June 9th: Ooty: Botanical and Rose Gardens

In our new clothes :) 

We decided to be adventurous and take the town bus to Ooty. It’s about a two hour bus ride up the mountain so we ended up catching the 10am bus. It was pretty crowded at first but the conductor on the bus made sure that we got seats. It was actually a really nice and refreshing ride. At one point a drunken guy got on the bus and was being rude so the conductor stopped the bus and kicked him off. The guy was basically breathing down our necks and the smell of liquor was so strong. He definitely swaggered off when he got kicked off.

Sitting on the engine of the bus

                When we finally reached Ooty it was half past noon so we decided to go grab some lunch. We went to the Nahar Hotel where we had one of the best lunches ever. Paneer butter masala and palak paneer with butter naan. It filled us up so much but it also energized us to start our trip. Our first stop was the tourist office. We wanted to see if we could book tickets for an elephant ride in the national tiger reserve in Thepakkadu. Unfortunately we couldn’t book tickets the day before but the rangers at the office were super nice and gave us a map of Ooty and Muthumalai forest.

The view from the bus and our amazing lunch

From the tourist office we headed to the Botanical Gardens.  We ended up making a pit stop at a Café along the way that had these amazing Choco Balls and they were only Rs.15. We also went to the Modern Store which apparently is the place where you can get pretty much anything that you are craving from peanut butter & nutella to SPAM. It was interesting because they had all these different types of Riesling and zinfandel but when you took a closer look you realized that everything was “de-alcoholized.” This was also the one spot where you’ll pretty much find every foreigner that is traveling in and around Ooty. The store was pretty close to the garden so it was an on the way stop to pick up some Kleenex.

Choco Balls and the De-alcoholized Wine

Looks it's Gudalur

Onto the Botanical gardens which are gorgeous. We enjoyed walking around and seeing all the plants and flowers. Anna and Hayley were a tourist attraction themselves and had quite a few people come up to them and ask to have their picture taken with them which was kind of annoying especially since most of the people coming up were in their 20s and 30s. They weren’t really comfortable with it and we kept saying no but people kept coming up to our group throughout the day.

                After leaving the botanical gardens we decided to go to the Rose Gardens which according to the signs were only 1 km away but we quickly learned that either the sign lied or we took the longest most roundabout way of getting there. We really had to use a restroom and saw a Dominos along the way so we decided that we’d go in there buy something small just so we can use a decent bathroom. Probably one of the downsides of traveling in India is that it is hard to find a clean bathroom anywhere. The Dominos menu looked pretty interesting but we were all still full from lunch so we just continued on walking towards the Rose Garden. After a number of twists and turns and walking down random alleys and walking up steep hills we finally reached the rose garden.

                The roses were definitely gorgeous but the garden probably would have looked better if the roses were planted closer together. We went through the garden taking pictures next to pretty roses and wandered around until we needed to get to the bus station. We wanted to catch a bus around 5:30 so we would be back to Gudalur around 7:30-8 but we just missed the 5:30 bus and the 6:00 bus never came so we were stuck waiting until 6:30. Anna and Hayley wanted to get some jasmine for their hair so we did while waiting. We spent the other 50 minutes staring down all the random people that were looking at groups and refusing the people that came up asking to take pictures with Anna and Hayley. None of us could understand why so many people wanted to take pictures with Anna and Hayley. What were they going to do with the picture? Frame it and say that this was the day they took a picture with a white person?

In the Rose Gardens

Finally we got on a bus and managed to get two seats. Since the previous bus had never came this bus was overcrowded and people were majorly pushy which none of us really were willing to put up since we were so exhausted. In particular there was this one lady that somehow managed to push both me and Anna simultaneously until Anna gave her a nice little shove which stopped her from leaning onto her. She went and sat on the lady behind us instead but Anna and I couldn’t wait until she was off the bus for good. We finally made it back to Gudalur around 8:30 and took an auto back to the hostel. We spent some time talking with the people that were in the hostel before we all excused ourselves to go to bed. Although we only went to two places in Ooty we had a really good time exploring together and just hanging out.  

June 8th: Working in the Hospital and Back Into Town

 I spent the majority of the day putting together a rough draft of the video. It’s actually to really cool to be putting together these videos. I have to make myself think about the Adivasi community and what they would be interested in and how to make the material understandable for them. I finished working on the Sickle Cell Pamphlet and spent the morning making a rough draft of the video. We are making three separate sickle cell videos, one to introduce the topic, the second to explain the mode of inheritance and the third to explain the various treatment/management plans. Putting together the first video made me think of the potential of these videos and I’m really looking forward to coming home and working on them more in depth. I really hope that these videos turn out well because I think they have the potential to help a lot of people if done properly.

                After finishing the sickle cell pamphlet I worked on a diabetes booklet. There is actually a pretty high population with diabetes so teaching them about proper diet and how to prevent or manage diabetes is very important. I’ll be visiting tribal villages on Monday so I am looking forward to speaking with various individuals to learn about their knowledge of various subjects. I will also be following the health animator/counselor that works with sickle cell families to see how counseling is done.

       
It was raining for the better part of the day so after we finished up at the hospital we spent part of the evening sitting outside the hostel watching the rain and the construction workers. They provide us with pretty good entertainment. We wanted to enjoy the nice weather before heading back into town to grab another milkshake. :-D We also decided that since it was the weekend we would head to Ooty tomorrow to explore a bit. It’s a pretty big tourist attraction and since Hayley and Anna had never been there and my sister and I hadn’t been since 2006 we thought it would be a fun adventure trying to explore on our own.

                After our amazing milkshakes we came back to the hostel for dinner and ended up just hanging around with the others in the hostel before heading to bed to prepare for tomorrow. 

June 7th: Hospital, Shopping and Mango Shakes

Some Adivasi women outside of the hospital

 The day here doesn’t start till 9 which is nice. Mala is the cook at the hostel and she makes the most amazing food for all us. We all eat breakfast together around 8:30 before heading down to the hospital for our day’s work. After breakfast I met up with Ammani and Sheila to go around the hospital and see what has changed and what I would be doing. The hospital is currently under construction. Additional wards are being added and separate buildings are being built for an operation theater, post-natal ward, blood bank and another guest hostel. It’s amazing the changes that are underway from last year.  I truly believe that this hospital has managed to find every kind-hearted, dedicated, loyal Indian in the vicinity to work for them. Everyone is so nice and helpful that is insane. Even all the patients are sweet and friendly. This hospital is definitely a gem that is hidden away in the Nilgiri Hills but I’m glad that I have been able to work with them and hopefully be somewhat helpful.

The additional wards that are being added on 

         Ammani and I spent the morning going over all of the educational material that they currently have in the temple. My project will be to take the current presentations, spruce them up, translate them into Tamil and make them into a pamphlet and then also make an educational video in Tamil of the same topics. Dr. Nandakumar is quite excited about this project and talks a mile a minute about the potential of the project which is kind of entertaining. He has designated individuals within the hospital as the “audio visual department” and I am to work with them to make these videos. Apparently I should not have majored in Biology but I think we are all learning as we figure out this project. The educational videos will be played not only at the hospital but also at all the local area centers when patients come to visit. The topics range from Sickle Cell, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, epilepsy, nutrition, sanitation, personal hygiene, rules and regulations of the hospital to whatever else the hospital thinks is important for patients and families to learn about.

            I’m excited to work on this project but I just need to figure out the logistics of everything. Dr. Nandakumar knows that I won’t be able to get everything done immediately but he wants to me to continue to work with the hospital in any capacity possible even after I graduate which I would love to do. I already want to try and come back at least once a year if possible but we’ll have to see what happens with the job search next year.

            For lunch we go back to the hostel and eat with everyone once again which is nice. The hostel is a 10 second walk from the hospital so we can always go back and forth during the day if we need to. After lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon going over the information on my own and updating things as needed and translating everything.

Deciding whether she wants the blue salwar or the green

              

           Akshaya spent the day with Anna and Hayley following them around on their medical rotation. But we all agreed to meet up at 4pm to go shopping for Anna and Hayley. They had tried going shopping for clothes previously but couldn’t get the sales reps to understand what they wanted. The walk into town was nice and refreshing and we spent a good bit of time at the store but ultimately we were successful and both Anna and Hayley found a couple of salwar sets that they liked. 

They had some pretty interesting hats at the store

The best milkshake ever!

While the store was making the necessary alterations we headed over to Lulu Bakes to get some amazing mango milkshakes. I was introduced to the milk shakes at this bakery during my last visit and had to have more this time. They are by far the best mango milkshakes that I have ever had and everyone has agreed.We also picked up some sweets to try out to see which ones we liked. 

                

We picked up a few mangos after getting all the clothes before heading back to the hostel in an auto. After showing off the clothes that had been purchased and eating dinner we settled down to watch A Walk to Remember before bed since Anna and Hayley had not seen the movie before. A Walk to Remember is still probably one of my favorite Nicholas Sparks books/movies. 

Our new friends :) Anna and Hayley

June 6th: First Day in Gudalur

              We were taking a bus from Bangalore to Gudalur so we had to get up pretty early and get ready. Our bus was supposed to be leaving at 9 am so we had asked the driver to come at 7:15 so we would get there in time with all of the traffic but the taxi never came so at 8:15 we were scrambling to find an auto to take us. Nirmala and I took an auto while my cousin and Akshaya came on his motorcycle. They were probably the fastest ride that the both of us have been on. The auto driver was super nice though and knew that we had to get to the bus station so he took as many side roads as possible to avoid all the traffic. We probably would have never made it in the taxi because the cars were backed up forever but we were able to maneuver between all the vehicles in the auto and motorcycle.

                We got to the bus station with about 15 minutes to spare which was great but now we had to sit in a bus for 7 hours. I originally thought it would only take 4 hours but then I was told 6 hours and when we got to the station the driver said it would take 7 hours sitting in a stuffy bus. There weren’t too many people on the bus when we got on but quite a few people got on at the next stop and eventually there was a full bus. Unfortunately, the guy sitting in front of me apparently had not heard of deodorant and decided to lean his chair back and put his arm over his head treating me to quite a smell. I really wish I had had some Febreeze that I could have just sprayed all over him. And worse, he was going to Gudalur as well so we were stuck on the bus with him for the entire trip.

                Eventually we got to Gudalur around 4:30pm, thank goodness, and were able to get some fresh air. We managed to get an auto and stuff our luggage into the auto to take us to the hospital. The weather is super nice in Gudalur since we are in the mountains. This is a welcome change from the heat of Nagpur. We apparently are going to be here for the beginning of monsoon season so it’s going to be cool to see the rain.

                We are staying in the doctor’s hostel again and I have the same room I had last year. There are actually a ton of people that are staying here as well. Sophie from Englahd and Vivek are two doctors that are here on a long-term basis working at the hospital. Dr. Sashi and her daughter are visiting from Pune to help out for two weeks. Dr. Sashi is a OBGYN and comes to the hospital twice a year for 15 days to help out at the hospital. There are also two medical students, Anna and Hayley that are here from England as part of their medical elective. They had just arrived the past weekend so they were still adjusting to the change.

The guest hostel where we are all staying

 

My room & Hallway/Living Room with the Kitchen further in                                     

                At first we got freshened up before heading down to the hospital to see Dr. Nandakumar to find out what we were going to be doing this trip. There is one counselor, Ammani, at the hospital that pretty much sees every single patient that comes through so I was going to be following her and shadowing her throughout the visit. I was also going to be working with her to come up with some educational information for the patients. Dr. Nandakumar also wants to make health educational videos for the patients while they are waiting so I am working with Ammani to see what is important and put together the information that will be part of the video. Today was just to get up to speed on what I was going to be doing for the next week.

You can learn more about the hospital at http://ashwini.org/. There is a ton of information about the history and how everything started which I highly recommend reading. 

The hospital

          Afterwards we went back to the hostel and were invited to Durga’s house for dinner. Durga is one of the individuals that works with the hospital and the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam. I had dinner at her house last year and it was amazing. Her house pretty much resembles a story book cottage and is so unique compared to all the other buildings in the area. 

 

 It's a story book cottage

              It was her daughter’s birthday so we all went over to celebrate. It was a really nice night to meet everyone. There were a ton of people there so I’m not going to name and describe everyone but after dinner we all sat around and kind of had a group sing-a-long. Akshaya, Anna, Hayley and I just sat back and watched and listened to everyone interact. We eventually ended up back at the hostel where we all pretty much passed out because we were so exhausted. 

               All in all we are both happy to be in Gudalur. I loved my visit last year and I'm glad to be back this time. 

June 5th: Goodbye Nagpur, Hello Bangalore

            In order to get to Gudalur we had to fly to Bangalore and then take a bus to Gudalur. Instead of doing all that traveling in one day we decided to spend the night in Bangalore with our cousin and spend some time with him and his new wife. I had already told him before going that my sister and I wanted pizza or KFC or something that wasn’t chappati. We had eaten so much chappati in Nagpur that I really just wanted something different.

           We got ready in the morning and Dr. Jain drove us to the airport. That was an adventure in itself but we made it to the airport in one piece. After a short stopover in Mumbai we were finally in Bangalore. As soon as we went outside the airport the first stand that we saw was for Subway. Home sweet home but we were both holding out for Pizza Hut. It took about an hour to get to my cousin’s from the airport but our first order of business was to place our order. Oh the choices that we had. American fast food Indian style is definitely interesting. Gotta be careful or you might end up with something that would be great by itself but horrible on a pizza.

          We ended up devouring the pizza and then headed out to the shops for a bit. It was nice to just walk around and enjoy the weather. It was still hot but nothing like Nagpur. This heat we could handle. We went into a few little shops and then just walked around for the most part. We decided to just continue the fast food trend and walked to KFC for dinner. I was actually surprised at how good the food was. I had gone to the KFC in Coimbatore last year but the one in Bangalore was even better. And the food was spicy to boot. I didn’t even need any hot sauce ;-) 

Three buffalos chillin on the road. The cars just went around them

Double whammy: Two for one deal

Couldn't get a great pic of the menu

Our dinner

She was happy with her mochacchino

We made Suresh anna eat almost everything we bought

The spoils of the night

Loved this necklace and earring set!

June 4th: Last Day in Nagpur

With Amarappali and Shruti

             It was a bittersweet day. We had definitely enjoyed our time in Nagpur but we were ready to get away from the heat. We spent the last day in the hospital. I really needed to get my some updated data for the paper that I am working on with Dr. Krish. Dr. Jain has over a 1000 sickle cell patients that she cares for at the hospital and we are trying to look at all the clinical events of these patients to see if we can determine what symptoms are more common in Sickle cell patients in India. Literature states that Sickle Cell Disease is mild in India but Dr. Jain’s data shows that in the predominantly non-tribal population the disease is actually very severe and there are certain co-morbidities that we see in the Indian population but not in the African-American population in the States. The paper and information is super interesting but the data is a huge mess and I’ve been trying to sort it out for almost an entire year but coming here has helped because I can sit down with Sanjeewani, Amol, and Sheetal and get the information from them directly instead of trying to guess their thought process from the States. We basically spent all afternoon going through paper medical records trying to get missing information.

            After the hospital today we had been invited to Dr. Shrikhande’s house for dinner. Along the way we stopped to pick up our clothes :-D Pics below. But back to Dr. Shrikhande. Her house was amazing!!!! Omg. I wish I could have taken a picture of it but it was too dark but wow. Her house was huge and she had a huge garden and even a small little temple. We had yet another dinner where people tried to stuff more food than we eat but everything was delicious. We couldn’t stay long because our flight was early the next morning and we still had to pack our clothes and Dr. Jain and I still had to go over more data.

Dr. Jain tying the Akshaya's Chaniya Choli

After we got back to the house we had a little fashion show and tried on the new clothes to make sure that all the blouses fit. I love the saris that I bought but I have idea when or where I’m going to be able to wear them.

So I definitely am not the expert on tying saris but I did the best I could so you can get an idea of the pattern. There's one more that's not on here but it was a green/red/pink mix :P

The first white sari that I bought

Bandhani Patterned Sari

The Sari with the elephants on the border

All in all it has been a great and successful trip to Nagpur. Next time I decide to come here it will definitely be in Nagpur’s winter months and not in May/June.

June 3rd: Dragon Palace, Community Screening, & Dheekshabhoomi

         I haven’t been doing the best job of keeping the blog updated this trip but our internet was crappy in Nagpur and we were super busy and exhausted at the end of every day. Everyone pretty much works 24/7 at the hospital which is why we were ready to leave at 7am for a community camp in a village about 45 minutes away near the Dragon Palace Temple. Sanjeewani and Dr. Amol went to set everything up for the camp while my sister, Sheetal and I explored the Dragon Palace Temple.

       

Walking up to the entrance to the temple

         The Dragon Palace Temple is a Buddhist temple in Kamptee, Nagpur and is gorgeous! It kind of looks out of place among all the other buildings in the area but the architecture is gorgeous and so is the landscaping. Apparently at one point in time the Dragon Palace won an International Award for the best concrete structure in the world. It was super clean which is a rarity but it would be depressing if the temple very became run down and dirty like a lot of other places in India. There is a large Buddha statue inside and it is said that the statue was carved out of a single block of sandalwood and I believe it was brought over from Japan. The exterior color of the temple is white which is supposed to symbolize calmness, clarity, and divinity. The temple is also sometimes referred to as the Lotus Temple of Nagpur which I guess you can kind of see somewhat with the structure of the temple. Maybe an aerial view shows more of a Lotus shape?

This statue was off to the left side of the temple explaining why the temple was built

        Anyway, the Dragon Palace was definitely a unique place to visit during our trip. There is a large Buddhist community in this area which I’ll explain a little bit more later. After exploring the temple we headed to the village where the community screening camp was set up.

Sanjeewani talking to everyone in the community

          The Sickle Cell Team from the hospital goes to various villages surrounding Nagpur to offer community screening. Over a 3 hour period, 102 individuals were screened using a Sickle Prep test which will indicate the presence of the sickle gene but not necessarily the genotype. Around 12 were found positive so these twelve individuals then had their blood drawn for HPLC analysis. Sanjeewani started the morning by explaining to the group gathered the purpose of the visit and explaining about Sickle Cell Anemia why screening is important and the implications of a positive result. 

Our set up for the camp

It was interesting to see that throughout the screenings if an individual was found to be positive there was no private disclosure. The name of the individual who tested positive was called out and Sanjeewani would tell that person in front of everyone that they tested positive and that they needed to go get any other family members that were at home so that they could be tested. This method of disclosure meant that the entire community was privy to learn about others test results if they were around when the name was called out. Definitely goes against everything we do in the States but that is the way of life here.

Sheetal doing the initial Sickle Prep test on all the individuals

        

These screening camps kind of reminded me of the community screening events that Children’s Hospital and the Children’s Sickle Cell Foundation offer in areas with a high African American population in Pittsburgh. While we don’t do immediate disclosures we do offer free screening and offer counseling for the individuals interested in testing.

Dr. Amol drawing blood from a boy that tested positive on the prep test

       After completing the screening camp we stopped for lunch on the way back to Dr. Jain’s house for some amazing Paneer and paratha J

Dheekshabhoomi

         Dr. Jain had Rakshit, the driver, take us to a few more places in Nagpur because she got called in for an emergency at the hospital. First we went to Deekshabhoomi  which is the place where Dr. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism with close to 400,000 of his followers in October of 1956. The monument at Deekshaboomi is a pilgrimage center of Buddhism in India. The name Deekshabhoomi comes from Deeksha which literally means accepting religion and Bhoomi which means land. So Deekshabhoomi means the land where people get converted to Buddhism (Buddhism advocates the acceptance of all religions).

We got to see a gorgeous sunset

        From here we then drove to a nearby lake to watch the sunset and take in the scenery and on the drive back to the house we drove by a “pole” which represents the precise geographic center of India. It’s interesting that there are statues of Dr. Ambedkar all over the city, the airport is named after him, and so are a number of educational institutions but there’s nothing but a lousy pole to signify the geographic center of the entire country.

        It was definitely nice to do a little sight-seeing today and explore Nagpur a bit. J