Goodbye Jaipur

Today was our last full day in Jaipur and we spent the morning preparating for the presentation we gave to Dr. Goyal this afternoon. We presented on all our activities during our week in Jaipur and we each picked a country to present on to give a more global picture of HIV/AIDS, to compare and contrast these countries' efforts at combating the virus and give recommendations based on what we've learned and observed in India thus far. I chose Russia and I think it can learn a lot from India's efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, including strengthening its public health infrastructure, creating harm reduction programs such as needle exchange programs, and create targeted interventions for high risk groups including Commercial sex workers, IV drug users and men having sex with men (MSM). There are also issues of policy that Russia must deal with including providing free universal access to ART to all those who need it and social marketing campaigns to reduce the atrocious stigma attached to PLWHA and IV drug users.

Since we had the afternoon off we decided to go to a Bollywood movie, but the movie we wanted to see was sold out and the other available movies were deemed too sillly. So we ended up at a mall, or a bizarre and 7 girls ganged up on a poor sales guy to bargain for gifts to bring back home.

Yesterday afternoon was spent at Bapu Market, a major bazar in Jaipur and Linda helped me sharpen my bargaining skills, I had tons of fun and bought a bunch of gifts for people at home, although I really should stop otherwise I won't have any roomin my suitcase.

This week at Jaipur has been really good, the accommodations have been top notch, the institute welcoming and modern, and the food just wonderful. The only dissapointment I have is I didn't have an opportunity to explore the historical sites and the monuments. The only opportunity for this happened the first day when the rest of the gang went to explore the city and Farah, Sejal and I stayed behind to work and the rest of the time we've devoted to shopping. I would have taken a car alone, but the old part of the city is all the way across town (25km)and really I haven't had the time or the opportunity. So I suppose this gives me an excuse to come back to Jaipur, not that I need one.
Tomorrow we ride the bus back to Delhi and back to Bapu Nature to have our last week of rotations at the ayurvedic clinic and yogashram. Yoga is on the schedule, but I'm learning in India, schedules don't mean very much. We shall see.