemed immoral and abolished in England in 1870, the last execution by gas chamber in the US took place in 1999. Currently, Americans are making a fuss about the lethal injection. I wonder what moral way we will find to execute someone next.

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery."- Bob Marley

Red Road

A few of us traveled about two hours on a red road lined with coconut trees to a hospital affiliated with Care Health Center. The first case we encountered brought me a strange relief. The woman was lying on a table, very sickly, but would live. An hour before she had drunk insecticide in attempt to end her life. She had just arrived at the hospital. The sister of the patient held her sister's hand and cried. The relief: that was the first time I had ever seen tears at an Indian hospital. It can be frightening when you see people stroll around what can look like refugee camps as if everything were just normal. Her tears gave some sort of hope.

Glowing Indians

Today was spent at the clinic. One woman (4 ft tall) waded in. Slouching in a lawn chair in the reception room (that's what we sit in), I straightened myself. HIV positive and hyperglycemic, she was emaciated. I had an urge to drop down on my hands and knees and praise her from her feet up. I thought it was a desire to honor her. No, I realized it was a desire to say thank you, a dirty but sincere thank you. Thank you for looking so dazed and glowing like some angel is already leaving your dead body. Thank you for sitting there so comatose and not furious. Thank you for not naming me a sinner as I soon return to the US, immerse myself in studies, am happy, and carry a general disregard for your well-being.

Fish Market/Survey Update

Walking back from Trinity Academy, the private school where we have been conducting the anemia surveys, I recalled a moment from when I was traveling in Kashmir, after seeing a young girl in a hijab playfully pull the long braid of her schoolmate. In Kashmir, I was moving through a fish market. At one stand where the dead fish seemed particularly interesting, I decided to take a picture. There were three vendors sitting together at the stand- all women- two Hindu and one Muslim. The Muslim woman wore a full, black hijab. Her eyes too were covered by a screen. She sat between the two Hindus, one who wore a bright green sari, and the other, a purple one. I took a picture of the stand and its vendors, but focused the camera on the fish. In the image, the fish are defined and sharp; and then there are the three colors blurring in the back.

Today my interpreter, Viji, and I finished the 70th survey at the private school. We have 30 more to complete our first sample size of 100 at this private school. I think next week we will begin at one of the public schools. We haven't received the Hemoglobin results yet from the lab. Most of these private school kids do have access to clean water and are fed, but unfortunately, many of them are in the habit of eating uncooked rice.

Good Karma

In may ways, experiencing India has changed the way I view poverty, and maybe it will take me a few weeks to articulate how. But, to begin, in India, the notion of Karma is widely accepted. My basic understanding of Karma is that your good deeds lead to good fortune and your bad deeds lead to bad fortune. I do think that a belief in Karma can encourage good behavior. However, I find the notion of Karma to be very problematic when it is applied to the belief of reincarnation. For example, according to Karma (please correct me if I mispeak), if one is born into a life of desolate poverty, it is due to bad action in a past life. I find this belief to justify inaction on the part of the more affluent in regards to social justice issues. Why help someone who is living out their deserved fate? However, this weekend, traveling in Coimbatore, after attending an Indian wedding (much to relate), watching an old woman with a beaten sari selling peanuts or a banana vendor sitting pleasantly all day on his blanket, I noticed a casual surrender which struck me as beautiful. In the US we clutch an ethic of more. Always work for more. That wasn't the case in the impassive serenity of these vendors.

For Mother

My mother wants me to put in a little more context of where I am, and I thought that was reasonable... so- I share a spacious apartment on the second floor with Viji, a fifty-seven year-old social worker. She makes the most delicious dhosas (I must post one of her recipes) and treats each of her patients as a member of the family. Every night we sit out on the deck slurping mangoes or just look at the moon. In the district of Namakkal there are about 1.5 million people. The horn-honking is incessant, and I have to make a very conscious effort not to get run over crossing the street. If not walking, I love riding on the back of the doctors' motorcycles when we go to see patients at the government hospital- maybe that joy comes from having ridden on the back when my dad rode a motorcycle.

Today we started the anemia testing and ate lunch in the school lunchroom. Everything about the lunchroom seemed like it could have been in the US, but the one difference was that we ate our meal on giant, green banana leaves instead of plates. In many ways, Indians are so much more ecological.

The Green Sari Warrior

When I was traveling in the North, someone told me that you shouldn't be quick to judge people because you never know what kind of "baggage" they may be carrying. I shadowed one of the doctors yesterday as she met with patients. One muscular woman, kind of reptilian with a forest-green sari and dark tattoos up and down her forearms, worked construction. The gold-colored piercings in each nostril impressed a ferocity that faded when she spoke. Her words were too wounded to scare. She has been HIV positive for eleven years. When she left the room, the doctor slouched back in her chair. Apparently, this warrior- I thought that she was- wanted to stop her anti-retroviral medicine. I aggressively questioned the doctor how and why, for I came to like this woman. I didn't realize that she had been living for the past two years with her uterus dangling between her legs after a flopped home-pregnancy, and surgery can be really expensive.

My Project

Three days a week I will have one interpreter and thumbpricks to draw blood. We will be conducting surveys at selected public and private schools. The survey includes questions such as: Are you in the habit of drinking non-treated water? How often do you wear footwear outside? Are you in the habit of eating uncooked rice or substances like chalk?

We are testing for anemia. The prevalence of anemia in India, especially among adolescent females, is quite staggering. In rural areas, the estimates for percentage of adolescent males and females with anemia reach fifty-five percent. Anemia is caused by iron deficiency most often due to poor nutrition (iron is most often found in green, leafy vegetables), hookworms when persons do not wear foorwear, and excess menstrual bleeding among females. The consequences of anemia include stunted growth, low energy, premature birth, and perinatal and maternal mortality.

What does anemia have to do with AIDS? Almost all of the patients that we treat for HIV are anemic, making them even more susceptible to sickness. Also, a few of the primary anti-retroviral drugs that we use have the side-effect of causing anemia, which makes the use of those drugs very hazardous to patients already anemic.

After conducting the survey, we hope to have a better grasp of the primary, local causes for anemia. Also, we presume that the results will reveal that the rate of anemia at government schools is much greater than that of the private schools. Should this be the case, I will follow-up with a paper which illustrates this inequality. It is our ultimate goal to pressure the Namakkal government schools into supplying their students with an iron supplement as a part of the lunch program. We start tomorrow.

First Thoughts and Susan Sontag

My once clear understanding of the dignity that each human being holds, after one week at the Namakkal AIDS clinic and two months of travel throughout Northern India, if we use a metaphor of an apple on a tree, was ripe, has fallen, and is now rotting. No one picked it; it fell naturally, walking past the push-cart boys and their licorice legs. Yesterday, I remember praising myself after looking with indifference as the doctor pointed out what leprosy looks like on a woman’s arm, a woman already HIV positive and infected with vaginal warts.

I just finished reading a fascinating essay by Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave,” from her collection, On Photography. Sontag relates how two photographers, capturing essentially the same material receive very different public responses. The first photographer was Werner Bischof shooting Indian famine victims in the 1950’s. The second photographer was Don McCullin shooting the starving Biafrans as they fought for a short-lived independence from Nigeria in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The public reaction to Don McCullin’s work was considerably more subdued; there was less shock and fewer feelings of moral obligation than the reaction to Bischof’s work. Sontag attributes this lesser response to the way in which people can become “used to” atrocity. After Bischof’s work appeared, the novelty of seeing emaciated bodies from third-world countries was gone. To use Sontag’s word and Hannah Arendt’s word in her cataloguing of the Eichmann trial in reference to evil, atrocity, maybe like roses on Valentine’s Day, can become banal. Sontag writes, “After thirty years, a saturation point may have been reached. In these last decades, ‘concerned’ photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it.”

As some of you may know, I have volunteered once before at an AIDS clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. The work there was less interactive. I was stationed primarily in the pharmacy. However, each weekend, I rode the buses with the doctors to poor, more rural regions of Kenya. For each child that the doctors said would die of a curable disease because of lack of money, I was shocked and outraged. Now I am at an AIDS clinic for the second time. Women, dying, who can’t come to take their anti-retroviral medicine because their pimps will fire them, and then who would feed their children? - this horror doesn’t penetrate as strongly. To complete Sontag’s analogy of the two photographers, I, having already experienced shock and outrage at the first clinic, hearing about the same atrocities for the second time doesn’t arouse the same feelings of injustice and anger. The primary and frightening difference between the example of the more subdued reaction of the general public in the 1970’s and my own subdued reaction now: these are people I’m dealing with, not photographs.

Thank You

I would first like to thank each person who has contributed to the AIDS clinic in Namakkal. Your donations have been directed to the Care Health Center. The Care Health Center focuses on care for women and children at risk or already infected by HIV/AIDS. I am grateful to have the opportunity to volunteer here, and I look forward to reading your comments and sharing my experience.