Operation Mobilization India

Okay, so is it against blogger etiquette to blog after I've come home? If so, too bad. I was too busy enjoying India to write about it there!

I thought I'd give you a picture of the workers who worked so hard to make our stay productive, enjoyable and, even, possible. They were all from Operation Mobilization India, so I guess I'll organize this under that theme. Operation Mobilization is a wonderful and large group, the Doulos and Logos ships being the only part of it I knew before. In India, however, and in South India in particular and for this GHO trip specifically, we dealt with 4 parts of Operation Mobilization. The first were our logistics people. These were a team of men from the Operation Mobilization school. They are all working on their Bachelor's degrees in Theology, or their Master's Degrees in Divinity and heading to be pastors, evangelists, etc. These are also the people who will be following up with our patients to see if they have any questions about who we were serving (Jesus) or why we would come 'all the way from America' to serve Him through them. (perhaps I should say, "serve them through Him" - I'm not sure which makes more sense?) The studies for a Master's degree last for three years. During that time, they have two one-month intensive class times, they travel, working in churches, doing street ministry, door-to-door visitation, or helping with groups like ours while completing intensive self-paced study assignments given during their class times for nine months, and they have one month per year of vacation.

The other three areas of OMI focus on the Dalit people. This is a three pronged ministry involving education (how can people stop from being oppressed if they can't read the newspaper or vote?), health care (how can they be educated if they are too sick to learn?), and work (how can they have the selfconfidence to succeed if they are only subsistence survivors?). So OMI has begun the Good Shepherd Schools - they have 42 of these in south India and hope to open 10 more next year. These start with 3 & 4 year old nursery schools along with 1st & 2nd grade, and then each year, they expand one more grade, up to 6th or 8th grade (I forget which). In India, you are done with lower level education at 16-17 years of age. The schools welcome anyone, they cost a minimal amount, and are high-quality education. The teachers teach in both Tamil and English. They also, are not required to be Christian, however, each day starts with morning devotions and there is a daily memory verse for the children to learn (taught by the teachers, of course). It is the hope of OMI that this relationship building will eventually lead to questions as to why Christians want to share this Love that they have with others, especially with the downtrodden and outcast.

Next, OMI has taken on the training of Community Healthcare workers. These are given an intensive training - I think in Hyderbad - and then assigned one to a village, where they set up a basic clinic. They are also responsible to see the children at the schools each week, providing them with basic healthcare, immunizations, vitamins, and health education. This group worked with our doctors and the pharmacist and they were amazing! I was able to work with one when we saw "her" village. She gave me a brief history of each patient who came to our room, and also could give me the running statistics of the health of her village - numbers of typhoid vicitims, tuberculosis sufferers, those with alcoholism, abandonment issues, etc.

Lastly, OMI has begun self-help groups for women in the village. A brief bit of background: the villages for the Dalits are built on land donated by the government. In some ways, they reminded me of reservation life: a Dalit doesn't have to live in his village, but he loses a lot of government help if he leaves. There is a lot of alcoholism among the men there, as well as abandonment of wives and children - but then these are evils found round the world, aren't they? Add to this the poverty and you find women who needed to keep their homes with a running budget of around $20 per month. OMI provides training and help to women in a village who want to form a group for a small business. There are tailoring businesses, trades and, the one we visited, rope manufacture. Here, women gathered in the evening and spun and plied coconut fiber into rope. This rope is used like duct tape here - it ties everything together. It is also used to make the mattress part of a common sofa/bed that is little more than these ropes woven and tied around a frame on legs. Once the women have a leader and have decided on their trade, they receive the training and a microloan from OMI to begin their business. I forgot to write down how much money this has brought in to these villages in the past year - but suffice it to say, it is a successful venture. The beauty and self-assurance of the women we met who were active in the self-help groups was amazing. Once again, anyone was welcome and, through kindness, the love of Jesus is shared with those who ask the reason why.

It was great to work with Operation Mobilization India - the work they are doing was well-organized, obviously productive, and the workers were a joy! What a treat for all of us American workers to see the efforts already being done by the Indian people for their own!

Food

Well, you may all be wondering why I haven't written about the food. Well, here goes. The food in India is incredible, delicious, interesting, fun to eat and more! Here is a usual breakfast that we get at our hotel. It is served buffet style. You start with juice (watermelon juice this morning) and then there is the usual cornflakes, etc. Followed by some fruit or cold salad items. Then an array of Indian and American dishes - everything from scrambled eggs and bacon to kegari and samal, paratha and idly ... you got all that, didn't you?

Here is Hannah's plate from this morning. I've forgotten the names of all the things, but the yellow 'soup' is like a very thin dahl (that's the Hindi word, and I can't remember the Tamil word right now). The 'donut' isn't sweet and has some vegetables in it. The yellow stuff at ten o'clock is called kegara, I think, it is like a thick cream of wheat porridge, very sweet, cooked with butter, sugar, pineapple and cashews. Below is my plate. I've put the split pea stuff onto the samal which is rice and vegetables, spices and whole peppercorns. I have a dosa (a kind of bread that looks like pancake, except I think this might be a different one with a different name)and above that is some lovely papaya. I've eaten fresh papaya every morning since we got here ... yum!

Lunch is provided by our OM leaders. In typical (and rather embarassing) fashion, our hosts eat rice and vegetables from a communal pot while sitting on benches in one room while, in another room, we eat a purchased luncheon. When Hannah and I each asked separately why this was so, we were told that it was their way of honoring us. Surprising to some of our team, this very special lunch also happened to be the same thing every day! I picture it, with one modification, below:
The bread is paratha, which is similar to a tortilla except that they have about five different things that are similar to a tortilla but all just a touch different from each other. Then there is a little bag of spiced chicken pieces - usually cut into small chunks, bone still in, that would equal about 1/2 of a drumstick. Then there is a little bag tied up with string (Isaac calls them the lunch bladders, naughty Isaac!) that has a nose-running hot and spicy soupy dish, sometimes with pieces of meat in it. This is always followed by a banana except for today when we got the tasty fruit salad. After five days of this, some of the group were becoming a little disgruntled and so the lunch runner surprised everyone with .... Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas!

(here's where the picture goes - I was so shocked, I forgot to snap a pic of the Pizza hut boxes)

They are served with ketchup here. Personally, today, I was glad that we went back to the Indian lunch. It is very tasty and I had the opportunity to sit across from two lovely Indian doctors and quietly emulate their eating skills; they can consume the whole meal only touching the food with their right hands!

Once we go back to the hotel, we can choose what we want for dinner from the restaurant. Some have found pasta alfredo, or something like that - it has spinach and a white sauce and is very good, some choose fish dishes, or one can partake of the buffet with is full of all kinds of Indian flavors and dishes. The other night I ate fish and mutton and calamari - all cooked into lovely sauces, some mild and some spicy - along with rice and pasta dishes with vegetables. Of course, even ordering American dishes off the menu can have its own surprises. Here is Amber's 'hamburger' from last night. It was a ham and cheese sandwich on a bun! (In front of it is a delicious fish bhiryani (I'm not sure where that h goes) that I had, it was in inbetween not-too-spicy one. Hannah's meal isn't pictured, it was a ragingly hot beef dish loaded with black pepper. Wow! The wait-staff were very impressed that she wanted to try it!

All in all, we have been well taken care of; I doubt I'll come home any lighter! God has made such great flavors and it is fun to see what other cultures have done with them!

Welcome to India

Each time we go to a new location, we are given a welcome. You may be thinking this means someone shakes our hand and says, "welcome!" But, no, in India this is an ornate ritual. You start by gathering many, many people, who are the welcomers, into a building. If you have lost power, you move them all outside. Then you have the Americans arrive one half to one hour late, so everyone can sit and wait patiently. (I am pretty sure the word 'India' must mean,'sit and wait patiently' because there is a lot of that around here.) Then, when everyone is sitting, the speeches begin: many, many speeches, followed by some form of lovely entertainment, like children dancing. Then follows more speeches and then the official welcomes. This involves the head leader of our group or one of his designees receiving a lovely garland. The garlands are often bright, decorative, gold decorated necklaces, or elaborate flower garlands. Then the leader or other dignitaries are wrapped in a shawl as another honor. Then more speeches. And some more speeches. Finally, we move on to see what we came to see, or begin our work. These welcomes last 45 mintues to several hours. Amazing!

Workdays

I haven't figured out this blogger thing yet, I apologize, but I thought I would share a day in the life of a GHO trip to India. . . however, I chose these pictures in the order I wanted, but they loaded in reverse order. I also haven't figured out how to add a caption to a picture, so you will please bear with me.

The picture at the bottom is a sample of the kinds of people we are seeing in clinic each day. We get started about 9:30 with prayer, and then the children and their parents start arriving. these particular children are all from the school operated by Operation Mobilization India, however we have also had neighborhood children and families come in from the town who heard we were having a free clinic. The people stand patiently in line and are logged in by the local (Indian) team members. Then the locally trained health workers (more on them later) take their blood pressures and their weight and assign them to a room. They then sit and wait their turn to see a clinician (our team, plus one Indian doctor). While they wait, Amanda, our team's dental hygienist and either Hannah or Isaac see them, give them a flouride treatment and inspect their teeth, along with giving them a lesson in toothbrushing and a free toothbrush and paste. See the middle picture for Hannah in the middle of this lesson. After seeing a caregiver, if they need medications, the caregiver writes a prescription and they take it to the pharmacy (see the top picture) where it is filled.

They are asked at some point in this venture if they would like prayer and anyone of us can offer this service, or we also have a room set up with a social worker (one of our team) and a translator for counseling and prayer. We have seen anywhere between 150 and 250 patients each day. Our team leader finds this a little frustrating as he feels we are being a little 'underused' - he expected us to see many, many more than this. Actually, tomorrow we expect to see more in the range of 300. We will see.

cultural differences, cultural blessings

well, the cultural differences start when you get on the plane!

Lufthansa is a wonderful airline that still provides meals on their flights. now that's shocking! We had a great trip - met up with the other folks in Frankfurt and landed in Chennai about 1/2 hour late - on the 2nd of November, actually, just after midnight. We were met by our OM leaders and had an exciting time finding the mountain of luggage and supplies. Our first true taste of India was stepping outside of the airport ... to a veritable cacophany of sound. Indian traffic is a feast of sight and sound. We've decided that the Indian car can best be described by the famous quote: I beep, therefore, I am. That's not quite how it goes, is it? I'll give an aside here and tell you that traffic really goes by the horn. I think it is proper to notify those you are coming up behind that you are there, by beeping. Then if you decide to pass, you let them know, by beeping. And if a car is coming from the other direction, you and he both acknowledge each other's prescence, by beeping. And on it goes.

We were driven to a very nice hotel in Chennai - yes, it was hot! and humid! and tucked in bed after a quick (cold) shower. The next morning we were given a very nice welcome, and introduction to the people we would be working for, along with a description of their mission work, a plan for the weeks and then we took our busload of people, our truckload of supplies and were driven to Pondicherry. More welcoming words, speeches, a trip through town, special meals, plans for the medical time all being firmed up, changed, revised, organized, disorganized as we went along.

More pics, more stories later. I have got to get some sleep!!

leavingness! yay!

how about a picture entailing the awesome(!) riding conditions on the way to portland... and then waiting for the plane to arrive in PDX after having met up with Amber.

packing day

Here we are, the Dillon contingent, minimalist packers all, trying to get ready for our first Global Health Outreach medical mission trip. The rules have always been: passport, toothbrush, bathing suit, clean underwear? Okay, you are ready! But no.... we are wrestling with 9 giant suitcases, 11 partial lists of most-important things not to forget, most of which are misplaced, and one teeny Hondacar to fit it all into. Twenty hours to complete this tetris puzzle!