It's a strange feeling to be walking through the hospital in running shorts and seeing patients families sleeping on the floor or in the hall. Seeing people cooking, washing clothes and going about the rest of their daily lives in a hospital breaks the barrier between the medical and the mundane usually present in my mind.
There was a thicker fog than usual when we started running and sun wasn't yet cooking us. We walked out to a small raised walkway between some of the rice fields and he gestured for us to go run down it and come back. It can't have been more than a quarter mile and it was filled with goats, Bulls, and the ubiquitous stray dogs. The villagers definitely didn't understand what we were doing. It took me a while to figure out what the appropriate greeting is. "Hello" a wave, a nod, the namaste greeting, all got blank stares in return.
After less than 5 minutes we got back to Biku's brother and explained that we wanted to run for closer to an hour. We walked back to the hospital and ended up running the distance from the school to the village 10 times (about 50 minutes). By the later laps, the villages would smile as we passed. I also figured out the right greeting. "Good morning" is alright but the best is a smile and a sideways head wobble. Around our 7th lap, the one-legged shopkeep of Baba-G's laughed and gestured that he wanted to run with us. He joined us for a few feet with his crutches and then cheered us on.
We're going to have to figure out a better running route but it was nice to get some exercise here. We did a workout on the roof and I'm about to go shower before breakfast.
----Update. Not sure when/if there is a set time for breakfast, but we're sitting at the table and I'm writing this as we wait for Biku to wake up. He had said we only have to check on a couple of patients this morning. Indian time runs differently from New York City time. Schedules are flexible and I haven't seen anyone rush to do anything yet. There's not the same sense of urgency here. Even conversations and activities seem slower. It might have a little bit to do with the language barrier, but conversations have been comfortable with lots of silence . Activities also tend to continue for much longer than they might back home. We must have watched at least a half hour of Indian music videos when Biku offered to show us one. I've also been happy to just sit and write in my journal(or the blog) and reflect (not that we've had too much time for that yet).
I just had a glass of tea, which as far as I can tell, is hot milk with a ton of sugar. Breakfast was some ginger chickpea stuff in a bowl and some fried bread things. I think the dish was called Puri. I'm starting to get the hang of eating with a hand. People here also don't say thank you. A smile suffices and saying thank you seems to cause some confusion.
Now I'm waiting for Biku to get dressed and I'm going to do morning rounds with him and then.. Who knows.
-AB
Dodging cows and goats
Don't wave to the villagers
On our morning run.
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