Three Weeks In Review

View My Vellore Map in a larger map

Hey Everyone, after three weeks of hiatus, I'm back!

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the first two weeks in a rural village called Kuvanur near RUHSA (see map) with the 2nd-year CMC medical students for the Community Orientation Program (COP). I stayed the first night with the guys at a school building, but I couldn't sleep too well because of all the noise they made (watching movies, playing music, etc) until the wee hours of the night. I don't mind sleeping out in remote places, but I think I'm too old for all the youthful late night activities (which I used to do when I was their age). After the first night I went back to Vellore each night with the staff, so I got to shower and sleep in my own apartment. So technically I've been "back" all along, but I just haven't had the chance to update my blog until now.

As you can see from the map, Kuvanur is a pretty small village. There are 371 households with a population of 1601, according our survey data. From what I gathered, many of them are farmers, but it seems there is a large variety of occupations and a wide range of socioeconomic statuses. This past week, the students analyzed the data that they gathered, made posters of the data, and presented them for the villagers to see. You can see a sample of the posters below along with some photos from COP.

This is where we held our meetings for COP.

The inside of the hut.

The school building in Kavanur where the boys stayed.

Inside the school building. The boys slept on the concrete floor.

Believe it or not, this is a woman's bathroom. How do they do it? There's a little hole in the corner that drains out... you can figure it out.

Another woman's toilet. This one is a bit more self-explanatory. Note that neither of the above models are for number 2.

This was our temporary garbage disposal and dish washing place.

Some of the medical and OT/PT students.

Kids from the village. They are cousins, and live next door to each other.

Water tanks like these are spread across the village. They are pumped with drinking water every 2 days for people to come and collect.

As part of the COP, groups took turns organizing games for the village kids each day.

As a service to the village, we cleaned up one of their temples one afternoon.

Students put up posters they made in the old school building.

A poster on population.

Can you guess what this poster is about?

I can tell what the graph on the left is showing, but not sure about the pie chart... maybe about how many are happy with their toilets?

Birth-control education poster made by some of the CMC med students. Look how happy (and wealthier) the family is with birth control!

Students performing for the village.

Some more dancing.

My COP group: me, Ranjana, and Nitin.

It was a lot of fun going around the village doing the surveys. Each group had a Tamil speaker, and both Nitin (the Tamilian in my group) and Ranjana (from Kerala, but speaks some Tamil) made sure I understood what was going on as we met with the villagers in our assigned area. So I felt very included even though I couldn't speak Tamil (thanks guys!). My group even let me lead the interview with one of the households, and they translated for me. During free times, I read some Colloquial Tamil to try to learn the language a little. I discovered that Tamil is surprisingly similar in structure and grammar to Japanese (and Korean). It's definitely a difficult language, but using Japanese as a reference has been quite helpful. Who would have thought Japanese would come in handy in India! Now I just need to find a good Tamil tutor so I can learn to pronounce correctly (assuming that's possible).

View My Kerala Map in a larger map

During the first weekend of COP, Lucy and I travelled by train to Kerala state (west coast of south India) for Anu Paul's wedding. Anu is a PhD student who works at Dr. Kang's (our mentor) lab, and is also a fellow Fogarty scholar. Her wedding was at St. Theresa's Church in Mahe. It was Catholic wedding rather than a typical Indian/Hindu wedding, so it wasn't as crazy as one might be, but it was really nice. I especially enjoyed the Malayali (Kerala) food. The fish taste so much better there than in Vellore. We stayed the night in Thalassery (8Km north of Mahe), and explored the city a bit the next day before we headed back to Vellore in the afternoon. Check out the map on the right to see where we visited, and below are some photos from the trip.

At Anu and Shijo's wedding, with the newly-wed couple!

My first train ride in India!

This is what berths (or beds) in sleeper class look like.

Toilet in the train. Everything basically goes straight down to the ground...

Boats in Mahe.

I found the Smart School in Mahe, but I couldn't find the other kind.

Overbury's Folly in Thalassery. A nice little park with a cool ocean breeze. Apparently it's a popular dating spot for couples.

Trying out some street food for the lack of better things to do.

I was told that banana chips are good in Kerala, so I bought a half-kg of them from this place..

Dried fish at the fish market in Thalassery.

During the second weekend, I went to Men's Hostel Day at CMC, which is the only day during the year where guests (other than family) are allowed inside men's hostel. Last weekend was Women's Hostel Day, which is the same deal for female students (but I was on my way to Kerala then). So each year the med students (all of whom stay in the hostel) put together a show and serve dinner to the guests, and invite them to see their rooms. I forgot to take a picture of their rooms, but here are some photos from the event.

At Men's Hostel Day, wearing my new dhoti, which I bought in Kerala. People were impressed that I tied the dhoti by myself, thanks to YouTube. In the back is a model of the Opera House made by the male med students as an art project this year.

Some of the male med students performed a short play called Blackadder. Simple, yet quite entertaining, and the guys did an excellent job putting it together in couple weeks.

A scene from Blackadder. The female costume (right) was a huge hit among the audience.

A vaccinology course lecture.

This past week I've been attending the 1.5-week long First Advanced Vaccinology Course in India at CMC. We have lecturers and students/participants from all over India and various places in Europe and the US. The course covers everything from basic immunology to history to the latest research and policies on vaccines. It took a little getting used to (and lots of coffee) being back to sitting in a classroom and listening to lectures all day, but it has definitely been an interesting and informative course.

Couple days after we got back from Kerala, I got a bit sick (probably flu or some viral illness), so I missed out on a few days of COP. I didn't feel too horrible, but I had to drag it out for the last week and a half. Thankfully I'm feeling 95% better now, except for the little discomfort in the belly, which comes and goes now and then.

So there you have it, my past three weeks! Thanks for reading if you got this far, and I always appreciate the comments. Praise God for an amazing experience so far!

Shopping Spree

This week Lucy and I are meeting with various doctors and research officers to get a feel for the type of research projects we might want to work on. In the morning we headed over to the CMC hospital and met with Dhivya Anbu, who is a PhD candidate working on probiotics trial for prevention of diarrhea caused by rotavirus and cryptosporidium spp. In the afternoon we met with Dr. Rajiv Sarkar and Deepthi Kattula at Community Health Training Center (CHTC) on CMC campus. They were Fogarty scholars in the past years, and their research involves cryptosporidium in children (e.g. change in immune response over time in chronically infected children). Because our mentor Dr. Kang is in the gastrointestinal department, much of their research pertains to diarrheal diseases.

I have a lot of personal experience with diarrheal diseases (parasitic in particular), so I would definitely be interested in doing research in that field. We're scheduled to meet with people from other departments, so I'm excited to see what opportunities are out there as well. I can already tell that I'm going to have a hard time deciding on a project (or two) because there are so many different options here.

Harish Bakery

After our meeting with Dhivya in the morning, I went to the Eye Hospital to pick up my new pair of glasses (I can SEE now!). Then I walked over to Harish Bakery (my new favorite bakery in town) for lunch and got a variety of savory baked goods to go (I like their "puffs").

Next to the bakery is the Harish Grocery Store where you can get lots of imported food, toiletries, and household items (at marked up prices, of course). So I bought some food and a bunch of other stuff, such as insecticide spray, body wash, and hair conditioner (yes, guys use conditioners too... right? How else am I supposed to keep my hair nice and silky?).

One of the surprisingly expensive things in India is toilet paper. Four rolls of TP cost Rs180 (about $4.00)!

After our meeting with Dr. Sarkar and Deepthi this afternoon, I went over to the CMC College Store for more groceries, and stopped by the street vendors for some fruits and vegetables. I also got a new pair of sandals for Rs150 (compared to Rs180 for 4 rolls of TP).

One thing I couldn't find anywhere was insect repellent spray. The best I could find was insect repellent cream at the College Store. I'm not too worried about malaria since it's not endemic in Vellore, but I definitely don't want dengue fever.

I still need to buy some slacks and short-sleeve button-up shirts since a lot of men wear those to work here. I would wear shorts and t-shirts with flip-flops everywhere everyday, but I probably should try not to stand out too much.

Praise God for another great day in India! I actually felt pretty productive today, learning about all these research projects and getting a lot of shopping done. One thing missing from the day is a trip to the swimming pool, which unfortunately is closed on Mondays.

Traveler's Nightmare

After a series of unfortunate events, I'm finally at my apartment in Vellore!! But my luggages are still in Mumbai...

So the past 40 hours or so of traveling has been an example of what NOT to do when you travel to India (or most places abroad). Basically, I missed my flight from Mumbai to Chennai, bought a new ticket, and waited until morning for the next flight. When I arrived in Chennai I realized that I had left my checked bags in Mumbai! I guess I didn't realize how absent-minded I could be after a 15-hour flight from Newark to Mumbai. So before you ask "What were you thinking?" let me answer you in advance: I wish I knew!

I'll spare you the details but will share with you some of the lessons that I learned:

1. Keep your carryon-bags under 40 lb. Otherwise you maybe forced to pay extra and/or get a 5-min lecture on why having a heavy carry-on is dangerous (I got away with just the latter).

2. Keep your checked bags under 50 lb (or whatever airline's limit is). Usually you can get away with 2 or 3 extra pounds, but some people are very picky, and will ask you to take stuff out until it's exactly 50.0 lb.

3. Be aware that you can become very disoriented, absent-minded, and careless after a long flight. Try to think straight, and don't assume things. Don't forget common sense.

4. When traveling internationally pick up your luggage from baggage claim and clear customs at the port of entry (e.g. Mumbai), even if some Continental Airline staff tells you that they will go straight to your final destination (e.g. Chennai).

5. Don't exchange currency at the first foreign exchange booth you find. Find couple others, and compare their rates. There can be huge differences.

6. In some parts of the world (e.g. India), you can't checkin to your flight until couple hours before the flight, and some flights have designated counters. But just because the flight doesn't have a designated counter number, don't wait until 30 minutes before the flight to see if you can check in. You have to check in at least 45 minutes before the flight, and you can go to any counter as long as the flight is open for checkin.

7. Don't put cash in a clear ziplock bag and put it in the outside pocket of your luggage. And don't be careless to think that it won't get stolen, because it will. Keep cash with you.

Learn from my mistakes and hopefully you won't have to go through what I did!

In any case, praise God I've arrived safely!

Consolidation

Now that I'm about to travel to India, I'm going to start blogging again. I've combined this blog with my old Haiti blog (Zanmi Haiti), and redesigned it to simplify things a little. From now on I'll be posting on this blog for all general topics, rather than making a new blog each time I travel. I never got to finish writing about my Haiti experience, but hopefully I'll be able to keep it up this time.

I'll be flying to India on August 2, and will be spending about 10 months in Vellore for an intensive clinical research training at Christian Medical College through Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Program. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing opportunity! Praise God!

Stay tuned for updates!