I would love to write here about the glories of our recent weekend in Mysore—the special palace tour that took us into locked rooms, the amazing Manchurian-style fried cauliflower (“gobi”) that we ate from a street vendor, the fun of navigating crooked alleys in search of custom-made Ganesh stickers—but the harsher reality of the rainy season looms large. Here I will tell you about three major monsoon assaults to my week.
May the games begin!
While we gallivanted around Mysore town, water leaked through the ceiling of our closed room in Kenchanahalli. We came home to a face the first blow, mold.
Just before bedtime, the mold monster reared its ugly head as black specks crawling over our pillows and, with sheets pulled aside, seeping deep into our mattresses. Then I stumbled upon a flowerbed of rainbow fuzz blooming in the soles of my slippers. With fear and hesitation, I inhaled deep. Our once airy bungalow was filled with thick, damp, putrid air. Miasma! We had almost been too tired to notice. But the situation was unsafe—one of my housemates has asthma and is allergic to mold—so, instead of settling back home after a weekend away, we quarantined clothes, shoes, and bags. We emigrated to temporary quarters in the dark and started to air the old house, and managed to sleep before the sun came up.
Monsoon 1, Comfort 0
The second blow came the next morning. I woke up tired but eager to start the day—our mold-less work space in Saragur had never sounded so good. As we walked to the bus stop I heard mumbles of “route changes” and “rain on the roads”, but thought nothing of it; it always rains, and the bus is usually late. But this time, it was REALLY late. Two hours late! We waited and waited, while the monsoon gobbled up our morning. By the time we reached Saragur breakfast was over, work meetings had been missed, and morale was low. I spent only a handful of hours getting no work done (and eating no dosa), and then it was already time to go home again. Back to the mold. Ugh.
Monsoon 1, Productivity 0
These monsoon woes got me thinking about the challenges of staying healthy when it’s impossible to stay dry. With all this rain, I couldn’t understand why the hospitals in Kenchanahalli and Saragur were so quiet (only one in three beds was occupied when I followed rounds this week.) I asked a doctor why. Her explanation puts a terrible twist in the story: rain is good for agriculture, and crops are more important than health. That means that would-be patients go to the fields instead of the hospital during the monsoon season. …Healthcare-seeking behavior declines as rain increases, regardless of healthcare needs.
Monsoon 1, Health 0
In this agricultural society where sun, water, and wind are so unreliable and so relied upon, weather dictates life and death, wealth and poverty, health and disease. The upsets and hassles of my monsoon week prove that weather really matters.
Until the relationship between a human society and these forces of nature becomes less dependent—or more dependable—secondary institutions (the bus, the hospital) may just be spectators to the natural floods and droughts of life. I know that SVYM is doing its best to be so much more than a spectator, with mobile clinics and community health workers in the field every day. Still, beds in the hospital are empty. Changing values and challenging the rain is not an easy job.
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