On the road again

I find myself living in a hotel again (although this one is noticeable cleaner and insect free than my previous home away from homes), this time in the lovely city of Indore, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. I am training another round of surveyors, which consists of alternating days between classroom training and going out to rural areas to practice with doctors. At least this time the training is in Hindi, so I have more hope of figuring out what is going on since I’ve managed to learn key phrases for our project such as I have a fever, diarrhea, nausea, high blood pressure, a cough, and I am seven months pregnant and have swollen ankles. Let’s hope the Hindi I’ve learned never comes in handy.

I’ve noticed that I can be cruising along over here and almost forget that I’m in India and then something happens and it becomes oh so clear that I’m not in Kansas anymore. Yesterday, I walked into the lobby of my hotel with Rajan, a coworker of mine who is running the training. We were heading up to my room to work on my laptop when the woman at the front desk stopped us. She kindly explained to us that it was hotel policy not to allow a man in a single woman’s room. I felt like I was in boarding school or something, I wanted to ask if it was alright if we kept the door open and had housekeeping chaperone us. Then I thought of asking “well then how am I supposed to have an illicit affair with him?” I settled for offering to bring the laptop down to the lobby.
One of the doctors we observed yesterday managed to see 30 patients in the 30 minutes we were there. Sadly this isn’t really out of the ordinary over here. Actually, doctors here operate with an efficiency that I wish would catch on in other sectors. Patient comes in, tells the doc what’s wrong, doctor asks 0 to 3 questions, hands out some drugs, takes some money, and calls up the next guy. What was amazing about this particular doctor, though, is that he went 30 for 30 with the injections. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of injection-happy doctors over here, but this was the first I’ve seen where literally every patient, no matter what they complained of, got the needle. Stomach ache, cough, sore throat, injured arm, it’s all the same, shoot ‘em up. As a perma-needio-phile (my own term for my perpetual and deep seated fear of needles), I broke out into a sweat and nearly started to cry just being in there.
Before I came to India, people told me that being here would open my eyes and change my perspective of the world. Well friends, let me tell you that has definitely happened. My definition of what it means to have access to healthcare has most certainly expanded. When I came here, health care access was synonymous in my mind with health insurance access, because at home, as long as you have the latter you automatically get the former. Here, the high cost of a hospital visit and the idea of having insurance to protect against future health problems is the last thing on most peoples’ minds. For these people, heath care access means not walking over an hour to get to a government clinic only to find that the doctor hasn’t shown up all week because he gets paid even if he isn’t at work. For those who can afford it, a private clinic offers an alternative in which they can actually see a doctor, but in some cases his diagnosis and treatment are so far off he can actually make them worse. Now that is a healthcare access problem. We had a sense that we would find these kinds of things, but our study is the first to survey both households (to find out how they choose which doctor to go to) and medical providers (to find out how much they know and how they treat patients) in order to try and come up with the most efficient (economists love efficiency after all) and effective solution. Even without having to pass legislation through both the House and the Senate, it’s still easier said than done.

It's ok, it's ok

One thing I’ve realized in my time in India is how much things in the US are set in stone and follow certain rules that everyone accepts. In India people tend to be much more fluid about things, and nothing is ever set in stone. For example, in the US, if a store lists the hours and days of the week it is open we just assume that it is open at those times. If a store says it provides a service we figure it means they provide it at that particular branch, not that you have to travel a half hour to a different outlet. In India, these types of things can work both for and against you.
Example: often here we walk into a restaurant and all the tables are full except for one that has a sign on it that says reserved. With a smile and the token “It’s ok, it’s ok” from the waiter, they remove the reserved sign and the table is ours. Us: Win, we get a table. Person with the reservation: Lose. It’s McDonalds for them.
Example 2: A friend of Aakash’s has been crashing on our couch while they finish “remodeling” his apartment, which was supposed to be finished in mid-January. They finally finished it, and last night he spent his first night there. This morning his landlady knocked on the door at 7 am and asked him to take all his stuff and leave, but she would be generous and give him his full deposit back. Still sleepy and in shock, he explained that he had to go to work, could he at least come back at night to move his stuff. She (and not so kindly apparently) said that no he had to have everything out by 8am. Our guess is she found someone willing to pay more and since he hadn’t signed a lease yet she gave him the boot. Luckily for him we’re all so thrilled about having someone around who isn’t an economics dork and isn’t working on our project that we welcome him with open arms. Although we obviously haven’t had him sign anything in case someone better comes along and we want to kick him out by the end of the hour.
Last example: Working in India provides an extra layer of fun because this idea of bending the rules applies to the workplace as well. We are partnering with a call center here (I mean you can’t come to India and not somehow work with a call center, can you?) and they called a meeting with us at their office at 10am on a Saturday. Now, while none of us were thrilled with this time and day, we dutifully reported to their office at 10 and, surprise surprise the place was deserted. We called their cells, but got no answer. Finally, we got through to them and they assured us they were on their way, almost there. At 12 noon they rolled up, two hours late to a meeting they had called. The best part was they got out of the car and said “No problem, don’t worry about it, it’s ok it’s ok”. We responded “Oh ok, great, well we’re glad you could make it thanks for coming, etc”. It took about 10 seconds for us to be like wait a minute, aren’t we the ones who should be telling them it’s no problem?
The real danger is that now I’ve gotten used to saying the magic words (It’s ok, It’s ok) and getting away with just about anything. There is a shortcut to our apartment through a private guarded property, but if we just tell the guard It’s ok enough he lets us through. When bargaining with someone I offer them half the selling price and tell them It’s ok It’s ok and sure enough it is. I can just see me walking into the GAP and offering them $20 for a pair of jeans and telling them over and over It’s ok, It’s ok. Something tells me GAP security guard might not agree with me…

Hell's two newest angels

I apologize for the lack of posts recently, it turns out all those antibodies I worked so hard to build when I got here all had a 6 month expiration date and recently I keep getting sick. This has lead to a decidedly un-blogworthy lifestyle of bed-rest and watching downloaded TV shows. Side note – I got sucked into this new show Glee and was trying to figure out why the name of the producer looked so familiar when I realized ha, oh wait, that would be the one and only director I have ever spoken to in my life, my dear friend Ryan Murphy of Eat Pray Love. Thus, I am now officially able to watch a show and recognize the producer from my earlier work with him. Man I am such a big deal. But, that’s neither here nor there.

My small moments of glory these past few weeks have come courtesy of Jack and his new friend the Honda Karisma. No, for once that is not my terrible spelling. The Karisma is in fact a motorcycle and we have now taken to cruising the streets of Delhi like the badasses that we are. I must admit, I never really pictured myself as the motorcycling type, but it’s so fun! I mean it’s basically like cycling but you get to go faster and you don’t have to work. What the hell have been thinking all these years with those long bike rides?

While it is slightly disconcerting that Jack doesn’t have a license I comfort myself by knowing that a) he has ridden a bike before in India and b) there are no traffic laws anyway so what’s the point of knowing them. Plus its convenient that instead of dealing with getting a license and registration as long as you carry a few extra hundred rupees with you at all times you’re pretty much good to go.

We mostly just tool around Delhi and enjoy getting double takes from people as they realize we are two whities on a bike. Recently, however, we made what can only be described as one of Delhi’s finest, and likely one of the most ridiculous beer runs committed by people outside the 18 to 21 age range. We have met some cool American kids who are here on Fulbrights and invited them all over to our place for a little shindig, not realizing that, obvi, January 31 is Guru Shmuru’s birthday and thus a dry day in Delhi. And as we have learned for some reason dry days are one of the few things in this city that can not be overcome by the dropping of a few extra rupees. This time, however, we lucked out because it was only a dry day in the state of Delhi, and in a mere 40 minutes we could cross over into Haryana and the land of carbonated joy. Like the devoted drinkers that we are, Jack and I put on our leather pants (ok I wish) and helmets and drove to the state border, lined up with the large mass of Delhi men who had the exact same idea, bought as many beers as would fit in my backpack, and then drove back to a reception of tears, glory, and jubilation.