Surprise!

Being about midway through my time here in India, I thought I would share with you a few of the customs and practices here that I have experienced. Although I tried to imagine life in a developing country, I’m realizing that I still came with so many assumptions about the way “life works”, when in reality- it really doesn’t work that way! (Most of these are silly things, but a few more serious)


1.Prior to leaving I thought about how much hand sanitizer to bring along. I only brought 2 small travel-sized bottles, and I remember thinking “Oh I’ll be in a hospital- they’ve got to have hand sanitizer there!” Wrong. Hand sanitizer may be at every doorway in every patient room in the States, but here it is a far-away sink with one common bar of soap and a common towel.

2.Sticking to the hand-cleaning theme- everyone here eats with his or her right hand. I was warned about this, and I thought, “Oh I love eating with my hands!” But I envisioned having things that were easily picked up by my hands, and I thought there would be a ready supply of napkins for the mess! But wrong again. You are supposed to take your right hand, mix up all of your rice with the dal or the curry, and sort of shovel it into your mouth, without the assistance of napkins. Actually- it’s near impossible to find napkins anywhere. Even most of the stores in the market don’t carry them. There is again a common sink and towel to clean off with at the end of a meal.

3.I mentioned the Valentine’s Day Couples Dinner- well what I didn’t think about was the difficulty of cleaning up over 40 serving bowls, 60 coffee cups, and large pots without rags, paper toweling, etc.

4.Leaving the cleaning theme- the hospital here has only one ventilator. Today, we intubated a pregnant woman who had sepsis and acute pulmonary edema, but because she also has tuberculosis (like almost every patient here), we couldn’t put her on the ventilator because the hospital wouldn’t be able to use it again on anyone else. After bagging the woman myself for what seemed like forever, my hands really started cramping up so the nurses started taking shifts. In the end, the family-members were taught how to give air through the bag and they are now responsible for continued ventilation. I’ve seen this happen 2 other times. I never even thought about intubating a patient and not putting them on a ventilator- it’s so routine back home.

5. Yesterday we went to the operating theatre with a woman who had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The procedure was done laparoscopically, but there was a lot of clotted blood mixed with tissue and Dr. Daniel couldn’t break it apart enough to pull it out of the port-hole in the patient’s abdomen. Back home, when trying to remove larger tissue pieces laparoscopically, we have fancy equipment with pouches on the end that can be opened up inside the patient, enclosed around the particular tissue to be removed, and slowly pulled out. But that stuff is too expensive to be used here, so Dr. Daniel asked one of the staff to go and get a condom! At first I was confused- then I realized, he planned to insert the condom into the woman’s abdomen, place the tissue inside the condom, and then grasp the condom with the laparascopic equipment and pull it through the port! It was genius and it worked brilliantly! I tried not to laugh as I watched the condom being stretched out insider her abdomen!

6.“Sterile” in the operating rooms and ICU here means everyone taking off their outside shoes and putting flip-flops on! I still find it so strange to be in the middle of a surgery and see everyone wearing sandals. I’m a little afraid that someone might drop a bloody scalpel on his or her foot!

Although there are many more things I’ve gotten used to, I don’t want to bore anyone! =) I just find it interesting that almost every day I run across something that makes me think “wow, I really take this or that for granted back home”. So many things that I view as “necessities” really are luxuries. I keep realizing how easy it is back home to find joy and contentment in my friends, family, and things around me. God is teaching me to find my joy in Him alone (I'm not good at it but I'm working at it!).

Prayer Requests:
- I had an uncomfortable situation with a young guy on the street this past weekend. Nothing bad happened in the end, but he harassed me and made me feel very uncomfortable. I hate feeling so vulnerable as a female traveling by herself, and now I’m a little nervous to be walking in this particular area. I would appreciate prayers for protection and for wisdom about where to go and not to go.

Praises:
- Life is getting easier for me here, so thank you for your prayers! Although God is still stretching me, I’m learning more what it means to trust in Him for my needs and my happiness.
- Goli and Daniel (the couple from Switzerland) officially have a translator working with them in the hospital. Goli was able to see over 40 patients by herself in the outpatient department this morning; this will really help the staff manage some of the volume of patients. It will help me as well when I’m working along with them!