19 October year of the horse Welcome to the weekly email. We are your hosts Gnat Bug (Natalie), Hippo (Hailey), and Shark (Sam). We will be taking you through week 3 of the India adventure. Some things you should know before embarking on this email. First of all this has been the best and most fulfilling week yet. Our leaders are fully engaged in the Indian culture, in fact as we speak one is in a full fledge investigation of a missing water bottle with the local hotel chief. However, even the locals are still not laughing at his jokes…… Second, most of the crew is feeling much better and we are almost fully recovered from the various bugs that were going around. Third of all this email was written with a British accent in mind so henceforth must be read accordingly. Day one. Tuesday. The weather was quite lovely. Not too hot and not too cold. There was a bit of a nip in the air as we embarked down the hill to lower Dharamshala. To get down the hill we had to partake in a quite riveting ambulance ride (which was provided by Tong Len, the organization we are working with as our “bus”). This ride was not for the weak at heart but rather the strong of stomach. It was a very fitting introduction into the work we would be doing with Tong Lin. The ride took around 2,400 seconds which is about 40 minutes for those who don’t have a calculator on hand. Tong Len is an organization that was started by a Tibetan monk that wanted to give back to the Indian community that had taken in the people of Tibet. In Tibetan Tong Lin means give and take and they are focused on education, sanitation, and inspiration. When we arrived there we were all a bit taken aback by the state of the village slum we were working in. Hundreds of families live under makeshift tents and shelters made out of tarps and scrap metal. There are mounds of trash that are scattered everywhere. At night there are people that come to clean up and burn some of the trash that is there which causes more long term health and environmental problems. Due to poor sanitation and the lack of any sort of restroom, bacteria and disease are spread incredibly easily. As we made our way to the middle of the village there was a school building that would serve as our temporary clinic. This building had been constructed by the Seattle Art Therapy Institute. We were greeted by a school room full of kids that were waiting to be examined. We quickly created a system where we as the students took vitals including height, weight, head circumference, pulse and temperature as well as scribing for our wonderful doctor and trip leader, Vindy. We also learned how to write out a soap note which is a concise but thorough documentation of the physical examination that was done by Vindy. In the physical exam we saw a wide variety of diseases and health conditions which included Scabies, heart murmurs, pneumonia, icteric sclera, Kwashiorkor malnutrition, Marasmus malnutrition, and possible cases of Tuberculosis and Malaria. If time was available Vindy would teach us about each of the different diagnosis that we came across such as allowing us to listen to things like heart murmurs. This very first day we examined 42 children. At the end of the day all of us were physically and emotionally drained but excited for the opportunity to come back and continue to work. Over the next few days we continued to improve our system and every day examinations were more efficient and organized. Our days became shorter and shorter as we were able to see our daily quota faster. During this week we were challenged to journal about what we were experiencing and how we could improve the system. We were challenged to think of the implications of different service work and the ethics behind the actions. We talked about the importance of being asked by an established local organization that had been working with the community long before and knew the needs of the people living there. Working with Tong Lin was more then just clinical experience but it was also a glance at a hopefully sustainable system that will be with the community long after we leave. Although our days got shorter we did not want to waste any of the valuable time we had with our fantastic ER doctor. In the afternoons, over Masala chai, we went over lectures that Vindy had prepared as well as the different things we had seen in the morning. One of the lectures we learned about was on tropical diseases. We learned the different symptoms, diagnosis, and treatments of Tuberculosis, Malaria, diarrhea, Ascariasis, icteric sclera. For those of you who would like more information here is a sample: [PHOTO OF PARASITE RIDDIN BODY REMOVED BY THE FEARLESS EDITOR SHAWN (if you really want to see what we’re talking about google Ascariasis images, but we warned they are graphic and pretty horrifying)] ……this could happen to you. Wash your hands. Over the past week six of us students were able to accompany Vindy to the clinic. The other half of the students got to hear from all of the different NGOs that work with and for the Tibetan people and continue Tibetan language classes with the amazing Dr. Chok. This week we are all going to switch places (our group of six will visit the NGO’s and the other group of eight will begin clinical screenings) so you will hear about the wealth of knowledge obtained from these organizations in next weeks email. On Friday we came back together as a group to go and listen to a presentation at Gu Chu Sum which is an organization that helps former Tibetan political prisoners, their families as well as political activists that were involved in the demonstrations that occurred in Tibet. This organization works to help these victims financially and emotionally training them in traditional handicrafts and providing a suitable education that caters to their needs. Saturday we were able to go to Norbulingka which is a school which is dedicated to preserving the traditional Tibetan arts. These include metal working, wood working, Thangka painting, and weaving. We even got to go behind the scenes of an Indian movie that was being filmed at the temple there. This was an amazing cultural immersion that inspired some of us to take wood working classes. Then, just when we thought we couldn’t pack any more into one day Vindy rented out a small movie theater in Dharmshala to watch a classic Indian film Gopal Krishna. The film was in Hindi but every so often Vindy would help us understand what was going on. So this was our fantastic week. So much was left unsaid but we must leave some stories for when we return. Oh look at the time! The sun is gone once again and so must we retire into the arms of our host families. We wish you the best. If you want more information regarding Tong Len please refer to their website. tong-len.org/ Most sincerely, (these are actual pictures. We have reincarnated into animals.) [editorial note I could not get the three photos of the travelers to post inside this post but will post them separately, each member of the team took the name of an animal at orientation that started with the same letter as their name as a way to learn everyones name but these names have stuck so Nat, Shark and Hippo, will have their reincarnated photos posted shortly. why were the authors of this note from Dharamsala. Frank] Also… we may or may not have gone paragliding today. Brag.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:51:44 +0000
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