In Patti we had this yoga instructor named Tanmay who almost convinced me on the last day that he was married and had two kids and was 27 years old... well he was actually 23 and got this joking manner probably from hanging around Dr. Paul so much.
Every morning we would wake up at around 6am and do yoga from 6am to 7am, the warm up was much different from any that I have done in the states, but the yoga positions themselves were basically the same, and I learned a few new ones as well. Our group in general was not very flexible so watching them would make me laugh and espeically on the mornings when it had been difficult to wake up, we would all zone out sometimes, which made it even funnier :) Tanmay did tell me however he was surprised by my flexibility, just a little flattering. After yoga in the mornings we would usually shower and eat breakfast, zone out, because the yoga wouldn't wake us up... we were all still exhausted from Dharamsala. (I also forgot to mention our shower and bathroom had cockroaches in it... I never saw them, but everyone else did)
Meditation however was another matter... we would do this in the afternoons from 6pm - 7pm. Our yoga and meditation master Tanmay is a very happy person and was always laughing about everything thus when we had to do meditation one day I couldn't help but screw things up...
We had just started our breathing exercises and I opened my eyes to see if we had actually started (sometimes it was difficult to know what was going on ) when I opened my eyes I saw Tanmay staring back at me (looking a little furious?! or he maybe was being funny... but I started cracking up. That was the end of that meditation lesson, we totally screwed it up... all four of us (Sarah, Katie, Alan, and myself) couldn't stop laughing, I was even crying I was laughing so hard! Tanmay had no idea what had gotten into us, and neither did we! We were supposed to be concentrating and letting go of our mind and body, and we were laughing up a storm! So Tanmay had us do laughing meditation... aka, laugh for 15 minutes straight... well thats harder to do than you think, even if you are already laughing hard. After laughing meditation, which was also a bust, we were somewhat punished by being told to lay down for 15 minutes, but then Tanmey just left us, and went up to the top of a near by hill and watched us for an extra fifteen minutes! We had no idea what was going on and eventually the bugs got to us and we all got up, afterwards Tanmay told us he didn't know why we kept laying there... we never got the hint to get up... hence why we thought it was punishment, Alan said he was laughing on top of the hill when he looked up after a half and hour of laying on the grass being eaten by bugs... haha
Our last meditation session we did a jibberish meditation and we also started laughing, but Katie and I were partners and we recovered and did the whole 15 minutes of jibberish, it was insane! Try pretending to speak Chinese or some other made up language, you will feel like a fool and a little funny for almost making fun of other languages you don't understand, crazy! Sarah and Alan were partners for this and they had to be separated because they kept saying crazy things and laughing like "yaba daba doo" and "chimichanga".
Things were just too funny with Tanmay, on the last day he kept calling me "bacha" which means child in Hindi, but I would tell him right back that he had a bacha in side of him, and Dr.Paul thought that was funny and suggested that we do an ultrasound because Tanmay was pregnant! Oh Dr. Paul...
We asked Tanmay if we were the worst meditation group ever and he just laughed, so that was a resounding yes!!! Getting eaten by the bugs at the end of meditation was probably the highlight in talking about meditation with our group, I guess other groups had had revelations and we were just sitting there scratching up a storm... we were the worst meditaiton group ever!!!!!
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Dr.Paul and his Leopards
Dr. Paul has quite the sense of humor...
Did I forget to mention that our living area was caged in?! Oh and padlocked everynight?! This I thought initially was to keep out people trying to steal things and small animals getting into our food, but Dr. Paul really played it up.
Our first day there, Katie, my clinic partner and very close friend now, wanted to go for a run, Dr. Paul told her to stay on the road and not go very far because of leopards! Throughout the week he played it up, convincing everyone (especially myself) that the leopards were everywhere and going to attack, he even would tell the villagers to talk to us about the leopards and their attacks! There was one old man that was especially colorful in telling us about the leopards becuase he didn't speak English so he only used hand motions, I have a great video of it which I hope to post later so stay tuned!
One night we laid out in our courtyard and watched the stars, becuase one of my other friends in our group (Sarah) had never seen a shooting star! Well she saw one and we had a very relaxing night just relaxing under the Indian sky, but of course Dr. Paul had to do something... Just as we stopped talking about leopards and how they could jump down and eat us all in our little courtyard, Dr. Paul grabbed my leg and I jumped and screamed! That night I had a dream about a leopard with Dr. Paul's face on it!
The next night we went on a night walk down the road... of course Dr. Paul again lived it up by throwing rocks behind our backs into the bushed to make it seem like a leopard was there... well that just set me off and I became totally petrified... oh yes... and I'm a little afraid of the dark, and when there is talk of leopards... well I had a bit of a break down when we got back. Because Dr. Paul made me (cry) (I'm embarassed to say so, but it happened) he said he would buy us ice cream... well that funny man, he never got it for us, he's suck a jokester!
On the last day in Patti we went on a herbal medicine walk with Dr. Paul and he took us afterwards to a few of the villagers houses and we had chai and cookies (I could barely eat dinner after that I was so full of sugar). We had to walk through some tall corn points and Dr. Paul would hide in the corn and jump out at us! (He also did this one afternoon when we came back from meditation and jumped out of the shower... he really really really loved scaring us!) We stopped at the house of the villager who I told you about before that had the hand gestures telling us about leopard attacks and concluded with... there are no leopards in this area... Oh wonderful, I cried and got worked up about this over NOTHING!!!!!!
Dr. Paul you jokester you...
Did I forget to mention that our living area was caged in?! Oh and padlocked everynight?! This I thought initially was to keep out people trying to steal things and small animals getting into our food, but Dr. Paul really played it up.
Our first day there, Katie, my clinic partner and very close friend now, wanted to go for a run, Dr. Paul told her to stay on the road and not go very far because of leopards! Throughout the week he played it up, convincing everyone (especially myself) that the leopards were everywhere and going to attack, he even would tell the villagers to talk to us about the leopards and their attacks! There was one old man that was especially colorful in telling us about the leopards becuase he didn't speak English so he only used hand motions, I have a great video of it which I hope to post later so stay tuned!
One night we laid out in our courtyard and watched the stars, becuase one of my other friends in our group (Sarah) had never seen a shooting star! Well she saw one and we had a very relaxing night just relaxing under the Indian sky, but of course Dr. Paul had to do something... Just as we stopped talking about leopards and how they could jump down and eat us all in our little courtyard, Dr. Paul grabbed my leg and I jumped and screamed! That night I had a dream about a leopard with Dr. Paul's face on it!
The next night we went on a night walk down the road... of course Dr. Paul again lived it up by throwing rocks behind our backs into the bushed to make it seem like a leopard was there... well that just set me off and I became totally petrified... oh yes... and I'm a little afraid of the dark, and when there is talk of leopards... well I had a bit of a break down when we got back. Because Dr. Paul made me (cry) (I'm embarassed to say so, but it happened) he said he would buy us ice cream... well that funny man, he never got it for us, he's suck a jokester!
On the last day in Patti we went on a herbal medicine walk with Dr. Paul and he took us afterwards to a few of the villagers houses and we had chai and cookies (I could barely eat dinner after that I was so full of sugar). We had to walk through some tall corn points and Dr. Paul would hide in the corn and jump out at us! (He also did this one afternoon when we came back from meditation and jumped out of the shower... he really really really loved scaring us!) We stopped at the house of the villager who I told you about before that had the hand gestures telling us about leopard attacks and concluded with... there are no leopards in this area... Oh wonderful, I cried and got worked up about this over NOTHING!!!!!!
Dr. Paul you jokester you...
The little girl that made me cry
There was one very memorable patient for me in Patti, it was a little girl who was carried in by her father(?) and she was wearing a really cute pink and blue dress. She was extremely pretty and reminding me immediately of that cute little Lucile (my sister) when she was a toddler, so I instantly started feeling a little homesick because I miss my sister.
As flies swarmed the little girls eyes, tears swarmed mine as we were told that she had a very bad case of conjuctivitis (you could tell immediatly that this little girl was in pain from the infection going too long without getting medical treatment).
Although I tried averting my eyes so that this girl couldn't see me crying, every time I looked up she was looking right at me. Her eyes, full of conjuctivitus, helplessness, the striking likeness to my sister overwhelmed me, I didn't leave clinic, but tried my best to hold back real sobs. As I cried silently in the corner, I could only pray that she would feel better with the medicine that Dr. Paul was giving her, and hoping that her father would bring her in sooner if further complications arose.
The feelings I had that morning were overwhelming because I wish I could have done more for her, my friends on the program with me told me later I should go into Peds, I know everyone at home would love that because of following in Gramp's footsteps, but I don't know if I could handle the feelings knowing that children need help and can't exactly get it for themselves, it was a hopeless feeling.
Before the girl left I gave her a "sticker" band-aid with a Disney princess on it, and put it on her arm because putting it on her eyes would have been silly... I only wish I could have given her more than a silly band-aid...
As flies swarmed the little girls eyes, tears swarmed mine as we were told that she had a very bad case of conjuctivitis (you could tell immediatly that this little girl was in pain from the infection going too long without getting medical treatment).
Although I tried averting my eyes so that this girl couldn't see me crying, every time I looked up she was looking right at me. Her eyes, full of conjuctivitus, helplessness, the striking likeness to my sister overwhelmed me, I didn't leave clinic, but tried my best to hold back real sobs. As I cried silently in the corner, I could only pray that she would feel better with the medicine that Dr. Paul was giving her, and hoping that her father would bring her in sooner if further complications arose.
The feelings I had that morning were overwhelming because I wish I could have done more for her, my friends on the program with me told me later I should go into Peds, I know everyone at home would love that because of following in Gramp's footsteps, but I don't know if I could handle the feelings knowing that children need help and can't exactly get it for themselves, it was a hopeless feeling.
Before the girl left I gave her a "sticker" band-aid with a Disney princess on it, and put it on her arm because putting it on her eyes would have been silly... I only wish I could have given her more than a silly band-aid...
Clinic and Health Camps in Patti Village
Namaste!
So it has been a very long time since my last post and I am still trying to get caught up from my past two weeks now in Patti and Dehradun, but here it goes...
The week that I spent in Patti Village was a huge change in scenery of India for me, we stayed at a small camp that had living quarters below a store and the clinic. The accomodations were modest and was a little better than camping. Our beds were pretty hard being a ply-wood board and a slight covering that may have been one blanket thick so I used my extra blanket that they gave me as "extra" padding but it was still a little hard to sleep on. The funny thing was I used my lab coat from clinic as my blanket at night :P !!! Oh I also forgot to mention that we were in the middle of no where! Hence why I couldn't update the blog! We had some very traditional Indian food prepared for us throughout the week and I got sick for about 2 days, but was still able to go to yoga, clinic, and meditation.
As a side note, I have not gone one week in India without getting sick, so I miss home purely on food and "cheat" often by eating peanut butter sandwhiches and anything resembeling noodles when we go out to eat.
OK, OK, back to clinic in Patti:
The first day we arrived we were exhuasted from our trip to Dharamsala and took a nap before going to clinic, we didn't see much that day, or any other day for that matter, health care in the extremely rural areas of India consist of colds, sinus infections, general cuts, and small infections. Dr. Paul who works for CFHI is quite the doctor though and his lifestyle in Patti would be any doctor's dream when they still want to practice and be in Nature, his clinic (run by CFHI) is free and his pay is not what it used to be when he was working for himself and another doctor. They often are running out of supplies and medicine, I wish I had gathered more before coming here, and seeing the frustration in Dr. Paul's face when he told us about this, was heartbreaking. Sometimes people will send him medicine that is expired and he can't use it becuase even though they are in a 3rd world country, there are still standards for medical treatment.
Although the type of patients we saw was a little less rigourous from what we saw in Dehradun with Dr. Gandhi, we still got to see a woman with mastitis of the breast, a girl with typhoid, and a three year old girl with a huge abcess on her inner thigh that Dr. Paul drained while we had NO ELECTRICITY! So Dr. Paul used my headlight as his source of light for that procedure, I felt honored! :) The abcess was gross! It was like a huge pimple and puss kept coming out, we helped by holding the little girl while she cryed and screamed, and the local anesthetic didn't do much, but afterwards she was sleeping like none other, so she must have felt better.
On Tuesday and Thursday we traveled out into the Indian country side by hiking to near by villages to hold health camps where villagers who couldn't walk to Patti could still see a doctor. The first one we went to we sat on someone's porch and an old woman came up to me and patted me on the back, I thought she was awesome, she had some great mannerisms, but she told me in Hindi "You can't understand me!!!" and smiled, what a character! The second one that we went to we sat in someone's house for over 5 hours and saw about four patients so we started a massage train (just the girls) and Dr. Paul told us that the "Tickle train is closed for lunch" which started the beginnning of that afternoon as a funny joke. Dr. Paul's porter (person who carried the medical supplies) had gone out into the jungle and found some mushrooms. Dr. Paul was showing us the mushroom and decided to make it funny by relating the image of a mushroom to a male body part... I don't know if I can even begin to explain that converation, but it was hilarious!
The great thing about clinic in Patti and the surrounding health camps was that Dr. Paul let us listen to everyone's heart and lungs and we got to take everyone's blood pressure, so that was really great clinical experience!!!! Clinic was usually twice a day from about 9am-1pm and from 4pm-6pm except on the days we hiked to the health camps which we would leave for at about 10am and return around 2-4pm. The nice thing about Patti was that there was no honking, and it was very peaceful, and the most restful time I've spent in India.
Namaste
So it has been a very long time since my last post and I am still trying to get caught up from my past two weeks now in Patti and Dehradun, but here it goes...
The week that I spent in Patti Village was a huge change in scenery of India for me, we stayed at a small camp that had living quarters below a store and the clinic. The accomodations were modest and was a little better than camping. Our beds were pretty hard being a ply-wood board and a slight covering that may have been one blanket thick so I used my extra blanket that they gave me as "extra" padding but it was still a little hard to sleep on. The funny thing was I used my lab coat from clinic as my blanket at night :P !!! Oh I also forgot to mention that we were in the middle of no where! Hence why I couldn't update the blog! We had some very traditional Indian food prepared for us throughout the week and I got sick for about 2 days, but was still able to go to yoga, clinic, and meditation.
As a side note, I have not gone one week in India without getting sick, so I miss home purely on food and "cheat" often by eating peanut butter sandwhiches and anything resembeling noodles when we go out to eat.
OK, OK, back to clinic in Patti:
The first day we arrived we were exhuasted from our trip to Dharamsala and took a nap before going to clinic, we didn't see much that day, or any other day for that matter, health care in the extremely rural areas of India consist of colds, sinus infections, general cuts, and small infections. Dr. Paul who works for CFHI is quite the doctor though and his lifestyle in Patti would be any doctor's dream when they still want to practice and be in Nature, his clinic (run by CFHI) is free and his pay is not what it used to be when he was working for himself and another doctor. They often are running out of supplies and medicine, I wish I had gathered more before coming here, and seeing the frustration in Dr. Paul's face when he told us about this, was heartbreaking. Sometimes people will send him medicine that is expired and he can't use it becuase even though they are in a 3rd world country, there are still standards for medical treatment.
Although the type of patients we saw was a little less rigourous from what we saw in Dehradun with Dr. Gandhi, we still got to see a woman with mastitis of the breast, a girl with typhoid, and a three year old girl with a huge abcess on her inner thigh that Dr. Paul drained while we had NO ELECTRICITY! So Dr. Paul used my headlight as his source of light for that procedure, I felt honored! :) The abcess was gross! It was like a huge pimple and puss kept coming out, we helped by holding the little girl while she cryed and screamed, and the local anesthetic didn't do much, but afterwards she was sleeping like none other, so she must have felt better.
On Tuesday and Thursday we traveled out into the Indian country side by hiking to near by villages to hold health camps where villagers who couldn't walk to Patti could still see a doctor. The first one we went to we sat on someone's porch and an old woman came up to me and patted me on the back, I thought she was awesome, she had some great mannerisms, but she told me in Hindi "You can't understand me!!!" and smiled, what a character! The second one that we went to we sat in someone's house for over 5 hours and saw about four patients so we started a massage train (just the girls) and Dr. Paul told us that the "Tickle train is closed for lunch" which started the beginnning of that afternoon as a funny joke. Dr. Paul's porter (person who carried the medical supplies) had gone out into the jungle and found some mushrooms. Dr. Paul was showing us the mushroom and decided to make it funny by relating the image of a mushroom to a male body part... I don't know if I can even begin to explain that converation, but it was hilarious!
The great thing about clinic in Patti and the surrounding health camps was that Dr. Paul let us listen to everyone's heart and lungs and we got to take everyone's blood pressure, so that was really great clinical experience!!!! Clinic was usually twice a day from about 9am-1pm and from 4pm-6pm except on the days we hiked to the health camps which we would leave for at about 10am and return around 2-4pm. The nice thing about Patti was that there was no honking, and it was very peaceful, and the most restful time I've spent in India.
Namaste
Sunday, July 18, 2010
So Worth it... Dharamsala and the car ride from hell...
For some reason someone brought up the brilliant idea that we should all go to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama, well guess what, it was only somewhat worth it...
We left at about 9pm on Friday July 9th and drove through the Himalayas with MANY MANY MANY stops along the way. AKA our drivers took stops almost every 30 minutes. Oh did I forget to mention we took 3 taxis for 15 people?! Fun right? This may be where I get a little hostle because the driving part of this trip was almost unbearable. We drove through twisting turns and high mountain passes, oh and we also got a flat tire at one point! Well we made it to Dharamsala at about 2pm on July 10th so just one way was 17 HOURS!!!! In a taxi!!! Oh and were we covered in exhuast, did I forget to mention that our drivers didnt use the AC?! Yup, we had the windows rolled down the entire time!
Once we got to Dharamsala we found this GREAT place to stay all inclusive of HUGE spiders and rats nests in the ceiling, but did I mention the view?! It was lovely and the hotel was away from the road, far down a steep slope nestled in a little valley, so that was nice. Just to give you an estimate for the hotel it was about 600 Rupees which is about $13 in the US... what a dream! (sarcasm) But quite and experience.
That night in Dharamsala we walked around the little village area and shopped in the touristy stores finding all kinds of gifts for people back home and some new Indian and Tibetian clothes to wear since ours were filthy from the car ride. We did meet one great woman who sold me some bracelets and was a Tibetian refugee, she reminded me of my mom, miss ya mommy!!! There was another shop keeper whose name was Moona who gave us a little lesson on the ways of Dharamsala, he told us of how Dharamsala can give you everything and how people find you and you do not have to find them, and he also gave us this great little phrase: Shanti Shanti, which translates as something like: peace, love, spirituality, or my own interpretation of it: Akuna Mattata (from the Lion King)... NO WORRIES :)
Dharamsala is a safe haven for Tibetian refugees because it is the homeland of the Dalai Lama and a place where Buddhism is not tormented for being practiced and away from Chinese governmental ideals (which they fully deny)... While at the temple of the Dalai Lama we did find a Tibetain museum which was very informative about what happened during the Chinese invasion of Tibet and how people ran away to India over tretchrous passes in the Himalayas. Also while in the temple we saw people praying and many monuments but.... NO DALAI LAMA... oh well :( He is very busy, but always has time for Tibetian refugees.
As we wasted time waiting for the taxis to take us home to Dehradun we hung out in a cafe and drank chai and bought more presents. The ride home was not as horrible as the one to Dharamsala because it was only 14 and a half hours and we didnt stop as much. Katie and I sat in the back seat almost the whole time and we basically went insane from how ridiculous the car ride was and the conversations insuing between two love birds on a horrendous date at 2am. We also found out on the car ride home that we had gotten lost on the way there and also the normal route to Dharamsala which normally goes through Punjab was totally flooded and people were dying from the floods. So we had to go the back way all around the mountains... wonderful.
Oh did I mention we got another flat tire on the way home...
In the end it was a good trip and Im glad that I went, but the icing on the cake was on the way home one girl on the trip started puking from car sickness and was looking totally miserable, hanging over a fence post saying... It was so worth it...
So Worth It...
Shanti Shanti
Namaste
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Back from the Jungle
Namaste!
I am finally back from Dharamsala and Patti Village aka the jungle! For our weekend get away we hiked over 15km (or about 10 miles) through the foothills of the himalayas from Patti to Mussoorie (elevation about 7000ft). This hike was ridiculous because it was raining and there were LEECHES! Most people saw theirs around their ankle and would pull them off, I was wearing scrub bottoms and a leech climbed up to the back of my knee and sucked until it was happy and fell off, so when my yogi-master pointed out that I was bleeding I realized I had already been attacked so I didn't have to pull it off! GROSS!!!!!!
I am very exhausted and am only saying a quick hi because the cyber cafe I'm using is very expensive and will write all about my week in Patti when I get back to Dehradun tomorrow or Monday. This week was wild...
Namaste
I am finally back from Dharamsala and Patti Village aka the jungle! For our weekend get away we hiked over 15km (or about 10 miles) through the foothills of the himalayas from Patti to Mussoorie (elevation about 7000ft). This hike was ridiculous because it was raining and there were LEECHES! Most people saw theirs around their ankle and would pull them off, I was wearing scrub bottoms and a leech climbed up to the back of my knee and sucked until it was happy and fell off, so when my yogi-master pointed out that I was bleeding I realized I had already been attacked so I didn't have to pull it off! GROSS!!!!!!
I am very exhausted and am only saying a quick hi because the cyber cafe I'm using is very expensive and will write all about my week in Patti when I get back to Dehradun tomorrow or Monday. This week was wild...
Namaste
Friday, July 9, 2010
Going Away to Patti Village
Namaste!
Today is my last day in Dehradun for a week or so, we will be going up into the mountains to a village called Patti, where it will basically be like camping in the jungle! We will be taking day hikes to health camps and many people will come for medical help from the very very rural surrounding areas. I will not have any internet or phone contact this week so this will be my last post until I get back next Sunday.
This weekend the group will be going to Dharamsala, to see the Dalai Lama. I hope he will actually be there!!!
Its very hot here and the monsoon rains are coming this afternoon, so hopefully it will cool off for our 12 hour taxi ride to Dharamsala!
Posts coming in a week, wish me luck on my journeys!!!!
Namaste
Today is my last day in Dehradun for a week or so, we will be going up into the mountains to a village called Patti, where it will basically be like camping in the jungle! We will be taking day hikes to health camps and many people will come for medical help from the very very rural surrounding areas. I will not have any internet or phone contact this week so this will be my last post until I get back next Sunday.
This weekend the group will be going to Dharamsala, to see the Dalai Lama. I hope he will actually be there!!!
Its very hot here and the monsoon rains are coming this afternoon, so hopefully it will cool off for our 12 hour taxi ride to Dharamsala!
Posts coming in a week, wish me luck on my journeys!!!!
Namaste
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