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!