Day 9:

First day of work was a success! I’m starting this week on the dialysis unit, and I’m realizing just how laid-back Indians are. The doctor on the unit pretty much told me to do whatever I wanted, so that’s what I did. I followed the nurses around, watched them start and finish the dialysis procedures on the patients, tried to ask questions, learned the different parts of the machine and how they worked, attempted but mostly failed (due to language) at talking with patients, and learned how to take blood pressure!

Being on the unit also made me realize just how big of a language gap there is. I partly chose India because I knew English was spoken here; however, I didn’t anticipate how little it is actually known. There were maybe 2 nurses the whole day who could explain in detail what was going on, and even when they do speak English, both my and their accents are so great that it’s still hard to understand each other.

Today was also the first day that I really felt like a foreigner. I guess there are benefits to being in a foreign country: you can get away with a lot more cultural mishaps, and I definitely had a couple today! Besides getting to work way earlier than needed but much later than I was originally told, I also had a crazy adventure at lunch. The unit’s doctor practically pushed me out of the unit around lunchtime to go to eat with the other nurses, and then once I got outside the women nurses seemed completely surprised that I was actually coming with them. I also thought we were going to a restaurant, but then we arrived at this house where everyone went upstairs to give offerings to the household shrine and then back downstairs for a big lunch. Thank god this Russian lady arrived (she’s apparently married to an Indian doctor) and kind of explained things to me, because I was so completely and totally lost as to what was going on! I’m still not sure….from what I understand, apparently the house belonged to some hospital supervisor and apparently he’s moving, and I guess it’s customary to have some sort of gathering when you move places. I also thought I was invited, but it’s really quite possible that unintentionally invited myself to this lunch by tagging along with the nurses! I guess we’ll never know, because they spoke little to no English, and I still have no idea whether they were laughing among themselves or laughing at me the entire lunch!!