From Sahoo down to Chamba: Life on the Road with HHE

For the month of April I had signed up to volunteer with a US-based group, Himalayan Health Exchange, which provides medical care to rural villages in Himachal Pradesh, India. I was a bit apprehensive about returning to medicine (after 6 months away), teaching medical students and travelling with a big tour group after so many months on my own. Well, it turned out to be a great month, though not without it's challenges, of course!
The toughest adjustment did not turn out to be working in medicine again, or teaching students, it was being part of a group of 40 people and being told what to do all the time. So tough after 6 months of living the care-free life of a solo traveller! Not only were we travelling together, eating together, working together, but we lived in tents back to back. So much togetherness! So little privacy! Despite this harsh adjustment, they really were a great group of people to be "stuck" with. I enjoyed them all and we had (sometimes too much) fun. Bonfires every night, whisky always being passed around and, if we were lucky, we got a music performance by our drivers/interpreters which occasionally errupted into a dance party.

Our typical work day... Up early for hot water bucket baths in the shower tents (This was luxury camping!). Giant breakfast - our cooks were phenomenal. I think I gained 10 lbs this month, no exaggeration. Off to clinic - patient care all morning, lunch break, patient care all afternoon. Sometimes we finished early and had time for day hikes, jumping in the river, checking out the mountain village near our campsite, afternoon chai. Then dinner, sometimes a medical "lecture" and, of course, bonfire party time.
Well, even though we had drivers and cooks, who did nearly everything for us, we did have to do our own laundry in the river and put up with the joys of pit toilets. Can you imagine?

A couple of my favorite vignettes from the month...

The month did not have the most auspicious start... I arrived in Delhi, spent the night at the "assigned" hotel and got up early the next morning to meet the group. We hadn't actually had time to meet, but were hustled into jeeps to the train station. In the bustle of the train station, and trying to introduce ourselves to each other, some names were called out, mine included, and we were told to go to our assigned car. One of my "car mates" looked at the number on the train and on the ticket, which were the same, and was convinced that the train sitting there was our train. I was sceptical since it seemed like a local train and was early, but he said he was travelling in India for the last month, so I trusted him. The six of us got onto the train, stored our bags and, moments later, it started to move. We then see the rest of our group on the platform waving their arms indicating that this was not our train. The same guy who told us to get on the train now said we should jump off - now! But wait, guy that I just met who is telling me what to do, the train is moving! The other 3 women jumped and were successful. So, I went ahead, bags in hand. I was not so successful. In retrospect, I now know how NOT to jump off a moving train, that is for sure. But, since this was my first time... well, it's not as easy as it looks in the movies! First of all, don't jump with heavy bags in your hands. And second of all, don't just jump onto your feet as if the train were standing still - you have to run! I fell hard on my elbow and knee and was sure I broke my arm. Great, what a way to start off the month! I was able to move my arm later that day, though now I am convinced it was a hairline fracture as 2 months later I still have trouble leaning on it. We later found out that the guy who told us to jump has jumped on and off trains many times in his life and he said we were at the "upper limit" of possible. Nice!

One of my favorite moments of the trip was a day I didn't go to clinic because I wasn't feeling well. I was walking down the road and passed a group of women sitting by the side. They were road workers (all the heavy laborers here seem to be women) and were on their lunch break. They called me over to join them, and I did. We had a lovely time, laughing. It is amazing how you can communicate without language! I took some pictures and they made fun of the pictures of each other. It was all fun and games until the boss-man came over and told them to go back to work!