Gadchiroli

     Yesterday was my last Sunday here - Sarah and I went into town for the last time. (Every Sunday the SEARCH bus takes people into Gadchiroli at 2 and returns at 6:30.) I've been a couple times before this and we have a couple of places that we like to hit up pretty regularly. :) 

Gadchiroli :) 

Our fruit vendor - He's awesome. This is where I got most of my mangos from. ;) 

Goats on the median. 

Rangoli - the store where Sarah got her Indian clothes :) 

Desmukh Services: Our source for all snacks, chocolate, and ice cream. 

The Final Stretch

    So I come home in 9 days! And I leave SEARCH in 4ish days. While I am so excited to come home and see family and friends and relax, I'm definitely going to miss so many things about SEARCH and Shodgram and all the amazing people I've met here. One of things I will probably miss most is dance class. I'm not going to lie; it's not always easy - but it is always fun. I love all these kids. We're putting on a performance on Wednesday: they're performing the two dances they've learned and I'm doing one dance. I left costumes and such up to them to decide so we're going to be going to whole nine yards - sarees, make-up, bells, flowers, etc. I'm a little intimidated that I'll be the one in charge of all the dressing and make-up-ing. We had a little trial run last night, just to make sure the sarees would work on the little kids. It was definitely good to practice. I will put up pictures of the performance when I get a chance. Until then, here are some pictures from the other night:

After class pow-wow. 

Tanmay and his granddad - SO CUTE.

     Also, last Sunday we got the chance to go to Sevagram (Gandhi's Ashram). It was a 5-6 hour drive (so wee spent about 11 hours in the car?) and we decided to just do in one day. This allowed me to watch some surgical action on Saturday night. There was a surgery camp happening - all hysterectomies. So I got to watch that for a bit. There was some light-headedness for sure, but all in all it was a very interesting and good first experience in the operating room. It'll definitely be interesting to compare this to surgeries in the US.

The operating room.

    Anyways back to Sevagram. Except for a small bout of motion sickness/breakfast not agreeing with my stomach, the trip was a success. We walked around and saw the places that Gandhiji lived and some interesting personal articles. The western style toilet made especially for him was a huge plus for sure. We also got to see his glasses - much larger than I expected. Afterwards we made some purchases at the book store (10 rupee book - awesome much?) and the khadi store. Khadi is homespun cloth and also was a popular movement started by Gandhi during the independence fight. The aim was to boycott foreign goods (like clothing) and promote Indian goods.

The location of Gandhi's sun baths. (I'm not sure what exactly that is but it sure sounds fun.)

Making Khadi

Gandhij's Glasses

   Oh yeah - and we had some entertainment in the form of monkeys!

They're like little people!

Dance Class

     I've really been enjoying teaching dance class here - the kids are adorable and it's been a ton of fun. I thought I would share some pictures my friend took a while ago and a couple pictures from last night.

From the dance Raghupati

Doing mudras, or hand gestures. Here they are doing a peacock. 

Our class' little Krishna - very mischievous but adorable. 

Also. Here is a tiny frog that was in our room - it was definitely more than a little dazed by  my camera's flash and had somewhat of a hard time finding its way out of the room. Poor thing :)

Finding My Stride

     So it may taken a while, but I finally feel like I'm settling down a bit. If only this had happened earlier right? With less than 2 weeks left, I'm both really excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel (even though the tunnel has been very enjoyable/educational) as well as freaked out with getting all my work done. The weeks feel like they just fly by. I thought that since nothing out of the ordinary has happened I would tell you guys what the "ordinary" is.

     Sarah and I have been getting up to go running in the morning at ~6 which has been really nice. Although we only started this week and also have only gone twice because we are not motivated enough to run when its raining. Generally if we don't run, we'll get up at 6:45/7ish, take baths and get ready. We don't have a water heater so we inevitably end up taking baths in cold cold cold water. While I actually enjoyed this in the beginning when it was hot (and its pretty nice after running too), I not so much a fan of the cold water when it is already cold and rainy outside. We usually make it to the mess hall by 8 and have half an hour to enjoy our hot, sometimes spicy, breakfast. And chai, lots of chai. 

     The work day is from 8:30 to 5 with an hour for lunch at 12:30. Mostly I sit in the research department, where the wifi is located, and do work but I can also mix it up by shadowing at the hospital. I also end up walking around quite a bit to see if I can catch various people in their offices. I've been working on making slide shows about the different programs on campus; if you're interested check them out at www.youtube.com/user/GadchiroliSEARCH. I've also been working on some brochures, video editing, a literature review, etc.
     After work we'll relax in the room, generally reading. I've discovered that the library on campus has a really good collection of pleasure reads and so I've been taking advantage of that. After work is probably also  when we usually do most of our laundry. Then prayer at 6:45, dinner at 8, and dance class at 9. We'll head back around 10:15, read for a bit, and then sleep. Getting used to the much faster pace of life back at home and at Vandy is going to be interesting.

Oh My Markanda

     So we finally managed to make it out for a day trip on Sunday. (Did I mention that we have 6 day work weeks here so Sunday is our only day off? I'm so excited for 2 day weekends again.) Our group consisted of 9 people, mostly interns, and we headed out after breakfast to Markanda, a nearby temple. I had been told that Markanda is old and is devoted to Shiva (a Hindu god). Little did I expect the astounding intricacies of stone carvings that Markanda is actually. Because pictures will probably better describe the trip -

Markanda had many smaller temples, here is one with a Shiva Linga (a symbol of Lord Shiva).

I saw this stair case the kind of leads up to a guard house looking structure (below) and just had to climb it.

Our little hideout - Not really, but it did provide us with great view of the whole temple.

An overview of the temple.

Then we wandered down the rocks towards the river where Venky proceeded to get in the water and swim around.

        Where we stopped for lunch on the way to another temple. It was definitely different from eating out in the US - the waiter basically kept bringing us food as we asked for it. Everyone (well not me and one other girl) was really glad to get non-veg food since the food at the mess is all vegetarian. The second temple we visited was much newer; the special thing about it was that it was built a the joining of three different rivers (I do not remember the names though :/).

     We took a boat ride (the boat guys were apparently doing this for "time pass"). They left us out on one of the island like places for about an hour so of course people got into the water and had some fun. There was no telling how sick I might get from the water so I resigned myself to being the photographer.This post is long overdue - but this time its not actually my fault! The internet has been super spacey/mostly absent this past week. More to come...

Would You Rather...?

     Would you rather have really hot weather and sweat all the time or have extreme rains and be muddy all the time? Well, lucky for me, I don't have to make that difficult decision. Apparently we get both of those wonderful extremes here. It rained for a couple days straight, but yesterday and today have been sunny, summery, and hot. At least my laundry dried - when it rains it gets so humid that my laundry takes roughly 4 days to dry. After this summer, I will have absolutely no reason to complain about doing laundry if I don't have to do it by hand.

     I've started shadowing at the hospital and it's been awesome. It's so strange to see just how different SEARCH's hospital is from any hospital I've ever been in. I couldn't help but remember the seminar I took last seminar where we sat around and discussed the movement in medicine to focus more on the patient and his emotions/story. Yesterday there was a Mental Health Clinic. Gadchiroli doesn't have a psychologist so psychologists from other parts of Maharastra will take turns coming to SEARCH once a month to see patients. I sat in with on the visiting psychologists for an hour, and it was astonishing to see how quickly patients were in and out. In 5 hours, the two psychologists saw about 50 patients.Basically the patient came in, usually with a family member, answers a couple of routine questions about what their problem is, and then is prescribed medication. Not at all similar to American system which seems to be much more based on therapy and counseling.

     I also got to see a couple of slides of the normal blood cells, malaria parasite, filariasis (little worm parasite, can cause elephantiasis), and bacteria that cause leprosy. Today I saw my sonogram, which was incredibly cool. The little fetus (about 7 months along) was moving and everything, adorable. The woman had come in and her pregnancy date said that she was 5 1/2 months along. Her uterus was bigger than expected so Amma (Dr. Rani Bang, one of the founders of SEARCH and an OB/GYN) decided to do a sonogram. She measured the femur of the fetus and determined that the woman was actually 7 months pregnant.
Surprise!
     I've also been giving dance classes to the kids here on campus and some of the other interns/SEARCHers as well. It started out pretty rough - I take all the blame for that. I had no idea what I was doing, but after a couple of classes (tonight will be the 4th class) I'm started to get a hang of teaching. Its so much work, and I'm definitely gaining a greater appreciation of Sheila Akka (my dance teacher in Birmingham). I'm teaching a pretty simple dance called Malary, and I don't doubt that we'll finish it before I leave.
   Pictures currently refuse to be uploaded, so more to come later. :)

When It Rains, It Pours.

So the rains have come - or at least I think they have. It’s been raining all day, and although I’m glad for the cool weather that the rain brings, I’m also realizing that (a) I definitely should have invested in a good rain jacket and (b) I’m going to have to get used to water everywhere. I’ve been told that it does flood here, and, as Sarah found out a couple of days ago, our front yard floods pretty easily. 

                              Our Home

My work has kind of been picking up, but so far I’ve still been doing a bunch of different projects for various people around campus. I feel like my role as an intern is still evolving a bit, but it’s been very interesting to learn about all the different programs, like the adolescent education program (mainly sex ed.), the Deaddiction department (deals with alcohol and tobacco addictions), and hospital activities (women’s health clinics, surgery camps). 

            Cute kids at the primary school we visited in Porla. 

I actually just got back from a 2 day village stay. Sonia and I went to Porla, which is one of the villages that is part of SEARCH’s home-based newborn care program. Women are trained as health care workers and provide direct care to pregnant women and newborn babies. The impact of this program is amazing with a reduction of newborn mortality by ~70% at times. We stayed with Aruna Tai, one of the health care workers in Porla and had a chance to follow her around on her home visits for two days. It was amazing to see the respect people have for Aruna Tai. We also got to visit the local government offices, a primary school, a private practice clinic, and a temple. Sonia translated for me because I don’t speak Marathi/Hindi. It was definitely very strange and disconnected for me because I couldn't actually talk to anyone directly, but it was still a great way to see rural India first hand. 

                                with some of the other interns

RUN RUN RUN

     Apparently that is what you are supposed to do when being attacked by honeybees. Too bad none of us knew that yesterday. I don't want to ruin the story though so here's some background information first:
    So I've been in India for almost a week now but only got to Shodgram (SEARCH's campus) on Saturday. I spent the first four days with family in Hyderabad which was lots of fun. There were so many mangoes, and I also got to eat some sapotas (the fruit of sapodilla trees) and drink coconut water on the side of the road. Three new dresses, a box of fattening sweets, and several games of Uno later my aunt and I caught a train Friday night to Adilabad where my uncle works. From there we drove to Shodgram. I feel like the accurate word for what Shodgram is would be ashram (a retreat). Everything is so in sync with nature (all the building are named after trees). There is even an organic farm on the grounds. My roommate, Sarah, is an MPH student at Emory and has been here for about a week and a half. It's really hot, but it should be cooling down somewhat soon when the rains come.
    Sunday morning we had a picnic at this place in the jungle. It was a three hour ride away, and I sat with all the kids in the back of the bus. They were playing that singing game that I've always seen in bollywood movies where every song has to start with the letter that the previous song ended with. They had a massive vocabulary of Hindi and Marathi songs. Not knowing Hindi or Marathi, I kind of just sat there and smiled. They did make me sing a Telugu song though; that make have been the first time I've sung in public since the disastrous singing lessons of my youth.
    There was sort-of temple there, and we looked around a bit. I helped peel what felt like an endless stream of onions. Then, most of us went down to the valley where there were rocks to climb and a lake/waterfall. After a little bit, I start to hear yelling and people started running away back up to the upper area. Apparently some villagers who had also been down there somehow disturbed a colony of honey bees which were now attacking all of us. Long story short, I only got stung once and then escaped to the bus with about fifteen others. Some people were not so lucky and didn't make it out of the valley in time. Most of them ended up jumping in the lake and hiding in caves and were stung extensively. The entire attack lasted for more than 4 hours. I can only imagine what would have happened if we hadn't been a group with a plenty of medically trained professionals or if someone had been allergic to bee stings. Sarah and some of the others who were stung really badly are still in the hospital, but thankfully everyone is going make it out of this. It was a very eventful first day at SEARCH for me.
     And for future reference, when attacked by bees you should cover your face and run. Apparently they will tire of following you and give up. Also, next time you go hiking take a cloth/net that you can cover at least your face with. No joke.

En Route

So I am currently sitting in a cafe Amsterdam Schipol Airport using one of my two 30 minute free wifi times slots. (I got a blueberry muffin Lindsey.) I feel like I have been traveling for a while, but I still have close to five hours of waiting here, plus the plane ride to Delhi, 5ish hours of waiting there, and then to Hyderabad. My sense of time is complete off ... I think its Monday morning?

Yep. So I don't have much enlightening to blog about - mainly I'm just a little bored, but it is really cool to people watch. I guess I can do that for 5 hours? I'm starting to get more and more excited/nervous. More to come once I actually get to INDIA!

Hello!

     And so begins my first blogging adventure. I have never blogged before, but I thought that it would be nice to jump on the bandwagon. On the plus side, it will probably also be a much easier to keep everyone updated.

     This Sunday (day after tomorrow) I will be leaving for a media internship with SEARCH, a community health organizationin Maharastra, India. SEARCH stands for Society for Education, Action, and Research in Community Health, and their campus, Shodgram, is 17 km from Gadchiroli - which I believe is the closest town.

   SEARCH's aim is "to work with marginalised communities to identify their health needs, develop community empowering models of health care to meet these health needs, to test these models by way of research studies, and then to make this knowledge available to others by way of training and publications." I first read about their work in a nytimes blog entry.    

   I will find out more about what exactly my job is when arrive on June 11 (I'll be catching up with family for a bit when I first arrive) - the first week is supposed to be somewhat of an orientation. From what I have been told, it seems like I will be doing a lot of documentation/editing/classifying and other media related things. I am also really excited to observe the public health aspect of their work like surgery camps, village visits, and research. 

   Goodbye for now. I have quite a bit of packing to do. :)