Three Weeks In

It's already been a week since my last update, and boy, does time fun when you're having flies (or vice versa)!

I've been relatively busy the last several days meeting with people, reading articles, and trying to brainstorm my potential projects. I have two potential projects that my mentor tells me are both very interesting and feasible, so I'm going to stick with them. I won't go into details yet, but one project is a survey on alcoholism, and the other is an educational intervention for diarrhea prevention. I'm starting with the alcohol project, and I have to submit an IRB application (basically to get permission to do research on human subjects) by the beginning of September... which is in one week! So I'm going to have to work really hard the next few days. Hopefully once things get going on that project, I'll start working on the second one. I will talk more about each project as time goes on.

Thankfully, it has not been all work the last few days. This past weekend I went to Chennai with a bunch of international students to do some shopping, eat at (relatively) nice restaurants, and watch a movie (Inception!) at a movie theater. Chennai is a much bigger city than Vellore, and it can be quite a hassle trying to get around by rickshaws. It seems they are much more used to having tourists and charging ridiculously high rates. If it's raining or late at night they would charge double or triple the normal rate! Thankfully we all got around safely despite the fact that one of the drivers was smoking pot before he drove, and another drove full-speed against a one-way street.

There were 20 or so of us all together from all over the place (US, Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Nigeria, and Malaysia). It was a lot of fun traveling with them. It's sad that many of them are returning home soon, and some of them have already left. I suppose I will see a lot of people come and go in the next 9 months while I'm here. In any case I'm thankful that I get to meet interesting people from around the world, and make lots of new friends.

Here are some photos from this weekend:

We took a private bus from Vellore to Chennai.

On our way to Chennai.

This is where we stayed over the weekend.

Eric and I shared a room.

Our toilet and shower for the weekend.
You can't expect much for Rs 250 per night.

Annelie and Laura, two German med students

Xin-You and Vicky from UK/Malaysia and Netherlands.

Craig from Canada, and Fiona and Cionr from Ireland.

With Khalid from UK.

Idel from Ireland and Malcolm from Scotland.

Eric from Nigeria.

"Nachos" without nacho cheese?... um, yeah, nice try.

Grilled tenderloin! First time I had beef in India! They used a LOT of pepper on this.

Shopping at Spencer Plaza Mall

We found Subway at Spencer Plaza. They have two separate lines for vegetarian and non-vegetarian.

Fiona and Rozemarijn at Subway.

Eating my "Italian" sub with lamb salami and lamb pepperoni. 

Trying on some hats.

Three Danish girls and a German girl traveling by rickshaw.

Crammed into a rickshaw. There were five in the back, and I shared a seat with the driver.

With Sofie from Denmark at Copper Chimney Restaurant. Food here was really good. I highly recommend it.

Vigga and Anne from Denmark.

Eric, Idel, and Clionr.

Anne and her chicken kabobs.

My prawn curry. It was delicious.

Brownie with ice cream at the movie theater... yummm...

Getting breakfast at Vasanta Bhavan on Sunday morning.

Ghee roast for breakfast. It's basically a thin crispy crepe.

Annelie, Eric, Idel, and Clionr at breakfast.

More photo from breakfast.

With David and Warren from Northern Ireland.
This one is for Laura, our mutual friend in N. Ireland, whom I met in Haiti few years ago.

On our way back to Vellore.

We took three buses to get back home.

Not sure who she is, but billboards like these with her faces were everywhere for several miles on our way back from Chennai.

A colorful building with the same lady's face posted all over. Can someone tell me who she is?

Some random signs we found at the mall:

  

Shopping Spree

This week Lucy and I are meeting with various doctors and research officers to get a feel for the type of research projects we might want to work on. In the morning we headed over to the CMC hospital and met with Dhivya Anbu, who is a PhD candidate working on probiotics trial for prevention of diarrhea caused by rotavirus and cryptosporidium spp. In the afternoon we met with Dr. Rajiv Sarkar and Deepthi Kattula at Community Health Training Center (CHTC) on CMC campus. They were Fogarty scholars in the past years, and their research involves cryptosporidium in children (e.g. change in immune response over time in chronically infected children). Because our mentor Dr. Kang is in the gastrointestinal department, much of their research pertains to diarrheal diseases.

I have a lot of personal experience with diarrheal diseases (parasitic in particular), so I would definitely be interested in doing research in that field. We're scheduled to meet with people from other departments, so I'm excited to see what opportunities are out there as well. I can already tell that I'm going to have a hard time deciding on a project (or two) because there are so many different options here.

Harish Bakery

After our meeting with Dhivya in the morning, I went to the Eye Hospital to pick up my new pair of glasses (I can SEE now!). Then I walked over to Harish Bakery (my new favorite bakery in town) for lunch and got a variety of savory baked goods to go (I like their "puffs").

Next to the bakery is the Harish Grocery Store where you can get lots of imported food, toiletries, and household items (at marked up prices, of course). So I bought some food and a bunch of other stuff, such as insecticide spray, body wash, and hair conditioner (yes, guys use conditioners too... right? How else am I supposed to keep my hair nice and silky?).

One of the surprisingly expensive things in India is toilet paper. Four rolls of TP cost Rs180 (about $4.00)!

After our meeting with Dr. Sarkar and Deepthi this afternoon, I went over to the CMC College Store for more groceries, and stopped by the street vendors for some fruits and vegetables. I also got a new pair of sandals for Rs150 (compared to Rs180 for 4 rolls of TP).

One thing I couldn't find anywhere was insect repellent spray. The best I could find was insect repellent cream at the College Store. I'm not too worried about malaria since it's not endemic in Vellore, but I definitely don't want dengue fever.

I still need to buy some slacks and short-sleeve button-up shirts since a lot of men wear those to work here. I would wear shorts and t-shirts with flip-flops everywhere everyday, but I probably should try not to stand out too much.

Praise God for another great day in India! I actually felt pretty productive today, learning about all these research projects and getting a lot of shopping done. One thing missing from the day is a trip to the swimming pool, which unfortunately is closed on Mondays.