June 12: Last Day at the Hospital

Ammini sitting at her desk

For my last day at the hospital I followed Ammini to observe more of her counseling methods and to speak with some of the families that she interacted with. During our breaks we discussed how things needed to be broken down so that members of the community could understand the information. Ammini asked if there was anyway that I could just stay in Gudalur with her and help her talk with families and explain the material to them. We went over more of the pamphlet material and I got all the different topics that I will eventually need to work on and cover. We also spent some time meeting with Dr. Nandakumar to make sure that all the material is on track and that I had all the information that I needed to continue working when I got back to Pittsburgh.
After lunch I spent some time with Mahesh who is the Ayurvedic doctor at the hospital to tape some yoga exercises that we can play for the patients so that they can perform the exercises correctly. It's going to be really cool when the videos all come together. My uncle was coming to pick us up at 4pm so I had to make sure I had everything that I needed and needed Dr. Nandakumar to fill out my evaluation form for my rotation. I really hope that I can manage to make it back here at least once a year because it definitely is a peaceful atmosphere and the people here are amazing to work with.
My uncle was on time to pick us up so we said bye to everyone at the hospital and packed up his car for the 4.5 hour drive home to Sulur. He had brought his niece, Saranya, with him to keep him company on the drive up to Gudalur so we had a full car on our way back. We had to drive through Ooty to get to Sulur so we stopped in Ooty to grab some food and take a small break. I have a strong feeling that he likes to see how fast he can drive because we were definitely zooming down the mountain holding on for our dear lives. I tried to take a video clip of his driving but we kept getting caught behind buses and he felt the need to go around the buses and other cars which scared us because it was dark and they were all hair-pin turns.

We dropped Saranya off at her house and stopped in to say to her family before heading home. We got home around 10:30 where we tried to eat the dinner that our grandmother had made for us but we just ended up getting into our PJs and passing out.