My Manali Story

Blogs I understand are written in the order of new-to-old. It took some work to reverse this one to tell you a story. The first post that follows is an email that I sent out after my first week. Then, the story continues through my return home. With this post, I am also introducing the cast of characters.

From left to right - me with Sunny, our Manali coordinator; Judy Stone, MD, adjunct instructor for the study abroad program and mother of Heather Stone; Heather Stone, MPH student and course creator and instructor.

Mili Duggal, Maternal and Child Health PhD student in the Department of Family Science. Mili has been working with me on a USDA grant to develop health messages for low-income rural mothers and their families.

Drs. Alexander from Lady Willingdon Hospital with their baby boy. Both doctors earned great respect from the students. Dr. Philip Alexander, known as "Sir" is the lead doctor who performs many surgeries a day.

A snapshot of Hotel Kanchan Grey with many of the students. Front and center are the hotel staff, including Shroven (in white) who made great effort to learn English and teach Hindi, much appreciated by all. Behind him is the head cook who prepared three meals a day for our group.

 One day trek from Manali to the Jogni Waterfall near Vashisht

Did I mention that one of the students invited a snake charmer to the hotel one morning? 

Can't resist sharing a monkey shot. No, I didn't zoom to capture this guy right outside Sanjay, Madhu, and Tanmay's dining table window while we ate breakfast in Varanasi.

There are more people, and I don't mean to leave people out (the doctors and social workers from the hospital, Himani and Ann--researchers who worked hard with our students and are continuing to work with Heather, Tanmay--Sanjay and Madhu's 11 year old son, my most prolific facebook friend who was almost as scared as I was, but also sported a snake on his head for a brief moment, etc...)

Lis from Manali, India June 6, 2011

I arrived in Manali two days after immersion in the world of airports, airplanes and more airports. I was less bedraggled than you’d expect thanks to the new “T3” terminal in Delhi airport. For a price, you can rent a modern room for 3 or 6 hours immediately as you exit customs, advertised as “nap”, shower, mineral water, and wi-fi. I checked out at 3am and headed toward my gate for domestic departure. I really entered India when I stepped out of the airport in Kullu, a 2 hour drive from Manali. I asked the taxi driver if I could use the seatbelt which was visible, but tucked behind the seat. He responded, “no problem,” as he started his engine. Translation: “It will be no problem that you wear no seat belt.” As the taxi weaved up toward snow covered mountains from the Kullu valley, everything was immediately familiar—the cows in the road, men hunched in storefronts sweeping dust with hand made short-handled brooms, the “BLOW HORN” requests painted artfully on every truck (and the compliance of every passing vehicle), the 3 teenage schoolboys sharing one motorbike, the plastic glittering god bobbing from mytaxi driver’s dashboard, and something new since my last visit—the countless uniformed school girls with Hannah Montana backpacks.

 

I am here with 14 undergraduate students, two graduate students – Mili , a PhD student from India who works with me in College Park and Heather Stone, an MPH student who has done a fabulous job designing and implementing the study abroad course, and Heather’s mother, an infectious disease doctor from the US. The students arrived one week before I did and they’ve worked through many startup glitches, stomach bugs, and orientation to Manali. We take up most of the rooms in our hotel, Kanchan Grey, and eat meals together at tables in the courtyard. The rooms are decent and the food is tasty. The students are divided each week into one of three tracks. One group goes to a remote village, Jibhi where they trek with a social worker and a faculty member to map houses in even more remote villages. The goal is to track tuberculosis cases and trace potential for further infection through contact with an infected individual whose records are available in the Manali hospital.  A second group works in the hospital observing rounds, surgeries, and outpatient consultations. The third group goes by car to nearby communities with healthcare workers affiliated with the hospital. This week I will go out with this group. In the afternoon, the students have class with the faculty and discuss readings in preparation for a final project of their choice.

I arrived in time for the weekend, and went with them on a trek up a mountain through beautiful meadows with views of the snowy mountains becoming closer to eye level as we rose. The students are a delight—very dynamic, interesting, adventurous—not a surprise given their choice for a study abroad experience. There are several students who are pre-med and some hard science majors, some public health, and one nursing. They are all really interested in watching surgeries, births, and events in the emergency room. I will avoid watching such things, so I don’t end up on the floor as a patient. The doctor who runs the hospital is a great inspiration to the students.

 

 This weekend I will go to Varanasi to see dear colleagues and friends, of course, but also to assess the feasibility for a study abroad program that is part hill station like Manali—cool and mountainous—and part Varanasi, where it is hot in June but students could interact with local college students from the two universities, and have lectures from my colleagues on issues ranging from gender justice and Men’s Action to Stop Violence Against Women (MASVAW) to peace research.  Fortunately, two of my colleagues Dr. Sanjay and Dr. Madhu Kushwaha will come to Manali during our last week to lecture. The students are very excited.

 

The experience here will have a long lasting impact on me and my work, yet I am having a hard time being away from Leo, Julian, and Eric. I have skyped with mixed success. Today, I had a crystal clear connection and sat with them for breakfast singing songs and blowing kisses through my web cam. I have photos and drawings by both boys on my wall to wake up to, and the students seem to tolerate my stories with polite choruses of “Awww”. While I consider myself a traveler and Eric a wonderful homemaker, if I had to guess which of us would be in India and which of us would be fulfilling the daily needs of our children and home, it would be reversed. Maybe next time…or better yet, next year we will all be on a summer adventure!