Life In Raxaul
Saw the river that divides India and Nepal yesterday. That was fun. Had a quick look at the leaper hospital too. The children here are so cute. Actually most people are cute. They say hello, good evening, namasta and shallom. It’s fun. You would not believe how much I am getting starred at. It’s okay just takes a little getting used too. It’s fun saying hello to strangers though.. We should do more of that back home.
Life in Raxaul is good so far. My day starts at about 6.20am with shaving followed by a cold shower. I am not a big fan of cold showers. Then breakfast followed by devotions. Then I meet up with the IT guy and we plan out what we are going to do today. I do some teaching and documentation. In the middle of the day I have lunch. Dinner’s at seven. Some days I do stuff with the Westerners.
Been doing an audit of the computer systems trying to work out what they computers they own and where they are. It’s been an interesting excersise. I have set aside one of the 6 days a week I volunteer, to reaserch and how to do things better. The other five I spend doing training, documentation and fixing problems.
Life in a hospital is a bit different. I am exposed to a fair few medical stories that a pretty gross. Medicine generally in India is very different. They don’t have as much hi-tech equipment and privacy just isn’t an issue here. Whole families go to visit the doctor. They sleep and hang around in the hospital grounds. They bring gas burners and cook meals. It’s a bit sad to see but at least they are undercover and can be dry.
There’s a reasonable sized group of foriegn people here. They are all pretty friendly people some are real long termers more then 20 years. Others are short termers only here for 4 weeks. I am glad I have a decent amount of time here. I feel like I’d miss a lot if I were only here a few weeks. We’re having a party tonight it should be fun.
Culturally lots of stuff different. Cheap labour changes things a lot. So much is done manually that we’d use machines for. The grass here is cut by hand with little knives. It’s a bit strange to see. But that’s the kind of thing that happens here. I am noticing class differences here a lot more then at home. 600ml coke is 17ruppies about 50c. 300ml is about 7ruppies but you have to return those bottles. I love cheap Coke though I haven’t been drinking lots of it though. There’s a limited supply.
July 25th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
when i went 2 fiji everyone said Bula 2 everyone, even if they didn’t know them. it’s kinda nice
July 27th, 2004 at 6:36 pm
Hey, It is really great to read you blog and what you are up to.
I have been wanting to tell you that at the Tear conference Iw as introduced to someone who workd for the Emmanuel Hospitals in India adn I said really my very good friend David has just left for Raxaul to work there and he said, well isn’t it a small world as I had dinner with David when he arrived. I laughed, it is a small world. He said you seemed like a very committed and inteeligent young man and I said you were.
The other thing of interest is that we prayd for you on the conference, the whole 200 people or so, so please don’t feel alone.
Have fun.