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!!