A blue statue in India

Kolkata is an experience

Kolkata is an experience

A month in Kolkata is an experience. It is an adventure involving human relations, cultural shocks, and language barriers. And not to forget, an opportunity to get lost in the amazing and lively Indian culture.

With IIMC, it’s important not to arrive with the expectation of saving the world. Because you will not. But this project is a small part of the puzzle to make the world become a better place. For you this is an incredible opportunity to observe a very well-functioning human development project; to see the wide spectrum of people who benefit from the project, and to meet the local volunteers who keep this project going. Some of them were even on the receiving end of help just a couple of years before. The project renews and recycles itself.

As the volunteers are changing every month, the locals are the perennial part of the project. Like many others, I faced the question: does my presence here matter? Dr. Sujit has had this question many times before and he had a good answer: the foreign volunteers are the catalyst to keep the chemical reaction that is IIMC going. The volunteers are also there to show the poor people of Kolkata that the world cares about their situation.

But to me this month was most important for me as a person. It is not what I brought to Kolkata but what I learned. I got to practice some easy medical procedures but the main experience was all the wonderful and strong people I met from all over the world. I will always carry this adventure with me in my future medical career and personal development.

P.S. Pro tip if going:
Always bring a snack. You never know how long a meeting will last. It is better to be ready for anything and to keep the blood sugar stable. D.S.

Pernilla Stam, Medical student T3, Lund
IIMC volunteer August 2017


Indian street food

A Long Awaited Journey

A Long Awaited Journey

I have long wanted to go to India, and when I learned that students went to Kolkata in previous years to do their candidate work for the fifth term at the medical program together with IIMC, I didn’t delay my application. To my great joy, my class mate Alma was as excited as me and we started planning for the summer before we started the fourth term. It has been a long process that has not yet ended. At the time of writing (June 2017), we have completed our essay, which we will present later in August.

Today, it’s Wednesday lunch and it is Swedish summer outside the window. The weather app says that it is 16 degrees and pouring rain in Lund. In Kolkata, it is late afternoon and 34 degrees. 34 degrees sounds unusually chilly to my ears. But I suppose that the rainy season has started now and that’s why it has become colder. If there is one thing that I’ll never forget, it is the heat during the month of May in Kolkata. I didn’t think that my body was capable of sweating that much. But now I know and am instead grateful for the body’s fantastic ability to adjust to temperatures. It is hard to imagine that only a couple of days ago, we were in the middle of the morning rush hour in Kolkata on our way to the clinic in Sonarpur. And when I say morning rush hour, perhaps mid-morning rush hour is more accurate – because at 8am, the subway is only just open!

It has been an incredible journey and I am so glad that I got the opportunity to do this journey in conjunction with my candidate work. Working with the IIMC has given us a unique insight into living in India, which we could not have experienced otherwise. We have seen disorders that I do not think we will ever see in Sweden, and we have taken so many blood pressure tests that we are still sore in our ears! We have met so many people who live starkly different lives than we do in Sweden.

However, I would not recommend anyone to go in May, since it’s the hottest month of the year! But the heat was an experience in itself. If it’s your only chance to make this trip in May, I can recommend that you pack plenty of Resorb in your suitcase. And it’s best to travel with a friend – everything is much more fun and easier when you are two – especially in a country where the culture is so different.

India is such a fantastic country that has taught us so much in just five weeks that it’s hard to even try to cover more than a fraction of it in a blog post.

It is fascinating how fast you get used to a new life. And how fast your new life after 24 hours on Swedish soil suddenly feels like a distant dream. But the memories of this trip I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life: the lunches outside the clinic where we happily waited for our naan bread for over 40 minutes, because there were some shadow and a fan; the time we got to ride on the disco-rickshaw with speakers that played Barbie Girl at the highest volume all over Sonarpur; the families in Dhaki who gave us coconuts; the bodies burning in Varanasi; the never-ending line with people who wanted to take selfies; the feeling of getting into a cafe or an Uber with AC in it; the fantastic food; the joy that is was ‘mango season’; the brown sludge that was left in my washing water when I rinsed my clothes after a long working day; the cool evening, morning and afternoon showers; the traffic noises; the dogs who bark late at night; the smell of incense and stench from burned garbage; all the people… Amazingly, I do not think I’ve seen two women wear the same sari more than once, there are so many different beautiful patterns and colours there. All this and so much more, I will remember when I think back on my time in Kolkata.

But I will also think about the little child who had played to close to her mother when she cooked food – resulting in horrible burns all over her leg. And how I stood there with a single instruction in my hand: “gentamicin”. I think of all those people who came to the clinic to get injections and pain killers, when it was obvious that they need so much more than just that. People with advanced diabetes, who would have? needed amputation long ago.
But it is not possible to compare anything with Sweden, for these clinics in India are so different from those in Sweden. And what we have done is the best we could do for these people at the time, with the resources that were available to us. This is something that has been hard for me to realise and get used to. But I also think that it is a valuable lesson.

With everything said, the one thing that really has inspired me, is the calm patience I have seen many Indian people have. I hope I managed to absorb some of that during my trip.

Women outside building

Outside the Outdoor Clinic.

Indian street food

Jalebi.

Man on bicycle with huge cargo

A man on a bike.

Rooftop with a clothes line

The roof of the guest house.

Hanna Bielawska Bokliden
IIMC volunteer May 2017


Man fishing and a woman standing besides watching

My Days in India

My Days in India

I have just arrived home after a month in India with the IIMC. One of the things that made the strongest impression on me was the trip to Dhaki, a village about three hours drive outside of Kolkata. We (me and three other volunteers) arrived on a Wednesday at the Indoor Clinic at 08.10 am to discover that the IIMC bus had left without us. Apparently, “Indian time” – which means that all times are arbitrary and appointments almost always are delayed by at least one hour – does not apply when you are going to Dhaki. We managed to take a cab to the place where you stop for breakfast and met with the others. Finally, we could join them on the bus. It was an interesting start of the journey.

In Dhaki, we started working at the Outdoor Clinic immediately. Syringes, dressings, and blood pressure in the hot days of May – the month that’s supposed to be the absolute hottest during the whole year. Sweaty. When all the patients had been taken care of, we spent timevisiting different families that are a part of the IIMC in some way or another: sponsor children, micro-loaners, people engaged in the Women’s Peace Council and participants of the Cow Project. We also joined a meeting for the Women’s Peace Council where we were asked to sing something in our mother tongues. Another girl from Sweden and I sang Ted Gärdestad’s “Himlen är oskyldigt blå”.

At the night there was a storm with lots of rain, so it was unusually cool when we slept under our mosquito nets. On Thursday we drove to see the sea. It was fantastic. Across the sea was a jungle with Bengali tigers. Before we went back we saw some people attending a funeral. From the distance, we saw how the funeral fire got bigger and bigger before heading back to the auto-rickshaw and starting our bumpy journey back to Dhaki. When we were home in Dhaki again, we went to visit more families. The electricity is unreliable in the countryside and during the night, the power was cut. The fans stopped working, and there was no power for the whole night. Sweaty.

The next morning we went fishing and picked mangoes growing next to the clinic. We managed to pick over 300 mangoes and there was plenty of fresh fish for everyone to eat for lunch. In the afternoon, the people in Dhaki suggested that we should go and sleep at a school two hours away. It was a very bumpy ride and on the way, we stopped by another school. The problem was that the students had summer break. So we went around on an empty school. I wish we would have skipped that part of the trip since I find schools with students present more interesting. After that, we visited an old temple before arriving at the school which we were supposed to stay the night. This one was also empty. In the evening, a man came and played some drums.

On the last day, Saturday, we went back to Dhaki and started with the Outdoor Clinic work right away. Afterwards we went back to Kolkata.

When I think about those days in Dhaki I have mixed feelings. On one hand it felt good coming back to Kolkata and the guesthouse where the electricity is working properly and fans always spin. On the other hand I really enjoyed the silence and quiescence of Dhaki. One thing is for sure, I will always remember and treasure those special days in Dhaki.

People cleaning mangos

Mango picking.

Man fishing and a woman standing besides watching

Fishing time.

Bedroom with nets over the beds

An empty school.

Alma Elfström
IIMC volunteer May 2017


President of India with people

The President of India Visited Karolinska Institutet

The President of India Visited Karolinska Institutet

MACHA (then IIMC Sweden) were invited to participate as marshals when Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, visited Karolinska Institutet in May 2015 along with King Carl VII Gustav and Queen Silvia.

President of India with people

The president of India (middle).

Karolinska Institutet Science Park

Karolinska Institutet Science Park.

May 2015


Women socializing

Laughter in a Concrete House

Laughter in a Concrete House

One of our missions was to visit the children whose education is being financed by Swedish families. In a concrete house, consisting of only one room of 15 square meters, lived a family of seven people. There was no running water. A naked light bulb was hanging in the ceiling, and when the evening came the family rolled out carpets on the floor to sleep on. The grandmother in the family was a big, laughing woman with sparkling eyes. As soon as we came through the door she offered us tea and cakes. She was speaking heartedly in Bengali about the progress her three grandchildren did in school. When we left she hugged us goodbye with tears in her eyes. We could tell that she was greatly moved by our visit, and that made our work feel meaningful.

Women socializing

Women laughing.

Johanna Bungerfeldt
IIMC volunteer June 2016


Volunteer with child

Stories from Dukharpur

Stories from Dukharpur

I volunteered in July 2016. I heard of IIMC in my first week of medical school, but the dream of actually going came later. I became very interested in the winter of 2015/2016 and I decided to apply, joined IIMC Linköpings board, and started sponsoring a child. One of the many things I was looking forward to, in addition to discovering a new country and culture as well as helping people in need, was to meet the child I was sponsoring. However, this ended up being trickier than anticipated.

Dipbendu and his family lives in the small village of Dukharpur. I had a fever the first time that I had planned to go see him and couldn’t go for that reason. For my second attempt I went by train with some other volunteers also going to meet their sponsor children and their families. We bought some gifts to the kids we were about to meet, such as coloring books, pens, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. I got to Dipbendus family and got to meet his little brother, parents, and grandfather that all lived together in a small house. Unfortunately, Dipbendu was still in school when I got there, and did not make it back home before we had to leave for the train taking us back to the Indoor Clinic. I finally got to see him one week later during the Swedish Sponsor Day of that summer, a day when all children sponsored by Swedes were invited to the Indoor Clinic. Initially, he was a bit shy, but became more affectionate as the day full of games, singing, and painting progressed.

It was such an amazing experience to get the opportunity to meet your own sponsor child and his family and to see how they live. What it actually looks like there and how these people live is something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. The living conditions in these areas is something that you are very aware of back in Sweden, but it is too abstract and distant to fully understand. My insight and understanding of the situation was greatly improved after seeing it with my own eyes, giving me the ability to relate this to real people.

My initial time in India was quite strenuous. The heat made me lose all my energy and I sweated copiously. The humidity made it impossible for clothes to dry so they started to mold. The dirt got everywhere and the lack of proper hygiene was tough. The loud environment, mainly caused by traffic noise, gave me a constant headache for the first few days. The traffic was insane and I thought it would kill me initially. But these are all things you get used to after only a few weeks, and it’s something that I also learned to love during my time in Kolkata. Once the culture shock subsides you realize how friendly and helpful people are. It was a fantastic trip that I learned a lot from and it is something that I definitely would recommend others to do as well.

Volunteer with child

A child and a volunteer.

Emelie Sandelius
IIMC Volunteer July 2016