Adjusting and Re-adjusting

Sooooo, we finally made it to India!!! We arrived at around 1am saturday morning but by the time we got our luggages we didn't end up leaving the airport until about 3am. it was fine though b/c one of the CHAI employees was waiting for us to pick us up. a very very friendly man :) after a few hours of sleep we spent most of the day just wandering around CHAI headquaters getting used to it.

One of the first things I noticed about this place is the stark contrast between the rich and the poor. There really is no middle class, you're either wealthy or live in poverty. Just up the street from CHAI, on one side of the street is a shanty-town...house made literally out of garbage and on the other side of the street are these big homes in a gated community. I know it sounds cliche, but being here really makes me grateful for all that I have in Canada.

The next day, Sunday, we went to the CHAI training center which is on this sort of farm. The center is set to open at the end of july, a work in progress, but looks like it will be pretty nice once it's done. The training center will be for training and teaching nurses and nurse practitioners. Plus it will provide care for HIV, TB, and malaria patients. The place also has a garden which has natural medicinal herbs, like the aloe plant, plants for colds, etc. etc. I thought it was pretty clever since the place is quite self-sufficient.

In the afternoon we went into the city. CHAI is actually located in Secunderabad, which is the twin city of Hyderabad. So Secunderabad to Hyderabad is like what Scarborough is to Toronto. Anyways, we took a richshaw into Hyderabad, which was scary as hell, b/c those things are about half the size of Chika's pontiac, and there are no doors on it. Yet we made into Hyderabad without incident. We tried to find the tourist office to take a tour of the city but ended up wandering around aimlessly for about an hour, and when we finally found the office we had missed the last tour bus. So we ended up walking to a park nearby, Lumbini park, and sat around and chatted. It was pretty nice, the only gross thing we saw a great big rat scurrying across the park bench....yuk. Then walked from the park to this restaurant reccommended by the Lonely Planet called Paradise Persis...which is famous for its Biryani (i'm pretty sure i spelled that wrong). The food was pretty good, and the service was top notch :)

Today we got a bit of an orientation to CHAI. We got more of an understanding of what the organization is about. Their work is pretty impressive. In a country thats' healthcare is taken over by private care and not so great government hospitals, CHAI is doing a lot in terms of community health, health promotion, treatments for the sick etc. They cater primarily to the poor, who can't afford to pay the prices charged in private and government hospitals. Most of the funding is throgh church donations, and some government funding. I think tommorrow is more orientation and wednesday and thursday are hospital visits. I will try to post pics as soon as i can figure out how. That's all for now :)