Kolkata: The Institute for Indian Mother & Child.

For 4 weeks now we’ve been volunteering at the Institute for Indian Mother & Child, a project that aims to provide all sorts of help to people who can’t afford it in Kolkata and the surrounding villages. It’s been by far the most different and perspective-changing experience we’ve had this year, not only because of how different Kolkata is from anything we know, but also because of how involved we were able to get with the people and way of life here. It’s been a very welcome change from the tourist routine!

We were working as medical volunteers, but also got to spend quite a bit of time helping out with other aspects of the project, which was super interesting. Our doctoring skills were very rusty at the start of the project, which was not helped by the fact that none of the patients spoke English – but after a few weeks we’d learnt some useful Bengali phrases such as “lie down”, “be still” and “don’t cry”. The most important coping mechanism we developed was the art of patience, a thing that is crucially important in a country where it can take an hour just to buy a stamp in a post office…

The Indoor Clinic in the outskirts of Kolkata, where we spent most of our time. In fact most of our time was spent waiting in this courtyard for meetings - time in India is a different concept to time in other countries...

 The patients at the Indoor Clinic were mostly kids, who were all adorable. Despite not really being able to speak the same language, we got to know them pretty well.

Doctor's round!  This is where we got to wear our stethoscopes round our neck and pretend we hadn't forgotten anything about the world of medicine.

Some of the kids were pretty keen to help out with the check-ups! Way too cute.

There were 5 Outdoor Clinics which we helped to run, in various villages around Kolkata. Some days we would have hundreds and hundreds of patients turn up which meant endless blood pressure taking, injection-giving, wound cleaning... And an interesting look at rural medicine in India.

 Felix looking terrified at the prospect of getting blood taken (with a syringe) at the clinic, with good reason... Very different protocol to what we're used to.

 The Women's Peace Councils were good fun - mostly it involved sitting around bantering with Indian women, listening to them sing Bengali songs, and returning the favour with hits like "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Tutira Mai Nga Iwi".

 Some of the women in the rural villages were keen on learning the basics of medicine so they could be of help in their villages, which was lovely. We just had to hope the translators were translating correctly.

We visited another, much smaller scale volunteer program run by some very dedicated Italians in the slums of Kolkata. The resources they were working with were incredibly basic - a run down old hall and over-the-counter vaccinations... Behind that old red sheet in the corner, some pretty gory minor surgery was taking place.

Ben joined us on our last day in Kolkata, and wasted no time in getting amongst the country's national sport.

 We had a few cheeky monsoons during the month, which turned the street outside the Indoor Clinic into a river.

 And of course, we can't wrap up this Kolkata blog without mentioning our favourite clothes shop. Cheers Aakash, you da man.

Next time: Cutting tracks towards Delhi!