My Favorite Day So Far

Today was an absolutely amazing day! I got to see some wonderful  with some even more wonderful kids, got some fruit at a local fruit stand, went back to Stephen Nursing Home, and saw a surgery!

This morning we got to visit the Balalaya School which is a general school that believes strongly in the inclusion of children with special needs. The sector of the school that we saw had children from lower kg (lower kindergarten - ages 3.5) to 3rd standard (8 years old). The school was started in 1996 by six women, of which three are still running the school despite their old age! The school also wanted to children to feel as if the teachers and staff were people they could trust and relate to, so instead of calling them "Mrs. So and So" they would call them Auntie. The school's name (Balalaya) is a mix between the words "bal" meaning child and "alaya" meaning school. They aim to get all children up to a specific level and then include them in the standard classroom regardless of their diagnosed developmental ability. The school was really great and it always makes me so happy to see children so happy to learn! As most of you know, I also have a very strong passion for the special needs community and I was so excited to be able to spend just a few minutes with those kids!

One thing that's really great about the Balalaya school is they offer specific therapies and vocational trainings for their students with special needs. They do not consider themselves a "special school" since they believe so strongly in inclusion and have mostly non-special needs students, but they do try to give those students the extra attention that they deserve. In the classes, these students have caregivers (what we call one-on-ones in the US) that are available to assist them if needed, in addition to therapies done by trained assistants. I did notice that none of the therapists I met actually had their degrees in the specific therapy, but had just learned some of the training. It would be great to see if the school could grow one day to include such degree-trained therapists. 

The schedule for the day

They are singing a song in this one! 

Math class

Drawing class

Recess Time

One difference that I have noticed in India is the use of the r-word. If you don't know what word I'm referring to, you should go visit this website: http://www.r-word.org/r-word-why-pledge.aspx#.U6Rfgn8ayK0. It's a great campaign that educates people on the need to eliminate the r-word. However, here in India, the use of the r-word is still very excepted and they actually have a diagnoses of MR, or mentally r-word. I'm not entirely sure what this diagnosis consists of, but I think it is just a general term for developmentally delayed. I think that was the hardest part of today's visit since I cringe every time says that word, but it is so normal here that I know it is just part of the culture. 

In the afternoon, we visited the Dolphin School, and my oh my, that school has my heart. It is specifically for children with special needs and does everything it can to help those children learn in the best way possible. Just as we do in the US, they teach the children how to use computers to effectively communicate with others in that manner since they often have trouble effectively speaking. The Dolphin School was started in 2006 as a therapy program which then transformed into a special school in 2008. The school has 90 children from 4 months of age to twenty years which 45 full-time staff. So their student to staff ratio in 2:1, which is quite amazing! In addition they have 17 part-time staff that includes occupational therapists (6!) and physiotherapists. Occupational therapy is not common at all in India (only 2 of the 6 have OT degrees, while the others have diplomas) so the fact that they have this many people with OT training is amazing. The school day runs from 9:30-3:30 and therapy follows until 6:30. In the morning from 9:30-10:00, the children do yoga as well as some other activities like gymnastics and karate to help with muscle strengthening and coordination. 

We got to spend some time in each of the rooms in the school and interact with some of the kids. We got to see some of the kids do yoga and karate for us, a visual stimulation room, the activities of daily living room, and the computer lab. We also spent some time with some of the youngest kids and met some of the cutest little ones ever. Two of the sweetest little ones we met had Down Syndrome. The little boy was perpetually tired, while the little girl was very active and smiley. It was wonderful to spend some time with them! We also got to spend half an hour up in the therapy room, which is the terrace of he building (with a cover on it so you don't completely die of heat). In the therapy room the children participate in both OT and PT. We got to play with some of the learning tools and those were way harder than they looked! Though we had been at the school for only a couple hours, it was hard for me to leave. I love spending time in the schools and with the kids, so it is always hard for me to leave at the end of a great visit. I often visit the classroom that I worked with in high school and, like today, it is always a tough goodbye at the end of the day. 

I liked this poster a lot :)

A small bath for water therapy

Visual stimulation room!

The children stay in this room with a one-on-one for 7-12 minutes at a time

This balance/coordination task was NOT EASY

So both Maddie and Morgan were better at it than I was, but this face was priceless!

Different textures for sensory stimulation

A glimpse at part of the therapy room

The hamster wheel!

The woman is the principal of the school and her husband is the coordinator. Great people!

When I did get back home, Maddie and I only had an hour before we headed back out to Stephen Nursing Home. Since I had taken the day off of Janet, I wanted to continue to make the most of my time and learn some more from Dr. Ravi. In addition, he had a special surgery scheduled at 7 that he had invited me to come watch. The surgery I got to watch was an umbilical hernia removal. The surgery was not done by Dr. Ravi but by a visiting surgeon. The surgeon also invited us to come see a kidney transplant on Wednesday at his hospital, so hopefully we can go see that! It will be an amazing experience and something we would never be able to see in the US, so I'm very excited for that potential opportunity. Anyways, the surgery that I saw today was very interesting. Because there are fewer people at Stephen Nursing home than Janet, Maddie and I were both able to stand closer to the actual surgery and were better able to see what was going on. The hernia was about the size of my fist and after it was removed, the area was replaced by a mesh film to drastically lower the chances of recurrence (from 80% to <1%). Dr. Ravi said he had also had this surgery done by the same surgeon and he hadn't had a recurrence yet, so that's good news!

Anesthetist, Surgeon, Myself, and Maddie - a glimpse at future Maddie and I!

Anesthetist, Dr. Ravi, Myself, and Maddie

Tomorrow we are headed up to a nearby hill station called Kodaikanal. The hill stations are popular tourist destinations as well as vacation spots for locals since it is so much cooler up on the hills. There are also waterfalls, lakes, and forests with animals at Kodaikanal so I will be sure to take lots of photos. We will be heading up around 5 am and getting back around 11 pm, so my next blog post will most likely be on Sunday! 

Until then,

Rissa Ree

*Note: We got permission from each school to take and post photographs of the children*

P.S. These are a few other random photos!

There are lots of bananas here, many of which are miniature sized!

These are some precious puppies that Morgan got to see at one of her clinic visits! I thought it might be nice for you all to see some super cute babies. :)

So, this is why India has black outs. Black outs happen multiple times per day and nobody really even takes a second glance. It is just part of life here, and I blame it on the bad wiring! 

It's a Boy!

Today was my last day at Janet for the week because tomorrow I will be visiting two schools here in Trichy! But I will get to those at the end. Also, I forgot my notebook with ALL of my notes in Dr. Victoria's office so I'm going to try to pull all of this from memory which probably isn't going to go very well... So here goes nothing. 

The morning at Janet wasn't too interesting since I wasn't able to go on rounds with Dr. Victoria since she was already out by the time I got there. So for the most part I just sat and listening this morning, but the afternoon was definitely a lot more interesting! I met a woman who had been pregnant with triplets due to fertility drugs. But because having triplets isn't very safe and usually leads to preterm birth, they reduced the pregnancy to twins. The pregnancy was still very early along and they were actually able to do it via ultrasound. Another interesting case I saw was a woman who had had two spontaneous abortions. The abortions were recurrent (and often are) in consanguineous marriages (or marriages between people who are blood related). This woman was married to her maternal uncle, her mother's brother. Apparently this used to be very common in India because it may be more favorable for the woman's status, including the better relationship with her in-laws. These types of marriages are becoming less likely since people are becoming more aware of the side effects associated with the pregnancies. Pretty crazy... 

I also had a few conversations with Dr. Victoria and some of the girls today. We talked some about earrings (which I learned the Tamil word for and wrote down in my notebook, of course) and Dr. Victoria asked me if I wore earrings at home. I told her yes, and she proceeded to ask if I wore such big earrings at home. I thought that was a funny question since the answer is definitely no! We also talked about the antenatal pregnancy information sheet that all of the women fill out. One interesting thing I learned was the obstetric formula. The formula includes gravida, para, live, and abortion. Gravida is the total number of pregnancies of any sort. Para is the total number of pregnancies that progress past seven months. Live is the number of living children and abortion is the number of previous abortions (usually spontaneous and occur within the first few months). So if a woman had 3 pregnancies (including the current one), one still birth, and one living child, her formula would be: gravia 3, para 2, live 1, abortion 0. I thought that was pretty interesting to learn. Dr. Victoria said that formula was something everybody in the medical field needed to know, so it's a good thing I learned! 

I ended my day at the clinic on a very, very happy note! I was preparing to leave the clinic around 3:50 when Dr. Victoria and one of her assistants, Rahila, ran out of the room for a delivery, so I followed! I got to see a very quick delivery of a little boy! And when I say little, I mean it! He was only 2.1 kg, or 4.6 lbs! But he was absolutely precious and what made the birth even better was Rahila's face. She was so genuinely happy and excited and was telling me how she couldn't wait to have a baby. It was so precious. Rahila is in her mid-early-twenties and is getting married in July, so that may not be far-fetched for her. It was really sweet to see her reactions to the little guy and it was definitely a sweet ending to a long day!

So like I said, tomorrow I will be visiting two schools. The first school is called the Balalaya School which is just a general school with a small population of students with special needs. The second school is called the Dolphin School which is a school dedicated entirely to children with special needs. I am very, very excited to spend four hours in these schools tomorrow and I can't wait to share my experiences! Honestly, I think spending time with a group of children that I have such a passion for is going to top off my week with a big cherry! 

Until tomorrow, 

Marissa

Squirrels Just Wanna Have Fun

Hi Everyone! This post is most likely going to be one of my shorter ones - lucky for you all! I had a pretty bad headache all morning and decided it was best if I didn't go to Janet for my 2-4 afternoon shift and instead rested. But I was there from 10-12:30 per usual and am happy to share the tales of my time there! And my head is feeling much better now, so I will be feeling great for tomorrow's full day!

When I walked into the clinic this morning, I sat at the front desk with some of the girls there until Dr. Victoria was back in her office. I was offered vada by one of the girls and I'm not one to turn down food! It was pretty good, something along the lines of fried bread and veggies. After my post-breakfast snack, I went on rounds with Dr. Victoria. I really enjoyed getting to see some of the patients that I saw previous days who were getting ready to head home with their new little ones! Unfortunately, not all of the patients were doing much better. The woman that I mentioned yesterday with depression in the ICU was no longer in ICU, but her depression was definitely more visible to me than it was yesterday. The woman with anemia was also not doing much better. She was still not lactating and was actually running a high fever. Dr. Victoria said that could all be due to her anemia; I didn't know anemia could be so harmful! I also saw a baby who was aspirating and was being given oxygen, and that was very scary to see... Sorry for all the bad stories! There were good things too, I promise. One woman was getting ready to head home and I saw her bill which was a total of 21,000 Rs for the stay and the delivery. This is only $347 USD... for her entire stay! Amazing. But to put this in perspective, the minimum wage in America $15,000, while in India it is $689 USD, so that stay is potentially half of a person's annual income. 

Something that is really strange here that I've noticed is people don't touch their water bottles to their mouth. When I have asked people why they do that, I've never gotten a straight answer. I'm sure it has something to do with germs on the bottle, but if it's your bottle I'm not sure why it matters. Anyways, they all pour the water into their mouths from the bottle. My problem is I can't drink it even when I do touch my lips to my bottle! I was sitting in the office today and spilled my water all over myself. Luckily no one saw, but I was just thinking, I can't even do this the easy way, how would I ever be able to pour it!?!

Speaking of pouring, as always we had coffee break around 11:15 and I was given a cup as usual. I'm not sure if I've yet mentioned this, but the paper cups here are not like cups I have seen at home. Yes, they look like cups, and yes, they are paper. But they are very short and wider than I have seen previously! I thought I was share a picture of them since I think they are strange, but people here use them for everything! I've never seen more paper cups in my life. 

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I think they are very strange

Dr. Victoria keeps a book of all of the expected delivery dates of her patients and when one delivers, she checks her off. Today she told me that she only had four deliveries left for the month of June, but that some of the early July patients should be coming in soon. I'm excited to see more deliveries!

Also, most of you probably know that I am a HUGE lover of babies and children in general. And today was baby galore! It was vaccination day in the clinic so lots of mothers brought their babies to get their BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) vaccination and Polio drops. The Polio drops, obvious, protect against Polio, which is no eradicated in India, and the BCG vaccine protects against tuberculosis. This meant that I saw lots and lots of babies and wanted to hold each and every one of them. However, no matter how much I smile at the mother or the little kids, none of them really talk to me. Occasionally I get a smile back, but babies are definitely not passed around here like they are in the U.S. Really, all I want to do is hold one baby or play with one little kid! 

Anyways, that was basically my entire day since I just rested this evening! So hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting for you! On Friday we will be visiting two schools and I'm very, very excited! 

See ya later alligator!

-Marissa

P.S. There was a chipmunk (also called a squirrel in India) in the hostel today! I really think it's still in here, but it scared me a lot when I saw it! I think it was equally scared of me because I was running up the stairs and then it went jumping everywhere. I had no idea what to do and then it run up the stairs and disappeared! It came through an open window and their were no open windows upstairs, so I hope the little guy is okay! I will let you know if we have any updates by tomorrow on his or her whereabouts.

A Very Busy Blog!

So I know all of my posts are pretty long, but prepare yourself... I have four pages of notes from two days and I don't feel like writing two blog posts, so it's all going into this one!

Yesterday was my first official day at Janet Nursing Home and it is definitely a different world than at Stephen Nursing Home! I went on rounds with Dr. Victoria at 10:15 and it's actually really strange to see, but pretty much everyone is either scared of, intimidated by, or just knows that Dr. Victoria's not a person to mess with. As she comes walking down the hallway, all the people will back up to get out of her way. And when the nurses see that she is on their hall, they run ahead to make sure the first room is ready to be seen. Though it's really weird to see, it's actually pretty entertaining. I do understand where they are coming from since Dr. Victoria definitely can kick butt and take names and get stuff done, but she's a wonderful doctor and that's how she's going to do it! During rounds Dr. Victoria basically makes sure that the women are healing well from whatever method of birth and that they are lactating. She also tells all of the women who have had cesareans to apply Arnica gel to the healing site. I thought this was pretty interesting since that is a common gel that dancers use to sooth sore muscles! I also saw a baby in the NICU that was only 1.3 kg (2.86 lbs) and a baby that had had surgery for a bowel obstruction. In contrast, I also saw a baby that was 4 kg (8.8 lbs) which apparently qualifies for a cesarean since he was so big. So, uhm, yeah mom, I'm so sorry... For those of you who don't know, I was 9 lbs and born at home. So mom, you're a trooper. Love you lots!

Saw this on our way to the clinics. Note: Pure Honey; in case you want some honey with your copies.

Ultrasounds are performed behind that curtain. This room is NEVER empty like this.

Dr. Victoria's office, empty for once. 

On Mondays Dr. Victoria sees about 100+ patients due to the "Sunday Holiday". She always has about 90 with appointments on Mondays, and also sees those that come in for emergencies. On days other than Monday she averages around 50 patients. I could definitely tell the difference between Monday and Tuesday, but there were still lots of patients on Tuesday as well! Because she sees so many patients, Dr. Victoria and her assistants take a well deserved coffee break every day around 11:15-11:30. This coffee break is taken very seriously. If there are patients in the room, the assistants will make them leave and they will come back following the break. Since I am an avid coffee drinker, I partake in this break and it's quite nice for me too!

Speaking of patients, to come see Dr. Victoria, they initial visit is 200 Rs ($3.30 USD) and any follow-up visits are 100 Rs ($1.66). Obviously, delivery and stays overnight are more expensive, but simple appointments are very affordable by American standards! A laparoscopic surgery on the other hand is 30,000 Rs ($497) + the cost of a three nights stay. Even so, this is much cheaper than in America. 

I got to see an ultrasound yesterday and it was amazing! I was able to see the heartbeat, the head, the spine, and all four limbs! I'd never seen an ultrasound before, only pictures, so I thought that was pretty cool. Legally, the doctors in India are not allowed to tell the mothers the sex of their baby and the patients are not supposed to ask. If they did ask, the doctors are still not allowed to tell. This is due to the high rates of female infanticide in India. In other words, if the family finds out they are having a girl and not a boy, they will want the pregnancy terminated and if the doctor refuses, they might find other (more unsafe) ways of terminating the pregnancy. So they government's way around this infanticide is to not tell the parents the sex of the baby pre-birth. 

One thing I've been very impressed with here is the ease at which all of the women know the date of their last menstrual period (LMP). None of them even hesitate with the date, which I think is amazing because I always know I will be asked but I still always struggle with a date and end up estimating. The people here are great with keeping up with things, such as their LMP dates, their immunization records (yep, they keep those on paper from birth forward), and their scripts for medicine which they faithfully bring to every appointment. 

Many of the patients who come to see Dr. Victoria come because she's also a infertility specialist. So today I got to meet a woman who had had an ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy in the fallopian tubes - no bueno) and then had a spontaneous abortion. So Dr. Victoria gave her a fertility drug called clomiphene and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and now she has conceived! Follicle monitoring is something that is also often performed on women who are infertile. This basically lets the doctors know if all of the egg-producing follicles are functioning correctly and if not, what they should do to best deal with it. 

Around 3:00 pm, Dr. Victoria takes her lunch break and everyone leaves her office. So I went to sit at the front desk and talked with two of the nursing students, Reemu and Priyanka Gandhi. Both are 20 and both have boyfriends. When they found out I didn't have a boyfriend, they were shocked - that's like a sin here. It's funny though because having a boyfriend doesn't mean they are dating. They told me that "dating" meant your parents didn't care about you! So they don't date their boyfriends, they only talk with them. And if they are lucky, 5 years from now, the boyfriend will propose marriage to the family and the family will approve. But the family has every right not to approve and if they don't, they will arrange a marriage with another man they approve of. This is so crazy to me - they can "talk/date" for 5+ years and then when they want to get married, they could be told no, that they have to marry someone else that they don't love... 

On a totally different note, one of my wishes came true yesterday: WE WERE GIVEN FRENCH TOAST FOR BREAKFAST (two days in a row)!!! It was amazing. But, we also had a super weird dinner. Everything was pretty typical, except we had a lime green egg on the side. I'm not sure why the cooks decided to make it bright green, but hey, it made the meal more colorful!

Green eggs and no ham!

Onto today (Tuesday): I went on rounds with Dr. Victoria again. This time I saw a few different things:

-A woman who had given birth to her third boy, but still did not want to have the family planning surgery

-A woman who had hyperemesis, which is excessive vomiting during pregnancy

-In the ICU I saw a woman who had depression and had had a cesarean because they weren't sure if she could mentally handle vaginal birth (I thought that was interesting) and a woman whose baby had been in fetal distress. The fetal distress was caused the baby having a bowel movement (which isn't supposed to happen) in the amniotic fluid, which is the baby's source of nutrition. So when the impure amniotic fluid goes into the baby's lungs, they can aspirate and it causes fetal distress

-A woman who was anemic and was treated aggressively since her hemoglobin was at 9, but she ended up delivering six weeks early with a hemoglobin level of 7. The childbirth lowers the levels even more and now she is not lactating, so they are hoping to settle that! I was told he will be fine as he gradually grows!

I got to see another ultrasound and this time it was twins! I was able to see both the babies' heartbeats and both were moving, so that's always good news! I was also able to see the membrane separating the two gestational sacs. Apparently if there is no membrane, it is called a monoamniotic pregnancy and it has lots of associated complications. I also found out that extramarital pregnancies are very rare in India. Sometimes the girls will "cheat" their families and have unprotected extramarital sex, but sometimes they also don't know what they are doing or they are raped, so that's sad. I thought it was also interesting that Dr. Victoria used the word cheat to describe their deception of their parents. She told me about one girl who was pregnant and hid it from her parents for 8 months. Though she was Hindu, she wore the traditional Muslim dress (a black burqa) to hide the pregnancy. After the 8th month, she delivered and the baby was adopted out because the family didn't want him/her. The families have a lot of power here, especially over the women. It's really sad to see what happens because of that sometimes. I know that is the culture and that it is slowly getting easier for women, but it is still hard to see and hear about.

For the last half of the day I was in the operating theatre where I saw 2.5 surgeries. The first surgery I saw was a cervical tightening which lowers the likelihood of the spontaneous abortion of twins. The second (half) surgery I saw was the suturing of a woman's breast after she had a small benign tumor removed. Lastly, I saw the removal of a fibroid tumor on a woman's uterus. I was told the tumor was large and benign, but I wasn't told that her ENTIRE uterus would be removed! So when the whole thing was taken out, I was a little shocked. But since she was older and had completed her family, there was no reason to do an extensive surgery in order to leave the uterus intact. And the tumor really was about the size of the entire uterus once it was opened up - scary, actually. I also figured out that surgery really isn't for me. I think it's really cool to watch and it's amazing what they can do, but I think I would rather work with people who can look at me and talk to me, and not just their insides with blood and fat. 

More fun facts:

-Minutes abbreviation is MTS, not Min.

-If it is a woman's first pregnancy, she is called a primi.

-To calculate the estimated delivery date: LMP + 7 days - 3 months

-The shirt that goes with a saree is a blouse, NOT a saree top (they thought that was hilarious)

-It's also a "switchbox" not an outlet or plug

Just to give you an idea of all of the people who work at Janet, here are all of the names I have learned in two days (and I haven't even gotten half of the other peoples' names yet): Saranya, Rahila, Vijaya, Reemu, Priyanka Gandhi (no, I haven't yet asked if she is related to Ghandi), Jennifer, Dalakshmi, Bona, Ajumunnisha, Jonisha, and Jones. So... that's a lot to remember! I wrote them all down so I am able to cheat sometimes! I also learned a new Tamil phrase: "Unna enaku pedicheku." Apparently that means I like you, but I feel like that's much too long to mean something so small!

Anyways, that's it for tonight! We might head out to get some ice cream in a bit, so that will be very nice! Also, I apologize for how jumpy this post was, I feel like I just had logorrhea, or word vomit, on here, sorry!

-Marissa

Happy Father's Day, Daddy Bobalinski!

So here's the second post of the night! This one is my recap of yesterday (Father's Day)! 

Speaking of: Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I love you lots and lots and lots and miss you tons. Thanks for being the best daddy ever and teaching me new things every day as well as sharing your quirky humor with me. You always make sure that I get the most out of life and encourage all of my explorations. From Haiti, to India, to Europe, you make sure I am living my life to the fullest. I love you so so so much. Love, your littlest girl-baby!

On that note, here's what I did yesterday:

In the morning we went to a church that was actually spoken in English, which was very refreshing! We were told that it was a Catholic church, so I personally was very excited to attend a traditional mass. Much to my dismay, it was really a branch of the Church of South India, which is not Catholic but just generally Christian. They did have communion though, so that felt like a little bit of home.

After church, we didn't do much of anything except play cards and watch some movies. But at 4:30 pm, the fun begin! We visited a nearby village! On our way there, we stopped by to see how some of the agriculture works in Tamil Nadu. The government will pay for the electricity used to maintain the agriculture, which is pretty amazing. However, the agriculture of India is slowly dwindling because it isn't very profitable. If a family buys land for agriculture, they must split it between their sons when they become of age. So eventually, the land size is so small that it isn't really worth having anymore and they will sell it so others can build houses there. Often people will grow a crop like sugar cane that can grow year round as well as a cash crop/rice patties. During the hot seasons, they will grow the cash crops and during the rainy seasons, they will cultivate rice patties in the same place where they were previously growing cash crops! Pretty nifty in my opinion...

They are growing sugar cane here

If you look closely, there's a cow back there hiding!

Next, we continued our trek out to the village! This village is part of an extension program for Bishop Heber. Through this they sent students out to the schools to help teach and to also help educate the village about the dangers of alcoholism since the rates are very high here. Anyways, as far as the village goes, I feel like pictures will do the talking best!

These are government buildings where they give out rations to the people, such as rice which would usually cost about 30 Rs in the cities

I think that little guy may have been overheated... But in general in this village, the dogs hated us. I've never been scared of a dog before, but I honestly thought these ones might bite us...

Yep, this scary contraption is to keep anyone from stealing the water spicket.

They were pretty excited to see us. :)

Cricket is the most common sport I have seen here!

They had these pigeons kept here as pets

You'll see that this little guy is a huge camera hog, so here's his close-up!

And here he's being super silly.

I kept trying to get good pictures of this little girl because she was precious, but she was pretty scared of us and wouldn't really let us take photos of her.

My selfie with this cute little girl with super white teeth.

They gather the rice and then leave it out in the sun to dry. There were ants all over it, but apparently they don't care and the ants will just die or something... honestly, I wasn't super convinced of the ant situation.

This is a neem tree, it acts as a vegetable and also has medicinal and pest control values

Little baby cows!

One good one we got of her!

Sometimes they paint the chicks so they will be worth more. Craziness!

They love seeing their pictures on the camera

These symbols (among others) are seen all over as symbols of political parties.

Our entourage

Another woman drawing a kolam. They draw them both in the morning and the evening.

It was a great experience to see this village and meet some of the people and the children living there. I have decided that I would really love to live in a village for at least a week if not an extended period of time. I think it would be amazing to see how those people really live and just learn from them.

Anyways, these are some random facts and thoughts that I have accumulated since my last long post:

-Some of the cars in India have back up noises that are like songs. At first we thought it was an ice cream truck, but then we found out that it was really the noise that the cars made when they are reversing. It is really quite strange.

-The drinking age in India is really 18, but it is not enforced at all. There are wine shops all over and they will sell to children as young as 12-years-old and if these children are caught drinking, there is no punishment.

-We all have had very strong food cravings recently and have really just been constantly hungry. I've really been craving lots of fruits and veggies, as well as Mexican food and salad! They eat a lot of carbs over here which explains the high rates of diabetes that we see in the clinics, so I've been craving a lot of healthier foods, minus the Mexican food. Parents, my request upon my arrival at home: a huge bowl of salad and a fruit salad. Thanks!

Anyways, that's all for now! Until my next post,

Marissa