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."