Oriya Lessons

My first day at the hospital was... uneventful as far as accomplishing any real work is concerned. I spent most of the day with Biku, Govinda's eldest son. We have decided that we can be of advantage to each other. Every day we will spend any hour teaching eachother our native languages. He will teach me Oriya, and I will teach him how to butcher the english language.

I also spent today going around saying hello to all the people here. I have a great many people here who I consider good friends. It is odd, but even though most of them speak not a word of english, and I speak only a few words of Oriya, we have cultivated a relationship.

There is Chandu. He runs the pharmacy that is next to the hospital. He speak english very well, and is adept at frisbee. these two things are easy ways to win my friendship it turns out. He is 27 and single and likes it that way. He is a devout Hindu, and does his Puja every day. His real name is Rohit, and he is from a village about 4 kilometers away. He is obsessed with Cricket and in school he was an excellent bowler. I know all this because he can tell me. Most of the other people who I know here, I am forced to extrapolate their stories from other people, or just plain guess as to their history.

That sickness I was suffering from turned out to be a sore throat, and I am recovering nicely due to some Ayurvedic losenges given to me by Chandu at the pharmacy. They taste awful, but do the trick. For that I am very thankful. They feel like sandpaper in your mouth, tast like old gym socks, and do not even feel soothing while they are in your mouth, but they make it easier to swallow.

I have settled into my room and I am waiting a day or so to start working. It is difficult to just jump into work in this village. People here want to take their time, and move at their own pace. If I immediately went to work trying to get them to help me accomplsh all that Michael has set out for me to do, I think they will stop thinking I understand their way of life. Which I don't. Here everything is done so slowly. I suppose it is the heat. Which by the way is HOT. I mean like 100 degrees in the shade. The humidity is through the roof. So I am now in the sauna portion of my time here in India.