June 7, 2011
It has been way too long since I have written a journal entry. I have been way to busy. I plan on writing more from here on out. Last week was spent In the community group. This entailed working with children and mapping out certain villages with known TB and TB resistant patients. Patients come from up to four day trips to Lady Willingdon Hospital, the hospital in Manali that we work at. Though our mapping of specific villages and determining the amount of TB resistant patients in these villages Lady Willingdon hospital will be able to determine if when a new patient comes in to the hospital if it is beneficial to do a TB drug resistant test. This test is fairly expensive so at the time they only administer it if the patient has had no benefit from four months of typical TB treatment. This information, which is the key reason we are here, was just recently given to us. This gave a bit more emphasis to the group to do TB research as most of us thought we were simply doing menial work to aid a graduate school project. The community group began with us playing with children, awkwardly denying water that would have caused us more harm than we gave by offending the locals by denying it and attempting to work the GPS program. I have to interject at this point. There are a variety of people who are going to read this from family, to friends to those who are grading it ( Hello). I am a very snarky, cynical and interesting* writer. If this is your first time reading something I wrote and are offended, please look back on my old writing and get a grip on the way I write, convey stories, and bring humor to situations. (those of you who are reading this and are not my teacher, thanks for working through that little tid bit). Moving on:
Through the community group we learned how to approach some clinical situations though the help of Dr Kathleen, an american (wohoo white people) doctor who came with us to each of the villages. We went over basics from pulse rate to respiratory timing and all the way though histories etc. All though this “clinical” time we mostly just played with the children with butterfly stickers and amazed them with the Japanese brilliance that are our digital cameras. Domo Ari gato. Through photos and videos we captured the attention of these young minds taking them away from the frightening situation we ourselves threw them into by intruding into their lives. As we* weighed and measured the children documenting* our efforts, the cultural barrier began to fade. (*we didn’t weight or measure or document, but we watched it happen). Several of these moments are documents in previous picture sets. Im working on some more. This is kinda the blog for those photos anyways. DWI. (Deal with it). Throughout this week we witnessed some of the most heart wrenching and thought provoking concepts masked in the faces of malnourished and sickly children. Looking into their cream white eyes, it brought on feelings of awe, humility and guilt. Each village varied on the heath of the children but all were so far bellow anything you could find in America. There is no comparison. Four year olds with rounded ringworm bruises and frail little boys with the lungs of an 80 year old smoker. The unworldly poor health exhibited by the children was only outdone by the love and compassion shown by the workers in the schools and orphanages. One of the little boys, obviously suffering from severe mental retardation, could not hold up his own head let alone eat or talk or walk. He required 100% attention in the arms of a very caring woman, likely not his own mother. They had no cribs, no beds, no facilities to deal with a problem like this, only the man power and constant vigilance of the staff. This was my first two days. Then it happened.
On the third day I fixed the internet. I will preface this with, I am not saying I will not help but I do think this is a humerous situation and I am always willing to aid in any way I can. Our internet here is awful to say it kindly. This is due to number of factors including Manali’s faulty wiring thoughout the city and the face the computer was connected to the power through raw cords for most of the first week of this trip. So one day the internet went out. I went to the office. Realized the power cord fell out, plugged it in. turned on the computer and router. Boom internet, BOOM Technical genius. I was at this point put on internet fixing duty (which is fine, I am not upset) as well as mapping and Excel. (I would like to get a name tag saying “Jake Seidenberg Master Technical Genius”). If that could be arranged, it would be most appreciated. Moving on…. So I was put on map duty with my roommate Nathan. We scoured the skies for signal finding bits and pieces of connection with limited success. By thursday however we did it, we got all the pieces together, mapped out our entire trek and mastered the software. Wohoo! This was especially entertaining as Nathan had the GPS in is backpack and had been running around with the children so the tracking software made a bunch over overlapping circular lines in some areas.
Each of our outings with coupled with tea time, a practice I believe should be incorporated into the American college system. A tea break between neuroscience and chemistry would be greatly appreciated. Tea is especially nice in india because you don’t have to worry about drinking it as it is boiled as opposed to juices or water. We had tea at some of the school and some of the health care workers invited us back to their houses for chai as well. This was essentially the nuts and bolts of the first week in the community. At least in terms of the village part. I will not go into detail about this next part as I only write about things I enjoy….. I spent most of my TB research time, we are required to spend a certain about of time working on the TB research every day, organizing a large list ( big ass list) of names and details in an excel document of somewhere between 250 and 600 TB patients in the area and surrounding villages. I had to compile, with help, 8 years of excel documents into 1 single document while giving each of the patient a unique ID so that they could remain anonymous. Just to say, I am not entirely sure but I believe a new development of information may make this entire set of data somewhat useless in comparison. Oy.
Well that’s enough of that. On to the nitty gritty exciting part of the trip. Me aiding the community did not stop me from going out on the town every night of last week. From quiet cafes to bustling bars Old Manali became a safe haven for the group to unwind after a day of excitement, work and miscommunication*. Our nightly excursions much like those of the first weekend were full of interesting people, new stories and a worldly view not seen in the bland melting pot I have found America to be. Though not all our excursions were treated as a beneficial addition to the research component of the trip, I still find them to be some of the most eye opening unforgettable moments of my entire life. (Don’t you hate when you parents are right… actually not really in this situation). I will be having very extensive blogs on this topic of OLD MANALI. But just to name a few of the interesting places:
People: Yes this is the name of a restaurant, I believe I brought it up before. Great food, great atmosphere. The walls are littered with colorful, “inspired” drawings. I have even posted some of my own drawings at this point. There are those who are reading this, thinking about my ability to command a pencil even to write out common prose and laugh at the fact I attempted art. They are probably correct. My drawings were not that great. O well. They were always appreciated. Good fish here crispy, savory, buttery while falling right off the bone I didn’t see in my first bite. great omelets, hashbrowns and amazing, amazing chicken sandwiches! To die for. They make their own chicken patties stuffed with herbs, scallions, onions and the perfect about of season breadcrumb stuffing. However chai leaves something to be wanted. Addition of real hot chocolate which incidentally after ordering it is simply melted chocolate, was a good fix for this bland chai.
Dylans: This restaurant which has a very open airy feel as it is directly open to the street with no walls on the outside, houses the worlds best chocolate chip cookie. No your mother doesn’t make the best cookie, they do, get over it. That and the chocolate chip cookie milkshake. Wow. Brownies were not that great but the amazing, home grown, home roasted, home ground coffee, which everyone like but for one reason or another I am still waiting to try…. I will get to that in the next blog
Moon something café: nice little bar/ restaurant, nothing special.
1947: café with nice lounging areas that seat roughly 6-16 depending on how friendly you are. Hit or miss with the music.
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