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.