Hello from India!

For those of you that don't know I'll be living in India for 3 months and this is my first time out of the country. I got here 4 days ago and let me tell you, so much has happened so far. The weather is great, but really humid. It gets a little sticky since I have to wear long pants and nothing showing the shoulder. I live with a host family for this first week with 4 other interns. The house is truely beautiful, and they cook homemade Indian food for us 3 times a day! I share a room...oh ya and a bed with another girl in the program. The Indian culture has a different take on "personal" space, if any at all. I've become accustom to that fast though. Between sharing a auto rickshaw (I'll post pictures of those soon hopefully) with 8 people in 4 seats or attempting to make my way through hundreds of people in a strip of market, I'm feeling the Indian culture in so many ways. India is crazy as I expected. Nothing can really prepare one for a mad house of bumper cars in the streets or getting kicked off the sidewalk because a gang of donkeys is taking up the whole thing and refuses to let a person share this small piece of paradise. The first time I saw a sidewalk a few days ago, I said "Oh my god! A sidewalk...my savior!" Walking along the side of a road where cars are trying to pass each other at any means gets a little scary. One foot to my left is a garbage filled sewer which I'd prefer not to step in and one foot to my right are cars whizzing past me, horns blaring in order to "politely warn" me they are about to take my arm off. Oh the sounds and smells of India are like nothing you'll ever experience outside of here. There have been a few disturbing things since my stay here as well. The day after I flew in, we took an 8 hours train ride from Delhi to Dehradun, which is where I'm at. I got off the train for only 5 minutes at one stop and immediately two little boys were at my side begging in Hindi for money. They began grabbing my arms and shouting at me. Everyone around me was staring. I had nothing with me to give them, and they stayed with me the entire time until I got back on the train. Anther eerie sight has been the tons of wild dogs running around. Today I saw a dead one upside down, rigid in the garbage can. The few dumpsters in the city are always a sight to see. The usual sights are either cows, dogs or small children digging through the most fowl trash I have ever seen and smelled. The images tend to stay with me throughout the day. I go to two different clinics each day. I will attempt to describe the scene at the doctors office. Patients come into the doctor's personal office and he see's the patient as other patients barge in, he's aswering his cell phone, the office phone, talking to us. It seems so informal and like each person does not really matter and their illnesses do not need to be kept confidential. It seems to work though. Doctors are like Gods here and we are too just for being American and here for medicine. A little boy came in the first day I was here with a dogs bite on his elbow and neck. He was developing rabies and needed treatment immediately. I'm sure I'll be seeing a lot more cazier stuff though to come. There are many postive and negatives about this place so far. The trash and filth consumes the streets, yet the people here are incredibly friendly. I don't think they see a lot of blondes though, so maybe that's a part of it :) I'll be travelling to a new town almost every week, so with each place will come many more experiences I'm sure. Until next time. Namaste.