Exploring Uttarakhand

I spent Sunday-Friday last week (days 12-17 in India) in Uttarakhand, a state in the Northeast, visiting various medical facilities to ask about sterilizations of women, access to contraceptives, and HIV/AIDS treatment. It was beautiful, but it also makes me feel a bit dizzy with so much change, from Boston – MD – Delhi – UT. It would be nice to sleep in the same bed for two weeks straight.

During my first week here, I wrote the questionnaire that we used on the fact-finding. It was great to do some field work and to talk to the doctors and some of the women in the villages.

 We stayed in the city of New Tehri, above Tehri dam and its lake, which submerged Old Tehri in 2006. A HRLN-associated lawyer acted as our guide and translator and is working on a lawsuit related to the dam. It provides water all the way to Delhi (about 8-9 hrs drive away) and electricity, but the creation of the dam has caused cracks in the foundation of houses on the surrounding mountains.

It was beautiful – we could see the Himalayas from our hotel room – but the roads were treacherous. We spent 3-7 hrs each day in a Landrover going to rural sub-centres and hospitals.

Especially when it snowed on Tuesday!