my twenty-four/seven hours

I have discovered that being a coordinator is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job. There are always tasks to be done around the elephant house, jobs to do at the school and hostel, and volunteers that need coordinating and questions answered (and reminders of the rules!). But, last week the 24 hour a day part took on a whole new meaning. At around 3am last Wednesday morning Julie, the volunteer director, walks in the coordinator room, flips on the lights and tells us to get up. We all stumbled out of bed, because we were informed that a girl was in the bathroom, severely dehydrated, and we needed to carry her on a stretcher to the school's clinic. We helped our poor suffering volunteer out and then wandered back to our rooms and were back in bed by 3:30am. At around 4am I was re-awoken and told by Julie that there was a chance we were going to take the volunteer to the hospital, and if we did I needed to go with her. So, I threw everything I could think of into a backpack (thankfully I was smart enough to grab my computer and DVDs cause those came in handy later on). I fell back asleep hoping that I would be unpacking my backpack when I woke up later in the morning, but instead I was woken up again 5am and told I was going to the hospital with the volunteer, grab your backpack, you are leaving right now. Luckily there is not much traffic so early in the morning so the 2 hour drive to the hospital in Chennai was extended. I believe the volunteer was particularly joyed when we got there, since bless her heart the only things she said on the bus were "can I have water?" (a request that was repeatedly denied since our doctor who was riding with us was worried she would become ill again on the bus), "are we almost there?" (a question that had to be answered with no many times), and "I think I am going to die" (a question that I felt confident answering, you are going to be just fine).
At the hospital she started in the ER, and I waited in the admissions room for 2-3 hours. But, I think that at this point I was so tired that I don't think I really minded. The volunteer was admitted to the hospital at around 10 so that they could run some tests and continue to give her fluids. I was bummed and grateful for this. Bummed cause it meant that I would have to stay overnight in the hospital and grateful that I could finally take a nap. The rest of the day was consumed by various nurses and doctors probing for answers about the medical history of a girl that I had met only days ago, and occasionally getting annoyed with me when I didn't know the answers to any of their questions. The volunteer mostly slept, and I mostly attempted to amuse myself by watching movies on my computer and being depressed that I wasn't with the kids. We were sent home at 2pm the next day. I couldn't of been more excited when I got back to Rising Star!!!!! I felt like I had been gone for a week. I was incredibly disappointed that I had to miss chaperoning a Life Dance performance in Chennai that I had been planning on attending for 2 weeks and just barely missed, but I am grateful that our volunteer is healthy now!

In other medical news, I have lice...well hopefully had....

also...I had pink eye. That is in fact gone now though.

Guess this week has been medically rough. Haha, but everything else has been great. :)


and here are some pictures from this week so you can see why it was so painful for me to be away from these kids for even two days (I think I am actually going to just keel over and die when I have to leave)

 Mariyambee. She is perfect.

 Daniel Vijay. So tiny, so sweet, always crying. Bless his heart. And on the right, cute little Naveen. Just a few minutes ago this kid shouted my name, ran down the hall and hugged me. How precious is he?

 I can't get enough of Enokelee. If you see me walking around with a little Indian kid when I get home, it's probably because I "accidentally" stole him.

 Aravind on the left and Gopi on the right. These guys are little hams, as you can tell my the goofy face that Gopi is pulling.

This is the another Aravind. He is the sweetest kid around. He has now given me a bracelet and a little dragon finger puppet since he has given up on calling me Dani the Dragon and just calls me Dragon. So stinking adorable.

Well. That's all folks. Sorry for the extreme delay in posting. TII.

peace. love. and hospital visits.