Lurking

The Mahindra

Day 2 at Kalinga and I just finished an English lesson with 20 of the paramedics.  These women function somewhere between a nurse’s aid and a nurse.  They are all female, largely single and below 30 years of age, and have been with the hospital for a few months to a couple of years.  Their training seems to have been conducted through the hospital, and not an external institute.  I was told before I arrived that I might be doing English lessons.  I wasn’t terribly excited with the idea of doing what I always do, but when I was asked for lessons so earnestly by one of the paramedics, I could hardly refuse.  Especially since there’s nothing else on my to-do list.

I arrived in Bhubaneswar yesterday morning after a grueling night of travel and only a couple hours of fitful airplane sleep.  The 4WD Mahindra with no aircon and only the slightest suspension made for an exhausting hot, windy, noisy, bumpy ride to the hospital.   Fortunately after I was shown my room I was left alone until lunch.  I don’t remember the last time it felt so good just to lie down.  Sleep was pretty good, too. 

Since then I’ve been waiting to meet with the director to find out what he might have in mind for me.  He asked me to help composing with a couple of promotional letters, but so far that’s been the entire extent of my involvement with the hospital.  There is another volunteer, an American college student, who has been here 10 days already and seems equally bereft of direction.  He jokes that what he does most is lurk about the hospital.  This seems like an awfully poor use of labor on the part of hospital management.  They know when people are arriving and what their skills are.  They should have a plan that can be set in motion as soon as the volunteer arrives, but it seems they may be having difficulty conceptualizing how best to use this resource.

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