Maybe the last one for awhile...soak me in!

Well we are leaving this weekend for our two weeks of travel. I am sure that we will be safe, but you might not hear from me for a few days because of lack of internet access.

This week we I went out to a village. It was a neat thing, but not nearly as mind blowing as what I had hoped. Most of the homes that we went to weren’t very villagy for my expectations. Most of the homes that I went into were actually quite nice. On Monday I went to a clinic with three other nurses. They do them once a month. We sat in a plain room and patients came to us looking for care. Most of the women that came were pregnant. They came into the room and we shut the door, making the only light provided being a small window, and then the women were examined. They shut the door so that no men can see their bellies get examined, which I still don’t really understand because they walk around with their stomachs out every day in their saris. A prenatal examination includes measuring of the abdominal girth, blood pressure, measuring of where the uterus is lined up with the belly button, feeling on the tummy to see which direction the baby is, checking for edema, peeing on a stick to check for blood sugar and proteins, and listening to the babies heart rate with a stethoscope. That is it for the entirety of the pregnancy. They can also get prenatal vitamins. The nurses are allowed to give out the things that we would be able to get over the counter. If they can afford it, the patients will pay a rupee or two. If not it is free. The nurses can give also one antibiotic to children. But even though there is defiantly no germ aphobia here, the kids do not get sick very often. They get worms though. Which is why they also do de-worming of the children every month. They all get worms.
Most of the time the patients that come through are only looking for peace of mind. The nurses take everyone’s blood pressure, and will even give them a placebo, if it will make them feel as though the nurse is doing something. If they feel as though a person needs more treatment, they give them a referral and send them into town to CMC. A community health nurse is assigned to two areas to which she always goes. My nurse was in charge of looking over 3,000 people between the two of them. They have these clinics once a month and also do home visits every week to check on blood pressures and such. It is great because the villagers get to know and trust the “sister” and will come to her for any problems. Nurses are called sister here. People even call me sister whenever I am wearing white. Each village also has a health care worker. This is a woman that that makes 125 rupees a month to be there to watch over the village. They are there to tell everyone when the nurse is going to be there, tell the nurse if there are any pregnancies births or deaths, and to teach the village. Teaching is the main thing that is needed in the village and they spend so much time on it. They have to teach parents so many things that we take for granted. Things like why it is important to keep your food away from bugs and waste, or how to recognize when your child has worms. The nurses nurse here are amazing and do so much for all of the inhabitants. They also were quite inquisitive about America life so it was a really fun day to be with them. Everyone here is so hospitable too, forgive me if I had told you that already. Even the poorest people want to treat you to something. Our healthcare worker went and bought me sweets, snacks, and flowers for my hair. Also whenever I went into a house they brought out their plastic lawn chair for me to sit on. If they have these chairs they are their special for company only. Everone else sits on bamboo mats on the ground. I would not have a problem sitting on the ground, but they insist, which makes me feel a little strange. Another woman asked me if she could go buy me a Fanta or coffee, even though they do not have enough money to pay for any care from the nurses. It is extremely kind of them.
I also went to two schools. One was an elementary school. This class room had 47 children in it from ages 5-10 with two teachers. After that if they want to go to school they have to go to a different village. When I got there they also stood up and saluted me and the teacher picked on that got to shake my hand and say “Good morning how are you.” I also went to a Balwadi which is for all of the children 2-5. This one had 50 children in it with one teacher and one cook. When I went there, two children were sleeping on the floor and the rest of them stood up and saluted me. The teacher then had them recite baba black sheep in horrible English. It was quite cute. The Balwadi is a government program set up to make sure that the children do not get malnourished. If they go there they are guaranteed a meal in the afternoons and are also given two high calorie protein balls to eat. They have to eat them at the school to ensure that it is the children that are eating them and not the parents.
Wednesday sucked. I went to a village and watched a inauguration of a new village leader for 2½ hours that consisted of a speech in Tamul.
Well we are off to another Thursday at the pool. I will try to write again before we leave….not promises though.