D R E A M

So much to tell. So much to share. So much to keep with me. And so much to love.

Feelings, thoughts, experiences, moments and people are my day a day life. It is a never ending wheel of learning and living in the same 100 square meters where I sleep, eat, work, shower, talk, walk, laugh and cry. All in the same place, and at the same time, in no place.

I was giving the Guest Room where I have a bed, desk and bathroom for myself. Although I have a mouse living with me, I was able to give him the name of one of Cinderella’s mouses and let him stay with me. I feel like I am shining and eager to get started. 

Waking up at 7, I see how everything is already in motion: the coma patients are being fed, all the women are preparing breakfast and tea and fruits and lunch and food food food at the indian kitchen, and the girls are beginning to arrive to their classroom on the other side of the building. At 8 everything stops for morning puja (prayers) in front of the sun rising with a praying song on the back and hands bound together in the heart.

Food in the making

I take one of the most precious things I brought in my rucksack (prioritising it over some clothes), one of my parents wedding gift back in '75: a small Coffee Maker. That little lady has made my mornings even brighter and given me strength not only during the tough beginning of this journey, but also at moments experiencing hard thing to digest -lets say- and all I can do is make some coffee and write down my thoughts to see if the storm of feelings inside me gets a little calmer.

I make coffee, offer to everyone but their chai is way to valuable to commit treason and cut some fruit for breakfast. The social worker Poonam and me start the treatment of the 7 patients under my watch and then do a million things until its 10 and the consult starts.

Along hindi conversations, translations and sign language, its 12:20 and I am running to the girls classroom to check out their Bollywood dance moves at the end of their class as a reward for having a good school work day. I get refilled with energy and head back to my patients with the consult doctor to check tout there isn’t any novelty and consult on any doubt or possible lab exam that has to be done.

After lunch the dressing starts. Most of the coma patients, even if they are being very well taken care of, and the social workers are looking after them like their own family, have bed sores that keep on evolving regardless of the special mattresses that they were able to get recently. I help the workers and teach them how to properly clean the wound cover them back up, finishing always by leaving the rooms with a void feeling I am doing nothing for this people.

That is the biggest problem I have here. You might think I am doing a lot, but once you are here, and you see that wound already reaching the bone you feel helpless for not really being able to make this people have less pain, and only making sure it does not get infected and moving their position so it wont get any worse. Or if it comes the time, as it did two days ago, drive up at 10pm to the local hospital with a feverish coma patients with trouble breathing. Making the decision to transfer a patient is not an easy one and the responsibility feels humongous.

Central garden at SAPNA.

The place SAPNA the NGO runs, is located in a land where a palace was built over 200 years ago for the Prince of Alwar. The garden with its trees, flowers and grass makes everything softer and nicer every time you feel down and the Rajasthani heat and sun helps you sweat off any bad feeling you might be having. The sweat is here and is coming to stay.

By now, I have checked almost every abdomen of the people working here and officially have taken several times all of their Blood Pressure --Indians are obsessed with BP and they get so happy when I tell them theirs is accha (good) that I don't mind doing it every single time they see me without gloves on.

Everyone has a different character and although Hindi is the hardest language I have ever encountered with (including Swahili) I have gotten to know the people here and they have gotten to know me. When I got sick on my stomach they made me some special Indian food and forced me to eat it, which I was sure was going to make everything worse but couldn’t tell them no after they had cooked it only for me. After 2 days of being genuinely happy to have a private toilet and taking their special food (and medicine) I got better and everyone was very happy with my western stomach making a peace treaty. 

I hope I’ll be able to write a post about the personalities of some of the staff here, because they have amazing stories to tell and getting to know them is a delightful experience, however for now I can only speak about the best friend I have made in this remote area.

Her name is Vina and she speaks no English and even though I speak no Hindi, we really like each other. She is married to Bobbly, who had a motorcycle accident 5 years ago and got a head injury that took him into coma for 6 months. He woke up and they have been here for the past 4 years. She works cleaning and cooking and is always around. She never stops working and in her free time before bed she come and has dinner with me or makes my mahendi. Bobbly is one of the screamers. He screams randomly during the day and night and it was hard to get used to, even though I knew they meant no pain. Whenever I asked anyone about it they would dismiss it as something normal, until one day I listened carefully and realise what he was saying was actually "Viiiiiiinaaaaaaaaaa". He is calling his wife. 

Vina and Bobbly

Bobbly saying his daily "Good morning Madame"

Whenever she gets out of his sight he screams and not in creepy horrible way, he just screams it and I have gotten so used to it that whenever he does it, I look around to confirm she is not there and go to keep him company if I have time. 

Bobbly and Vina have 2 kids that I haven’t figured out where they are. All of our conversations are in Hindi and there is a limit to my asking. However, today I got invited into the room where I usually say "Namaste" to Bobbly and he answer with a  "Good morning Madam”. Vina told to sit in one of the beds and  I waited nervously while she dig in a ragged suitcase, taking out a newspaper wrapping something that most be a treasure. Inside was the album, almost without cover, of their marriage. It was -as 87% of actual marriages in India- an arranged marriage,but she told me he was very very handsome and she was more than happy to be taking her vows. 

Her face changes gradually as I pass through the pictures and she starts saying many sentences including the word "accident" in between and I need to hold my tears.  All I can figure from her statement is two words in english: "life over" and points at him, who has a smile on his face and looks at me proudly for looking at his album. 

I try and continue to look happy and keep on complementing her on her Sari and her smile in the pictures and she goes back to being proud of the pictures. How do I give confort to someone who is very likely to stay here for the rest of his life? How do I do that in a language I don’t speak? How do I tell them that everything will be alright? All I can do is hug her like a Venezuelan would do and give her all the love in my heart hoping it will reach her soul with all the energy I am putting into it. I think I succeed, until we reach the last picture. It shows a woman that looks like her but younger and a man. She tells me it is her sister who is "expired" (thats what they call the dead here) and who left 5 children. My heart falls down my stomach.

I hold my breath and grin telling her that they are healthy and good here and that they will see their children soon for Holi on the 23rd of march and that they are full of love in SAPNA. Again, it seems to work and now is she who comes with a big smile to hug me and I feel the luckiest person on earth. Whenever we do something with the heart, its result is pure and gorgeous.

SAPNA in hindi means DREAM. This is what this place is. Somewhere to dream of a better future and to hope of living your dreams. Is a door to living with what you have under the sun and company of indians that love you as family in the safety of the country that made you.

Today I dream with them. I dream of recovery and I dream with Bobbly and Vina reunited with their kids in their home. I dream of a thousand colorful saris making this woman even more beautiful than they already are and I dream of more places like SAPNA. I dream of strong women like Vina, Concilia and Mushke.

Mushke, Concilia and Vina (from left to right)

Today has been the day my campaign’s name took a shift. Nothing is a coincidence people, nothing. Today I am officially INDIADREAMING.

India Dreaming

EmbraceSong: One of my inspiration companion showed me this song, and it has given me everything I was missing here. I am here to grow and be strong. "I still have a lot of fight left in me". Thank you Dave and Diane, you've given me more than I can explain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo1VInw-SKc

Hello India

Everyone kept on talking to me about the "cultural shock" I was going to face. How there is so much people everywhere, how my stomach wouldn't be able to handle all the spices and how men would simply stare at me as if I was somewhere from a different country.

Nothing anyone said could prepare me for how different this country, this subcontinent is from the rest of the world (or at least my world).

I arrived to an airport in the night where nobody was there to receive me. I didn't have an indian number nor wifi to reach my contact person and the guards wouldn't let me back in the doors after haven gotten out to read the papers with names and find out for a fact I was alone in New Delhi's airport. It was cold and eventually an indian lady from the flight who was 2 seats away from me with a 6-month-old baby -that took me about 8 hours to gain her confidence so she could go to the bathroom and leave the baby with me- stepped out to reach a crowd with flowers waiting for her. She lent me her cellphone after explaining in sign language how stranded I was and called the person who was "responsable" for me. He said there was someone with my name in a paper waiting for me and told me to wait 5 minutes so he could contact him and tell him to call me on this phone (that did not belong to me and who's owner I knew had just flown for 14 hours with a 6-month-old and had another 6 hour route to her village.) I was very ashamed to make her and her family wait for me in the cold but they did, for half an hour until I received the call for my pick up guy saying "I will be there in half an hour/1 hour madam."

Three hours after my flight landed I was on a taxi going to the accommodation I had signed more than 6 months ago when, at midnight in the Delhi traffic with my escort, I get told that the place "is very very dirty madame. Lots of complains. Better in another place. 2 Argentinians" so apparently I would be staying somewhere else with just women in a better, bigger and cheaper apartment. 

My god-niece once said that "if something sounds too good to be true, it generally is."

The small detail that I got told just before carrying my gigantic rucksack up three stories was that there was no wifi and would never be wifi, which was basically the ONLY condition of my mom in order for her to live in Venezuela while her youngest daughter goes to india for 7 months as a doctor. I panicked just imagining my parents not knowing about me and told him that we would have to make an arrangement because I had promised my family and friends to stay in touch and had the responsibility to keep my donors updated on my IndiaDreaming.

In the apartment, there was in fact 2 Argentinians who greeted me by showing the bed they had to carry into the room so I'd be able to sleep on my sleeping bag. They seemed happy to have a SouthAmerican with them but were too tired to show it. Apart from the Argentinians there was 9 more people in the apartment including the parents of one of the interns. We slept in a room with three beds from wall to wall for 5 girls.

I couldn't get any rest thinking about what I would do and where would I go. Watching a fellow insomniac -30 cm away from me- reading all night long from her Kindle, I took it upon myself to ask her for coffee in the kitchen when the first strays of sunlight appeared.

This early morning coffee tertulia with Adelina and Valentina, two amazing 27-year-old book writers from Córdoba, Argentina scared me three times more about what was to came after what they had experienced the past week since they arrived: their project with AIESEC hadn't started, had no news about it and every night they would see someone new staying in the apartment. They had already found somewhere to move, and even though I knew these girls didn't want to share -not even- oxygen at the moment with anyone, I excused myself but told them I HAD to go with them to the new place and see if the landlord would take me in, which he did. I got a bed inside the room they had negotiated and slept for the first time after about 72 hours without any proper rest. Hello India.

Jet Lag really got the best of me and waking up at 3 am completely ready to start my day became a routine for a week. I went to the hospital with an appointed boy from the organisation where they greeted me and told me I would start the next day going through all five patient wards of the Trauma Center of AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science) looking for Unknown and Unattended patients. 

SAPNA is an NGO that works in the Trauma Center of the biggest and highly specialised hospital in New Delhi with patients that have had a head injury mostly and whether can't remember their own identity or their families have abandoned them because they have no means to support them now that they will rely 100% on their family.

The concept of the work the NGO is doing is beautiful and completely humanitarian, but for me I was seen as an intruder dressed up as a western doctor who didn't speak the language (starting from the fact that there are 3 different local broadly spoken languages in India) and who wanted to talk to doctors who were way too busy to have a chat with her. As a Venezuelan women, having studied in public hospitals I can understand why they wouldn't pay any attention to me: they had a whole subcontinent on their hands. Nurses would tell me that thankfully there were no new Unknown nor Unattended patient that day so I could go happy to spread the good news across the street in the office,  leaving me with only one duty: food distribution at 1pm at the NGO's nearby center for family of patients that are not from Delhi and are required to stay with their relatives throughout the recovery. I loved distributing food and feeling useful even if I was feeling 10% of the energy I wanted to be giving.

Safdarjung Dharamshala. Food Distribution.

I tried to take it easy the first week and come up with plans to make myself more useful by doing seminars for the Social Workers who give away medicine for diseases they have no idea what they mean and are too scared to ask the doctors. I saw an opportunity to give the patients a bridge between themselves and their physicians to ask questions about their condition and their relatives condition (If I though the doctor-patient gap was huge in Venezuela, doctors are seen here as gods who must not be questioned, almost not looked straight in the eyes). 

The 4th day I had made a Power Point presentation simply about the kidney and how it could fail. It was -in my opinion- a good introduction to what the organ does and what happens when it is not working properly. However, when I talked about it with my superior, the administrator of the NGO, I don't think he liked my idea -not even a little bit- because "I don't want my social workers to be questioning the doctors". I tried and explain that wasn't my intention, it was simply to give them the information about what they were dealing with in a very easy and understanding way, to which I got answered that they didn't have a large education so they weren't going to understand, finished by a look saying clearly: this discussion has ended.

The Local Committee of the organisation I came with, failed to provide any information of the volunteer they were getting in February and my qualifications for the work, so after that very unpleasant conversation, this man asks me if I have already graduated or if I am still studying to become a doctor. As soon as I say I have my degree, his eyes shine up and shows me a magazine where their primary project is explained in detail.

They run a Home of the Sick and Destitute for the patients who after their physical -but not necessary neurological- recovery, have to leave AIIMS and get back on the streets, except they can't. They are disoriented or in a "semi-coma state" but the hospital can't keep them admitted, so SAPNA (the NGO) takes them 150 km south of Delhi to a place that seems beautiful where they take care of this patients, their medicine, food, attention and shelter. It has also developed into an all girls school for 16 girls from 4 to 9 years old, a computer lab for improving the local community technological skills, a library with access to internet, an optometrist working alongside with a mayor eye clinic in Delhi doing over 30 cataracts surgeries every month for free, and a very special place for me: a primary healthcare providing consultation.

This is exactly what I came to India to do. I am obviously not a specialised doctor yet, and what I can bring to the community is primary medical assistance, the assistance I would be giving in Venezuela during my rural year that I decided to do in India. I felt ecstatic and betrayed at the same time. Happy and disappointed on the organisation in New Delhi and how being this the most important project the NGO has, they have matched me to one where they do not require doctors because the hospital is full of them. I was very glad this man was offering me the position because their doctor had just resigned a coupe of days ago and they have the community going in for consultations and being sent back home due to a lack of physician, as well as the social workers and caretakers being the only ones looking after the unknown and unattended patients transferred there.

I am sorry to have extended my story, but I have been worried about my rol in India and have been busy doing all the proper things that need to be done in order to be able to move to Alwar. It has been a very difficult start ad I have just arrived to the place where there is a garden in the middle of the building, with about 5 patients on their wheelchairs getting a sunbath and girls singing songs in Hindi.

Real Indian Chai in the making. Babitha in the kitchen.

I have great expectations and although there is only one person that can speak english fluently (who will be with me during the consults) I think this is going to be the real beginning of my journey.

Now, all I have to do and buckle up, learn hindi, handle the spices, and reopen the consult area.

I wish you all a beautiful week and ask you to send me vibrant energy here so I can transmit it to everyone I touch.

Once again, I am here thanks to all of you and your belief in me.

Sending much love,

Ana Corina Falcón R.

PS: When I was in Kenya, the two posts I was able to write were created with a song that inspired me and made my fingers type exactly what they wanted to type. I called this songs
"EmbraceSong" and its a tune that sticks with me during hard times and I'd like to continue sharing it.

Enjoy.

EmbraceSong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJ84y4wTq8