Clinics and Fishing Industries

During our last maternal and child health field visit on Thursday we went to the same maternal clinic that we had visited the previous week. This time, however, I spent the whole time at the maternal clinic working with two doctors from Manipal in the examining room. The clinic was very busy during the entire time we were there, so we had a constant stream of patients coming in to get their monthly checkups. These visits are very important because the doctors check for any abnormalities in their pregnancies and this simple checkup is the absolute most effective way of preventing maternal and infant mortality. After about two minutes of standing around just observing the doctors do their work, one of them asked me to take the patients blood pressure. I was happy to help and pretty much every patient that came in after that they had me taking their blood pressure. They also taught me how to feel the women's belly in order to get an idea for the position of the baby, measure the belly, calculate the gestation period and listen for the baby's heartbeat. So by the end of my two hour day at the clinic I was doing all of these things for the doctors, we had gotten through about 20 patients, and I learned some words in Kannada which will be useful for working at clinics in the future. I was so happy that I got to finally do something besides just observe what was going on. I learned so much more that way. It also makes me glad I'm in India because we all know that the U.S. would never even think about allowing an undergraduate student (gasp) to do the things I was able to do.

Besides that visit, it has been an extremely long week with a lot of homework and readings. On Saturday our study abroad group went on a visit to the local fishing industry as part of our contemporary Indian society class. The little town where the harbor is is called Malpe. It relies heavily on the fishing industry. We spent most of the day right at the harbor where all the fishing boats are docked and where the fish are sorted and shipped off to different parts of the country and the world. It was definitely a very trying day for all of us as it was extremely hot and sunny the entire day, not to mention the intense fish smell that we could not escape. Despite all of that, everything we learned and saw was very interesting. When we stopped to ask some women workers about their jobs and working conditions and such, we slowly started to attract a crowd of workers who surrounded us from all sides. They were all extremely curious as to why these foreign people were asking questions to workers. At one point two women came up behind me and just started to feel the sleeve of my t-shirt and were probably talking to each other about the material or something because they seemed very impressed with it. We luckily had a translator with us so we could have conversations with the women there and they also were able to ask us some questions about why we wanted to know so much and where we were from, etc. After visiting the fish meal / oil factory, I pretty much felt like I was going to pass out and we were all pretty delirious. As a nice treat at the end we got to go eat lunch at a hotel overlooking the Arabian sea which did make me feel a bit better.

The Malpe Harbor

The women awaiting the next boat of fish

Sorting the fish that just came in

Fish heads getting unloaded at the fish meal factory

Malpe beach

This coming week is short because Wednesday and Thursday are holidays so I can't wait to get some relaxation time in. Also, it has been getting sunnier and less rainy every day which means the monsoon is ending soon! It's so nice to finally see some blue sky. I think a trip to the beach might be in store for next weekend if it stays nice.

-Mia