Day 49

I got bored today so I did Pavithra's hair. She's the sweetest 7th grader who boards here at the school with my host parents. She was orphaned when she was a small child and my host parents invited her to stay here for a free education and boarding when she was in the 5th grade. She's super well-behaved and mature for her age. I'm going to try and sponsor her college education. 

Swetha and I spend our free time in the afternoons wearing scrubby clothes and staring at a computer screen.

She loves the camera. 

Day 48

Kayani came to visit at the hospital! She brought her daughter Navyasree, who is 5 years old and loves to be held, much to Kalyani's dismay. 

After eating lunch Navyasree passed out on her mom. So cute. 

Day 47

Sweta was squatting on the ground fixing her aunt's sari and her pinky toe flayed out in this really weird/awkwardly funny way. So weird, I had to take a picture. And then I had to put it on the blog. 

Every morning I dread having to walk across the school year, from the stairs to the metal gate in the back of the picture. All of the school kids sit outside in rows for morning study hours and gawk at me as I pass by them with my fascinatingly American demeanor and clothing. Everyone whispers "Hi Akka!" or  "Akka! Akka! Hi." in this way that reminds of Stewie on Family Guy trying to grab Lois's attention. I wish I weren't such an alien! I don't like this kind of attention, but I always smile and say hi back. 

The old lady who comes to the hospital everyday! I convinced her to sit outside on the bench with me and chat, cause I really like the sound of her wrinkly voice. (Yeaup, even her voice is wrinkly). She finds it funny that I keep trying to talk to her cause I can't understand a word of her old-fashioned Telugu and she can't understand a word of my Americanized Telugu, so it's like a non-conversation. We basically go back and forth saying "I don't understand what you just said." It's a really strong relationship between us. She lives with her sister's family, and she still insists on coming to the hospital everyday for her toe. She worked as a housemaid in her younger days. When I asked her what happened to her family, she just waves her hands in the air and says "gone," and nothing more. 

Wrinkles are so cool. 

I cried today! First time in months. Except this wasn't a cathartic cry at all. These two little girls (ages 5 and 8) came into the clinic with their mom and dad. They were super friendly and giggly and I loved them. Their dad has TB, and after he took a mandatory HIV test he found out he was also HIV positive. The wife was then prodded to take the HIV test as well and she tested positive too. The 8 year old girl was tested next and she was negative, thank goodness. The mom started to tear up in relief and I was choking up in fear for the little one's test results. She finally came out negative and I felt so awful, I started to cry. When the mother saw me crying, she started to bawl right then. The 8 year old girl got scared about the both of us crying, so she started to cry too. With all three of us crying, the three year old also started to join in with whimpering. I then forced myself to stop and took the girls outside to play and give their mom a minute. The little one took a strong liking to me and I literally wanted to adopt her.  It's so sad knowing that one day the older sister will have no family, all because of one night of pleasure her father decided to have. HIV/AIDS is such a huge huge huge huge problem. 

The HIV test results. A small drop of blood is placed on the circle, and two minutes later either one or two lines appear. Two lines is positive and one line is negative. 

I'm making health education posters for the MDR-TB ward, and Jyothi graciously offered to be my TB poster girl. Here's a blooper from our photoshoot at her one room brick house behind the school. Swetha's supposed to look like she's having a riveting conversation with Jyothi but with her right-back-atcha hands it ended up looking like she was making fun of a dunce. Oops. 

Day 46

I went with the doctors to give the MDR-TB patients some short counseling before they were discharged from the hospital. At the end of the counseling, the doctors asked the patients if any of them knew what the hospital was called and not a single one had heard the name "Damien" before. They all just called it "TB hospital." I'm realizing it's a very Indian custom to christen places with really functional names and a very western custom to christen places with important people's names. 

Day 45

Post surgery. Narayanamma said patient has no family who looks out for him. It's quite sad. I've been trying to get the story of out of him but he's been lying to me and telling me that he has a family that looks out for him. He's most likely ashamed to tell the truth. I'm so curious to know what happened though!

Day 44

5am farewell! 

Day 43

Pensive on the terrace. 

Day 40

Grandpa came to pick me up from work so I could spend the weekend with him in Pondicherry. He said hello to some old friends and enjoyed the old memories. I'm so comfortable and familiar with him that it was really strange to see all of the people I work with everyday act so formal and respectful towards him. 

Thatha, the orthopedic surgeon, and Piet. 

All the dudes. This is such a male dominated hospital. 

Went to Piet's house to say hello to his mother, who's a quadriplegic. She used to work as a nurse with my grandpa and knows my dad's family well. 

Three hour road trip crew to Pondicherry (Minus Charles in the pink shirt)!! Quite entertaining. 

Day 39

Went to an Indian restaurant called "Forest." It was a complete knock off of the rainforest cafe, but with more awesome food. 

Day 38

Hand surgery! Here's a pic of them snapping out this tendon-like tissue from the middle of the palm. If you press on your wrist with your thumb in the right spot, your middle finger will move. This tendon is what they are removing in the picture. 

No, the thumb isn't the reason for surgery. That's just a birth defect. They split the tendon into four symmetrical pieces and weave it back up through the four fingers so that the finger regains the ability to grasp. Prior to surgery, he was unable to bend is fingers properly. 

Who's thinking of spaghetti with marinara? I found this so gross/fascinating while watching but seeing it in the photos isn't so bad as being there. 

Day 37

Went to my first surgeries this week! Almost fainted in the first one. They were pulling the nerve pictures below from this patients leg and he started wailing in pain. I started to get light headed and head-rushy so I left the room. I'm in the picture above...see if you can spot me. I look petrified. 

Mm nerves. They look like rice noodles. 

Ramanamma came back for a checkup and brought her husband! Strange to see the breakfast clubs' significant others since they've divulged so much information to me about them. Her husband works as a traveling floor mat salesman, and comes home every two months to give her money. 

Nazarene aunty came back with her daughter Fazzi. They arrived at the clinic at 830am just to see me and talk with me, but I didn't run unto them until 1pm and only got to talk to them for about 10 minutes! I felt awful. It was nice to see them and also a humbling reminder about how fascinating I am to some patients because they live in very rural, secluded places and don't have much exposure to the outside world. They said they missed hearing my strange accent and wanted to hear it once more. 

Day 36

This woman got leprosy when she was 15 years old. She and her older sister were orphans, so her sister took her to the hospital and left, without ever coming back. She lived at the hospital for five years, until one of her fellow friends at the hospital went to Hyderabad and invited her along. They both ended up getting married there, and finally settling back in Nellore at the Seva Jyothi Leprosy Colony. Her husband died a couple of years ago from pneumonia, so she lives alone at the colony and supports herself and her daughter through begging from time to time. 

This man got leprosy when he was 13 years old. He was jealous of his friends happily going to school and continuing on with their lives, and he claims he couldn't handle being in their presence. He says his parents didn't kick him out, but instead he left his house on his own volition. I can't help but wonder how true this is. Through begging and odd jobs, he meandered around Nellore and eventually settled in Hyderabad. Some friends of his told him about another lady who had leprosy, and they arranged for a marriage between the two of them. They eventually settled down in Seva Jyothi, where they lived for 25 years. Three years ago, his wife was hit by a motorcycle and was killed on impact. He now lives with the lady above in a sort of cooperative life style, since they are both single and struggling to support their children. This man says he often didn't eat and worked very hard begging, and with the financial help of a local catholic convent, he was able to send his children to nursing school. 

Day 34

Thatha went to the hospital and got a biopsy on his foot. It's gotten worse! I had a dream (more like nightmare) where I ate some of his infected foot. Something about it being called "cauliflower" must've caused some neurons to misfire in my sleep. 

Day 33

Jyothi is the housekeeper/school maid who lives behind the school building with her husband and son. I always assumed she was much older than me but she's the exact same age as me. It's crazy thinking about how different our lives our. I am luxuriously deciding what career path I want to follow in life, while her career path was determined by the socioeconomic status she was born into. I can't imagine being married and having a 2 year old child to care for at this age. 

Today all of the staff members participated in a leprosy reaction seminar. Pieter brought in about six leprosy reaction patients for us to examine and learn about the different types of leprosy reaction. This is one of the patients with a leprosy reaction, caused by an overstimulated immune system that doesn't respond to the standard medication. If reactions aren't taken care of and steroids aren't given to reduce inflammation in the joints, patients will suffer sever life long disabilities. 

This is Thathaya's daughter who came to the clinic to take him home. She's the one whose husband left her since her father had leprosy. She was very friendly, and Thathaya was very happy to see her. I told her I would look into organizations that would allow her to pursue another vocation besides tailoring, since tailoring still limits a person's socioeconomic growth. The government provides free tailoring training for women who have completed high school, which is a great system in my opinion. But it's still frustrating that this is her only option. I haven't been able to find any other skill-based vocations for women in India, but I'll keep searching. 

This is Nikita! She's a 23 year old Belgian student who is doing field research at Damien for three months in order to help her with her master's thesis in Anthropology. It's nice to have someone else to talk to, and I'm learning a lot from her. She's also the first white person I've seen in over a month! What a strange notion. 

This is Jyothi's son, Teja. He's quite fond of sweeping the floors. 

When I walk outside the front door and look down the balcony in the evenings, this is what I see. The students' parents force them to stay at the school to study until about 7pm, and they all sit outside quietly doing their homework. It's super hot and they're all restless. They're constantly on the look out for "sir!" (pronounced "SAR"), who will yell at them if they are talking. 

Day 32

On the way to work I noticed this lady with an extremely swollen lower leg. I think this is caused by a bacteria transmitted by mosquitos but I'm not sure. I'll have to show this picture to one of the doctors to get confirmation of what it's called. 

Narayanamma got teeth! She told me that when she was younger, she took paracetamol for a really bad fever and suffered a severe allergic reaction that caused severe swelling all around her jaw and mouth. A similar reaction occurred after taking paracetamol again during her first pregnancy. Her teeth ended up becoming loose and dentists pulled them out. She said her children were embarrassed by her toothless appearance and thought she looked like a grandma, so she decided to take out a 9,000 Rupee loan from the bank to get custom fitted dentures. She came to work today looking YEARS younger. I couldn't even recognize her when I saw her. I'm so happy for her!

I attended a quarterly TB meeting where all of the district supervisors presented their district progress reports for TB control. I came to the meeting late and took a seat in the third row of the back left corner of the room. Charles was presenting in the front and when he saw me take a seat, he frantically hand motioned for me to take a seat in the blue chair next to Dr. Begam. I thought he was just trying to be polite and give me a better view, but I was too lazy to move and motioned back to him that I was fine where I was. Later Dr. Begam also frantically motioned for me to sit next to her, and I finally gave in and moved to that blue chair. Once I sat down I realized that they maybe wanted me to sit on the "women's" side of the room, since I had seated myself on the "gents'" side of the room. Dr. Begam was the only female, so I'm still unsure. 

A doctor donated a number of wheelchairs made from recycled materials. The seats are plastic chairs and the tires come from bicycles. Super clever and innovative! 

Day 30

Back to the clinic. This man was so cute. He is super old, lives with only his wife, and works on his small plot of land daily. But he has TB and will no longer have the stamina to work. I don't think he's come to the realization yet that it will soon be difficult to keep his and his wife's bellies full, and I was heartbroken (in a bittersweet sort of way) to see that he still had a toothless smile on his face. 

The dude who looked down my shirt is back! With his posse. The one in the green mask potentially gave the infection to one of his friends who came in to get tested. With what I would consider to be a grave situation, they were still laughing and cracking jokes and making fun of one another.  

I leaned down to read one of the guys's pants and said "HOOOOT MAIL." He responded with "Why thank you Madame!" I couldn't help but laugh. 

After the dudes had their consultation and left, the one who looked down my shirt previously after I had bent down to read the scale came back with a friend to ask me to check his friends' weight. I was so proud of myself for knowing their scheme this time around. I told him that he could check the scale for his friend!

Day 29

Took this pic while leaving the farm and choking back tears. I felt so bad leaving my grandma. She has really major empty nest syndrome. Scary thought that I could ever come to that position in my life. 

Day 28

I am wearing this because all of my aunts just wanted to see if it would fit. Then I freaked them out by threatening to touch the cow in it

*My friend Larry just asked me if you're not supposed to wear sari's near cows because of my caption. I laughed and told him it's because they didn't want me to get dung on expensive silk. That's why I "threatened." 

Visited my cousin's boarding school where she's stayng in a hostel aka giant room full of 200 screaming girls and really colorful bedsheets. It looked kinda fun!

Day 27

Went to my grandparent's farm...for the first time in 8 or 9 years! On the way to their house we ran into my grandpa working on an old tractor WOOH HOO. He's so cute. 

Wrinkly hands on greasy nuts and bolts

Me and cousin Sweta! WOOH HOO

Sitting under a Neem tree and enjoying a great view of my aunt and uncle's new emu farm WOOH HOO

Found an old picture of my grandpa partaking in some Catholic ceremony in 1956. He's the one standing on the far left. I wish I knew what they were doing. No one can remember. 

Found all my mom's old sari's in my grandma's closet and tried them on. So cool! WOOHOO

So I guess I learned that my grandpa had 10 siblings who died at childbirth and has two brothers who live next door to him. How did I not know this? When he was 7 his mom died from TB hen she was about 34. Someone took this photo of him with her dead body, and it hangs on the wall outside of the bedroom I sleep in. They keep it up to preserve her memory, but I can't help but feel major heebie jeebies from it.  

Grandpa with cow! I announced to him that he and the cow were friends, and he said, "Not just friends. Companions!" and let out this huge hearty chuckle. So cute! 

EMU! When their necks are fully erect they're almost as tall as me. They reminded me of Jurassic Park a lot. 

I blend in perfectly. 

Acres and acres and acres of family farm land! And thy holy American has come to visit.