Ok, so I have been really bad at writing here the last couple weeks.  Soooo, this is going to be fairly long I think.  Things have been super busy.  I spent the last couple weeks changing dressing to a badly burned bum every morning (cutting dead, burned skin off of someone's burned arse first thing in the morning is not the most appealing thing to do first thing in the morning... trust me), seeing kids for numerous aches, pains, colds, cuts, boils, and of course the odd rat bight.  One of the girls came into see me with a "sore head", so before I suggested taking the hairclip out of her hair which was right where she said her head was hurting, I decided to take a look.  So, I start feeling her head and realize it has lumps all over it, decide should probably put some gloves on before I look further, then take a closer look at the "lumps" and her hair.... so she has head lice (which isn't unusual) but she had been scratching her head and the scratches got infected.  She had scabby, puss oozing sores all over her head.  So much so that her hair was caked to her head and smelled really badly :(  Head lice shampoo and antibiotics and hopefully her head starts to heal!
On Thursday, Liz and I jumped on the train at 7:30am and headed out to Nallasopara (the second school).  It is about an hourish train ride from Bandra (where we are in Mumbai) then a rickshaw ride and a long walk down to the end of a lane to the school!  They have just built a new school in Nallasopara in June with separate classrooms all with doors, a huge office, and fenced in school yard where they are planting trees and hoping to start a garden!  It was great to see the school and the kids there.  We spent half a day there then headed back to Mumbai to go look for dental supplies..... looking for anything in India when you don't know exactly where it is, is always a mission!  The first place we looked for, nobody had a clue where it was.  We finally found a place sorted out dental equipment and then realized we were both really hungry.  The only place we could find was a semi-sketchy "family restaurant" with A/C.  Probably the dingiest place EVER and the A/C consisted of 2 fans blowing.  Our waiter was incredibly excited (I think doesn't see many white people, let alone women!) to see us and kept going on and on in hindi smiling and laughing (halfway through eating, when he was walking back and forth talking to himself, we decided he was high) and talking about krishna (the only phrase we could make out)!  Anyhow, somehow we did not end up deathly ill from eating there and the food was good!
Friday was my last day at the school, and Aarti and one of her brother's showed up!!  We had seen them on the street with there parents for the past couple weeks, but their parents weren't bringing them to school.  On Wednesday her mom showed up and Tania gave her a pretty good lecture about her not bringing her kids in to the school so they could eat and get free medical care ect.  Apparently it worked.   I weighed Aarti and at 16 months old, she is now 5.5kg (the wt of an 8mo old baby).  In the last year she has gained just over 2kg :(  Somehow she is still alert and attentive.  She can't walk or crawl.  She does manage to sit up on her own, but not well.  She is very much a fighter.  Hopefully they will keep coming to the school and she will gain some weight.
The other high point Friday was Vikas finally (with only one reminder) went through and did his weekly checklist, including going through and counting all of the medications and listing them all!!  Also, he took a couple kids for follow-up appointments without me saying anything to him!!!!!  You have no idea how many frustrating days I have had in the past month, constantly reminding and prompting him to do things!  It was such a relief to see that things may really have sunk in!!!
Sunday night (well, early, early, as in 3am early Monday) I jumped on a plane for a 9hr flight to the UK!  My flight got in at 7am and was met at the airport by Sascha (who had gotten up at 4am to drive 2 hours from Belper, through London traffic to pick me up!) and we promptly decided to make a road trip/detour to Oxford for lunch and a visit before heading back to Belper.  Now I am trying to adjust to the cold, have developed a bit of a cold (which started at the airport in Mumbai), slightly jet lagged, and catching up with great friends!!

Places you never want to burn...

Today was a busy "medical" day.  Vikas went off to take a couple people to the hospital for follow-up with specialists.  Meanwhile, I went to work treating a woman with boils/skin lesions to her legs.  After cleaning and dressing them, she informed us that she had just been diagnosed with HIV.  The follow-up she was told to do?  Return for another test in 6mo to see if it has progressed to AIDS and make sure you eat healthy.  Nice.  So after some teaching and giving some multi-vitamins we made a plan to take her for further bloodwork in the afternoon.  In the meantime, another woman had come in with bad burns to her bottom, so we sent her to the hospital with her daughter to have them looked at (as there is no burn supplies at the school).  The doctor tried to say she needed to be admitted to hospital but we made the decision that as long as she has appropriate antibiotics and ointment for the burns, no need for hospital.  Sooo, back she came with her medication and ointment (which was only a ointment similar to polysporin so sent someone to buy some SilverX to treat the burns).  The story is that she was cooking and moved a large boiling pot of water, lost her balance or slipped, and fell backwards into the scalding water, resulting in 2nd degree burns to her bum!  Not a very pleasant place to be burned.  There are to large open areas to either side and a very large fluid filled blister which drained nice brown fluid...
Needless to say, she will not be sitting for quite sometime!
The rest of the day involved dr appointments, lab appointments, and making sure everything was charted, put in the binders for follow-up, and checking in with Vikas about the hospital appointments, which, once again were mostly a waste of time as the TB Dr apparently decided not to show up after they had been sitting there for almost an hour.  Good thing was that Rikah (who had fallen last week) was able to get a cast on her arm for a fractured wrist!  Also had to take Parvitii for blood work and chest xray.  She was very brave, sat on my lap and cried while they took blood, but didn't move :(

So after a long, busy day Tania, Liz (another volunteer), and I went Sari shopping for the kids school program which is on Sunday!  We did quite well and each got a sari and fitted for the undershirt to go with it and back to the apartment in 1.5 hours!!  Fantastic!

Well, I think I am off to bed very shortly.  Maybe a cold shower first, as the water is ridiculously cold in the morning!

Yesterday morning walking to work there were policemen walking in big groups, sitting on all the benchs, and basically lining the promenade on the way to work.  Normally there will be a couple police out but usually hanging out in their little guard huts.  There were lots of people out so I didn't think to much about it, except that maybe Thackeray's health had declined some more.
At work, spent the morning taking our cook to the hospital with Vikas.  She slipped and fell on Sunday last week and "broke" her wrist.  She came to school Thursday afternoon with her arm in a makeshift cast she had gotten put on by the "doctor", who didn't happen to send her for x-rays.  The "cast" was super tight and felt as though if there was any plaster in it somewhere, it was broken up.  So, yesterday on the way to the hospital we stopped at the "doctor"she saw, to have him remove the cast (as there is nothing at the school I could cut it off with) so we could take her to see the orthopedic specialist and get xrays.  It turns out the "doctor" was a village doctor, who looked like he was maybe 25yrs old and his office was a little hole in the wall place, with a sign above it for casting.  It turns out the cast consisted of gauze and popsicle sticks (to keep it stable I suppose).  He had also put something that looked like betadine on her arm (not sure what that was for) and told her to come back in 2 days and it would be better!  Amazing!  Anyhow, we told him NOT to put the cast back on and headed for the hospital.  Indian hospitals are always quite interesting.  The Ortho guy that was supposed to be there, wasn't (apparently we had an old schedule, but when she gave us the new one, it looked exactly the same...).  So after a few trips up and down stairs, we sat for a good hour while she stood in line for an xray.  Because it was Saturday, the other Ortho wouldn't be in until 2pm, but the xray wouldn't be ready until 7pm.... so kind of a waste of time.  So, we went back to the school, I wrapped her hand and then we took Parvitii to the Dr. as she has a bad chest infection and he gave us some antibiotics and nice brightly coloured pills that are for "runny nose, fever, analgesia" basically an antihistamine, and a couple NSAIDS.
When we got home I had run to get a yoga schedule and was just walking back up the alley to our place when Tania called me to say "you need to get back to the apartment NOW and tell everyone not to leave".  Bal Thakeray had passed away yesterday afternoon.  Within an hour of Tania calling, all the shops were closing, rickshaws and taxi's stopped running and basically all of Mumbai shut down.  Tania did manage to order pizza for us and some grocery's before everything shut down.  The police have put out a warning/advisory that people are to stay in their homes unless there is an emergency.... so we are now on "house arrest" for the next couple days.  So what do you do when you can't do anything?  Well, you stay up until 4:30am visiting and playing The Game of Things and Taboo!
There is huge concern about riots starting, but so far things have remained very calm.  The funeral procession left Mr. Thakeray's house in E. Bandra early this morning to travel to Dadar (downtown area) to a big park there where he will be cremated.  It took 7 hours for the them to get there (thousands of people have gathered to mourn him).  There is something like 60 000 police in Mumbai, and 57 000 of them are on duty to maintain peace for the funeral.
Anyhow, we are tucked up in our apartment, trying to keep ourselves entertained with internet, reading, sleeping, pushups, squats, eating, and anything else we can think of for the next 48 hours.

Goa

I am writing this and watching the battery on my computer quickly die, so may have to write more tomorrow.  The last for days have been a bit of a whirlwind of trains, taxi's, beaches, more trains, rickshaws, and of course kids!  Annie (one of the other volunteers) and I jumped on a train early Sunday morning for a 12 hour train ride to Goa.  Because of Diwali we didn't have work until today.  The train brings you to Madgoan and then you have to take a taxi (or the bus) to wherever you are going from there.  So we, along with a couple Swiss girls, took a taxi from there to Palolem which is about an hour from Madgoan.  We got to Palolem safely (which is still a surprise sometimes...) found a guesthouse and spent the next couple days enjoying quiet beaches on the Arabian Sea.  Monday: got up, walked along the beach, went for breakfast on the beach, walked some more on the beach, have a drink, walk some more, check out the shops, have lunch, walk around the beach and shops some more (jump in the water a couple times), run into Sebastian (other volunteer who went there the day before us), go for dinner and drinks, watch the beginnings of Diwali celebrations going on in the streets, bed.  Tuesday: woken up by fireworks/crackers/bombs (like fireworks, only super loud and don't really do anything) at 6am, tried to get back to sleep but they kept going off so got up and went for breakfast, then rented scooters, and cruised up to Agonda Beach (about 30 mins away).  Only one minor accident with Annie missing a bridge and crashing into the side of it.  Luckily some very helpful Indian men helped her up and drove the scooter across the bridge for her.  A bit of a scraped knee, bent key for the scooter (which a waiter nicely hammered straight for her), and some scrapes on the scooter and all was good!  Then spent most of the day cruising around checking out the area and other beaches.  Dropped off the scooters, had to do a bit of haggling/negotiating to avoid having to pay too much for the scrapes on the scooter, went shopping, then drinks on the beach and watching fireworks and listening to bombs going off, went for dinner, had fireworks set off right behind our table on the beach (seriously about 2 metres behind us) and I promptly had my leg mildly burned by sparks as we were scrambling to move away from the exploding fireworks behind us!  After that excitement, decided best to go to bed away from explosives!  Wednesday: Taxi back to Madgoan to catch our 9:30 am train, 12hour train ride back to Mumbai, jumped on the wrong train once we were in Mumbai, had to take an autorickshaw, back the complete opposite direction to get to our apartment (amidst fireworks, bombs, and firecrackers going off everywhere).

Today!  Today was sports day at the school, which meant an early start to get things set up.  I agreed to go even earlier (be at the school by 7am) to meet a couple of the teachers and help them get all the equipment to the private school where the sports day is held.  When I left the apartment to grab a rickshaw, I had to walk a couple blocks to find one, and then found only one, which I thought was strange as there are usually tons right on our street.  Heading to the school there was barely any traffic, only a couple rickshaws, no taxi's, which again pretty unusual.  Got to the school, and had to call Tania for something and she asked me how I got to the school as apparently there were no rickshaws running today as the leader of the very right wing political party is critically ill and was on life support overnight.  He also happens to live in Bandra (where we stay).  Because of this there was a very high chance of riots happening if he died.... good to know.   After talking to a couple of the teachers Tania decided to go ahead with sports day and keep a listen for what was going on.  Thankfully, aside from a pretty noticeable increase in police presence, no riots today!  And the leader (Bal Thackeray) is apparently off the respirator and stable at present.  So, sports day went well with lots of games and yelling and excitement, a few arguments from kids, but relatively smoothly considering everything!

Tomorrow is back to normal work day, unless Bal Thackeray dies, then we will be staying safely home in the apartment away from the riots!  Mom, don't worry, I am very safe and will keep you posted about what happens.

Ok, I am very tired as it's been a long and eventful day and my computer battery still hasn't died!!  So, good night!

India Round 2

I arrived in Bombay 3 days ago (it feels like I've been here much longer then 3 days... in a good way!). The flights where longish relatively uneventful.  My flight leaving Vancouver was delayed an hour, but it gave me time to catch up on some emails and phone calls (my sister said she always knows when I'm in an airport because that's when I call her! ha).  In London met up with a couple friends who where also traveling to India (they are in Goa) and we happened to be on the same flight to Bombay!

Arriving in Mumbai, I was met at the airport by an excited Josh and some good humid heat!  It actually hasn't been too bad heat wise here, and actually cool at night (not too bad = 30ish degrees during the day).

The last couple days I have working on getting over jet lag, which hasn't been too bad except it doesn't seem to matter what time I go to bed, I wake up at 6am (and wake up a couple times in between).  Last night we were all up until 1am visiting, so I actually slept until 6:06!  Ha.

It's great to be back at the school!  I have spent the last couple days working on creating checklists and forms for Vikas to use to hopefully make his job a little bit easier for him.  Apparently Vikas is absolutely terrified of me after last year!  Haha.... I don't think I've ever had someone scared of me before!  So, I decided for this past few days just to get myself organized and do the relatively easy things (making forms etc), so next week Vikas will be trembling!  Funny story, yesterday I was working on forms and giving them to Vikas and going over them with him, telling him how they are going to be used and how he needs to organize things ie. where to put them so he actually uses them.  One of the other male teachers, was sitting in the same corner of the offices as us, so at the end of the day, he sits down on the chair I was in and says to me "I'm you and you are Vikas" and proceeded with "Vikas, do this, Vikas read this, Vikas put this here, Vikas fill up my water bottle!"  Tania as well has been greatly enjoying watching the Juniper/Vikas interaction!

I have also been spending time every afternoon working with Kokila to do her exercises.  After her burns last year she refused to do her physio, so her skin grafts all contractured and now she can barely move her head/neck and has very little range of motion in her arms.  The first day she really didn't want to do the exercises, but with a bit of pushing she did them.  We do them upstairs in the school (her choice), so nobody else is around, just her and I and sometimes Parvarti (one of the little girls she babysits) comes and sits with us.  Yesterday afternoon she came into the office and said "no exercises today Didi", then came over to me and whispered "exercises now Didi, upstairs right now!"  So she is doing, them and even reminded me of one when I forgot, so I think it's more that she has been so stubborn about not doing them that she needs to keep pretending!

Tomorrow one of the other volunteers and I are jumping on a 12 hour train ride to Goa for a couple days (next week is Diwali so we have most of next week off).  So it will be nice to relax before the hard work starts next week!!

My last few days here have gone by super fast. Today was my last day of work then I fly to Australia tomorrow afternoon. This weekend was fairly uneventful. The 5 of us volunteering split up 3hr blocks to sit at the school with Kokila for 6hrs each day. Saturday morning myself and one of the other girls took the first shift from 10-1pm. It didn't really need both of us there, but I needed to sort out her medications into a simple, foolproof way so her mom would understand how to give them. And it just happened that when we got there, her one ear (which was very badly bruised extremely swollen) happened to open up during the night and was oozing blood and puss!! So, I got to gently squeeze a nice amount of lovely, purulent discharge out of a screaming 14yr old girls ear first thing Saturday morning. Then she through a huge fit about taking her medication, more crying, sobbing "please, no Didi, no Didi (all the women get called by their 1st name and Didi, which means sister)", gagging on multivitamin syrups. So, after some pretty decent drama, going for a little walk, and playing some computer games, Kokila was tired out and wanted a nap. When she went to lay down she pointed at the bed by her head and said "Sit Didi, sit". So, sit I did. Leaning against a shelf, with no back support and my legs over the side of the bed on the edge of a couple wooden boxes with Kokila's legs resting on top of mine.... at least she was comfortable, as I was far, far from it for the hour I had to sit like that!

The last hour brought more drama as we applied ointment to her healed burns/grafts to keep the skin from drying out, cracking, itching. She cried so much that her little friend Pardo (who lives at the school with her brother, and Kokila looks after for a couple hours each day after school) was hiding around the corner crying, when the next volunteer came for her shift.

That was basically my Saturday. I came back to the apartment and spent the rest of the weekend sleeping and not feeling very well.

Monday morning brought no sign of Aarti and her family. Apparently they gone to see the Dr on Saturday but he wasn't there so were supposed to go back on Tuesday.

Kokila had an appointment at the hospital for the Dr to look at her dressings and the areas still healing. The traffic was crazy and it took us (myself, Kokila, and her mom) an hour and a half in the taxi to get to the hospital making us half an hour late for the Dr. appointment. Although, being late wasn't an issue as we ended up having to sit there and wait for him for almost 2hrs... when he finally showed up he was very apologetic and said nobody called him and he had been in surgery up until he got there. The appointment took about 30mins max. and we were off again looking for a taxi. Finding a taxi was a bit of a gong show but we finally got one and headed back to the school. Again the traffic was bad but not as bad as it had been. Oh, it also happened to be about 40 degrees out, so that was fun sitting in a little, hot taxi, in traffic. Needless to say we were all pretty spent by the time we got back to the school at 4pm.

Tuesday ran pretty smoothly. I spent the day working with Vikas, going over, and over, and over, and over the questionaire he will be using. It worked out that we saw a few people and ended up having to take one of the girls to see the Dr as we thought she could have Malaria (which it turned out she does). So it was really good for Vikas to get to use the forms in a real setting instead of me making up scenarios.

The day went fairly well, with only one time where I actually laughed, like crying laughing, at Vikas' expense :( I know, not very professional, but it was pretty funny. I had told him that I had come to him with the complaint that I was really sad and couldn't stop crying for weeks and weeks. As "really sad, can't stop crying" is not a check off box he was having some difficulty figuring out where to check off that one (also, he has some difficulty with english). I wasn't giving him the answer, hoping he would figure that he could write it in the "other" space (which we had gone over a few times, again some things get lost in translation). He was pointing at the different things that could be checked off, looking at me hoping for an answer, while I just said "don't ask me, I'm the patient". Finally he found one he didn't know, looked at me and asked, very seriously, "is it constipation?". It was late afternoon, and we had been doing this all day, I couldn't help but laugh. I did feel a little bad after, since he really didn't understand. Anyhow...

I'd probably feel pretty sad and be crying if I had been constipated for weeks I guess!

Today we saw Aarti and her mom on the walk to school! Isha (Aarti's mom) handed me the baby and basically said "go"... so we went to the school with Aarti sleeping. We actually weren't quite sure if she was alive or not at first as she didn't move AT ALL when her mom gave her to me. When we got to the school she finally woke up and was all smiles! She actually feels a bit heavier, but couldn't weigh her as the scale got broken the other day. She then promptly pooped on me and then peed all over the floor. I ended up getting peed on 3 times today, so that was fun! So I spent most of the day holding and feeding her, finishing up handouts for Vikas, and checking in with Kokila. Apparently Aarti did not see the Dr yesterday, so it was very strongly explained to the mom that her and her 2yr old brother need to see the Dr tomorrow or there is a good chance they will die. So, hopefully 3rd times the charm.

Right before lunch, Vinita (the social worker here) called me into the main classroom where all the kids were sitting ready for lunch. They all said a big goodbye to me and gave me a couple cards they had made, along with lots of hugs, handshakes, and thank-you's!

After lunch we went with Vinita to see some of the family homes in the slum behind the school. The kids were super excited to have us come see their homes as well as one kids pet rat. Thankfully it was only one of the 10-15 rats he's decided to make into pets!!

And that, is the end of my time here. Tomorrow afternoon I head to the airport Australia bound!

It has been great here! Will miss it, but ready for relaxing and hanging out with friends in Oz!!

Smiles and Tears

The last couple days have been a bit crazy. Yesterday morning started out normal enough walking to the school in the morning. Just before we got to the school Tania saw a new family she has been trying to get into the school so their baby can get some desperately needed medical attention. So as we were headed to the school, she took the baby and the mom followed with the other 2 children. The baby is 3 months old and not bigger then a new born. Tania looked at me and said, "well, looks like you have 1 week to save a babies life".

Once we got to the school, the work began. As I said Aarti is 3 mo old. She weighs 1.9 kg (4.1lb) and the height of a newborn (52cm). Her tongue is coated white, she can't hold her head up, she has a firm round little belly, and is having green mucousy poops.... but on the plus side, she is alert, looking around with big wide eyes, and constantly smiling! Her mom told us that the baby is not hungry and just sleeps all day. So basically she doesn't get fed because she isn't crying. I think also, the parents are working all day picking garlic to sell, and Aarti's 2yr old brother still can't walk so has to be carried around all day. A sleeping baby, is easy.

Someone, for some reason, at some point, donated a bunch of infant formula to the school (and not a formula company). I'm pretty sure this is the first time I have EVER been happy to have formula around! And even better it's not expired AND we have clean water at the school and syringes!!

So, feeding began. Because she hasn't been eating (breastfeeding very minimally) her tummy can't handle very much at all. Initially, the formula just ran out of her mouth. It took a few minutes before she started to swallow it, then started sucking at the syringe, then her little arms and legs started squirming and she was sucking madly (although weakly) at the syringe, crying when the formula wasn't given. I only gave her a few ml's but we did it 3 times yesterday. We also sent her into see a dr as we had another young boy going to see the eye specialist. Unfortunately the dr wouldn't even look at her due to her current state. She is to see a different dr (whom Tania says will see her) tomorrow, so hopefully they take her.

While we were dealing with baby Aarti, one of the older babies at the school (whom we call crying baby because he is always crying) was crying, his crying set off one of the other toddlers crying, then starving baby (Aarti, whom we have very morbidly been calling dying baby- please don't think this heartless or calous) and her mom left for the hospital leaving the two older siblings behind screaming until she got back.... I had a headache within 10mins of getting to work yesterday. That was just the tip of the chaos.

In between feeding baby and trying to do assessments on her siblings and mother, I was also trying to sit down and go through charts and form with Vikas who at this point is a bit overwhelmed with everything, but excited and keen.

Today was a much calmer day, although lots of excitement as well! Today Kokila came home!!

First Aarti and her family came in (on their own, which was really exciting). Her mom had dressed her up for the occasion in a clean ruffly black and gold dress. As I was mixing formula, she promptly pooped and peed on me (they babies don't wear diapers of any sort), luckily mostly missing me!

After feeding Aarti, it was off to the hospital with Tania and Vikas to pick up Kokila and her mom to bring her home! She was sitting up on the edge of her bed waiting to go home (it took us over an hour to get to the hospital because of traffic). After sitting for another 30-40mins the Dr showed up to give Tanya and I instructions for Kokila as she will be staying at the school for the next week. He was very thankful to Tanya and touched by the amount of effort and care she has shown towards Kokila over this past month. There where some happy tears that she is finally able to come home and at how well she has pulled through. She has a long way to go before the scars and skin grafts are fully healed, and still has a couple dressings that will need to be looked after but they are healing well.

The taxi ride back to the school only took 20 minutes and I sat in the back with Kokila as she quietly took everything in, holding my hand the whole time. Back at the school most of the kids and staff had already left by the time we arrived, but her brothers and sisters were there to great her as well as a couple of the staff. Because she has quite extensive burns to her face and body and her hair has been shaved, I think a number of people where in a bit of shock when they saw her and just sat there staring not saying anything unfortunately :( It was great to see her little brother excited to see her and climb up on the table to hold her hand then climb over to sit on the bench beside her! About 30 people stopped by to see (many just to look at her which involved them being asked to leave). We had set up a matress in one of the classrooms after having some of the staff clean and bleach everything. Unfortunately, being on the floor was too difficult for Kokila, so she had to basically fall down onto the mattress.

Being exhausted, she tried to sleep but then was in pain (I think more emotionally then anything) so Tania sat with her for a bit while she cried, then I took over as Tania and the other teachers had to leave to do some other work. I spent the next 45mins sitting on the mattress with Kokila laying in my lap sleeping.

We (the boys who work at the school) set up a bunch of wooden boxes and placed the mattress on them so it is up off the floor, as well as put up a gate to keep the rats out, and set up a makeshift bucket toilet (as she is not strong enough to use the squat toilet at the school). We will see in the morning how things went tonight and re-adjust anything that needs to be.

It has been an exhausting few days, but with some good results. Tonight we are heading to have a games night to end the week with a little bit of fun!