Monday, March 24, 2008

I'm in Palm Springs for spring break - one last week and a half with my family before I leave for India .While this spring break vacation and the upcoming India experience are both trips of a sort, they are going to be very, very different from each other.I'll be going from this So-Cal luxury retreat to the so-called surreal retreat that I've heard the Northern Himalayan region of India can be.I'm actually very excited to see the beautiful scenery I've heard people rave so much about.I guess that's one of the things I'm looking forward to most, along with the ability to learn a new language (a little bit at least), being immersed in anew culture, living with an Indian host family, seeing the medical practices (both Western and traditional), and even talking with the other interns, many of whom are already in medical school here in the United States.Among all of this excitement, though, I'm a little bit nervous about the trip.Perhaps the two things that concern me most are that I will spend too much of my time with "Delhi Belly" (the lovely gastrointestinal complications which unfortunately embrace most travelers to the area) and being too cautious in public to really take in the culture.I have been warned that women should not really travel alone, yet I am aware that I will probably be taking public transportation by myself to my different clinical rotation sites in Dehra Dun , a city of about 300,000 residents.Through reading the final reports of other past interns who participated in this same program, I have gotten the idea that it's important to have a little sense of humor with the locals in public, and that it is part of the culture to have to barter down prices and the such.I am really going to try not to keep my personality in a little box, shielded from the world, but yet open up and interact with those I see and meet in public.I feel like it may be a narrow line to walk between being a player in the culture of the region and making sure I'm always aware of my own safety (like not sending the wrong signals when I'm only intending to be friendly - I've heard smiling at men I don't know is an invitation I don't actually want to be extending.) I presume it may take me a little while before I find that happy balance.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

I ordered a Hindi-English translation book at home and started looking at it today.I think it's going to be very useful while I'm gone.It has a phrasebook - categorized by situation - and two dictionaries, one from English to Hindi and one from Romanized Hindi to English."Romanized Hindi" is the way Hindi words are written in Roman letters (the letters we use in English or variations of these) as opposed to being written in the Devanāgarī script that would be very hard for travelers like me to look up in a book.("Devanāgarī" is an example of a Romanized Hindi word, as this is how the word is written in Roman letters and their variations, like the letter ā.) The Devanāgarī characters are shown for all the Hindi words - which may end up being helpful in some situations - but after looking at the book for a little while, I think it is far from realistic to think that I will pick up the written language in Devanāgarī script in addition to the spoken language.So for now, I have made note cards to practice my Hindi vocabulary and pronunciation in reference to the spoken language (based on the Romanized Hindi) instead of studying Hindi for comprehension of the written language.I can just hope that the important signs in the city will be written in the native Devanāgarī as well as the Romanized Hindi or English, or that there will be someone I can ask for help if this is not the case.If not, I guess I'll be in for an adventure!