India, India

So last week I spent at the SADED guesthouse after they installed an A/C and I slept quite well. Some days I was at the hot office, some days at the guesthouse. The guesthouse is cooler than the office, although there the mosquitos were continually biting me :( I was bitten all over!

Working over here has been in many ways, how should I say, interesting. My boss here, Vijay Pratap, had requested me to do all sorts of things here. When I talked to another colleague Bhuwan last week, he was telling me not to take all things Vijay Pratap says seriously and I should mainly focus on my own research. How could I know that! Bhuwan said I was too Finnish in taking everything Vijay ji said seriously and too Indian in respecting him too much and not saying anything against! What can I do.. I have both cultures in me... But at the same time Bhuwan said focusing on my own research is just his personal opinion and not SADED's. So try to figure out who to listen to! But basically I've focused on my research plan since, as after all, it's the most important thing to me.

Most of you have already heard that I got some sort of food poisoning last Thursday-Friday night. My colleagues decided to have a non-veg treat and we had some mutton curry on Thursday. One of colleagues, Asit, called me a "true Pathan" for eating meat. Most of the Finns they know are leftists like them but in Finland it means being vegetarian, here it doesn't (despite them being hindus = supposed to be vegetarians). So despite that Bhuwan had tried to buy "safe" meat, on Friday at 2 am I started vomiting and in continued the night through. I slept maybe for really short periods in between but by 6 am I was really exhausted. Nothing seemed to stay in, water or anything. Bhuwan is the one in the house whose the more caring type of person. I tried looking for him a couple of times, first he was sleeping and next time he was in the bathroom. I told one other colleague (that night there were extra guys staying over) that I've been vomiting the whole night. Soon after Bhuwan came knocking on my door. I was so tired and exhausted and missing my family and husband that I had tears in my eyes when he came. He got really concerned as I also looked very weak. At this point I was vomiting every 15 minutes. We called Vijay ji's wife, who I met in Finland before I left, who is a PhD in the medical field. She was suggesting to see how the day goes. But when Bhuwan saw me running to the loo constantly (I has loose motion and vomiting), he suggested to go the hospital. My reference points of Indian hospitals were not that great, so I was a bit reluctant. I called my mum and she encouraged me to go before I get too dehydrated. So they took me my car to a private hospital.

The hospital was really clean and nice, so there were no worries from that point of view. I was taken in a wheel chair to a room. They took my blood pressure and temperature and a doctor came to see me. I got a private room (the whole cost was 5000 rupees for the day, 70-75 euros, so not cheap either, thankfully Gaia has a travel insurance which covers it) and I was put on the drip. I spend in total 10 hours at the hospital. Bhuwan was really sweet and stayed the whole day with me there. We would both dose off now and then. Me on the bed and he on a leather sofa. It also started raining really heavily during the afternoon and we were watching news on TV how Delhi traffic is in chaos due to water logging. Also the roof of the new domestic airport had collapsed. The nurses would have wanted to keep me overnight but I really wasn't keen. We left in the evening, when the SADED driver Gauri came to fetch us and the traffic situation was better.

I have had to take medication since and am not feeling still completely well. I am now at Riikka's place, because Bhuwan went to visit his home town and there's only Asit at the guesthouse (who asked me though to come back earlier, so the house does not feel like a ghost house). I came here to Riikka's place as I met my Indian friend Adnan living in Holland but here on a business trip on Sunday. He was staying at this really mega fancy hotel near here. It's so weird going from SADED guesthouse area to a luxury hotel. This land is full of extremes.

Well, here's some text. Don't know whose reading these though ;) I'll try to do some work, although I've been feeling quite tired and exhausted all the time.

Kaarle's coming on Sunday, yippee!!