A late Tuesday Post.

Vannakum!

I apologize for the lateness of this blog post, yet again the internet refuses to comply with two of us, but is mysteriously working for the other two. I guess the internet has decided to bestow its powers only on the worthy ones, and today I was apparently deemed unworthy. When the internet complies I will again be posting regularly.

As for today, it was rather eventful. First thing this morning I saw a medical termination of pregnancy (MTP), or in this case, a voluntary abortion. It was a very simple procedure, tablets are simply given in two forms and then the patient was admitted to the hospital for monitoring and administration of any aid that might be needed. The patient today who came in, like many patients, found out about her pregnancy, but already had enough children with her husband, and so she needed to terminate this pregnancy because she was "simply done with growing her family". This topic, and the fact that so many married women with children come to hospitals for this in India astounded me. Upon some research, some statistics state that abortion in India is five times that of the United States, which I can completely believe. The way it is talked about around here makes it sound like a necessary step that needs to be taken to keep population down or families from having too many mouths to feed or too many children to handle. It is definitely not a "hot topic" like it is in the United States from what I can tell, and many hospitals around the country do it legally. Some practices do not offer this service for personal moral, and religious reasons, but others have no problem offering this procedure safely. I don't completely agree with this mindset, but I would like to understand it better and will conduct more research...when I have internet.

On a lighter note, Dr. Relton and his awesome family took us to the movies tonight! We saw a Tamil movie whose name I can't pronounce, though I have a picture of the movie poster below.

The four of us were a little apprehensive of whether or not we would understand the movie at all, but each Relton family member translated the major points for us and any details we couldn't pick up on our own through context clues. I was really surprised just how much I could understand without knowing the language. Maybe its because I practically live in a foreign film during the day when I shadow and have picked up the ability to observe and understand what is trying to be communicated regardless of whether they are speaking the Englishes or Tamils. Regardless it was really neat to see, the movie was a comedy that sort of resembled Mrs. Doubtfire and Tootsie, but without the gender change, and ended happily. Tamil movies seem to be much more animated and theatrical, with musical numbers throughout and large gestures and varying moods. I think if I had seen a serious Hollywood style movie I would not have understood near as much.

As well, when people REALLY approved or REALLY liked a part of the movie, they would whistle really loud or clap very loudly, I found that different, and kind of cool, though I can see that potentially getting out of hand. Also, the prohibition of cell phone usage in the theatre is definitely not a thing here in India, and actually really isn't anywhere here in India. People's phones ring all the time and answer them during doctor's visits, during a meeting, in the movie theatre, its crazy! I wonder if people honestly don't mind, and so these cell phone usage laws/guidelines will never be put in place, or if it is because cellphones are still a relatively new commodity...I don't know! But what I do know is, I saw a Nokia bar phone for the first time in 5 years when I first came to India, and though smart phones are prevalent, iPhones are not as popular as Samsung or Android. Its good to know Nokia is till thriving, and that Apple hasn't completely taken over the world.

Also, the movie theatre was really nifty! Here are some pictures.

 The theatre itself was located in a multilevel shopping mall/ hotel where the theatre itself was connected to a food court complete with a Baskin Robbins and CFC (Chennai Fried Chicken). To complete the movie experience we all got movie style popcorn! It was a really great night that has really started to completely round out our India experience.