Health and Fitness

I was digging through my backpack today and came across a pair of running shorts, running shirt and one of those resistance rubber exercising bands. The thought was that when I got to Kolkata I was going to exercise and run every day. Especially, I thought, while I was volunteering. Right. The thought of going for a jog in Kolkata seems so ridiculous now. The air is so polluted and the sidewalks are a constant obstacle. Just walking to work is a battle. I think I'll just donate the clothing.
Everyone here has a cough. The Kolkata cough. And a runny nose. It's all from the air pollution. I've had this cough and stuffed-upness along with a scratchy throat since I got here and I'm pretty sure it's not going away until I leave the city. Leave the city. Hmm. I am looking forward to leaving this city. But strangely enough it's not because of the volunteering or the patients or the horrific wounds (I had my first leprosy patient today!). It's the city life that makes me want to leave. The polluted air, the over crowding, the traffic and most of all, the non-stop blaring horns. The horns will drive you mad. I'm actually going to miss the clinical work, my coworkers and the kids at the orphanage.
On other health news fronts, there's been a very big outbreak of avian flu here in West Bengal. West Bengal is the state that Kolkata is in. The outbreak has been at a lot of chicken farms around Kolkata and the government has been out culling chickens for the past two weeks. The papers have reported that the government is way behind in what it should be doing and that due to corruption (there's quite a bit of it here in India) the largest chicken processing plant in Kolkata has yet to be inspected to see if the flu is present. This is 2 weeks after the first announcement in the area. Most of the volunteers that I know have gone vegetarian. I went veggie at the first report, which wasn't such a hard thing to do here since a lot of the menu here is vegetarian anyways and the chicken was pretty bad even before it caught the flu. I'm staying clear of eggs as well. I'm not sure if it carries over, but better safe than sorry. That being said, I still see plenty of locals and tourist eating the chicken. The papers in Kolkata reported that both Japan and the United States have stopped all imports of chickens from India due to the outbreak. Imported chickens from India? Why, in the name of Colonel Sanders, would we be importing chickens from India? I've got nothing against trade with India, but don't we have enough chicken farms in the US that we have to put these poor, sick, flu ridden Indian chickens on a plane and burn fuel getting them to the states? I can just see that one healthy Indian chicken downing packets of Emergency or Airbourne before getting on the plane with its sick compatriots.
Speaking of corruption, I think I mentioned before that I had my mom mail my orthotics out to me to help with my pigfoot, which had been bothering me lately. When she mailed them out she was told that I wouldn't have to pay any duty on them when they arrived because they were my personal property and not something for resale. Well, guess again. When they arrived here they were held at the courier office and a note was sent to Mother House (Missionaries of Charities main office here) with a phone number that I needed to call. When I called the number, the guy told me I had to pay a 2070 Rupee duty on them. That's about $53 US dollars, which is a lot of money here in India. Compare it to the fact that you can get a five star hotel room for about $25 per night. (Most volunteers are paying about $3 for their rooms). I tried to no avail to tell the guy that I shouldn't have to pay any duty. These are, after all, just a pair of arch supports. And a used pair of arch supports at that. When I asked to speak to his manager he said no. When I asked where the courier's office was to pay, he wouldn't give it to me. He said he would bring them to me and that I had to pay him in cash. He told me that if I didn't pay him the cash he would send my package back to the US. Which of course means he would sell my arch supports as serving spoons and they would spend the rest of their days ladling out masala in some nasty Kolkata eatery. I couldn't face the thought of it. I gave in to the kidnapper's requests and told them I'd pay up. But I wasn't going to let him go without my two cents or maybe even roughing him up a bit when the package was delivered. Lucky for them the delivery boy was part of the child labor syndicate here and I couldn't bring myself to shaking down this 10 year old. I paid him the blood money and off he went.
On an even sillier note with this whole package delivery debacle, when I first went to Mother House to see if my package had arrived, I ran into Sister Karina. Sister Karina is in charge of all the volunteers and is the one who interviewed me on that first day and said I looked like a priest. I've heard her speak at least four languages. When I saw Sister Karina, she said, "We haven't seen you at the morning masses lately." After the first prayer session I told Sister I would try to make it to the mass they held every morning at 6am. It wasn't a lie, I said I would TRY. I just haven't been successful yet. I told Sister that I would very much like to come to mass (not a lie either, I would!) but that I wasn't able to because it was sooo early in the morning. Sister said, "Maybe you should try going to bed earlier." I said I would try again. Sister said, "Yes, you should try and come to mass. Jesus has been waiting for you." Bam! She hit me with the Catholic guilt. I felt like I was back at Sacred Heart High School and Sister Marita Paul was laying on the guilt of what bad people we all were because someone had put gum under a desk. I told Sister I would try and made a run for it.
Two days later, after I had paid the extortion money and got my package, one of the Sisters at the orphanage came up to me and asked, "Are you Jeff?" When I told her I was she explained to me that Sister Karina had phoned to tell me that the courier still had my package. I told the Sister at the orphanage that I had already received the message and that I got my package last night, but thank you for passing it along. The Sister at the orphanage smiled and said, "I knew it was you who was Jeff. Sister Karina told me to look for the man that looks like a priest."
OK, so besides letting me know that my wild, swinging days are over, what exactly does that mean? What is the "priest look". When I was in high school all the priests were over 60. Maybe I should just sign up for the seminary now. OK, maybe I'll start with trying to make it to mass in the morning.