I was excited to embark today on my first trip to India for my surgical rotation at the Aravind Eye Care system. Thanks to another Frankfurt airport strike, however, my flight got canceled. Fortunately, after some frantic calls to Lufthansa, I managed to catch an alternate flight through London from British Airways. Nearly 20 hours of flying later, I arrived in Madurai surprisingly refreshed and with little jet lag to speak of. For my first few days there, I had a chance to tour the fascinating complex including both the free and paying hospitals, a research facility, and a manufacturing division called Aurolab which produces their surgical instruments, lasers, and intraocular lenses at a fraction of their cost in the U.S.. Aside from doing a few extracapsular cataract surgeries and practicing suturing at the wet lab, I’ve been trying to accustom myself to the system – wearing communal slippers in the OR, scrubbing with sterile water poured from a jug, and most memorably, learning to recognize a patient’s clothing so that I could identify him or her amidst the sea of eye-patched patients lying in the vast catacombs of rooms for their post-op check. I was most impressed by the network of “sisters” here. Recruited right out of high school from surrounding rural areas, these young women are trained as patient counselors, ophthalmic technicians, and even scrub nurses, with the hope of obtaining the educational and financial independence for a better future. Beyond work, I’ve also learned to dodge auto-rickshaws on the road and bypass the stray cows and goats that wander the streets. I’ve even made a few trips to buy some button-down shirts at a local mall, as well as toiletries and snacks from a nearby grocery store. The guesthouse where I’m staying is populated by a few other foreign visitors, including a team of business school students from Michigan and a young couple doing some organic farming volunteer work. A housekeeper maintains the premises and prepares all 3 meals each day. The food actually turned out to be brought over from the hospital cafeteria, which albeit being free, accounts for the rather unsatisfying meals. Since they work six days a week here, I’ve made plans to explore some of the tourist sites here on my only day off tomorrow.