Around and about

So today being my first "official" day I (along with others in the group) went to the prinipal's office and got registered. So I'm now officially a visitng foreign student at CMC. Luckily, Kathryn, who was here last month, has decided to stay on for another month so she was around to show us the ropes. Which was a big help, because trying to navigate the ins and outs of where to go in the hospital would have been pretty difficult without her! So for this week, I'll be rotating through the ob/gyn wards. They refer to it as "OG" here and if you say "ob/gyn" they have no idea what you're talking about. This applies to many things you say. I find that every time I come to India, I have to make a serious effort to de-Americanize the way I speak English in order to make myself understood. Today, I started to try speaking English with an Indian accent which means articulating every syllable of every word and this seems to help some, but not entirely. We also met some very friendly foreigners who work at the development office and informed us that there will be a get together for international students tonight. Next week I'll be doing internal medicine and the following week I'll be doing the CHAD (community health and development) rotation where we ride with nurses on vans into the rural villages to provide health care to the villagers. But so far, everybody seems very friendly and accomodating toward foreign students, so that's a good sign.