Photoshoots at Periyar!

This past weekend, Shaelagh and I went to Thekkady to visit the Periyar Tiger Sanctuary. Overall, the trip was a blast! We left early Saturday morning for Thekkady and were driven by Mubarak who is one of the FIMRC drivers. We got to Thekkady around 12:30 and headed to the home-stay we were staying the night at to drop off our bags. After stopping for lunch, we headed to Periyar Tiger Sanctuary to go on a boat safari on one of the large lakes in the reserve. The boat safari basically consisted of us wearing ridiculously large life jackets and slowly cruising around the lake while we saw some wildlife from very far away. It would have been a smart idea to bring binoculars, but we didn't think that far ahead in our planning. We saw red mongoose, indian gore, sambar deer, peacocks and a lot of other birds. We also happened to meet a couple from outside of Chicago. It was pretty weird to talk to other Americans. The boat safari wasn't too exciting but it was nice and relaxing. Next, we headed to a place outside the park to ride an elephant. I have to admit it was pretty touristy, but the riding an elephant was a lot of fun! Shaelagh and I had been looking forward to this for a while and were so excited when we pulled up and saw all of the elephants.

Elephants waiting for their passengers.

Riding an elephant! The ride operators thought they were pretty clever for giving us the white elephant...

After finishing our elephant ride, we headed to dinner and then back to our room. We headed to sleep early because we had to wake up at 4:30 am the next day to go on our jeep safari. After rallying out of bed, we were picked up by our jeep at 5 am. We headed for Periyar and got there before 6 am. Our driver seemed to be quite the experienced safari-er, as he drove while standing outside the jeep looking for animals.

Don't try this at home.

We saw black monkeys, more Indian gore, as well as elephants from very far away. Around 7:30, we arrived at the location where we would start our trek. After a large breakfast, we headed out trekking with our personal guide, Rajid. He was so funny and really nice. He hiked through the grasslands for a while before descending into the jungle. We had a lot fun as waded through streams, played in waterfalls and spotted various animals along the way.

The landscape of Periyar.

A waterfall we crossed during our trek.

The view over the edge of the falls.

A green wine snake we spotted during our trek.

Unfortunately, we didn't see any elephants or tigers during our trek. However, such sightings are quite rare and we really enjoyed the trek regardless! After about three hours of trekking we returned to our starting point for lunch. After lunch we headed out in a row boat with our guide to a another waterfall. Rajid decided to make Shaelagh and I pose for entire photo shoot at the falls that resulted in us getting completely soaked.

One of the many pictures Rajid took.

After returning from the falls, Shaelagh and I met back up with our jeep driver. We were lucky enough to see some more wildlife on our way out of the park. The most exciting spotting was of two elephants that were much closer to us than in the morning. 

Spotted: Wild elephants!

After watching the elephants for a while, we left Periyar and headed back to Thekkady to meet Mubarak. The drive to Thekkady was actually a lot of fun as our driver did not seem to shy away from driving fast. Unlike in the morning, we could actually see the landscape passing by and the drive was akin to a very scenic roller coaster ride. Shaelagh and I both wished we could have stayed in Thekkady longer. However, we had to drive back to prepare for work on Monday. 

I hope everyone is having a spirited Fourth of July! I am definitely missing being home today more than ever. I've never been prouder to be an American. This experience has definitely taught me to not take living in the US for granted!

God bless America!

Liz

2 Weeks to go!

This morning marked the official two weeks left mark. It's crazy to think I've been here for seven weeks. I am definitely getting excited to go home. I can't wait to see all my friends and family and head to the pool! I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I tried to upload a post when I had wifi on the Fourth but it didn't publish. The signal must have dropped out while it was attempting to upload. Hopefully I'll be able to try and upload it again soon.

The second meeting for the women's health program is this Sunday, so hopefully it goes well! We are having our first education session. I think it will be on either breastfeeding or prenatal care but the final decision is yet to be made. Otherwise, it's been life as usual here... Going to Pasam, the creches and working the clinic.

Counting down the days to the US of A,
Liz

Pictures and Thekkady Trip!

Shaelagh and I are heading to Thekkady to go to the Periyar Wildlife Reserve tomorrow morning! We are planning to go on an elephant safari and might even get to see tigers! It should be an awesome trip and we are so excited to get away for the weekend. I will definitely post updates and pictures when we get back. In the meantime here are the pictures from the OR that I promised a while ago...

I starting to countdown the days until my return because I only have three weeks left in India! I have to admit that I am bummed to be missing the Fourth of July!

Liz

It's Been Awhile!

I've pretty much given up hope of the wifi at the volunteer house being fixed. Although I am glad we at least sometimes have internet access via ethernet, these circumstances have really taken a toll on my blog... My apologies! On Sunday, Shaelagh and I happened to run into an older couple, George and Vera, who has been living in Kodai for sometime but are from Canada. They were so nice and actually invited us back to their home for cappuccinos. They live in a beautiful house surrounded by a pear orchard down the road from us. 

Vera leading us through the orchard.

Cappuccinos and biscotti eventually led to an open invitation to stop by and us their wifi, loans from their personal library, gifts of food, a delicious lunch and a puppy rescue operation (more to come). I'm actually at their house now for wifi! George owns a food business that makes biscotti, bagels, english muffins, tomato sauce, hamburgers and chicken burgers. We had planned to go into town for lunch but found a very distressed stray puppy on the way and aborted lunch to help it.

The pup covered in dirt and fleas.

We took the puppy back to George and Vera's, bathed it, gave it some warm milk and deworming medicine. She was in pretty bad shape but has started to improve. After taking care of the puppy, George cooked us up some delicious hamburgers! Definitely the most American food I've had since coming to India. We eventually returned home full and so grateful to have met George and Vera.  When we got home, a new volunteer, Ankur, had arrived. He is a premed student from Cornell and is staying for three weeks. 

The beginning of this week was spent at Pasam and the three crèches. A new physical therapist has started working at Pasam, so Shaelagh and I have been observing him some. He has very limited equipment so it is interesting to see how he treats patients. It is definitely very different than my work at school with the sports medicine department!

Krishnan, the new PT at Pasam.

After tea today, the nurses asked me to help make medicine covers. As I believe I mentioned before, they make the medicine covers out of old newspapers. The nurses were all gossiping in Tamil as I sat there clueless. Somehow the conversation eventually turned to my hair. Sangeetha, one the nurses, was asking me why I hadn't combed my hair. The next thing I know my hair is being combed out, braided and adorned with flowers. They told me I better come with my hair combed tomorrow... they don't get the whole, "I don't comb my hair because it is curly and will become a huge mess," explanation.

Shaelagh and I are heading to Thekkady this Saturday to try and ride an elephant so hopefully I will be able to post some pictures!

Liz

Ps. I just put up two posts from a while ago that I thought I had posted but didn't actually get published due to internet problems!

The Life of Local Celebrities

Being one of the few foreigners in a small Indian hill station can be a little daunting, but at times it leads to hilarious encounters. Today, Shaelagh and I couldn't help but make new friends wherever we went. We dubbed ourselves local celebrities based on our newfound popularity. It all started when we walked down the street to buy some sugar. On our way back home from the grocery stall, two Indian boys riding a motorcycle pulled over to say hello. This is pretty common. Curious locals, especially kids, are always waving at us and saying hi as we pass by. 

Kids waving hello from their house on the hillside as we walked by below.

However, this was the first time someone had really struck up a conversation with us. After introducing himself and asking where we were from, he asked us how many trips we had made to India. After telling him it was our first trip, we received a warm welcome to India. After several more questions about why we are here, if we like the food, etc., he asked us for a picture. Once people start asking for your picture you're obviously a celebrity, right? After posing for a few pictures with the boys, we headed home as we laughed about the encounter.

But it doesn't stop there... Since it was Friday afternoon and there wasn't much going on in the clinic, Shaelagh and I decided to head out for a run (third run this week might I add). After changing into Indian-style running clothes (that means pants...) we were on our way. There is a huge hill right up the road from the house where we go running that we usually walk. I made the bold decision to run up it on Thursday and my chest felt like it was going to explode for the rest of the run. As we were walking up the hill, we noticed a woman shouting hello behind us. Eventually we turned around realizing she was trying to get our attention. She was pointing towards some men standing outside a new hotel that had just been built who were waving at us to come talk to them. At first I was confused and a little skeptical, but they were not giving up on their cause so we decided to see what they wanted. They said they wanted us to come see their hotel and directed us into the lobby. We sat down and the hotel manager began asking where we were from and where we were staying. Somehow he mistook us saying, "The United States" for "Iran", but we quickly corrected him. He told us he loved foreigners and wanted us to stay in his hotel. We told him we are here volunteering and already have housing, but this didn't seem to dull his hospitality as we were then offered coffee, tea and dinner. Unfortunately we had to decline as we were supposed to be on a run. After being given numerous business cards, we were on our way with a standing offer of a campfire and dinner.

Clearly, being the town's "token white girls" can have bring about a lot of attention. Luckily, people in Kodai have all been very nice and just seem interested in knowing where we are from instead of attempting to scam us! In other news, the wifi at the volunteer house has been out since Tuesday morning, so don't worry I am still alive and well just wifi-less. I am not sure when and if the wifi will be fixed so I might be relying on occasional trips to town for wifi. It's kind of a bummer that I probably won't be able to post as much or be in contact with people from home very often, but I am almost halfway done with my time in India so I am trying to make the best of the situation!

Liz

Monkeying Around at Joshua Crèche

After a slow morning shadowing Dr. Arun at KHMS, we headed into town for lunch. We went to a small veg joint called Tava. After having Devi and Krishna decipher the menu, I ordered channa masala (chickpea masala) and chapatti. It was delicious. We then hopped back into the taxi and headed to Joshua Crèche. On the way we saw a bunch of monkeys and of course had to stop for a photo op.

Some monkeys just hanging out.

Joshua Crèche is the smallest of all the creches we work with. Normally, there about 30 kids but only the returning kids were there today so there were less than 15. Dr. Arun was able to roll through the check ups quickly. Most of the kids seemed fairly healthy and lively, but there were a few kids with white patches on their faces that are characteristic of nutritional deficiencies.

All of the kids at Joshua Crèche waiting to be seen by Dr. Arun.

Dr. Arun checking of the kid's breathing.

All smiles after her check up.

After all of the kids had been seen, we were served coffee and biscuits. I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a single place we have gone to work that hasn't offered us either tea or coffee. I'm definitely not complaining though.

Getting fancy and drinking coffee from actual tea cups.

After finishing up our snack, we went to play with the kids. They were all so energetic and so much fun to play with. We were getting them to imitate us as we clapped out different patterns and then were playing pass in a big circle with all of the kids. Even though they can't understand a thing we say, the kids are so friendly and absolutely love getting their pictures taken.

Hanging out with some of the silly kids!

Tomorrow we are visiting the third and final crèche that we work with so it will be another day filled with the smiling faces of children! After visiting the crèche, we will have to rush back to the volunteer house to work the clinic so it will definitely be a busy day! However, I think tomorrow is the last day of the festival that has been going on for a while so it might be another slow day at the clinic.

Liz

Finally Back in the OR!

A lot people wouldn't consider watching someone be cut open fun, but I love watching surgery! I finally got back into the OR today almost a year after shadowing orthopedic surgeon Dr. Sarah Pettrone last summer. I had already seen some minor operations here, but they weren't performed in the full "operation theater". Today I had the opportunity to observe two cataract operations performed by Dr. Mascarenhas. I had never seen cataract surgery before so it was new and exciting. Also, it was interesting to see an operation that I know my beloved GranB has undergone herself! There were definitely some differences between the setup at Pasam and a typical OR in the US. They used sterile cotton cloths instead of the disposable plasticky sterile blue drapes usually seen in the US. There were also a lot less machines in the room. No monitor for patient vitals and definitely no computers! Otherwise, the setup was pretty westernized with a bovie and a wide variety of surgical instruments.

We took a handful of pictures of ourselves suited up for the OR and of the OR setup but because of internet issues I don't have them to post at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to post some later!

Liz

Celebrating Semi-Functional Wifi

After over five days of the wifi at the volunteer house being down, Shaelagh and I finally managed to get the internet to work via ethernet! Woohoo, go us! So I figured I would use this opportunity to post a quick update along with some photos Shaelagh has taken. First for a quick recap of this weekend... Saturday was Shaelagh's 21st birthday! Turning 21 doesn't quite hold the same significance in India as in the US so we celebrated with a hike to Suicide Point (where I hiked the first weekend I was here) and then a trip to town for wifi and birthday desserts! Shaelagh took some awesome panaromas on our hike that really capture the beauty of the hills a lot better than a single picture. Prepare to be blown away...

Absolutely breathtaking!

Mountain selfies, because why not?

As I mentioned in my last post, we were asked numerous times for pictures this weekend. After dealing with a lot of whistling and hollering out of the windows of cars and buses filled with male Indian tourists this morning, we decided we much prefer when people actually stop to talk to us and then politely ask for a picture. Blending into the crowd does have its benefits. 

Posing for a picture with some fans.

After walking at least 10 miles on Saturday, we woke up feeling pretty tired on Sunday. We headed into town to get wifi again. We had planned to walk around the walk but ended up bailing since we were exhausted. We headed home and then went for lunch at our favorite spot down the street, which we dubbed the "Omelet Place" because of their delicious onion omelets we always get as a side to our rice. We then headed to a community-wide meeting of the Women's Self Help groups that I am working with for my Women's Health Program. They women were all so welcoming and it was awesome to see them all come together. They even welcomed us as special guests by giving us bouquets of wildflowers. Arun talked to the women about the program. Most of them don't know english so I didn't think I would be talking, but next thing I know Seline (community leader of the SHGs and FIMRC nurse) is asking me if I want to talk. I decided to go for it (with Arun translating) and briefly introduced myself, thanked the women for their hospitality and told them I was excited to get the Women's Health Program rolling. It was a pretty cool experience to get to talk to the women even though there is a language barrier. 

Now for some more pictures...

The view from Pasam.

Panaroma of the double rainbow!

Enjoying the PB and chocolate chapatti "crepes".

A picture from Nathanael Creche.

I hope you enjoyed the updates and pictures!

Liz

A Day of Firsts

Mondays are usually a day most people dread, but the start of this week meant the opening of the crèches which I had been looking forward to for a while! I started off the day by waking up at 7 am to turn on the water heater so I could shower, only to discover we were without power. Thank you power-cut! After giving upon showering, I changed and headed out for the day. This morning, I shadowed at KHMS, the local paid hospital that is fairly westernized, for the first time. I mainly shadowed Dr. Arun who also works in the FIMRC Rural clinic and at the crèches. He specializes in orthopedics. I am really interested in orthopedics so that was awesome, but he sees a lot less patients than the doctors at Pasam since you must pay to be seen at KHMS. After heading to a continental cafe for lunch where I got a delicious quesadilla, we walked to Nathaniel Crèche. The kids were absolutely adorable! While Dr. Arun gave the kids check ups, we sat and played with them.

Dr. Arun seeing one of the crèche children.

Shaelagh and the youngest child at Nathaniel Crèche.

Two boys playing with toy airplanes.

The children clapping along to English rhymes.

More of the adorable crèche children!

After having snacks and coffee we headed home for the day. We are going to a second crèche tomorrow so there will be more pictures to come! After getting back to the volunteer house, Shaelagh and I decided to go for a run since it was beautiful out. It was our first attempt running at such a high altitude so we kept it fairly short but it felt great! I'm hoping we will some more nice weather and be able to run more. After suffering through an ice cold shower, the power finally came back on just in time for me to post this blog. 

Liz

Henna and Holidays

The main event this Sunday was once again a trip to the market. We walked into town because there are now five of us. After wearing scrubs almost everyday for the last three weeks, it already feels weird to wear real clothes. It was a nice day so I decided to break out my maxi dress for the first time since leaving the US!

Shaelagh and I documenting the fact that we wore real clothes!

We first headed to the Tibetan restaurant for lunch before shopping. I ordered veg egg chowmein again and of course it was delicious! We then headed down to the market to buy groceries for dinner for the week. We now have a cook preparing dinner each night, so we just bought the supplies she needed and split the cost five ways. Arun banished me and Shaelagh from the shopping group because whenever the vendors see white people, they usually try and mark up their prices. Shaelagh and I wandered around for a while and then decided to head to Coffee Day, the Indian equivalent of Starbucks, to hang out while Arun and the other girls finished up shopping.

Our delicious drinks at Coffee Day.

After waiting for at least two hours for the rest of the group to return, we finally grabbed a taxi and headed home. The other girls bought henna so we could all get designs done on our hands. I think henna is so cool, so I was really excited about this news! I am terribly unartistic, but Krishna, one of the new volunteers, blew me away with her henna skills!

Krishna in action.

The finished product! Seriously insane!

Shaelagh and I have started to think about taking a weekend trip sometime over the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to go to an animal safari that is 6 or so hours away. We are both so excited and are getting Arun to help us plan our trip. It would be the most amazing Indian holiday! Fingers crossed that it all works out.

Tomorrow marks the first day we will be working with the crèches and I am so excited! Make sure to check back soon for pictures of the crèche children!

Liz

PS. Tonight's dinner. Yum.

Gettin' Innovative

Today marked the arrival of two more volunteers. They are both Indian girls from Rutgers and are staying for two weeks. They brought a bunch of Indian food and snacks with them and were totally willing to share, which was very nice of them! Another big development is that we now will have a cook making dinner for us for the rest of my stay! She previously was the cook for the volunteer house but had to stop because she didn't have the time. I'm excited she is back because I was getting tired of eating so late every night and with more people in the house cooking for ourselves would have been a lot more hectic. Our cook made a potato curry and chapatti for dinner. It was delicious. There was plenty of chapatti leftover so Shaelagh and I had the genius idea to make peanut butter and chocolate crepes using chapatti. Obviously, our creations were delicious because how could you mess that up?

Chapatti turned into crepes! How innovative!

Besides the arrival of the new volunteers the day was pretty quite. Hopefully tomorrow we will do something fun. We will probably go to the market again and maybe walk around town a little. I might even go for a run in the morning if the weather is nice! 

I know both girls and boys lacrosse are playing in the state championships tonight, so, GO WARHAWKS!

Liz

Friends and Festivals

The last couple of days have been kind of slow at both Pasam and the FIMRC clinic. Mainly due to the fact that there has been a Hindu festival going on which lasts until this Wednesday. As I mentioned before, it is superstition that you shouldn't go to the doctor on festival days. According to a nurse who works in the FIMRC clinic, Seline, each day the festival goers carry something different in a vessel on their head to the temple. She said they had already carried coals/fire and would be carrying milk another day.

Festival goers eating a traditional South Indian lunch at one of the local temples.

The good thing about the clinic being very slow was we had plenty of time for Seline to make coffee! This time I got to watch Seline make the coffee so I could attempt to recreate it on my own. Here's the secret recipe: take some whole milk and dilute it to about a third water, bring the milk to a gentle boil, turn the heat up high so the milk really boils and makes a bunch of frothy bubbles, quickly cut the heat and repeat two times. Then add the milk to a mixture of about two and half tablespoons sugar and two or so tablespoons instant coffee depending how strong you want it to be. Stir together and pour into cups. Then enjoy!

Seline's famous coffee! The secret is really about getting it nice and frothy.

On Friday morning, we had some excitement on the way to Pasam. As we were driving down the street from the volunteer house, I noticed a tiny puppy in the middle of the street in front of us. We pulled over and Arun quickly jumped out to try and get the puppy out of harm's way. He eventually was able to grab the puppy and place on the side of the street, but we were definitely worried it was going to wander out into the street again after we left.

Arun in action.

When we got to Pasam, a few of the nurses were out front working on administrative tasks since there weren't many patients. They were reorganizing all of the patient records. At Pasam, all of the patient records are written on yellow cards. There are no electronic medical records here, that is for sure! The records looked like a mess and I couldn't figure out the method to their madness but by the time we left that afternoon everything had been organized.

The nurses reorganizing the patient records.

As I said in an earlier post, Shaelagh, the other 2 month intern, got here on Monday. It has been great to have some company! Last night we did a mini circuit and some ab work in our bedroom which was actually a lot of fun. I've been kind of sick the last couple of days with a cold/respiratory infection but I'm hoping once it clears up I can start going on runs near the volunteer house. Two more volunteers are coming today and staying for two weeks. So many friends! Unfortunately, this also means wifi will probably be very unreliable again (not that is great now either) as it was when we had five students here. We are finally going to the crèches on Monday so hopefully I will have wifi and can put up a post with pictures of the kids!

 Liz

Rain is a Good Thing

I may be spending the summer in India, but that doesn't mean my love for country music in summer has changed. As a wise man, namely country singer Luke Bryan, once said, "Rain is a good thing". Most times I would be hesitant to agree but when the community you are living in is suffering from a severe water shortage and rainbows are involved it is hard to argue otherwise! This morning was beautiful and sunny but by lunch time is was cold and rainy. We spent the day at Pasam where I got to observe two cyst removal surgeries and help with some ophthalmology cases. After waiting a long time for our driver to show up because he was delayed by the heavy rain, we headed home. No more travel via motorcycle because the other intern, Shaelagh, arrived yesterday! On the way home we pulled over for a prime photo op...

 

Why, yes that is a double rainbow!

 

The rainbows were quite the sight to see as they reached across the green hillside. In other interesting news, as we were walking around town after lunch we passed a procession for a Hindu festival. The women in the parade were all carrying some sort of pot or vase with flowers growing out of it. At the end of the procession was a shrine to a Hindu god made mostly out of flowers. I wish I could actually tell you what the festival was for but it seems there is another festival every few days and I have not been able to get a good explanation of the meaning of any of them so far.

The festival procession.

The crèches opened back up this week and we will finally be visiting them next week! I'm excited to get to work with the little kids. I'm going through withdrawal from my swim coaching days! As I mentioned in my last post, I submitted my project proposal yesterday and am waiting for feedback from the FIMRC headquarters. In a slight plot twist, my project is actually on starting a women's health group in partnership with the local women's self help groups that teach women about micro finance. Shaelagh is going to be taking on the after school program I talked about earlier. I am excited about the potential this project holds and am hoping things get rolling soon!

Liz

Sunday Adventures Around Kodai

After a Saturday filled with running errands and working on my project proposal, we finally had time for some fun on Sunday. First, we headed to town for lunch and to go shopping at the Sunday market. We ate at one of the Tibetan restaurants, which is very delicious. Arun and I ordered so much food that the waitress asked us if more people were joining us... After finishing off all the food including delicious veg egg chowmein and veg wantan soup, we headed down to the market. The market was crowded and full of energy. All the vendors are sitting on the street trying to tempt you with there goods. After browsing for a little while, we went to town and seriously loaded up on fruits and veggies. I think the final loot included plums, a watermelon, mangoes, bananas, a papaya, carrots, potatoes, onions, cabbage, a coconut, chick peas and a huge bag of pasta. When we were buying the mangoes, the man selling them gave us samples and it was so delicious. I was looking forward all Sunday to eating one for breakfast this morning! 

The market!

Men selling flowers to decorate your hair.

Weighing out our kilo of carrots.

English alphabet pasta all the way in Kodai!

A man selling a kinds of grains and beans.

After deciding we could not possibly carry anything else, we headed home. After unloading all of our purchases, Arun asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. What started out as a quick walk to show me a running route, ended as a muddy multi-hour adventure around a reservoir near the volunteer house. We saw a ton of beautiful flowers and even spotted some real wildlife (not the usual cows)!

Tiny wildflowers.

If I asked you to guess what country this is, I bet none of you would say India!

More flowers.

Bison casually grazing in the woods.

A tiny frog I caught!

All of this adventuring was not enough for Arun who decided we should try and cross the mud to get to the main part of the reservoir to talk to some people who were fishing. The mud closer to the water was basically the consistency of quicksand and after attempting to cross a small stream of water, Arun was covered in mud. Of course he managed to convince me I should also try to cross the stream and I finally obliged even though I knew it would end badly. My attempt to cross was largely a failure and I was practically covered in mud up to my knees. 

Definitely gonna need new running shoes after this one.

After washing off in the water as much as possible, we headed towards home. On the way we stopped to buy some eggs for breakfast and to grab a cup of hot coffee and a snack. My first two weeks in India have been full of adventure and I am looking forward to seeing what the next seven weeks bring! I submitted my project proposal earlier tonight, so soon I will get to work putting my plan into action!

That's all for now!

Liz