Friday, July 15, 2011

Now for some field work!

Bangalore traffic.
Hello world! I've officially started busy-bodying in the hospital & it's been a lot of fun. The doctors are amazingly welcoming and have been quite interested in my study. What I'm basically doing is following around whoever can tolerate me (and willing to stand still long enough to read the consent form) and also conducting interviews with whoever has a moment to speak. In a previous post, I mentioned that a doctor had asked me to come in between some ambiguous hour and I had to wait a lot. In India this hospital, I have discovered, there is no system of appointments. The patient volume is too large and a much more informal system of getting in line to speak with a doctor and jumping in when possible seems to work organically without much chaos and unfair line jumping. It works a lot like traffic in Bangalore or any sense of line-standing in general. It's taken getting used to, but I've gotten the hang of it.

Since starting, I have met a few foreigners who are doing internships/electives/studies at the hospital as well. There are three French girls, two American boys, and two girls from Dublin. It's kind of nice to not speak Hin-glish and to speak with a little less reservation. Also, a natural topic of conversation is what differences exist in Indian & Western biomedical healthcare.. soo that's kinda nice.

hi! (Hampi, Karanataka July 9, 2011)
It's surprising how tiring interviewing people can be. Especially since my tape-recorder broke (what kind of horrible anthropologist am I) so I have to write like the wind & listen with five ears. I took a break last weekend and went to Hampi and I'm going to Mysore this weekend. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to visit fellow Cotlow-er Claire & compare notes.   Hampi was awesome. It's a holy city with a lot of temple ruins and nice people. I went with the American boys and the French girls and none of us really wanted to leave.
guess which ones are Peter & Jon

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