Happy Diwali!

Well I made it through the weekend. So much has happened in the past week. We celebrated Diwali Friday and Saturday night. Just a reminder, Diwali is the biggest festival of the year in India celebrating the Goddess of wealth. Friday night we were invited to a place called Dun club. It’s for the elite of society to come together and celebrate, eat delicious food, and watch incredible firework displays. It was quite the change from what I see in the city. The women were in beautiful saris with gold jewelry hanging off every part of them. Some had their hair down and some even showed parts of their legs! Just for the record, I haven’t seen knee caps since I got here. Needless to say, everyone here is very conservative. The following night was the big celebration. Me and the four other students stayed at the homestay to enjoy the festivities from the rooftop. The family’s son is our age and had about 15 of guy his friends over. We all ate, drank, and danced the night away while fireworks exploded all around us. The amount of fire crackers that go off on Diwali is about 10 times as many as our 4th of July. The sky is literally lit up with explosions until dawn. With that though came a downpour of ash so thick you can only make out the outlines of people in some of the pictures. I’m not complaining though, Diwali will probably one of the greatest experiences I’ll have here.
Monday we started a new clinical rotation. We go to an OBGYN doctor in the morning and a cardiologist in the evening. The first day of clinic started very exciting. A woman came in with a spontaneous abortion, and I watched as the doctor vacuumed out the premature fetus. I know it sounds intense, but that is nothing compared to what I saw the next day. Later that day we caught an auto rickshaw to our next clinic. On the way there, the driver side swiped a bus. On the way home, he stopped for food (let me remind you this is like a taxi you hire to drive you somewhere, not to stop randomly at his convenience!) . As the three of us are crammed in the back, we notice the rickshaw starts slowly scooting towards the oncoming traffic and our driver is no where in sight,. We laugh with each jolt forward because when you spend two weeks riding around in a rickety piece of metal with three wheels and no traffic laws, you eventually just close your eyes and laugh at each “should have been accident”. Tuesday was just as crazy. I saw my first live birth! The baby being delivered was incredible, but things kind of went downhill after that. The doctor used a suction to pop the baby out, so the actual birthing only took like 10 seconds. The aftermath was more dramatic though. The mother had post partum hemorrhaging, which means she doesn’t stop bleeding. The uterus wasn’t contracting like it’s supposed to and on top of that, she had a LOT of tearing, probably from the baby coming out so fast. So I then watched her being drugged and sewed up for almost 30 minutes. That’s when things started going hazy. Luckily I made it to a chair right before the bright light took over, and then managed my way to the toilet seconds before my breakfast made a second appearance. But don’t worry everyone, both the mother and I are doing fine now. Later that day we went to our second clinic. This time we took a vickram, the cheaper more crowded version of a rickshaw. Halfway there we were pulled over by the police and our driver was arrested. Someone told us later the it was because he had too many people in the vehicle. I guess 12 people crammed into a vehicle the size of a smart car isn’t allowed, the maximum is 10! And here I was beginning to think there were no rules around here. All the women here have intense nose jewelry and lots of gold earrings filling their ears. Today I went to the plastic surgeon to get my nose pierced, to further immerse myself in the culture you know :). He told me about an American woman coming to get surgery done. I guess it’s only $1,700 for breast implants and equally as cheap for other cosmetic surgeries. Hey maybe I’ll come home with more baggage than I thought lol just kidding mom and dad. Well that sums up the week.
I’ve finally uploaded pictures! They’re on picasa so go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/nicolefoti1/NicoleInIndiaFavorites?feat=directlink#
Next stop is Agra, home of the Taj mahal!