Last day in India- Steph

Dear friends…sadly today is our last full day in India.  The month seems to have flown by, but it has definitely been a month of my life that I will never forget.  This past week we were in a very rural village called Patti.  It is a farming community tucked up in the mountains near the Himalayas.  The people there are amazing, and in my opinion very beautiful.  We lived in the lower level of a free clinic in modest, but sufficient rooms.  We had three meals (and of course my favorite, afternoon tea) provided.  Rinko, our cook, was awesome.  He looked like he was about 15, he sang at the top of his lungs while cooking and prepared what is probably the best Indian food I have ever had.  Sadly, the GI bug did come back to haunt me…but don’t worry I’ve decided to load myself with antibiotics until I leave the country tomorrow, hahaha.

On Monday and Wednesday we held clinic at our site and people would come to see us from 9-1pm and then from 4-6pm.  We had yoga twice a day, 6 AM and 6PM, which was well…intense.  I do a fair amount of yoga at home, but this man had a military like style that I usually don’t associate with the practice of yoga.  I was in pain, but no pain no gain I guess.

On Tuesday and Thursday we hiked to nearby villages and set up a little clinic there.  We saw lots of coughs, colds, allergies, high blood pressure, and a few wounds.  Luckily  no real emergencies because our most advanced intervention was an IV.  There is no pathology lab there so we can’t even check a blood count.  We simply look at the eyes and the skin to see how pale they are and start iron treatment if needed.  It was refreshing to see how much medicine can be practiced without ordering a million tests.  All the medicine was provided for free to the villagers as was the doctor visit.

In our down time we explored a bit and even had a medicinal herb hike with our preceptor, who turned out to be a very hilarious man.  He loved to scare me with the stories of the leopards and snakes that live out there.  I of course was very easily frightened, especially of the GIANT spiders that lived in our bathrooms and hallway, gross.  

Today I am hopefully meeting up with my dad who has been exploring India on his own for the past three weeks and we are taking a train together to Delhi.  Tomorrow morning we are flying to Munich and then to Dusseldorf to see my family.  I seriously can’t wait to hug my family, have a cold beer, a big pretzel, and a chocolate bar.

I of course am going to miss many things about India.  How colorful everything is here, saying Namaste to the adorable school kids, and most of all the little cups of chai J  Thanks so much for reading this!!  I can’t wait to see you all!    (Also a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful sister Pam who I miss very much!)