Note: I haven't had internet for the past 2 weeks so I have a lot of backlogged half written posts that will be going up in the next few days.
Thursday was a day off for me as I woke up around 6am with a mild case of gastritis. Getting sick was almost inevitable and I’m just glad I didn’t feel awful and got over it quickly.
Friday: We left at about 9:30am for Ooty, a town in the mountains north of Namakkal, where they have a sheep breeding facility and spectacular views. It was going to be an almost all day drive and we were crammed tight into the van. I am still amazed that all our luggage fit in the back (there is just a tiny trunk area to the van, but with some tetris skills the driver got it all in). It was also a tighter squeeze because we had to fit the driver’s attendant on the van as well. I was rather indignant about the need for an attendant, but more on how wrong I was later. After several hours of driving, ipod listening, and being jealous of Erin’s ability to read in a car, we stopped for lunch at Saravanaa Bhavan. It is the same restaurant that the three Indian students took us to for lunch in Chennai where we had the best Indian food we have had on the trip. (They also have a few branches in the USA; I’m going to try to visit the one in Manhattan.) Unfortunately they were closed…so we went to the restaurant next door. This decision would spark the phrase repeated many times (and now ongoing joke) of “we should have gone to a different restaurant”. All our meals were brought out at different times, they forgot a few of our orders, the drinks didn’t come out until the end of the meal (after asking 5 times), the food was too spicy even for the Subbiahs, etc. My lips were tingling/burning for about an hour after the meal.
After a few more hours on the van we stopped again for tea and cake (it was just like an American road trip!). We got to try some Indian fruitcake, which is Dr. Subbiah’s favorite dessert. It is not like American Christmas fruitcake, but more like a light pound cake with a few pieces of raisins, cherries, and other candied fruits inside. The fruitcake came from right out of the oven and it was still steaming as it was handed to us on small pieces of newspaper at the roadside shop. By this point our van had travelled far up into the mountains and the cool air made us glad for hot tea and warm, fresh cake. The weather in Ooty is entirely different from Chennai and Namakkal. Chennai especially is an extremely hot and humid climate, while Ooty is cold and damp. The high during the day is about 60-65 degrees right now. During our van ride up the mountain to Ooty I had to pull my sweatshirt out to wear. The drive up the mountain is rather treacherous with lots of hairpin bends, blind curves, and crazy Indian drivers. This is where the attendant comes in, as he is an extra pair of eyes on the road. He also functions as a rear view mirror and a left turn blinker. I have come 180 on my opinion of driving with an attendant.
The place we are staying in Ooty is absolutely amazing. It is a large house that almost looks like a castle (it has a turret) atop a hill surrounded by fields with sheep and looking down on a small village. The scenery looks very much like images I have seen of the moors in Scotland (disclaimer: I have never actually been to Scotland). Even though the house is cold and clammy since there is no heat, I absolutely love it here. We are the only people staying in the house so it has a kind of homey feel. I am staying in a bedroom upstairs with Carrie and Ana. The Subbiahs have the other bedroom upstairs and the others are sharing the three bedrooms downstairs. Downstairs there is also a dining room attached to a kitchen where our meals are prepared by two workers who upkeep the house. I know I am going to miss this place when we leave.
We spent the late afternoon exploring the fields and nearby village, walking along the muddy road with the eyes of the locals (especially the children) following us. The sky was overcast and misty, which should make the town appear drab, but the rows of stone houses with grassy gardens out front look cheerful to me. We meandered back to the house just before it got completely pitch black and had a delicious warm dinner. In the evening I taught most of our group how to play Backalley (a family card game) since Spades had become a favorite nighttime activity, but only allows four players (while Backalley is similar, but can have any number of players). I have surprised myself and have not missed television at all.
Saturday: I woke up at 8am to take a cold bucket shower and get dressed in a 40 degree room (since there is not heat and the window in the bathroom can’t close all the way the inside is the same temperature as the outside). We asked at breakfast for the correct knobs to be turned to get hot water in the bathrooms. Our plan in Ooty is mostly one of tourist activities rather than vet related activities, so our first stop of the day was at a lookout point on the highest peak in southern India (8,460 feet above sea level). Normally from this lookout you can see all of Ooty and some towns beyond, but sadly it was a very foggy day and you couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of you on top of the mountain. It was rather cold and windy up there so I was amused to see multiple ice cream vendors on the peak. They also had a vendor selling bags of carrots, which I have since seen multiple times in and around Ooty (this would do well to catch on in the US).
From the peak we drove down the mountain a few minutes to the Tea Museum and Shop where we had a brief presentation on how tea is made and then got to see the machinery they use here to go from fresh tea leaves to ready to brew loose tea. Ooty is in the Nilgiris region, which is very famous for its tea. I bought several types of tea and am most excited to try my cardamom tea when I get home as I have become addicted to the “tea” (what we would call chai) here – a tea spiced with cardamom and cinnamon and made with milk. After buying tons of tea and spices we packed our boxes in the van and went to a swank restaurant for lunch. I was so happy to see “boiled vegetables” on the menu as I’ve really missed just plain veggies. I also got some garlic naan that had big chunks of garlic all throughout it and was incredibly tasty (several of us got the garlic naan and we joked that our breath combined was going to stink up the van).
The restaurant where we had lunch was in the main part of town so we just walked down the street and stopped at shops along the way. I bought and ate some date and nut chocolate (homemade chocolate is a specialty here) while watching Jennifer and Erin buy bulk spices at a small tea and spice shop. Many spices are grown in this area and so are very cheap here; I’ve bought a ton of cinnamon bark at ridiculously low prices. After about an hour of shopping we piled back into the van and went to the local botanical gardens. It was a huge garden with multiple terraced levels and a combination of well-manicured topiaries and overgrown areas of wild plants. I wish the weather had been better as it misted to rained the whole time we were there, but there were really interesting plants and beautiful flowers everywhere and I took a ton of pictures (I think I may have to have an entire facebook album just for pictures of plants in India).
Our last stop of the day was at a lake surrounded by an amusement park and shops. After taking a few scenery pictures we wandered around the area and found the Thread Garden, which Valerie had seen in her guidebook. For 15 rupees (about 30 cents) we got to see a garden of fake flowers made by hand spinning thread over flower-shaped cutouts. It is actually quite an impressive feat considering how many “flowers” they had there, but you couldn’t get close enough to the flowers to appreciate how detailed the work was and the room was very dim so the colors appeared muted. We returned back to our house in the hills for a late dinner and some card games before bed.
Your random India fact for the day: They don’t have magnets in India. It’s not that they are just uncommon or hard to find, but rather they are not available anywhere. While discussing a case of hardware disease in a cow in Namakkal we asked about using a magnet in the rumen as we do in the USA (hardware disease occurs when a cow eats a piece of wire or something and it pierces the stomach, goes through the diaphragm, and hits the heart – cows will eat anything). The doctor replied that they didn’t have magnets available to them and that some vet students from Michigan were going to mail their hospital some magnets soon so they could start using them. Now you can appreciate the front of your fridge a little bit more.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
No Rest for the Weary
Monday morning we were supposed to be heading to Trichy and Tanjoor for a 3 day side trip, but while on top of the mountain having lunch on Sunday Dr. Subbiah asked us if we would prefer Monday to be a rest day since we had done such a big hike. We thought that would be a good idea since we really get no weekends or time off here. Dr. Subbiah proceeded to talk to the dean in Tamil for a bit and then told us that our new Monday plan was to attend clinics in the morning and then tour farms in the afternoon…somehow this was considered a “rest day”…
Monday: The clinic in Namakkal is much smaller than the one in Chennai as this is a much smaller town. They see mostly large animals, although we saw a decent number of dogs being treated as well (3 in a row had suspected Parvo). Most of the patients are seen outside, even the dogs with metal tables set up under trees. We got to see 2 beautiful white horses dance – although they were still in the process of being trained so they mostly just fluttered their feet around, but it was still fun to see. At 11am we were brought into the doctors office, served tea, and shown slides of interesting cases they have seen. I hope we didn’t offend them too badly as many of us (myself included) could barely keep our eyes open after the previous day. When we returned for a midday break I took a small nap before having lunch.
After lunch we were taken on a tour of the farms on the vet school property. Having the small farms right on the campus is another thing that reminds me of Blacksburg when I look around Namakkal. We again got to see and hold baby bunnies (it really is too bad someone is just going to eat them), got our fingers suckled on by small calves, and went in and out of many avian houses. Most of these avian houses were about 15 feet off the ground and the staircase leading up to them had a 2 foot gap at the end (in between the last step and the doorway in). So at the top there was a nice little hole for you to fall into (not really a fall to the death, but definitely a fall to pain). It turns out this is to keep the rats out…
We got back to the hostel by about 5:30pm and a few of us went out to Namakkal to see some Hindu temples, mainly just to get out and see the city. Some locals we briefly talked to at one temple had a fun time trying to pronounce “Virginia”. (The first question from locals is almost always where we are from. Students usually want to know our age and marital status. And the standard conversation started question here is “How was breakfast?” It’s kind of like the Indian version of talking about the weather.)
Tuesday: The day started badly, and luckily went uphill from there. Dr. Subbiah had told us the night before that we were leaving at 6am. Starting at about 4:15am (and continuing multiple times after that…) we had knocks on our door from various staff members wondering if we wanted tea and then later knocks from the driver making sure we were getting ready. In case you were wondering, this is not a good way to be woken up. Various members of our group were upset for various reasons and we all took the 2 hour van ride to Trichy to relax and reset.
When we got to Trichy we immediately checked into our hotel, dumped our bags, and went out to breakfast. I started with a “donut” (looks like a donut, but it is a savory ring of fried dough with onions and spices inside) that I dipped in samba (sp?) and pongol (sp? It is kind of like a rice oatmeal with leaves and peppercorns in it). After I had eaten that Dr. Subbiah ordered me a ghee roast or butter dosa to try. It was enormous, but also delicious, and I ate most of that as well. It looks like a crepe, but is savory, and can be made in many different ways (obviously the butter one is just brushed with butter, but you can also have it with masala potatoes or onions or chile powder, etc.).
After breakfast we got back on the van and continued driving another hour to Tanjoor where we first went to an ancient Hindu temple carved into the side of a rocky mountain. The ceiling was well preserved and had been painted to be a pond filled with lotus flowers and various animals. There was an inner square room that had a special acoustic quality so that when the temple guardian made a certain type of humming (that you could not hear) it reverberated loudly off of the walls. It was pretty cool to stand in the middle of the room and feel the sound vibrating on your skin. From there we went to an emu farm. By the time we got there the sun had come out in full force and it was almost unbearable just to stand outside. While touring the emu pens the showers were turned on for the birds and we forgot about our own overheating as we watched the birds enjoy being soaked. Many of the birds claimed a spot and camped out right underneath the showerhead.
We had a very spicy lunch and continued into the main part of the city. By this time it was almost 5pm and our driver raced to get to the museums before they closed (which was very frightening as this new driver is a maniac on the road even when not rushing). We had a whirlwind tour of an ancient library and an old temple filled with art and artifacts. We arrived at both places only about 15 minutes before they closed so literally ran around the rooms seeing as many things as possible and avoiding the employees who told us it was closing time in a language understood around the world – blowing whistles. It was like tourism Amazing Race style.
We ended the day at Big Temple (yes, that is its real name), which is exactly what it sounds like. There was a giant statue of a bull lying down and a very tall part of the temple that we could unfortunately not find any way to climb up. While waiting for the others to finish looking around I bought a pack of snacks (some sort of overly fried dough) and fed it to a skinny, stray puppy wandering around the grounds. As it is in many places in India you could not wear your shoes inside the temple (this is true of temples, peoples homes, operation rooms, and labs) and I am really starting to like being barefoot. There is something freeing in the sensation of cool stone against bare feet.
Wednesday: We were to meet outside the hotel at 8am, but somehow I slept through my 7am alarm. I woke up in a panic at 7:48 and Carrie and I rushed around getting ready and packing and managed to make it to the lobby right at 8. We went to the same restaurant for breakfast (Hotel Guru – restaurants here are called hotels) and I got a ghee roast again as I had enjoyed it so much the day before. Dr. Subbiah told them to bring it out shaped as a big cone, kind of like a party hat (it is a giant circle, and normally is just folded into fourths like a crepe. We drove back towards Trichy and stopped at a mixed farm along the way (mixed meaning they have multiple types of animals and do other kinds of farming all on the same land). The tour of the farm was rather boring as we’ve done several similar farm tours during our stay here, but we had a nice break drinking slice (a mango juice drink) on an outdoor patio surrounded by a lotus-filled pond.
From there we got dropped off in the main part of Trichy and climbed up many flights of stairs to another Hindu temple. It was on top of a small mountain/large hill in the middle of town and from on top you could see a beautiful 360 degree panorama of the city. It reminded me of being atop the Notre Dame Cathedral and looking down on Paris; just replace gargoyles with Hindu gods. The climb had made me pretty hungry and after a brief stop at an old dam we went to a nice restaurant for lunch. I easily polished off my meal…and then almost everyone else’s! The naan was straight from the oven and incredibly delicious. It was a very late lunch (we got to the restaurant around 3:30pm) so we took an easy afternoon of some shopping in Trichy before the 2 hour ride back to Namakkal. Jennifer and I looked at some very expensive jewelry just for the fun of it; one bracelet we looked at cost 47,000 rupees (about $1,000). When we got back to the van we had to wait a few minutes as the driver was off on an errand for Ruby. We later found out she had gotten back to the van first where she met a little boy trying to sell her Q-tips in the parking lot. Since giving them money usually means the money will just go to an adult she asked him what he needed and he said a new school uniform (almost all the schools here have uniforms). When the driver returned with the clothes the boy got onto the van and showed off his new button down white shirt and blue slacks. The day ended with a long and bumpy ride back to Namakkal.
Monday: The clinic in Namakkal is much smaller than the one in Chennai as this is a much smaller town. They see mostly large animals, although we saw a decent number of dogs being treated as well (3 in a row had suspected Parvo). Most of the patients are seen outside, even the dogs with metal tables set up under trees. We got to see 2 beautiful white horses dance – although they were still in the process of being trained so they mostly just fluttered their feet around, but it was still fun to see. At 11am we were brought into the doctors office, served tea, and shown slides of interesting cases they have seen. I hope we didn’t offend them too badly as many of us (myself included) could barely keep our eyes open after the previous day. When we returned for a midday break I took a small nap before having lunch.
After lunch we were taken on a tour of the farms on the vet school property. Having the small farms right on the campus is another thing that reminds me of Blacksburg when I look around Namakkal. We again got to see and hold baby bunnies (it really is too bad someone is just going to eat them), got our fingers suckled on by small calves, and went in and out of many avian houses. Most of these avian houses were about 15 feet off the ground and the staircase leading up to them had a 2 foot gap at the end (in between the last step and the doorway in). So at the top there was a nice little hole for you to fall into (not really a fall to the death, but definitely a fall to pain). It turns out this is to keep the rats out…
We got back to the hostel by about 5:30pm and a few of us went out to Namakkal to see some Hindu temples, mainly just to get out and see the city. Some locals we briefly talked to at one temple had a fun time trying to pronounce “Virginia”. (The first question from locals is almost always where we are from. Students usually want to know our age and marital status. And the standard conversation started question here is “How was breakfast?” It’s kind of like the Indian version of talking about the weather.)
Tuesday: The day started badly, and luckily went uphill from there. Dr. Subbiah had told us the night before that we were leaving at 6am. Starting at about 4:15am (and continuing multiple times after that…) we had knocks on our door from various staff members wondering if we wanted tea and then later knocks from the driver making sure we were getting ready. In case you were wondering, this is not a good way to be woken up. Various members of our group were upset for various reasons and we all took the 2 hour van ride to Trichy to relax and reset.
When we got to Trichy we immediately checked into our hotel, dumped our bags, and went out to breakfast. I started with a “donut” (looks like a donut, but it is a savory ring of fried dough with onions and spices inside) that I dipped in samba (sp?) and pongol (sp? It is kind of like a rice oatmeal with leaves and peppercorns in it). After I had eaten that Dr. Subbiah ordered me a ghee roast or butter dosa to try. It was enormous, but also delicious, and I ate most of that as well. It looks like a crepe, but is savory, and can be made in many different ways (obviously the butter one is just brushed with butter, but you can also have it with masala potatoes or onions or chile powder, etc.).
After breakfast we got back on the van and continued driving another hour to Tanjoor where we first went to an ancient Hindu temple carved into the side of a rocky mountain. The ceiling was well preserved and had been painted to be a pond filled with lotus flowers and various animals. There was an inner square room that had a special acoustic quality so that when the temple guardian made a certain type of humming (that you could not hear) it reverberated loudly off of the walls. It was pretty cool to stand in the middle of the room and feel the sound vibrating on your skin. From there we went to an emu farm. By the time we got there the sun had come out in full force and it was almost unbearable just to stand outside. While touring the emu pens the showers were turned on for the birds and we forgot about our own overheating as we watched the birds enjoy being soaked. Many of the birds claimed a spot and camped out right underneath the showerhead.
We had a very spicy lunch and continued into the main part of the city. By this time it was almost 5pm and our driver raced to get to the museums before they closed (which was very frightening as this new driver is a maniac on the road even when not rushing). We had a whirlwind tour of an ancient library and an old temple filled with art and artifacts. We arrived at both places only about 15 minutes before they closed so literally ran around the rooms seeing as many things as possible and avoiding the employees who told us it was closing time in a language understood around the world – blowing whistles. It was like tourism Amazing Race style.
We ended the day at Big Temple (yes, that is its real name), which is exactly what it sounds like. There was a giant statue of a bull lying down and a very tall part of the temple that we could unfortunately not find any way to climb up. While waiting for the others to finish looking around I bought a pack of snacks (some sort of overly fried dough) and fed it to a skinny, stray puppy wandering around the grounds. As it is in many places in India you could not wear your shoes inside the temple (this is true of temples, peoples homes, operation rooms, and labs) and I am really starting to like being barefoot. There is something freeing in the sensation of cool stone against bare feet.
Wednesday: We were to meet outside the hotel at 8am, but somehow I slept through my 7am alarm. I woke up in a panic at 7:48 and Carrie and I rushed around getting ready and packing and managed to make it to the lobby right at 8. We went to the same restaurant for breakfast (Hotel Guru – restaurants here are called hotels) and I got a ghee roast again as I had enjoyed it so much the day before. Dr. Subbiah told them to bring it out shaped as a big cone, kind of like a party hat (it is a giant circle, and normally is just folded into fourths like a crepe. We drove back towards Trichy and stopped at a mixed farm along the way (mixed meaning they have multiple types of animals and do other kinds of farming all on the same land). The tour of the farm was rather boring as we’ve done several similar farm tours during our stay here, but we had a nice break drinking slice (a mango juice drink) on an outdoor patio surrounded by a lotus-filled pond.
From there we got dropped off in the main part of Trichy and climbed up many flights of stairs to another Hindu temple. It was on top of a small mountain/large hill in the middle of town and from on top you could see a beautiful 360 degree panorama of the city. It reminded me of being atop the Notre Dame Cathedral and looking down on Paris; just replace gargoyles with Hindu gods. The climb had made me pretty hungry and after a brief stop at an old dam we went to a nice restaurant for lunch. I easily polished off my meal…and then almost everyone else’s! The naan was straight from the oven and incredibly delicious. It was a very late lunch (we got to the restaurant around 3:30pm) so we took an easy afternoon of some shopping in Trichy before the 2 hour ride back to Namakkal. Jennifer and I looked at some very expensive jewelry just for the fun of it; one bracelet we looked at cost 47,000 rupees (about $1,000). When we got back to the van we had to wait a few minutes as the driver was off on an errand for Ruby. We later found out she had gotten back to the van first where she met a little boy trying to sell her Q-tips in the parking lot. Since giving them money usually means the money will just go to an adult she asked him what he needed and he said a new school uniform (almost all the schools here have uniforms). When the driver returned with the clothes the boy got onto the van and showed off his new button down white shirt and blue slacks. The day ended with a long and bumpy ride back to Namakkal.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Difference between a Trek and a Hike
Saturday: We got into the vet school at Namakkal at about 6:30am, had a few brief hours of sleep, and then went to go meet the dean of the college at 9am. Like many things in India, this meeting was held with great formality: there was a mini-stage with a podium, several speakers, professors attended to see us welcomed, we were all given roses, and there was a professionally made welcome banner (banners seem to be made here for most events...more on this later). Dr. Subbiah, the dean, and 2 other important faculty members sat on the mini-stage facing the "audience". A few people gave small speeches, the India national anthem was played, and the dean gave a powerpoint presentation introducing the school and the local animals. At the end of this one of our group (Ana was brave this time) was instructed to go up to the podium and give a small speech on our reason for coming here and what we wanted to get out of this experience (this is another common thing in India). And of course we were served tea afterwards. From there we all got on the van and drove out to a large poultry farm in Namakkal that produces 30,000 eggs daily. The chickens were housed in long rows of cages high above the ground with ceilings, but no walls, so there was excellent ventilation. For my standards seeing 4 chickens shoved in one cage is unacceptable, but for normal poultry production standards it was a very clean farm. We met some of the workers there who were local villagers who were very keen to meet us. One of them wanted us to take her back to America with us. Another one was very intrigued why hardly any of us had earrings (jewelry of all types is worn by most women - even poor women - all the time. Earrings, nose rings, bangles, rings, anklets, and toe rings are usually all worn.)
We went back to the hostel for lunch where I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food. In Chennai our food was not bad, but not amazing, and our meals were very repetitive. I had 3 servings of rice with spiced lentils. We then spent the afternoon at a local dairy co-op. Since most of the farmers here only own about 2-3 cows or buffaloes it is hard for them to make enough money selling the few liters of milk they have. So this small village on the outskirts of Namakkal started a co-op where the farmers sell to the co-op and then the co-op sells back to the villagers (who don't own cattle) and sells to vendors in the city. This co-op ensures both a standard quality of milk (they test milk fat levels, etc.) and ensures that the farmers don't get ripped off by the vendors (which was apparently happening often before). The average farmers makes about 150 rupees (about 3 dollars) a day this way - which may not sound like a lot, but it's enough to support a small family here. It was really nice to see the community working together in such a way, although it would have made me feel better if they did any sort of health screening on the milk (but almost everyone here drinks milk hot to prevent disease). We got back to the hostel a little before dinner and I went for a run around the vet school campus - on guard for snakes. I asked someone from the college if it was safe to go running and their response was "Oh yes of course...except for the snakes..." Hopefully this is not the beginning of a story about how I developed a severe phobia of snakes.
Sunday: Normally a day of rest? Yeah right. I woke up at 4:10am, took a bucket shower (there are no working showers here, so you fill up a bucket with water and pour it over yourself to bathe), and got on the van with only 4 others from our group who were also not sick. We were headed to the base of a mountain ridge where we would hike up with the dean and about 50 other vet students to treat animals in a village. A government vet goes up there about once a month, but the school is trying to start servicing that area so we got to accompany their first trip up. We had been told it was a 7 km hike with a gentle incline, no problem. LIES. ALL LIES. The hike was actually somewhere between 8-9 km and it was a rocky uphill climb. For me it was a nice, although very challenging hike, but knowing what I was in for would have made the day much better. Erin unfortunately had to turn back because of her knee problems (the ground did not give great footing) and poor Valerie was a trooper and made it to the top through sheer will power. Once we got to the top we were greeted by a beautiful, breezy village with little blue clay houses scattered around with thatched roofs and animals roaming the fields. There was a signpost at the beginning that was later translated for me saying that the town had about 2,000 residents, ~750 houses, and 3 televisions. There were some solar panels (about 20) in the town and most were used to power street lights, however one was for a satellite dish! We rested for about a half an hour while the rest of the group assembled and we were introduced to custard apples (a green fruit with a white fleshy inside and big black seeds - tastes kind of like apple and kind of like mango), which we picked and ate right off the trees. We then joined the group of vet students walking from house to house deworming cows and goats (deworming just consists of orally giving a liquid medication). Each of the 4 of us that made it up (Carrie, Wallace, Valerie, and I) got to deworm an animal while a student took pictures. As we were hiking up the dean told a student "photodocumentation is of the highest priority!". As we moved from house to house I found it most hilarious that the banner they had hiked up with them (that said something like "Free Clinic Day" and the name of the vet school) was carried along and re-hung for the background of pictures. They really do love their banners here.
It only took about an hour to deworm all the animals that needed it (we also got to see a case of Orf) and then we returned to the main area of the village for lunch. To my great surprise Ruby and Dr. Subbiah were there! We were all very impressed as Ruby had undergone chemo last year and Dr. Subbiah has heart problems from a heart attack several years ago. I thought there was no chance they would make it up and said if they did I would make them a cake - so when we return to the states I owe them a fruit cake (not like our Christmas fruit cake, but some sort of Indian fruit cake). It had taken our group about 2.5 hours to climb it and it took them about 4, so when lunch was served we all dug in. They had slaughtered a goat for the school's visit and had a lentil dish and hard boiled eggs for the vegetarians. The dean asked us if we wanted to do another "small" hike (about 5 km RT) to see a pond on top of another mountain peak, which we politely inclined, deciding it was best to save at least some energy for the climb down.
I really enjoyed the village and was glad I had made the hike. We got to witness the hierarchy of the stray dogs living there after we put down our lunch leftovers on the ground. While walking among the houses we saw a man up in a coconut tree gathering coconuts; he had somehow climbed up there and was just sitting there putting coconuts in a bag attached to a string and sending them down to a friend at the bottom. It turned out these coconuts were for us and we go to have "tender coconut" - the milk from inside a fresh coconut. They were also kind enough to put it in a cup as we are not as adept at drinking it from the coconut itself.
Wallace and I blitzed our way down the mountain and made it to the bottom in about 1.5 hours. The dean's wife commented to Dr. Subbiah that it looked like we were "walking on the plains" even though we were going down a mountain. Of course it didn't matter how fast we made it down as we had to wait about 1.5 hours for the others to make it down to then take the bus back.
Just something fun to leave you with:
Vet from one of the poultry farms: "How do women vets in the USA restrain and treat large animals?"
Erin: "With style."
We went back to the hostel for lunch where I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food. In Chennai our food was not bad, but not amazing, and our meals were very repetitive. I had 3 servings of rice with spiced lentils. We then spent the afternoon at a local dairy co-op. Since most of the farmers here only own about 2-3 cows or buffaloes it is hard for them to make enough money selling the few liters of milk they have. So this small village on the outskirts of Namakkal started a co-op where the farmers sell to the co-op and then the co-op sells back to the villagers (who don't own cattle) and sells to vendors in the city. This co-op ensures both a standard quality of milk (they test milk fat levels, etc.) and ensures that the farmers don't get ripped off by the vendors (which was apparently happening often before). The average farmers makes about 150 rupees (about 3 dollars) a day this way - which may not sound like a lot, but it's enough to support a small family here. It was really nice to see the community working together in such a way, although it would have made me feel better if they did any sort of health screening on the milk (but almost everyone here drinks milk hot to prevent disease). We got back to the hostel a little before dinner and I went for a run around the vet school campus - on guard for snakes. I asked someone from the college if it was safe to go running and their response was "Oh yes of course...except for the snakes..." Hopefully this is not the beginning of a story about how I developed a severe phobia of snakes.
Sunday: Normally a day of rest? Yeah right. I woke up at 4:10am, took a bucket shower (there are no working showers here, so you fill up a bucket with water and pour it over yourself to bathe), and got on the van with only 4 others from our group who were also not sick. We were headed to the base of a mountain ridge where we would hike up with the dean and about 50 other vet students to treat animals in a village. A government vet goes up there about once a month, but the school is trying to start servicing that area so we got to accompany their first trip up. We had been told it was a 7 km hike with a gentle incline, no problem. LIES. ALL LIES. The hike was actually somewhere between 8-9 km and it was a rocky uphill climb. For me it was a nice, although very challenging hike, but knowing what I was in for would have made the day much better. Erin unfortunately had to turn back because of her knee problems (the ground did not give great footing) and poor Valerie was a trooper and made it to the top through sheer will power. Once we got to the top we were greeted by a beautiful, breezy village with little blue clay houses scattered around with thatched roofs and animals roaming the fields. There was a signpost at the beginning that was later translated for me saying that the town had about 2,000 residents, ~750 houses, and 3 televisions. There were some solar panels (about 20) in the town and most were used to power street lights, however one was for a satellite dish! We rested for about a half an hour while the rest of the group assembled and we were introduced to custard apples (a green fruit with a white fleshy inside and big black seeds - tastes kind of like apple and kind of like mango), which we picked and ate right off the trees. We then joined the group of vet students walking from house to house deworming cows and goats (deworming just consists of orally giving a liquid medication). Each of the 4 of us that made it up (Carrie, Wallace, Valerie, and I) got to deworm an animal while a student took pictures. As we were hiking up the dean told a student "photodocumentation is of the highest priority!". As we moved from house to house I found it most hilarious that the banner they had hiked up with them (that said something like "Free Clinic Day" and the name of the vet school) was carried along and re-hung for the background of pictures. They really do love their banners here.
It only took about an hour to deworm all the animals that needed it (we also got to see a case of Orf) and then we returned to the main area of the village for lunch. To my great surprise Ruby and Dr. Subbiah were there! We were all very impressed as Ruby had undergone chemo last year and Dr. Subbiah has heart problems from a heart attack several years ago. I thought there was no chance they would make it up and said if they did I would make them a cake - so when we return to the states I owe them a fruit cake (not like our Christmas fruit cake, but some sort of Indian fruit cake). It had taken our group about 2.5 hours to climb it and it took them about 4, so when lunch was served we all dug in. They had slaughtered a goat for the school's visit and had a lentil dish and hard boiled eggs for the vegetarians. The dean asked us if we wanted to do another "small" hike (about 5 km RT) to see a pond on top of another mountain peak, which we politely inclined, deciding it was best to save at least some energy for the climb down.
I really enjoyed the village and was glad I had made the hike. We got to witness the hierarchy of the stray dogs living there after we put down our lunch leftovers on the ground. While walking among the houses we saw a man up in a coconut tree gathering coconuts; he had somehow climbed up there and was just sitting there putting coconuts in a bag attached to a string and sending them down to a friend at the bottom. It turned out these coconuts were for us and we go to have "tender coconut" - the milk from inside a fresh coconut. They were also kind enough to put it in a cup as we are not as adept at drinking it from the coconut itself.
Wallace and I blitzed our way down the mountain and made it to the bottom in about 1.5 hours. The dean's wife commented to Dr. Subbiah that it looked like we were "walking on the plains" even though we were going down a mountain. Of course it didn't matter how fast we made it down as we had to wait about 1.5 hours for the others to make it down to then take the bus back.
Just something fun to leave you with:
Vet from one of the poultry farms: "How do women vets in the USA restrain and treat large animals?"
Erin: "With style."
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Moving on to Namakkal
Monday:I woke up Monday morning feeling like I had been out heavily drinking the night before...which should really only happen if you've actually had some alcohol. So I skipped the morning clinics and stayed in to rest and rehydrate since I'm pretty sure I had just not had enough water the previous day and dehydrated myself into a hangover state. In the afternoon we went to a large poultry farm with chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, quails, etc. We got to see birds bred for meat, eggs, and some in breeding research studies. The smell was pretty bad, but not as overpowering as it could be (there was a bad odor, but the ammonia was not to the point where you thought you would pass out). We got to see tiny baby chicks that were so cute...and will soon be eaten. Some of the turkeys had been killed by rats and moongooses (mongeese?) that had found a way into their cages.
In the evening we went out shopping again, first to a very modern mall with McDonald's, KFC, Levi's, and a bunch of other stores we have at home. It was all very shiny and new and clean; while inside I could easily imagine that I had been magically transported to a mall in Northern VA. But of course this was not the kind of shopping we wanted (a whole mall with foxed price goods???). So we quickly left and went to a different mall that was more small Indian shops where you can bargain for items and had Indian artisan handicrafts.
Tuesday: Wallace's big day as we visited both the snake park and the crocodile bank! (He is one of the students here also and would like to specialize in reptiles). We went to the Snake Park first, which is part of Guindy Park (they conveniently put the Snake Park right next to the children's play area). The park was actually closed that day (it is closed every Tuesday), but since we are "special guests" we got to go in and get a tour anyways. It was really cool to be there on a closed day mainly because they had let the reticulated pythons out of their cages and they were slithering around the park. We got to see lots of snakes (some very venomous), crocodiles, turtles, and some other random reptiles. Afterwards we headed to Crocodile Bank where there are...you guessed it!...tons of crocs. The head vet there gave us a tour around the park and even behind the scenes. She was very nice and actually lives on the park property. Behind the exhibits are some houses: one is hers, one is her office, and another is a house for volunteers. It was picturesquely primitive and I wish I had a desire to work with reptiles because I think the experience of living there for a few months would be wonderful. You could tell the resident vet really loved all the animals; she knew all their names and when she would lovingly call them they would approach the enclosure wall expecting food. We got to see some of the crocs being fed whole pieces of raw chicken (I have a video I'll post when I get home). For lunch the vet recommended a restuarant that we headed to called the Blue Elephant. It was all full up, but the restuarant next to it called The Moonraker was owned by the same person, so we went there. I got coconut rice and masala vegetables, which was delicious, but literally came with about 6 cups of rice (and of course since I didn't finished it I was asked multiple times why I didn't like the food).
After lunch we headed to Mahabilapuram (sp?) which is a popular tourist town that has lots of very old monolithic carved buildings (big stone buildings carved from a single rock). They were all within a fenced-in area and the ground was covered in sand; it reminded me a children's playground. And so play is what we did! It was interesting that even though these buildings had intricate carvings and are hundreds of years old we were allowed to climb all over them. We visited several of these temples and at lastly went to Shore Temple (when we asked Dr. Subbiah what Shore Temple was he answered "It's a temple. By the shore."). We couldn't go inside Shore Temple, but it was very beautiful and afterwards we went down to the beach and relaxed a little bit.
Wednesday: This was definitely the best day of this trip so far. We headed down to the Vandalar Zoo and got a tour from both the current zoo vet and the previous zoo vet (who now works in the wildlife department of the vet school hospital). Unfortunately some of our group were not feeling very well, but we were able to get a small car/cart to drive us around the expansive zoo. We got to see beautiful sights of lakes, enjoy an enormous aviary, hold a 1.5 month old white tiger cub (!!!), and play with several baby elephants. I can now die happy. We were only supposed to be at the zoo for about an hour, but after 3 hours we were finally forced to leave as they were expecting us for lunch at the Livestock Research Station. We had a tradional Indian style lunch of rice, spiced vegetables, potato chips (they are served a lot here), and pickled mango. It was all served on a giant palm leaf and no utensils where given. I'm sure I didn't look pretty, but I am slightly more adept now at eating rice with my fingers (how the Indians can do this so efficiently, I have no idea). After lunch we were given several tours of the different parts of the Livestock Research Station; we saw sheep, goats, rabbits, cattle, and pigs. When we arrived at the goat section they had just released the mothers and the babies together and it was hilarious to see the kids prance around and literally run and fall to their knees to suckle. I am just waiting for something to top this day.
Thursday: We started the day with a long drive to the very edge of Chennai where there is a small post of the vet school hospital. It is put out there to accomidate the more rural areas and people who can't transport their large animals all the way into the center of Chennai to be treated. Although even though they were established to meet the needs of farmers, more and more small animals are brought there each year. We couldn't stay very long, but while we were there we saw a great dane with a healing maggot wound in its foot and a goat with tetanus. There are only 3 doctors there and the main doctor (who is the surgeon) gave us a tour around and specifically showed us around the surgery suite. I was amazed to see that at this little rinky-dink hospital they routinely used gas anesthesia and the students are made to fill out anesthesia reports during surgery (both good things, neither of which is done at the big fancy hospital in the middle of the city). The rest of the morning was filled with tour after tour of various biotechnology labs in the area that (as hard as the researchers tried) was mind-numbingly boring. Being our last full day in Chennai Ruby took us out shopping again, this time to a place called Victoria Techinical Institute where various artisans of the school sell their crafts. It was an amazing store and I went a little shopping crazy! (But I have a beautiful new Indian tablecloth)
Friday: The plan was to take a leisurely morning of saying goodbye to doctors in the clinics, handing out a few small gifts to those who had been most helpful, and taking pictures. But of course nothing goes to plan in India. We had seen the dog with the hole in its back the night before and it was MUCH worse. The maggots had eaten at the whole widening it up, and the dog had obviously lost some weight. Ana had made friends with the dog and found out where it lived. She made an attempt to catch it, but after putting a make-shift leash on it, it freaked out and she had to let it go. In the morning we staged a pseudo-intervention going to Dr. Subbiah and not leaving until someone came to do something about the condition of the dog. (You would think that at least a dog on vet school property would not be forced to slowly die). Apparently People for Animals (PFA) had been by several times, but had not been able to catch the dog. So Dr. Subbiah called them to told them to come now when Ana could catch the dog for them. Some workers from the hostel came with giant sticks and when Ana showed them where the dog slept they banged on the walls, yelled, and threw their sticks at it. (We found out later that their plan was to try to scare it off the property, not catch it). It was rather depressing and eventually Carrie yelled at them to stop and stay back so that we could approach the dog with food, and Ana got another leash around it. We waited with the dog until someone from the hospital came and Ana carried it out to the road and took an autorickshaw to the hospital. Wallace, Carrie, and I followed a few minutes behind her and by the time we got there the dog was already sedated and in the process of being treated. Dr. Ravi was very nice and did not charge us for any services. They pulled out about 2 dozen maggots from the wound, bandaged it up, gave him fluids and a shot of dewormer. Then Ana accompanied the dog to the PFA shelter where the dog would be able to stay and be looked after by a doctor daily. Of course a shelter in India is nothing like a shelter in the USA. When Ana arrived she was shown inside by the woman running the shelter, who then proceeded to throw a metal bowl at one dogs head because he was eating the remains of a dead puppy in the yard (all the dogs are just kept out in a yard). Ana put the dog in a shaded corner with a bowl of water and we are hoping for the best and will try to check back on him when we briefly return to Chennai. Sadly, this is the best thing we can do for him since PFA is the local animal welfare group. By the time Ana got back to the hospital we had given out most of our gifts to the doctors (we bought them bumper stickers that said "Real doctors treat more than one species") and so we all returned back to the hostel to nap and pack.
Ruby brought her friend over and together they brought us lots of silk sarees to try on. They had to help up put them on as we could not figure out the folding pattern to make them stay. We put jasmine flowers in our hair, bindis on our foreheads, bangles on our arms, and some of Ruby's necklaces around our necks. A photographer from the school came over and took many pictures of our group looking as Indian as possible. We then said goodbye to some of our friends we had made at the school and headed to the train station. The train left at 10pm (well, it actually left at 10:45, which is 10pm on India-time) and was not due into the Salem station until 5am (was more like 5:15am). Wallace and I stayed up pretty late talking and lamenting over the fact that we could not see the Indian countryside as we rode past. I was surprised by how comfortable I was on the sleeper train; they provided clean sheats, pillow, and a blanket. My bed folded down over seats, so you could either sit up or lie down. I got in about 3 hours of sleep before it was time to get up and get ready to deboard. From the Salem train station we were picked up by the Namakkal vet school van and took an hour long drive to Namakkal.
Namakkal is a rural town and reminds me in some ways of Blacksburg. The air here is so much cleaner than Chennai and their is infinitely less traffic. Our hostel room here is more primitive: the matress is worse, there is no hot water, and some of us don't have shower heads. But even though this is a step down, there is still A/C and beds that are not on the floor (before I leave here we will experiece places with neither of these).
Right now I am in the library of the Namakkal vet school using their internet (as far as we can tell so far we don't have wifi in our rooms), so I won't be online as often. And some of the other places we travel I won't have internet access at all. I can't believe this trip is already half-way over...
In the evening we went out shopping again, first to a very modern mall with McDonald's, KFC, Levi's, and a bunch of other stores we have at home. It was all very shiny and new and clean; while inside I could easily imagine that I had been magically transported to a mall in Northern VA. But of course this was not the kind of shopping we wanted (a whole mall with foxed price goods???). So we quickly left and went to a different mall that was more small Indian shops where you can bargain for items and had Indian artisan handicrafts.
Tuesday: Wallace's big day as we visited both the snake park and the crocodile bank! (He is one of the students here also and would like to specialize in reptiles). We went to the Snake Park first, which is part of Guindy Park (they conveniently put the Snake Park right next to the children's play area). The park was actually closed that day (it is closed every Tuesday), but since we are "special guests" we got to go in and get a tour anyways. It was really cool to be there on a closed day mainly because they had let the reticulated pythons out of their cages and they were slithering around the park. We got to see lots of snakes (some very venomous), crocodiles, turtles, and some other random reptiles. Afterwards we headed to Crocodile Bank where there are...you guessed it!...tons of crocs. The head vet there gave us a tour around the park and even behind the scenes. She was very nice and actually lives on the park property. Behind the exhibits are some houses: one is hers, one is her office, and another is a house for volunteers. It was picturesquely primitive and I wish I had a desire to work with reptiles because I think the experience of living there for a few months would be wonderful. You could tell the resident vet really loved all the animals; she knew all their names and when she would lovingly call them they would approach the enclosure wall expecting food. We got to see some of the crocs being fed whole pieces of raw chicken (I have a video I'll post when I get home). For lunch the vet recommended a restuarant that we headed to called the Blue Elephant. It was all full up, but the restuarant next to it called The Moonraker was owned by the same person, so we went there. I got coconut rice and masala vegetables, which was delicious, but literally came with about 6 cups of rice (and of course since I didn't finished it I was asked multiple times why I didn't like the food).
After lunch we headed to Mahabilapuram (sp?) which is a popular tourist town that has lots of very old monolithic carved buildings (big stone buildings carved from a single rock). They were all within a fenced-in area and the ground was covered in sand; it reminded me a children's playground. And so play is what we did! It was interesting that even though these buildings had intricate carvings and are hundreds of years old we were allowed to climb all over them. We visited several of these temples and at lastly went to Shore Temple (when we asked Dr. Subbiah what Shore Temple was he answered "It's a temple. By the shore."). We couldn't go inside Shore Temple, but it was very beautiful and afterwards we went down to the beach and relaxed a little bit.
Wednesday: This was definitely the best day of this trip so far. We headed down to the Vandalar Zoo and got a tour from both the current zoo vet and the previous zoo vet (who now works in the wildlife department of the vet school hospital). Unfortunately some of our group were not feeling very well, but we were able to get a small car/cart to drive us around the expansive zoo. We got to see beautiful sights of lakes, enjoy an enormous aviary, hold a 1.5 month old white tiger cub (!!!), and play with several baby elephants. I can now die happy. We were only supposed to be at the zoo for about an hour, but after 3 hours we were finally forced to leave as they were expecting us for lunch at the Livestock Research Station. We had a tradional Indian style lunch of rice, spiced vegetables, potato chips (they are served a lot here), and pickled mango. It was all served on a giant palm leaf and no utensils where given. I'm sure I didn't look pretty, but I am slightly more adept now at eating rice with my fingers (how the Indians can do this so efficiently, I have no idea). After lunch we were given several tours of the different parts of the Livestock Research Station; we saw sheep, goats, rabbits, cattle, and pigs. When we arrived at the goat section they had just released the mothers and the babies together and it was hilarious to see the kids prance around and literally run and fall to their knees to suckle. I am just waiting for something to top this day.
Thursday: We started the day with a long drive to the very edge of Chennai where there is a small post of the vet school hospital. It is put out there to accomidate the more rural areas and people who can't transport their large animals all the way into the center of Chennai to be treated. Although even though they were established to meet the needs of farmers, more and more small animals are brought there each year. We couldn't stay very long, but while we were there we saw a great dane with a healing maggot wound in its foot and a goat with tetanus. There are only 3 doctors there and the main doctor (who is the surgeon) gave us a tour around and specifically showed us around the surgery suite. I was amazed to see that at this little rinky-dink hospital they routinely used gas anesthesia and the students are made to fill out anesthesia reports during surgery (both good things, neither of which is done at the big fancy hospital in the middle of the city). The rest of the morning was filled with tour after tour of various biotechnology labs in the area that (as hard as the researchers tried) was mind-numbingly boring. Being our last full day in Chennai Ruby took us out shopping again, this time to a place called Victoria Techinical Institute where various artisans of the school sell their crafts. It was an amazing store and I went a little shopping crazy! (But I have a beautiful new Indian tablecloth)
Friday: The plan was to take a leisurely morning of saying goodbye to doctors in the clinics, handing out a few small gifts to those who had been most helpful, and taking pictures. But of course nothing goes to plan in India. We had seen the dog with the hole in its back the night before and it was MUCH worse. The maggots had eaten at the whole widening it up, and the dog had obviously lost some weight. Ana had made friends with the dog and found out where it lived. She made an attempt to catch it, but after putting a make-shift leash on it, it freaked out and she had to let it go. In the morning we staged a pseudo-intervention going to Dr. Subbiah and not leaving until someone came to do something about the condition of the dog. (You would think that at least a dog on vet school property would not be forced to slowly die). Apparently People for Animals (PFA) had been by several times, but had not been able to catch the dog. So Dr. Subbiah called them to told them to come now when Ana could catch the dog for them. Some workers from the hostel came with giant sticks and when Ana showed them where the dog slept they banged on the walls, yelled, and threw their sticks at it. (We found out later that their plan was to try to scare it off the property, not catch it). It was rather depressing and eventually Carrie yelled at them to stop and stay back so that we could approach the dog with food, and Ana got another leash around it. We waited with the dog until someone from the hospital came and Ana carried it out to the road and took an autorickshaw to the hospital. Wallace, Carrie, and I followed a few minutes behind her and by the time we got there the dog was already sedated and in the process of being treated. Dr. Ravi was very nice and did not charge us for any services. They pulled out about 2 dozen maggots from the wound, bandaged it up, gave him fluids and a shot of dewormer. Then Ana accompanied the dog to the PFA shelter where the dog would be able to stay and be looked after by a doctor daily. Of course a shelter in India is nothing like a shelter in the USA. When Ana arrived she was shown inside by the woman running the shelter, who then proceeded to throw a metal bowl at one dogs head because he was eating the remains of a dead puppy in the yard (all the dogs are just kept out in a yard). Ana put the dog in a shaded corner with a bowl of water and we are hoping for the best and will try to check back on him when we briefly return to Chennai. Sadly, this is the best thing we can do for him since PFA is the local animal welfare group. By the time Ana got back to the hospital we had given out most of our gifts to the doctors (we bought them bumper stickers that said "Real doctors treat more than one species") and so we all returned back to the hostel to nap and pack.
Ruby brought her friend over and together they brought us lots of silk sarees to try on. They had to help up put them on as we could not figure out the folding pattern to make them stay. We put jasmine flowers in our hair, bindis on our foreheads, bangles on our arms, and some of Ruby's necklaces around our necks. A photographer from the school came over and took many pictures of our group looking as Indian as possible. We then said goodbye to some of our friends we had made at the school and headed to the train station. The train left at 10pm (well, it actually left at 10:45, which is 10pm on India-time) and was not due into the Salem station until 5am (was more like 5:15am). Wallace and I stayed up pretty late talking and lamenting over the fact that we could not see the Indian countryside as we rode past. I was surprised by how comfortable I was on the sleeper train; they provided clean sheats, pillow, and a blanket. My bed folded down over seats, so you could either sit up or lie down. I got in about 3 hours of sleep before it was time to get up and get ready to deboard. From the Salem train station we were picked up by the Namakkal vet school van and took an hour long drive to Namakkal.
Namakkal is a rural town and reminds me in some ways of Blacksburg. The air here is so much cleaner than Chennai and their is infinitely less traffic. Our hostel room here is more primitive: the matress is worse, there is no hot water, and some of us don't have shower heads. But even though this is a step down, there is still A/C and beds that are not on the floor (before I leave here we will experiece places with neither of these).
Right now I am in the library of the Namakkal vet school using their internet (as far as we can tell so far we don't have wifi in our rooms), so I won't be online as often. And some of the other places we travel I won't have internet access at all. I can't believe this trip is already half-way over...
Sunday, July 18, 2010
I suck at keeping up with a blog
Monday: Amber and I had our second day in the surgery ward. In the morning we saw a dog with a giant maggot wound on its side that was being treated with turpentine (apparently very effective). Maggots are a big problem here and most wounds or incision sites need to be covered up or else they will get infested. We also saw a cat with a cat bite abscess on its head being drained (you’ve got to see this video!). The cat was brought into the clinic in its carrying case aka empty rice bag. We then headed up to the surgery theatre where we saw the end of a mammary tumor and mammary cyst removal and then the beginning of a thigh hemangioma removal. The power went on and off at least 10 times during the surgeries and the poor doctors must have been so hot underneath the gown and scrubs with no air conditioning. Also, the generator only runs the one light in the theatre, so it gets pretty dark…
Also, a reason why I’m glad I’m not a vet student in India: the professors in the US aren’t allowed to hit me. A student made the mistake of drawing fluids from the bottom of a saline drip bag instead of the top (so it made a hole and the bag kept leaking) and the professor lined up his shot and smacked him on the back of his head while his back was turned. It was like slap stick comedy in the surgery ward from our perspective (probably not as funny for the student).
When we came back from lunch we saw that the dog with the hole in his back is back. There is a stray dog that wanders around the vet school grounds (so of course we have been feeding it) and it’s got a big maggot wound on it’s back. Dr. Subbiah has called the PFA (People for Animals who collect hurt stray dogs), but “they come when they come”. So we’ll see how long it takes for something to actually happen. (Note: I am writing this on Sunday and nothing has happened as of yet).
In the afternoon we went to Parasitology and Pathology, then came back to the hostel and stayed there because of a huge thunderstorm. There is a thunderstorm here about every other day. A few people played spades, then the power went out and we had to get an electrician in at about 10pm. Luckily it only took about 30 minutes to get the power working again. I can’t imagine trying to get an electrician to come out to my house in Blacksburg at 10pm…
Tuesday: Dr. Subbiah got the visit to the Stud Farm rescheduled so we packed up early and took the hour long bus ride to the outskirts of Chennai. It is a huge farm with about 700 horses used for breeding race horses. The horses are taken care of really well and we were even allowed inside some of the paddocks with the yearlings. We were served lunch there, which was delicious and incredibly filling. The man who is in charge of the Stud Farm would watch us as we ate, and if we finished any particular dish (there were about 6 different things on our huge plates) or if you ate several bites in a row of the same thing he would order one of the servants to put more of it on your plate. You literally had to cover over your plate to avoid getting more food put on it! That evening we went out for a marathon shopping trip; I think we were out for almost 5 hours. By the end of it I was a bit poorer and exhausted. But I bought some pendants that I had set my eyes on a few days back.
Wednesday: This was the only day Amber and I had in Orthopedics/Opthomology and the doctors were kind of sad about it (usually we have 2 days per department). They kept asking us where we were the day before (no one had told the doctors we were going to the Stud Farm) and then telling us we should skip some of the conference on Thursday to come into the clinics. We saw a puppy with a completely crushed foot from being run over by a motorcycle. It was really sad to see; they were going to stabilize the puppy for a few days and them amputate the limb. Disturbing fact: I don’t think anyone gave the puppy pain meds, and in general they are rarely used here. We were also quizzed on radiographs by Dr. Ramesh who then gave us a homework assignment to tell him the purpose of the fabellae (answer: vestigial). Dr. Ayapan made the joke that “curves are good on a woman, but bad on a dog” when showing us a lab with hip dysplasia and the characteristic curving out of the hips. In the afternoon we were bored to tears in the biotechnology department, oddly enough by being shown rabies and leptospirosis under a microscope and how to prepare the slides. I can 100% conclude that research is not my thing.
When we got back that evening and picked at dinner (as we usually do since we are so full from all the food during the day) we got somewhat scolded by Ram for not eating enough. It is sort of a cultural thing here to finish all the food you are given (even if it means stuffing yourself to the brim) because there are so many other people who don’t have enough food. Ram had initially tried giving our leftover food away to homeless people, but then they didn’t understand on the days where he didn’t have food to give them.
At 7pm Carrie and I went to the outdoor yoga class held everyday on the basketball court for the students here. The instructor was really nice and welcomed us in with open arms. The whole class was in English (I’m not sure if that’s normal, or just for our benefit) so it was pretty easy to follow along. It was more of a cleansing yoga class rather than an exercise class like I’m used to at home. At the end she gave us her business card and told us we should bring the whole group (not sure if that will happen).
Thursday and Friday: We spent both days attending the International Seminar on Stem Cell Research hosted by the Madras Veterinary College. It. Was. Miserable. No air conditioning, lots of speakers talking about research, bla bla bla. There were a few speakers who were alright (we actually had 3 professors from VT speak including Dr. Subbiah), but all in all I tended to zone out. No AC on the first day nearly killed me and I had to skip out on about 2 hours of the afternoon to go to the hostel and rest in the AC. You would not believe how exhausted you can get just from sitting in 95 degree heat for 5 hours. Friday night we were taken out to a very expensive restaurant on the top floor of a 5 star hotel by one of the speakers from the seminar (his company in Japan sponsored the dinner). There was tons of food brought around by servers (again, they just put food on your plate until you beg them to stop) and wine/beer and a traditional Indian dessert was had by all.
Saturday: A day to sleep in! I took full advantage of this and didn’t get out of bed until 12:45. At 2 we left for the American Consulate where we had been invited for a pool party (the acting ambassador had been at the seminar on stem cell research and we met him). We had a fun time swimming and eating American style food (hambergers, hot dogs, Pizza Hut pizza, rice krispy treats, etc.) and got to meet many other Americans living in Chennai (mostly families of consulate workers). We got back late and I had a quick dinner before going with Dr. Subbiah and Amber to take Jennifer back to the hospital. She had been pretty sick the last few days (fever, flu like symptoms, etc.) and had been on antibiotics, but they weren’t really helping. The doctor thinks she has a virus and gave her fluids and some different medications. We didn’t get back to the hostel until about 1am. Today (Sunday) she is feeling a little better although still sick. The rest of us are desperately hoping to avoid this fate…
Sunday: Another fun filled day of non-vet related activities. 4 students from the vet school (all students getting their masters or PhD in surgery) came to pick us up around 11am and we went to St. Thomas’ Church, St. Thomas’ Shrine, and a Hindu temple. At St. Thomas (one of the twelve apostles) is actually buried in the basement of the church and we were able to go see his burial place (although we weren’t allowed to take pictures). St. Thomas’ Shrine was a little drive away and up on a hill with an amazing view of the whole city of Chennai. A complete 360 degree panorama of urban life. To see the other religious half of India we visited a Hindu temple and again saw the holy men in their little alcoves blessing people who came up to pray. We all got bindis (the dots of the forehead) and so took group photos like good American tourists. The students also took us out to lunch where we had the best Indian food any of us have had so far on the trip (including the ridiculously expensive, posh restaurant we went to on Friday). We all split butter naan (bread), palak paneer (cottage cheese cubes in spinach), some other type of paneer, and a matter dish (peas). I really wish this was the type of food they served us at the hostel, although if it was I would come back to the US having gained 20 pounds. We had a brief stop back at the hostel and then back out with the students (and joined by the Subbiahs) to the movies. We saw a big hit movie here right now called Raavanan: an epic type plot line based on an old Indian myth. The whole movie was in Tamil (the language of Southern India), so we got the main plot points translated for us along the way. The whole experience was a lot of fun and the cinematography was beautiful. All of us really enjoyed the movie, although the students and the Subbiahs all didn’t (I guess the dialogue wasn’t so great…). When I get home I’m going to try to get it on DVD with subtitles. Now to rest up to begin another week back in clinics!
Also, a reason why I’m glad I’m not a vet student in India: the professors in the US aren’t allowed to hit me. A student made the mistake of drawing fluids from the bottom of a saline drip bag instead of the top (so it made a hole and the bag kept leaking) and the professor lined up his shot and smacked him on the back of his head while his back was turned. It was like slap stick comedy in the surgery ward from our perspective (probably not as funny for the student).
When we came back from lunch we saw that the dog with the hole in his back is back. There is a stray dog that wanders around the vet school grounds (so of course we have been feeding it) and it’s got a big maggot wound on it’s back. Dr. Subbiah has called the PFA (People for Animals who collect hurt stray dogs), but “they come when they come”. So we’ll see how long it takes for something to actually happen. (Note: I am writing this on Sunday and nothing has happened as of yet).
In the afternoon we went to Parasitology and Pathology, then came back to the hostel and stayed there because of a huge thunderstorm. There is a thunderstorm here about every other day. A few people played spades, then the power went out and we had to get an electrician in at about 10pm. Luckily it only took about 30 minutes to get the power working again. I can’t imagine trying to get an electrician to come out to my house in Blacksburg at 10pm…
Tuesday: Dr. Subbiah got the visit to the Stud Farm rescheduled so we packed up early and took the hour long bus ride to the outskirts of Chennai. It is a huge farm with about 700 horses used for breeding race horses. The horses are taken care of really well and we were even allowed inside some of the paddocks with the yearlings. We were served lunch there, which was delicious and incredibly filling. The man who is in charge of the Stud Farm would watch us as we ate, and if we finished any particular dish (there were about 6 different things on our huge plates) or if you ate several bites in a row of the same thing he would order one of the servants to put more of it on your plate. You literally had to cover over your plate to avoid getting more food put on it! That evening we went out for a marathon shopping trip; I think we were out for almost 5 hours. By the end of it I was a bit poorer and exhausted. But I bought some pendants that I had set my eyes on a few days back.
Wednesday: This was the only day Amber and I had in Orthopedics/Opthomology and the doctors were kind of sad about it (usually we have 2 days per department). They kept asking us where we were the day before (no one had told the doctors we were going to the Stud Farm) and then telling us we should skip some of the conference on Thursday to come into the clinics. We saw a puppy with a completely crushed foot from being run over by a motorcycle. It was really sad to see; they were going to stabilize the puppy for a few days and them amputate the limb. Disturbing fact: I don’t think anyone gave the puppy pain meds, and in general they are rarely used here. We were also quizzed on radiographs by Dr. Ramesh who then gave us a homework assignment to tell him the purpose of the fabellae (answer: vestigial). Dr. Ayapan made the joke that “curves are good on a woman, but bad on a dog” when showing us a lab with hip dysplasia and the characteristic curving out of the hips. In the afternoon we were bored to tears in the biotechnology department, oddly enough by being shown rabies and leptospirosis under a microscope and how to prepare the slides. I can 100% conclude that research is not my thing.
When we got back that evening and picked at dinner (as we usually do since we are so full from all the food during the day) we got somewhat scolded by Ram for not eating enough. It is sort of a cultural thing here to finish all the food you are given (even if it means stuffing yourself to the brim) because there are so many other people who don’t have enough food. Ram had initially tried giving our leftover food away to homeless people, but then they didn’t understand on the days where he didn’t have food to give them.
At 7pm Carrie and I went to the outdoor yoga class held everyday on the basketball court for the students here. The instructor was really nice and welcomed us in with open arms. The whole class was in English (I’m not sure if that’s normal, or just for our benefit) so it was pretty easy to follow along. It was more of a cleansing yoga class rather than an exercise class like I’m used to at home. At the end she gave us her business card and told us we should bring the whole group (not sure if that will happen).
Thursday and Friday: We spent both days attending the International Seminar on Stem Cell Research hosted by the Madras Veterinary College. It. Was. Miserable. No air conditioning, lots of speakers talking about research, bla bla bla. There were a few speakers who were alright (we actually had 3 professors from VT speak including Dr. Subbiah), but all in all I tended to zone out. No AC on the first day nearly killed me and I had to skip out on about 2 hours of the afternoon to go to the hostel and rest in the AC. You would not believe how exhausted you can get just from sitting in 95 degree heat for 5 hours. Friday night we were taken out to a very expensive restaurant on the top floor of a 5 star hotel by one of the speakers from the seminar (his company in Japan sponsored the dinner). There was tons of food brought around by servers (again, they just put food on your plate until you beg them to stop) and wine/beer and a traditional Indian dessert was had by all.
Saturday: A day to sleep in! I took full advantage of this and didn’t get out of bed until 12:45. At 2 we left for the American Consulate where we had been invited for a pool party (the acting ambassador had been at the seminar on stem cell research and we met him). We had a fun time swimming and eating American style food (hambergers, hot dogs, Pizza Hut pizza, rice krispy treats, etc.) and got to meet many other Americans living in Chennai (mostly families of consulate workers). We got back late and I had a quick dinner before going with Dr. Subbiah and Amber to take Jennifer back to the hospital. She had been pretty sick the last few days (fever, flu like symptoms, etc.) and had been on antibiotics, but they weren’t really helping. The doctor thinks she has a virus and gave her fluids and some different medications. We didn’t get back to the hostel until about 1am. Today (Sunday) she is feeling a little better although still sick. The rest of us are desperately hoping to avoid this fate…
Sunday: Another fun filled day of non-vet related activities. 4 students from the vet school (all students getting their masters or PhD in surgery) came to pick us up around 11am and we went to St. Thomas’ Church, St. Thomas’ Shrine, and a Hindu temple. At St. Thomas (one of the twelve apostles) is actually buried in the basement of the church and we were able to go see his burial place (although we weren’t allowed to take pictures). St. Thomas’ Shrine was a little drive away and up on a hill with an amazing view of the whole city of Chennai. A complete 360 degree panorama of urban life. To see the other religious half of India we visited a Hindu temple and again saw the holy men in their little alcoves blessing people who came up to pray. We all got bindis (the dots of the forehead) and so took group photos like good American tourists. The students also took us out to lunch where we had the best Indian food any of us have had so far on the trip (including the ridiculously expensive, posh restaurant we went to on Friday). We all split butter naan (bread), palak paneer (cottage cheese cubes in spinach), some other type of paneer, and a matter dish (peas). I really wish this was the type of food they served us at the hostel, although if it was I would come back to the US having gained 20 pounds. We had a brief stop back at the hostel and then back out with the students (and joined by the Subbiahs) to the movies. We saw a big hit movie here right now called Raavanan: an epic type plot line based on an old Indian myth. The whole movie was in Tamil (the language of Southern India), so we got the main plot points translated for us along the way. The whole experience was a lot of fun and the cinematography was beautiful. All of us really enjoyed the movie, although the students and the Subbiahs all didn’t (I guess the dialogue wasn’t so great…). When I get home I’m going to try to get it on DVD with subtitles. Now to rest up to begin another week back in clinics!
Monday, July 12, 2010
A Busy Weekend
Friday afternoon we were scheduled to go to Parasitology for one hour and then to a lecture. The head of the Parasitology Dept. was very eager to have us and very excited to show us things (similar to the head of the Pathology Dept.). There were cases and cases of glass jars holding different specimens; some of which we got to take out and examine in petri dishes. We were also shown some parasites under the microscope. It was the same story as happened in pathology the other day where we had to leave after an hour, but he was really sad to see us go and had brought out many more things to show us. One hour is just not enough when you are working on India time.
The lecture in the afternoon was supposed to go from 3-4, so of course it started around 3:20. We were confused why we were instructed to be there until we found out that the speaker was a classmate of some very high up people at the school (again, politics). A combination of Friday afternoon and a lecture on genetics literally put some of us to sleep. I managed to keep my eyes open, but I couldn’t tell you a summary of that lecture if my life depended on it. It didn’t end until about 4:30 and then we were all served chai afterwards. Chai is served all the time here for guests and get-togethers even when it is 100 degrees. We were also served some little puffed pastries filled with peppercorns and onions, then fried, and served with a spicy sauce made from coconut. We saw the pathologist’s cat again, who was very uninterested in us until she saw the pastries and then yowled at most of the staff. They seemed used to it and ignored her, apparently she gets fed some other time. The cats name is Pepsi (there used to be another cat named Coke) and they joke that she is a virgin cat since they haven’t spayed her, but she has never had kittens.
In the evening I went to go check out the gym, which Ram (our housekeeper) showed me to. It was a pretty run down building with some sort of court on the bottom floor (it was like a small tennis court), some ping pong tables upstairs, and a few weight machines that look like they haven’t been touched in 20 years. So instead of using the gym I figured out skype that night.
Saturday morning we were a bit bummed to be back in the clinics. We were supposed to be going to a Stud Farm for horses, but somehow scheduling got messed up and the farm didn’t know we were coming, so we couldn’t go. Since it was an extra day in the clinic we could just go to any department we wanted, so Amber and I went to small animal medicine again. But Dr. Theliogar wasn’t there and the doctors that were there were not very interested in explaining things to us. We wandered around different departments seeing if there were any interesting cases of any of the “good” doctors (the ones that don’t mind repeating everything to us in English), but we were out of luck. Most of us had a mini-mutiny and at about 10am got back on the van and came home. Valerie and Wallace were in Dermatology with Dr. Nagarajan so they stayed in the hospital.
When we came back to our hostel the internet still wasn’t working, so a few of us went to restart the wireless (which is located at the entrance to the guest house where Dr. Subbiah is staying). Dr. Subbiah and Ruby were sitting in the entrance room, and we had a brief moment where we thought we’d be in trouble…but it was all fine. And it turned out the internet wasn’t working because the power was out. Note about India: electricity is never reliable. It goes out ALL the time. And while most places have generators for the essentials; things like air conditioning and internet do not count as essentials. The Subbiahs invited us to go to a store they had seen a sign for: Cotton Expo. According to the sign it had huge discounts on everything. The store was just down the street from our hostel so we walked, and survived crossing the street. You have to take your shoes off before entering the main part of the store (there are a lot of people here that just don’t have shoes and many places where shoes are not allowed). The store reminded me of a mix between an antique shop and a goodwill store at home. Lots of small rooms connected to one another, bins of clothing, kind of dusty. We ended up in the fabric room where there were shelves to the ceiling of fabric packages (they package together enough fabric to make a salwar – long tunic top, baggy pants, and a scarf) and mattresses on the floor. They must have pulled down at least 50 packages for different people to look at. Ruby bought 3 salwars, Jennifer got 2, Erin got a top made, and Carrie got a skirt made. We were probably there for about 2 hours and we were brought chai at some point (again, everyone serves chai for everything). When we were getting ready to leave it was pouring and we initially called our driver to come pick us up, but then the shop owner offered to drive us home. He was very nice and was a fashion designer who turned down some opportunities to go study in the USA and France to stay here with his family.
In the afternoon we were scheduled to go to a necropsy of a cow with suspected Johne’s Disease (it had come up positive in a herd check). Of course it didn’t start for almost an hour after it was supposed to, but luckily it didn’t take very long (maybe 45 minutes). We got to see the classic thickening and folding of the intestinal wall and managed to keep our shoes relatively blood free.
2 students had either volunteered or been forced to take us out that evening and after a quick change (needed post-necropsy) we all got on the bus and took a long drive through the city. They took us to a very old Hindu temple devoted to the 8 incarnations of Lakshmi. We left our shoes on the van and walked through the temple. It was all made of stone with many narrow, windy passageways that randomly had cut-outs in the wall with statues of Lakshmi. At each of these cut-outs was a holy man who would bless you if you wanted. We were all blessed for education with brainpower and willpower. Hopefully that will come in handy next year. After the temple we went to a beach (not the same one as before, but it looked very similar) and hung out near the shore for a while. It’s amazing how much sand there is at the beach, and because there is so much shore there are so many activities set up right on the beach (carnival games, food stands, vendors, etc.). The students were willing to take us out to the mall after the beach, but we were not really in the mood to shop (except Ana) and came back to the hostel. Our dinner that evening was very exciting for me as we had several bags of different types of fruit. We ate oranges, bananas, cantaloupe, mango, plums, dates, and then tried to figure out how to eat a guava. Sometimes the food here is so different that we have to go through some trouble trying to figure out how to eat it.
On Sunday we got to sleep in! We planned to leave for Dakshina Chitra at 9:30 and I was able to sleep in until 7:40am (every other day I get up at 6am). Dakshina Chitra is an outdoor cultural exhibit showing how different parts of India live. They have several houses built to display the diverse cultures in India with informative exhibits inside and the grounds have local artisans, etc. Several people got their palms read and their fortunes told by a parrot (the parrot picks a card, and then his owner reads your fortune out of a book). We met a glass artisan who made several glass figurines right in front of us; he could make lots of types of animals and took most of our requests. We started to see the puppet show (shadow puppets), but then the power went out and they had to postpone the show.
We had lunch at the little restaurant inside Dakshina Chitra and waited extra time to get a table inside with air conditioning…and then the power went out (seriously, this happens all the time in India). We all got “mini meals” of white rice, vegetables in a spicy sauce, some tumeric potatoes, and then a dessert of sweet lentil/cashew soup (I think it was called Pasai? I need to find a recipe as it was very good). We did some shopping after lunch at the vendors there and each of us is slowly improving at bartering. Ruby and Jennifer are especially good at it. Jennifer actually had a vendor follow us all the way to the exit of Dakshina Chitra to finally accept her offer of 500 rupees for a piece of artwork that was originally 950.
Dakshina Chitra was about an hour or so driving from our hostel and on the way back we stopped twice: once for chai (again, piping hot chai in a piping hot climate) and once for ice cream (a more appropriate snack). For dinner we had a really delicious paneer dish (I think it was a masala); by far the best food I think I’ve had since I’ve been here. They made us naan too, but it doesn’t quite taste like the naan we get at home.
1 week down, 5 to go.
The lecture in the afternoon was supposed to go from 3-4, so of course it started around 3:20. We were confused why we were instructed to be there until we found out that the speaker was a classmate of some very high up people at the school (again, politics). A combination of Friday afternoon and a lecture on genetics literally put some of us to sleep. I managed to keep my eyes open, but I couldn’t tell you a summary of that lecture if my life depended on it. It didn’t end until about 4:30 and then we were all served chai afterwards. Chai is served all the time here for guests and get-togethers even when it is 100 degrees. We were also served some little puffed pastries filled with peppercorns and onions, then fried, and served with a spicy sauce made from coconut. We saw the pathologist’s cat again, who was very uninterested in us until she saw the pastries and then yowled at most of the staff. They seemed used to it and ignored her, apparently she gets fed some other time. The cats name is Pepsi (there used to be another cat named Coke) and they joke that she is a virgin cat since they haven’t spayed her, but she has never had kittens.
In the evening I went to go check out the gym, which Ram (our housekeeper) showed me to. It was a pretty run down building with some sort of court on the bottom floor (it was like a small tennis court), some ping pong tables upstairs, and a few weight machines that look like they haven’t been touched in 20 years. So instead of using the gym I figured out skype that night.
Saturday morning we were a bit bummed to be back in the clinics. We were supposed to be going to a Stud Farm for horses, but somehow scheduling got messed up and the farm didn’t know we were coming, so we couldn’t go. Since it was an extra day in the clinic we could just go to any department we wanted, so Amber and I went to small animal medicine again. But Dr. Theliogar wasn’t there and the doctors that were there were not very interested in explaining things to us. We wandered around different departments seeing if there were any interesting cases of any of the “good” doctors (the ones that don’t mind repeating everything to us in English), but we were out of luck. Most of us had a mini-mutiny and at about 10am got back on the van and came home. Valerie and Wallace were in Dermatology with Dr. Nagarajan so they stayed in the hospital.
When we came back to our hostel the internet still wasn’t working, so a few of us went to restart the wireless (which is located at the entrance to the guest house where Dr. Subbiah is staying). Dr. Subbiah and Ruby were sitting in the entrance room, and we had a brief moment where we thought we’d be in trouble…but it was all fine. And it turned out the internet wasn’t working because the power was out. Note about India: electricity is never reliable. It goes out ALL the time. And while most places have generators for the essentials; things like air conditioning and internet do not count as essentials. The Subbiahs invited us to go to a store they had seen a sign for: Cotton Expo. According to the sign it had huge discounts on everything. The store was just down the street from our hostel so we walked, and survived crossing the street. You have to take your shoes off before entering the main part of the store (there are a lot of people here that just don’t have shoes and many places where shoes are not allowed). The store reminded me of a mix between an antique shop and a goodwill store at home. Lots of small rooms connected to one another, bins of clothing, kind of dusty. We ended up in the fabric room where there were shelves to the ceiling of fabric packages (they package together enough fabric to make a salwar – long tunic top, baggy pants, and a scarf) and mattresses on the floor. They must have pulled down at least 50 packages for different people to look at. Ruby bought 3 salwars, Jennifer got 2, Erin got a top made, and Carrie got a skirt made. We were probably there for about 2 hours and we were brought chai at some point (again, everyone serves chai for everything). When we were getting ready to leave it was pouring and we initially called our driver to come pick us up, but then the shop owner offered to drive us home. He was very nice and was a fashion designer who turned down some opportunities to go study in the USA and France to stay here with his family.
In the afternoon we were scheduled to go to a necropsy of a cow with suspected Johne’s Disease (it had come up positive in a herd check). Of course it didn’t start for almost an hour after it was supposed to, but luckily it didn’t take very long (maybe 45 minutes). We got to see the classic thickening and folding of the intestinal wall and managed to keep our shoes relatively blood free.
2 students had either volunteered or been forced to take us out that evening and after a quick change (needed post-necropsy) we all got on the bus and took a long drive through the city. They took us to a very old Hindu temple devoted to the 8 incarnations of Lakshmi. We left our shoes on the van and walked through the temple. It was all made of stone with many narrow, windy passageways that randomly had cut-outs in the wall with statues of Lakshmi. At each of these cut-outs was a holy man who would bless you if you wanted. We were all blessed for education with brainpower and willpower. Hopefully that will come in handy next year. After the temple we went to a beach (not the same one as before, but it looked very similar) and hung out near the shore for a while. It’s amazing how much sand there is at the beach, and because there is so much shore there are so many activities set up right on the beach (carnival games, food stands, vendors, etc.). The students were willing to take us out to the mall after the beach, but we were not really in the mood to shop (except Ana) and came back to the hostel. Our dinner that evening was very exciting for me as we had several bags of different types of fruit. We ate oranges, bananas, cantaloupe, mango, plums, dates, and then tried to figure out how to eat a guava. Sometimes the food here is so different that we have to go through some trouble trying to figure out how to eat it.
On Sunday we got to sleep in! We planned to leave for Dakshina Chitra at 9:30 and I was able to sleep in until 7:40am (every other day I get up at 6am). Dakshina Chitra is an outdoor cultural exhibit showing how different parts of India live. They have several houses built to display the diverse cultures in India with informative exhibits inside and the grounds have local artisans, etc. Several people got their palms read and their fortunes told by a parrot (the parrot picks a card, and then his owner reads your fortune out of a book). We met a glass artisan who made several glass figurines right in front of us; he could make lots of types of animals and took most of our requests. We started to see the puppet show (shadow puppets), but then the power went out and they had to postpone the show.
We had lunch at the little restaurant inside Dakshina Chitra and waited extra time to get a table inside with air conditioning…and then the power went out (seriously, this happens all the time in India). We all got “mini meals” of white rice, vegetables in a spicy sauce, some tumeric potatoes, and then a dessert of sweet lentil/cashew soup (I think it was called Pasai? I need to find a recipe as it was very good). We did some shopping after lunch at the vendors there and each of us is slowly improving at bartering. Ruby and Jennifer are especially good at it. Jennifer actually had a vendor follow us all the way to the exit of Dakshina Chitra to finally accept her offer of 500 rupees for a piece of artwork that was originally 950.
Dakshina Chitra was about an hour or so driving from our hostel and on the way back we stopped twice: once for chai (again, piping hot chai in a piping hot climate) and once for ice cream (a more appropriate snack). For dinner we had a really delicious paneer dish (I think it was a masala); by far the best food I think I’ve had since I’ve been here. They made us naan too, but it doesn’t quite taste like the naan we get at home.
1 week down, 5 to go.
Friday, July 9, 2010
The End of Week One
Note from the previous day in Dermatology: everything gets an injection! Dr. Nagarajan says that if they don’t give an injection the owners will ask why they aren’t getting one. Most of the dogs just get a Vitamin A, D, and E mixture. This reminds me of stories from James Herriot.
On Thursday Dermatology was very slow; the whole hospital was very slow. It had been pouring in the morning and the rain keeps clients away since not very many have cars. We have to make sure to not wear sandals today to avoid getting Lepto. Instead of staying in Derm, Amber and I followed a case of massive abdominal edema. The dog looked terrible; it was just laying on the table using all it’s energy to breath against all the fluid build-up. We saw it get an ECG (it had junctional VPCs), an echocardiogram (pretty much everything was wrong with the heart…), and an abdominal ultrasound. It had congestive heart failure and even though we didn’t follow the case to the end, that dog was on its way out. When we went back to Derm Dr. Nagarajan was being filmed in a program for a kids TV show. Apparently a boy wrote into the TV station saying he wanted to be a veterinarian and wanted to know how; so the TV program set up some filming in the hospital.
As we were about to leave for lunch Ana and Carrie invited us to join them on an invitation for coffee and sweets. 2 students from Oman were working with them in Orthopedics in the morning and invited our group. They were very nice and made us coffee and served dates and tea biscuits. However, we did feel pretty stupid when we asked where they were from, they said Oman, and we asked where that was in India… I need to brush up on my geography.
Thursday morning (5 days into our trip) marks the first episode of getting sick. Jennifer unfortunately was the worst; high fever and not feeling well. She took Thursday off to rest. And the rest of us were not feeling our best, but it seems to have passed.
Just a general observation about India: everything is dirty. I noticed it a lot at the beginning, then stopped, but if you sit down and just take in your surroundings it hits you. The vast majority of everything is old and worn. It all looks like it’s remnants from the 1970’s (and probably is). But that’s the norm here. If any of these rooms or buildings were picked up and transferred to the USA it would look so out of place and run down. The standards here are just at a different level.
When we arrived at the hospital Thursday morning there was a dog who was very sick laying down on the side of the front entrance stairs. It was behind some motorcycles and at first I thought it was someone’s dog and he just was checking in still. But others had seen it at the hospital (however inside) the day before, with no one with it. He was a beautiful Doberman, but he obviously had Distemper. His eyes were sunken and he had the typical muscle twitching. Dr. Subbiah made some phone calls and then a woman (who I’m pretty sure works at the hospital) called some other people and stayed with the dog. It still didn’t get picked up for hours later. I didn’t take a picture because honestly I wish I could forget that poor dog’s face; his eyes just looked sad. I can only hope he was so far gone that even though he was conscious he wasn’t really feeling anything. The amount of Distemper here is emotionally overwhelming.
Thursday afternoon we were told to go to the orthopedics theater (they call the rooms they do surgery in “theaters”) to watch an external fixator be placed. The surgery had started at 11:30 and we didn’t arrive until almost 2:30, so it was basically over. But we got to see them do the final adjustments and place the bandage. The dog had broken its front leg very badly and an external fixator is used to help hold the bones in the correct place while they heal. They only just started using external fixators here 8 years ago; up until then everything was fixed with plaster of paris. (We have been using external fixators in the USA for decades).
We got to come home early (which was a relief to all) and were soon after taken out shopping with Ruby. She took us to a big mall in Chennai, which was a lot of fun and much less crowded than the department store. I mainly window shopped and mentally noted what might be best for me to come back and get later. The only thing I did get was some coconut macaroon cookies from a place called Cookie Man and advertised itself as having authentic Australian cookies, whatever that means. Ruby also bought us all ice cream or juice (I got a pineapple/mango smoothie).
I managed to stay up until about 11:30pm Thursday night (better than crashing by 9pm most other nights), but that may have contributed to me sleeping through my 6am alarm. Luckily, the power went out at about 6am, so at 6:30 the room was rather hot and I woke up. Amber and I started on small animal surgery this morning, and it was quite a busy day (they do the majority of their surgeries on MWF). We initially met and observed a man (named Krishna) and his dog who had a histiocytoma. The tumor was preventing normal urination and so it had to have its bladder expressed by a metal catheter. I would say about 1.5 liters of urine came out of this dog. It must have felt so much better when it went home. The owner was very nice and spoke to us for a while. He spoke English very well and apparently his daughter lives in LA. He had a metal name tag on his dog’s collar which he showed off proudly (his daughter sent it from the USA, since they don’t have metal dog tags here).
At around 9am we went to the surgery theater and watched 6 different surgeries within 3 hours. They had 2 table side by side and 2 doctors. One doctor did 2 of the surgeries, and the other did 4. We saw a spay on a stray cat (they used a right side technique instead of midline so that the cat couldn’t mess with the stitches as easily), a closed pyometra removal (infected uterus; essentially it is just a very difficult spay), a cryptorchid neuter (when one testicle has not descended, so they have to find and remove one of them from the abdomen), a c-section on 2 dead kittens (but they didn’t spay the cat at the same time), a prolapsed perineum (push back in, sew up), and an elbow hygroma (an inflammation of the bursa/sac. It gets filled with fluid. It literally exploded all over the surgeon during removal).
Right now is our lunch break (12-2) and then we are going to parasitology and some lecture in the afternoon. It has been a long week, but since we don’t get weekends off there is no rest for the weary.
On Thursday Dermatology was very slow; the whole hospital was very slow. It had been pouring in the morning and the rain keeps clients away since not very many have cars. We have to make sure to not wear sandals today to avoid getting Lepto. Instead of staying in Derm, Amber and I followed a case of massive abdominal edema. The dog looked terrible; it was just laying on the table using all it’s energy to breath against all the fluid build-up. We saw it get an ECG (it had junctional VPCs), an echocardiogram (pretty much everything was wrong with the heart…), and an abdominal ultrasound. It had congestive heart failure and even though we didn’t follow the case to the end, that dog was on its way out. When we went back to Derm Dr. Nagarajan was being filmed in a program for a kids TV show. Apparently a boy wrote into the TV station saying he wanted to be a veterinarian and wanted to know how; so the TV program set up some filming in the hospital.
As we were about to leave for lunch Ana and Carrie invited us to join them on an invitation for coffee and sweets. 2 students from Oman were working with them in Orthopedics in the morning and invited our group. They were very nice and made us coffee and served dates and tea biscuits. However, we did feel pretty stupid when we asked where they were from, they said Oman, and we asked where that was in India… I need to brush up on my geography.
Thursday morning (5 days into our trip) marks the first episode of getting sick. Jennifer unfortunately was the worst; high fever and not feeling well. She took Thursday off to rest. And the rest of us were not feeling our best, but it seems to have passed.
Just a general observation about India: everything is dirty. I noticed it a lot at the beginning, then stopped, but if you sit down and just take in your surroundings it hits you. The vast majority of everything is old and worn. It all looks like it’s remnants from the 1970’s (and probably is). But that’s the norm here. If any of these rooms or buildings were picked up and transferred to the USA it would look so out of place and run down. The standards here are just at a different level.
When we arrived at the hospital Thursday morning there was a dog who was very sick laying down on the side of the front entrance stairs. It was behind some motorcycles and at first I thought it was someone’s dog and he just was checking in still. But others had seen it at the hospital (however inside) the day before, with no one with it. He was a beautiful Doberman, but he obviously had Distemper. His eyes were sunken and he had the typical muscle twitching. Dr. Subbiah made some phone calls and then a woman (who I’m pretty sure works at the hospital) called some other people and stayed with the dog. It still didn’t get picked up for hours later. I didn’t take a picture because honestly I wish I could forget that poor dog’s face; his eyes just looked sad. I can only hope he was so far gone that even though he was conscious he wasn’t really feeling anything. The amount of Distemper here is emotionally overwhelming.
Thursday afternoon we were told to go to the orthopedics theater (they call the rooms they do surgery in “theaters”) to watch an external fixator be placed. The surgery had started at 11:30 and we didn’t arrive until almost 2:30, so it was basically over. But we got to see them do the final adjustments and place the bandage. The dog had broken its front leg very badly and an external fixator is used to help hold the bones in the correct place while they heal. They only just started using external fixators here 8 years ago; up until then everything was fixed with plaster of paris. (We have been using external fixators in the USA for decades).
We got to come home early (which was a relief to all) and were soon after taken out shopping with Ruby. She took us to a big mall in Chennai, which was a lot of fun and much less crowded than the department store. I mainly window shopped and mentally noted what might be best for me to come back and get later. The only thing I did get was some coconut macaroon cookies from a place called Cookie Man and advertised itself as having authentic Australian cookies, whatever that means. Ruby also bought us all ice cream or juice (I got a pineapple/mango smoothie).
I managed to stay up until about 11:30pm Thursday night (better than crashing by 9pm most other nights), but that may have contributed to me sleeping through my 6am alarm. Luckily, the power went out at about 6am, so at 6:30 the room was rather hot and I woke up. Amber and I started on small animal surgery this morning, and it was quite a busy day (they do the majority of their surgeries on MWF). We initially met and observed a man (named Krishna) and his dog who had a histiocytoma. The tumor was preventing normal urination and so it had to have its bladder expressed by a metal catheter. I would say about 1.5 liters of urine came out of this dog. It must have felt so much better when it went home. The owner was very nice and spoke to us for a while. He spoke English very well and apparently his daughter lives in LA. He had a metal name tag on his dog’s collar which he showed off proudly (his daughter sent it from the USA, since they don’t have metal dog tags here).
At around 9am we went to the surgery theater and watched 6 different surgeries within 3 hours. They had 2 table side by side and 2 doctors. One doctor did 2 of the surgeries, and the other did 4. We saw a spay on a stray cat (they used a right side technique instead of midline so that the cat couldn’t mess with the stitches as easily), a closed pyometra removal (infected uterus; essentially it is just a very difficult spay), a cryptorchid neuter (when one testicle has not descended, so they have to find and remove one of them from the abdomen), a c-section on 2 dead kittens (but they didn’t spay the cat at the same time), a prolapsed perineum (push back in, sew up), and an elbow hygroma (an inflammation of the bursa/sac. It gets filled with fluid. It literally exploded all over the surgeon during removal).
Right now is our lunch break (12-2) and then we are going to parasitology and some lecture in the afternoon. It has been a long week, but since we don’t get weekends off there is no rest for the weary.
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