Thanjavur

This week I made my first to Thanjavur, the rural district where my host organization is carrying out their health projects. A group of us took the overnight train 450km to reach to town, and were met by a driver to take us to the office/guesthouse. One intern had come to potentially shoot a small documentary, and I was there mostly to get the lay of the land, meet some community health workers, and start to understand a bit about the district where the actual work is going on. We visited a Primary Health Center and were shown around by a very friendly lab tech. He asked me "my native place", and when I told him I was from the "US - California" he got excited and sad at the same time. In a conversation with little English and no Tamil, we managed to discuss the lab tech's sadness about thee untimely passing of Michael Jackson and funeral taking place in California that day.

Later in the visit, we went to meet some of the nurses who were doing a school health visit. The younger kids were lined up for vaccinations, with older girls holding them to be sure that they kept still. Other kids were having their height and weight checked, and get a general once over. After the injections were done, I was horrified to see that a worker was recapping the used needles (not standard injection safety practice) and then putting them into a shopping bag for disposal (not standard disposal safety equipment)! I was shocked that there didn't seem to be much concern about blood-borne illness at all, and wondered what standard practices they the government expects them to be trained in....

There isn't a whole lot to do in Thanjavur other than go to the temple, so we visited the temple. The Brihadeeswara Temple is one of the Great Living Chola Temples, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.




Wierd Santas at the temple




Chiai, Kavia and Divya



[Thanks to Michelle for loaning me her camera for my temple trip!]

On the way back, all 5 of us ladies were booked in the same compartment. I was initially looking forward to ride back, until a man in the car kept peering into our compartment as he passed - even pulling back the curtain as he walked by so that he could take a longer look at the women. I'm experiencing more problems as a woman here than I'd anticipated, from me like this on the train, to not having my opinion valued equally in some situations seemingly because I'm a woman. I even had one auto driver essentially tell me not to talk as I tried to negotiate a price. Staring I can get used to, but I don't think I'll get used to the gender dynamics!