I can sleep anywhere at anytime...

...except in India at 3 am apparently.

Namastē (or Namaskar),

(Hello...because sadly it is one of the only 4 words that KC and I know. Yes Steffi we should have learned Hindi)

KC asleep in our double twin beds

We have now been in Dhamtari since Saturday night. Today we were supposed to start our work ( Raina in the hospital, KC with "Mr.Peter" the maintenance in charge at the hospital ), but were yawning so profusely and falling asleep in Church yesterday, so the doctors (Dr. Sunil Chatterjee- head of hospital and Internal Medical doctor and Dr.Veena Chatterjee-his wife General surgeon and OB/GYN) suggested we take another day to rest. The time difference is 10.5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time-and it is kicking our butts. I have been waking up both nights and staring at the ceiling for a good two hours, one night listening to loud Indian music, the next listening to a cow .

The front of our guest house

    We arrived Saturday night, and were picked up by a taxi driver who spoke no English, but sure knows how to navigate potholes, 

honk his horn, and flash his brights. It took approx 1.5 hours to get the to hospital campus, which is large surrounded by a gate. In this campus are several "bungalows" or houses, made up of staff, doctors, etc, and then the Nursing college, nursing hostels and the hospital. And cows, always cows...Dr.Mousam Jeffrin met us here, and showed us into the guest house, which turned out to be better than expected. The houses do not have open roofs which is what I was afraid of, and this guest house is 2 stories with several bedroom/bathroom combinations, a sitting room and a very old kitchen.We have 2 twin beds pushed together with a lot of blankets.  The Chatterjees arrived and showed us the particulars of the bathroom- there is no hot water or shower, per se, but a bucket of water with your standard heating coil that you hang into the water. You can't let the coil touch the metal, or it will melt, and you cant test the water while it is turned on or you will die. Okay-maybe not die, but 240volts would hurt. KC and I have a system now though, and this morning was a good shower day-2 buckets of hot water instead of 1 ! :)

Our shower-notice the precariously placed hanger and water heating coil

The toilet that apparently flushes toilet paper - it doesn't

              Anywho...so the first thing we noticed is that they want you to eat, and they want you to eat a lot. They kept offering us food at 10:30p when we got here. We declined...and they kept going. We ended up with 4 bottles of water and some delicious crackers. The next day we woke up, ate breakfast with the Chatterjees (they wanted us to eat American oatmeal, eggs and toast!) and went to church....I still without any luggage. Due to our flights being changed so much all THREE bags are still in Delhi...so I have been wearing some interesting combinations of clothing. The one doctor's wife scrounged for some skirts, because I arrived in a skirt and so they thought I only wear skirts because I am a Mennonite. Needless to say my mother would be proud at the array of long skirts I am wearing, and the fact that I have not looked in a mirror.

And this is why I don't look in the mirror

            After a 3 hour church service in Hindi, where KC and I had to stand up and introduce ourselves and 'say a few words' which were translated, we were told we were going to an "engagement ". We thought it was a wedding, but really it was a giant party for a couple of nurses who are engaged. They exchange gifts, have a ceremony, and take vows -then feed everybody. The doctors were very concerned that we wouldn't be able to eat-but eat we did. And they PILE that food onto the biggest plates you have ever seen....then you eat rice, goat in a curry sauce, chips with salsa and some sort of chapatti bread with your hands. They asked for forks for the Americans though, and were impressed by our stamina :). Surprisingly...we held onto that food quite well thank you.

        This could go on and on detailing all of the events that we have done so far...most of them unplanned because really Indian time doesn't exist...people just do whatever whenever. My medical friends would find it humorous that we ended up at an Indian doctor's seminar on BPH  (benign prostate hyperplasia...KC was less than thrilled) at 9o'clock at night thrown by a drug rep....and like the states they had food! But in the interest of not putting you to sleep-and because we were supposed to go eat lunch at the Chatterjee's 15 minutes ago (don't worry we were an hour late this morning and the food was there and ready after we got there) I am going to close here. Dr.(Mrs.) Chatterjee's mother-Mrs.Lal- lives with them and is the sweetest cutest Indian woman, and has invited us for lunch..and all of our meals. She speaks excellent British English and is determined that we will learn some Hindi. She is also determined to make us gain weight I think. 'Help' as they call it here, is readily available...so they have 3 girls that work for them, and this morning she kept making the poor girl make us roti (flat delicious fried bread in grease) after roti.

The hospital is going to be interesting. It is bigger than I thought, and although very poor and dirty, they have a lot of doctors and the nurses at least seem to know what they are doing. The Emergency Room is called "casualty" and the OR is called "the operation theatre". We were able to just walk into OR today...took our shoes off and put somebody elses flip-flops on...bring on the athlete's foot. We watched Dr.(Mrs.) Chatterjee in surgery and then 5 minutes later she sent a nurse out with the stone so I could see how big it was! It was almost 2.5 cm...massive. (I told Amber that hers was no big deal after that :) ) So I am not sure what my role will be there. Tomorrow I was told that I will be assisting the orthopoedic surgeon....let's hope it is not in OR because I will not know what I am doing.

Keep on praying because the first day here we were kind of wishing it was day 79....

Raina and KC P.S. Apparently the blog does not email you every time we add a post, sorry about that we thought it did ...when you become a "follower" it just lists our blogs as one of your preferred blog in blogspot.comPS...as an added note we still do not have our luggage because it "contained liquids" (which is totally allowable because it was checked). So the British airline PAID someone to TAKE IT BY TRAIN for 24 hours to Raipur where we would pick it up. But...there is too much fog and the train was delayed 10 hours, so the guy they paid refused to bring it and took it back to the airport. We still have to call tomorrow to convince them that we are not criminals and that it can be sent by air to Raipur. Anyone want to make bets that it will be either missing or the wrong luggage by the time we get it? I'm getting REALLY tired of these borrowed skirts...