my medical routine rundown

So the nurse session has been sent off and of course I am already missing them, but I am so excited to run into all them on campus at BYU come Fall semester. I have done all this chatting about the medical work that I did with the girls in the nurses session, so I figured I would actually bring my camera out for one of my days in the colonies so that maybe my blog readers could enjoy a looksie and I could better explain what exactly the medical van does...now that I won't be working there anymore...oh well.

so this is kind of the rundown of what goes down...

First, we set up. Its a pretty basic process since we set up the same way for every colony.

The leprosy patients from the colony start by picking up their folders that are used to track their progress and health. This station is usually headed up by one of the drivers, mostly cause they are the only ones who speak Tamil and who can properly communicate with the people.

 The patient then moves over to have their blood pressure and blood sugar taken and recorded in their aforementioned file.

They then see the doctor. Doctor Segonia is the one who comes out the colonies with us. I will admit that she is not the most excited person, but I think the volunteers are slowly cracking her shell, she really is a great person when you get her to smile. :)

After seeing the doctor, the patient goes through a process to help heal any ulcers. We remove their bandages, wash their wounds, oil their feet, and then re-bandage them. It is certainly a humbling thing to wash the feet of another, but there is also something beautiful about caring for the people in this way. 

The last step before the patients return to their homes in the colony, is receiving medications from one of our nurses. 

 And the volunteers are done once the van is loaded with all the supplies and we are ready to head back to the Rising Star Outreach campus.

That's pretty much what I have been heading up for the past few weeks. It is time for me to relinquish the position of acting medical coordinator as the girl who is truly supposed to be in this position has arrived just in time for the start of session 1. 

Session 1 volunteers arrived today and it is a house-full, but I am anxious to get to know the new volunteers and so glad that my friend from last time I was here, Diane, has come, and that she came bearing M&Ms. 

I am now assuming my position of the "Special Projects Coordinator." This job does not come with a very clear job description so it's hard to tell people exactly what I am doing. Pretty much I do anything that anyone else doesn't do, so don't be fooled into thinking that I don't have a full plate for the rest of the summer. I am thrilled about this position though, because it means that I get to do a little bit of everything. I've always been a bit of a wanderer so this is perfect for me. Can't believe I've been here for three weeks. Do I really ever have to leave? I think the only thing convincing me to go home at the end, is the thought of a burger and fries from Marlow's Tavern....and my family....miss you guys...

peace. love. and medical work

my quickly moving time abroad

I have only been here for two weeks, but it is settling in how long/how short of a time that I am going to be here. Two weeks down, which also mean that half of one of the three months that I am going to be here has already flown by, which is just a little bit insane to me. From my time that I spent in France, I know how it can seem like you have been somewhere your whole life till you are leaving, and then you are practically positive that you got there yesterday. You know that I absolutely hate to give a laundry list of what I did in a day, so I will bust out some highlights from this past week...

We had originally planned on going on an overnighter this week, though it got canceled due to a gas shortage in Chennai, and I feel a little guilty saying that I am so happy that it did, but you know how I like to shoot for honesty. I just couldn't bear the thought of a gazillion hour hot car ride. Plus! Staying behind meant that the volunteers got to stick around for Sports Day at Rising Star. It was so fun to see the kids in their races and games, but it seemed a little cruel that they had to perform in 100+ heat.

We also visited a hospital, that had lots of fans, that kicked up dust, that gave me angry eyes, which I hate having (and if you don't know what "angry eyes" are, go talk to someone who has contacts and they will know exactly what I am referring to here).

For the weekend trip, we took the volunteers to Auroville and Pondicherry. Auroville is a small religious/meditation...something like that town that was rather uneventful and featured a large dome/temple that looked mostly like a golden Epcot to me.

this is two of the volunteers Sarah and Hannah, hanging with me in front of the...golden temple?

After our adventures in Auroville we moved onto Pondicherry, where we discovered an Italian restaurant owned by a the funniest Italian man ever. But, the best part was the cold diet coke. I had two. Of course.

double fisting like a champ

 In Pondicherry we also enjoyed a lovely Gandhi statue and witnessed the filming of a Tamil Movie. Good times, eh?

Another big highlight! I got to cross "cut somebody's hair" off my Life List today after one of the other long term volunteers allowed me to shave his head. He does this every other week so it probably wasn't too tough for him to hand over the clippers, but I appreciated that he assisted in letting me cross something off of the list. It's getting a little too short now! I'm might have to start pondering a few more things that I should add on.

peace. love. and Gandhi

p.s. excuse the frightening grammar errors that you are probably finding in these past few blog posts. I take whatever short amount of time I can to write these. 

my first week on the job

So, maybe I was a little more freaked out than I needed to be before I started this session because it has been absolutely wonderful so far. I couldn't love my volunteers anymore and I think I am doing at least a decent job of keeping everything under control and running smoothly. I have had some very reassuring moments this week from how well I'm getting along with everyone, how comfortable I am feeling leading (but I mean, when have I had trouble telling someone what to do?), and even a moment of spiritual confirmation that I felt telling me you are exactly where you need to be right now, there is no better place for you than right here, doing what you're doing. Little moments like that calm me down like nothing else can.

This week with the volunteers, we have had to spend a significant time taking bus rides (for example I calculated that last week I was in a bus, car, or air conditioning-less jeep for 32 hours. ouch). This week is a little more calm, and I have to do a lot more running the show since the nursing group is now splitting into two groups, me taking one of the groups and one of our doctors taking the other, but I think I got this. I think...

I actually have discovered that it has been really exciting to be the medical coordinator for the nursing group since they get to do some things that we don't take our regular volunteers out to. We have visited some tribal villages (one of them was up in the mountains where elephants and tigers live...and although I scoured the jungle the whole drive up I wasn't able to see any), and also taken them to some hospitals in the area to see how they work here in India. But, I know what you really want, the pictures.

These first few are from the tribal village that we went to up in the mountains. The drive may have been incredibly long, but at least the scenery and the destination were great. I loved playing with the kids in this village.

This little girl climbed up me and refused to let go. She was the closest thing to a monkey I think I have ever held. But isn't she precious? 

I just think that water buffalo are cool. Plus this shows off a little bit of the view. 

I got to spend most of the time we were there playing with the kids since all the nurses were the ones doing the medical work. I can't say I'm mad. 

This village for sure had a different social life than ours. These girls were all only 11, but it was common here for girls to get married at around 13. Most of the girls my age there probably already had at least 2 kids. Crazy.

There my little monkey is again. Even after I pried her off of me she needed to be picked up again when she saw me later. 

We also went another tribal village this week. Unfortunately we didn't get to see too many patients there because it was "free rice and fan day" so many of the villagers were gone collecting there goodies. But, this meant that we got to spend more one on one time with the sweet villagers. Normally we keep our volunteer work with the leprosy afflicted, but we wanted our BYU medical session to get to experience patient care on others too.

The women of India are beautiful, and this lady was no exception.

This village was just as lovely as the last one. No complaints here.

The people cut up coconuts for us to drink. Supposedly this is really good for you since it is full of electrolights and great for re-hydration. That would of been fantastic at this point if I could stand drinking coconut milk...

We couldn't take vehicles up to this village because there weren't roads all the way, so instead we had to trek up some hills and through a couple streams on a 30 minute hike to get up here. At lest we weren't carrying anything on our heads like these guys. 

This is one of Rising Star's nurses, Shymarla. I absolutely love her, maybe she doesn't look like it here since a lot of Indians don't like to smile in their pictures, but she is a riot. I spent this day helping her count pills and we were laughing together the whole time. So glad that I get to work with incredible people like  when I am here. 

The best news yet, the kids got here this weekend and we finally got to go play with them today!! Maybe I'm just crazy, but I always get those first day jitters, though am always instantly settled when I get out to the playground and am immediately smothered by love from all the kids. Though I think that to some of them I will forever be known as "Rochelle sister," guess my big sis is just a legend that I can't escape.
Tonight as the medical coordinator I had to organize the delousing of all 230 children. It was absolutely insane. But, all the volunteers assured me that they had a great time, which is a huge relief to me since this was the first big thing that I had to organize and I was mostly coming up with my game plan as I went.
I absolutely love the volunteers, staff, patients, children, and people in general that I am working with. Can't believe that I get to stay here for the whole summer. I'm so lucky, even if it is over a hundred degrees on the daily.

peace. love. and tribal villages