Becky's in Love with Shane (ADVENTURES IN INDIA!).

In the hope to meet
Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
-- Ben Jonson


DAVY DAY ZERO 0 0 0:
The Ride There

Okay, my time in India. Well for starters the plane ride, starting from when I left Paris, was kinda heart-wrenching.

I said goodbye to a lot of new friends I'd made on the bus over to my terminal, where I got off with Emily and Kaylee. We went through check-in and everything mourning for our friends, when suddenly Marin, Anna, Clyde, and Sage showed up again. We had a great time just hanging out together one last time
(although that may have been the wine speaking... no just kidding that wine tasted like vomit ew.)
and when we left for our flight it was even sadder saying goodbye again-- but so, so totally worth seeing them again. Emily and I sat next to each other on the plane by claiming we were stepsisters, and that was definitely the most fun plane ride I've ever had. :)

We get off the plane feeling comforted that we still have each other, but then Emily has to leave because the estupido unescorted minor security takes her away. And then there were two-- me and Kaylee. We had a great meal together at Giraffe (which made me think of the last time I'd been there, with Nick and Bia and Stacey and Jimmy the Giraffe and more, and then that walk through the sketchy park lit by those weird lightbulb strings up on the trees).

Then Kaylee saw me off onto the plane and then I was all alone, and the only white person on the plane, and of course because I'm crude also the only one showing her shoulders (stupid. I quickly changed into a proper shirt).

That was all okay. I was tired, but good. Bittersweet. Then I remembered I had all these letters people had written me from CamTrad which, as promised, I'd waited til the final plane ride to read.

Oh dear god your letters were all so sweet, and yeah ikindacriedmaybe. And laughed at the jokes, and grinned at the doodles, and awwwed at the memories, and the guys sitting next to me probably thought I was off my rocker but I didn't care. I missed all of you from the bottom of my heart and so by the time I reached India I was convinced my summer was officially OVER and basically in full drama queen mode (which let me tell you is not a luxury you can afford in southern India).

I get my bags etc easily enough, and go outside where I see this guy with a Projects Abroad sign. His name is Robbi, or Ravi. I think it was Robbi in English. He takes one of my bags, and I instantly get mobbed by like 5 random guys offering to carry the rest. They keep bugging me and of course Robbi does nothing to help, thanks for that one. We get into a broken down car and drive to a hotel which is actually pretty nice. Almost, in a way, polished. I'm pleased. He says I'm going to stay there for 6 hours, and then we're leaving for Sivakasi, the town where my internship was in.

I walk into my room and get a lovely greeting from the motherload of Indian mosquitoes. HOLY CRAP WTF?? I don't know what I did then, I just remember being really pissed off, sitting on the king-sized bed, and then waking up to Robbi pounding on the door. I'm still really pissed off. I miss Cambridge, and Paris, and I'm thinking that maybe I'm a spoiled brat but the sooner I get out of Malaria Heaven the better. I run out of the room with Robbi, where I meet this Japanese kid. He says he's in my program. I'm like, okay, cool, how old are you? And he's like, I'm 21.

FREEZE. 21? I'm 16. He looks shocked. Y'know you're really young for this program? The youngest I read you can be is 20.

So I'm freakin out just a little. I ask Robbi and of course he has no idea. We drive in the poor dying car for a few hours, get to this restaurant, where I meet Portia (though I didn't know her then). My feeling of relief was enormous-- finally, a white girl, British, seemingly my age-- at last someone from home (yeah, I was still calling Cambridge home in my mind). I happily excuse myself for the bathroom, and when I come back, Portia is gone. Today's just not my freakin day.

Then I went on a 10 hour train ride sitting next to Robbi, and let me tell you about how much this lightened my black, black mood. Not at all, that's how much. I read a really bad book and my ipod died. All in all a fun ride.

We finally, FINALLY! reach the office, and it was like when you're playing Tag and running around and get to the safe haven just in time. I went upstairs and met my roommate Sophie, who was also British, which I thought was really cool. Oh and on the way I noticed that across our hall was a room belonging to 'Ben and Tristan' but since I'd heard there was only one guy on the program I thought, oh, Tristan must be a girl (sorry Tristan, I was tired :P). I looked forwards to asking her how she got her name.

Then I ranted to Sophie about how nervous I was, and we talked for a while, and I could already see she was a sweetheart and my mood lifted a little. :)







DAVY DAY ONE 1 1 1:
The Introductions

We woke up the next day and I was really glad to see there were NO mosquitoes in our room! But I still sprayed on massive amounts of OFF! just in case. Then I opened my suitcase to find all my malaria pills had spilled out, and could only find like 9 of them left to take. I sprayed on some more OFF! and asked Sophie about her malaria pills. Her doctor told her Sivakasi was an extremely low risk area, so she had none. This comforted me about my loss, though OFF! remained my closest companion for a while after.

I was not given any sort of initiation, and had no schedule or lab coat or anything. Luckily Sophie is a much calmer person than me, and we went to breakfast where I sorted out some of my confusion (and got a cool volunteer shirt!). Then we met up with the whole medical program, which was in fact my age group, and the Japanese kid was nowhere to be found. STRANGE. In fact, nobody saw him for the remainder of the trip. Not even once. WHAT??

We all went to this lecture in a building by a temple. I sat down next to Markus but Nirmala quickly pointed him over to where the other guys were sitting together, 'Markus, THIS is your seat!'. I wondered if we'd be allowed to hang with the guys at all.

We met Pabbu, a super awesome guy, and Nirmala, a gorgeous woman, and got a big lecture from Dr. Gnanagurusamy, a very impressive surgeon, quickly nicknamed DOCTA G. We were filmed for the entire lecture, which was weird, and I spilled my lemony drink on Sophie's bag, which was klutsy.

At the end of the lecture Docta G went over to Markus, grabbed his hands, and asked if he'd like to be a surgeon. Markus looked really freaked out, turning around to stare at the rest of us like we'd be able to help him. It was then I decided that Markus was one of those people who are totally hilarious, in a good way, without even trying. Effortless. Wow that sounded insulting and condescending but trust me I don't mean it that way at all. I don't know if you know Bia, whoever you are reading this, but Bia my darling is one of those people too. Even when she's complaining it's funny. Because it's just adorable. I dunno. I'm ranting. I'm writing this as I'm still super jetlagged-- but I WILL stay up late tonight! It's for the greater good!

We had lunch there (first we all sat for like 20 minutes, thinking we would be served-- yeah, no). I met Maddy and Elanor. Then we all went back to the office. Sophie and I passed a room near ours, and we heard people laughing in it. Being a creeper, I peeked through the window and saw a group of people who looked like they were having fun. The door was open, so I walked in and asked if I could join them. It was Elanor and Cat's room, and they were hanging out with Ben and Tristan, who was in fact a boy. Is in fact a boy. Turns out these are four of the coolest people on the program ;) and now, back from India, I miss them very much. At the time they were all talking UK stuff and I, the sole American, was very lost but amused and getting high off their sexy accents.

Then me and Sophie got whisked away from our new friends. It was a tragic heartbreak, the first of many :'( no I'm kidding. But since it was Robbi whisking us away I was in a bad mood again. Man I was moody those first few days. We had to pack for a three day trip to a leprosy clinic. Hooboy.

Entre The Moving Palace, our super snazzy (and NOT air-conditioned) bus which would be driving us all over India, and to the clinic, which they told us was 3 hours away and turned out to be 6. A lesson which I wish I'd known beforehand: Time is irrelevant in India. Things just happen, in their own time. Which is usually a few hours later than the time you were told, and quite a few hours past the time you would've liked. Southern India is no New York, I can tell you that.

We arrived in the evening in Manamadurai, where we were shown our own little house, just us 8 girls, in a little leprosy village. About this house: it was hot, and there were lizards (lizards! Camouflaged into the sand-coloured walls), and one toilet, and electricity that turned off every ten minutes and had to be reset manually using this breaker box.

We get shown around, eat, go to sleep. Oh, and EVERY hour this weirdass clock rang a little, LOUD tune, and then spoke in some language we didn't understand. I fall asleep, but wake up in the middle of the night because oh my god there are KILLER BITING FLYING ANTS THE SIZE OF MY FINGERNAIL in our room. Which for me is a freakin big ant, and they'd bitten me, and it was time for payback in the form of my lover OFF!. Lord I used a lot of that stuff in India. Sadly, they made me part with it in the airport as I left-- a true sign that my time in India had come to an end.







DAVY DAY TWO 2 2:
The Leprosy Clinic

ALSO DAVY DAY THREE 3 3 3:
The Complicated Ulcer, the Gangrene Patient

Anyways, we get up tomorrow and eat breakfast in Glory's house. Glory was a lady shorter than me even who cooked us meals every day and offered us obscene amounts of incredibly sweet tea. She didn't speak much English, but she was nice. We went to Church with her and then were given our hospital schedule which I don't have with me and so won't go into right now. Basically we saw all the wards etc.

I almost forgot to mention who was in our group! There was 8 of us total, starting with me and Sophie. Portia was also in our group, and her roommate Michelle, from Hong Kong! Both of them were awesome people who Sophie and I went to surgery with which was AMAZING but that's for later. With us also were roommates Virginia and Hannah, who's from New York too (but not the city)! and who helped me out more than I can possibly thank her for. She in particular got bitten up really badly by the bastard ants. Last but not least were roommates Isabelle and Mayah. Isabelle was from Germany and had a really interesting accent.

The leprosy clinic was not a great place. It was sad because the people there who weren't outpatients would be there for a while to come. Many of them were deformed and had to move in to the hospital because they could no longer live on their own. The most common symptoms we saw were clawed, stiff hands and swollen feet with retracting and also clawed toes. Many people had horrible ulcers to go along with these. We watched a woman cut off the majority of a protruding ulcer on a man's foot without prepping him-- if you have an ulcer, you can't feel that area at all.

During one of our in-patient rounds a nurse took out a small complicated ulcer in a patient's toe. Up until this point I'd been perfectly fine-- saddened, but fine-- with what I'd seen. This time she dug too deep and hit his bone with her scissor-things. The man tensed up and drew in a sharp breath and I thought I was going to pass out. All of a sudden I felt nauseous and shaky and my vision was not in good shape but then I felt Portia leaning on me. I wasn't the only one affected. Comforting people always helps me feels loads better and Ginny and I went with Portia outside (into this hallway which instead of walls had rows of columns) and made her drink lots of water. We watched some ants crawl along the sandy ground. I looked around at where we were, this clinic in India. A woman behind us was doing laundry. Some starving dogs were scavenging in front of us. To our left were some nurses far away, to our nearer right was a woman with stage four leprosy simply sitting there, on a bench.

We went back inside after a bit. By now the nurse had moved on to a leprosy patient with gangrene covering his entire leg. He was maybe 50 years old, and paralyzed on half his body. They had to change his dressings, and this was probably the most horrifying thing I saw in India.

Basically what happened was the dressings had gotten stuck inside some of the muscle in the places where they'd cut away the skin. Also, even more skin had died and they were forced to cut it off completely to prevent it spreading even further. There was almost no skin at all on his leg-- just muscle. He was bleeding a lot and massive amounts of pus was leaking out too. They didn't sedate him for the impromptu operation, so he watched as they cut off more and more of his skin. Because his tongue was paralyzed he couldn't scream, and he made this horrible high-pitched noise instead.

By the end of this ordeal, simply a redressing, less than half of us were able to stay in the room and watch-- me, Ginny, Portia, Hannah, and Michelle were the only ones left. I didn't feel nauseous for this one, I wanted to help. I still don't know why I had the reaction I did to the complicated ulcer, but everything I saw after that I was able to handle-- and Portia too. Which is good because for a while there I was really worried about being a surgeon.

After three days at the leprosy clinic, the Moving Palace driver came to pick us up-- in a VAN. Oh how fun THIS ride was going to be. We all felt kind of bad for the 6 girls arriving to take our place, but they'd arrived hours later than we'd been told they would and we all wanted to get out of there so badly we ran into the van and wished them a fun time. Then we sat in the van for like 45 minutes as they were shown around, ugh. During this time we made lots of sarcastic jokes and were united over our mutual happiness of going back to the office/hostal/dormroom/random building in Sivakasi. I never really figured out what is was we were staying at but mostly we just called it the office (and back in Cambridge, I called my dorm room the Lockers. When I tell my friends about both places they're always like, did you sleep anywhere actually meant for sleeping?).

We arrived back in Sivakasi in the evening and lord was it good to be back at the office! We brought our stuff upstairs and went to dinner where we met up with Elanor and Cat again, which was awesome. Renata and Jess were there too, and they were all on a surgery high-- they'd just gotten to see 4 surgeries with Docta G!! They told us all about it over dinner and we were all like OMYGAAAAHHHH and then told them about how the leprosy clinic was like ew. It was really cool talking about surgeries and stuff like that, very Grey's Anatomy, because back at home I can never talk surgery like I could with these guys in India (: .

So after this lovely dinner (though I was TOTZ MEOTZ jealous they'd seen surgeries while we were driving back from Manamadurai! but I saw lots of videos and pics so is'all good) we went upstairs and got a good night's rest with a proper fan (at last!).







DAVY DAY FOUR 44:
The SURGERY Day

The next day Sophie and I went to the Nataraj hospital to do our morning shift with the GP Dr. Gunalan. It was really nearby the office, actually-- we get in the car, it drives down the block, and then the driver goes, "Okay guys. Out." (Meanwhile Sophie and I are like um did we do something wrong??)

That shift was interesting of course but not much was particularly remarkable. We learned about some new drugs, watched EVERYBODY get injections (in India, it's all the rage-- seriously, if the patient doesn't get a shot they don't consider themselves treated and won't pay. They have vitamin injections in place of placeboes, because malnutrition is a big problem). There was one girl with a mass about the size of a small handball on her eyelid, which was interesting, but it was simply an abscess filled with pus caused by a really bad infection. She got it drained and dressed and that was it.

Now comes the craziest and BEST PART OF INDIAA!!! Except for hanging out with my friends of course (:

So I had yet to take my Swine flu test, unlike most people in our program (& we weren't allowed to see surgeries without the test!). Swine flu is going around in Bangladesh and India is really worried about getting hit with it hard, so they make sure to test everyone who comes into the country. After our shift Sophie went back to the office and I got picked up and brought to Docta G's hospital for the test where I met up with Portia who also needed to take the test. There was a bunch of Indian teenagers there, and they were laughing because Portia didn't have her earrings in, which was strange. We had to gargle this iodine water and get a really nasty tasting swab shoved in the backs of our mouths for the test, but it was totally worth it because literally the second we'd stepped out and gotten into a (very small and rickety) rickshaw--

ARE YOU READY

THIS IS CARAZAY

*DRUMROLL* PLEASE

BADUMBADUMBADUM--

I got INVITED TO A SURGERY!!! Pabbu called us and he was like, can I talk to Davy? Davy? Yeah, there's a surgery in half an hour. D'you have a mask and cap? Great go grab lunch and we'll take you there. You want to go, right?

And I was like ARE YOU KIDDING ME YES I WANT TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!

So I'm dying of joy but I feel kinda bad because Portia's sitting next to me and she wasn't invited. She was super nice about it though, and very encouraging. So I get back to the office and run up to Sophie exclaiming WE'VE GOT A SURGERY!!! (Because I was invited, I knew she would be too. The way things worked was we were rooming with one other person who'd go with us to everything, having applied to the program with the same medical interests as we'd chosen. AWESOME!)

Sophie and I RUN RUN RUN downstairs and practically inhale massive amounts of food ridiculously fast. It turns out Michelle, Portia's roommate, was coming too and we were all totally HYPED! Also, a little confused. What about Portia??

We go downstairs to get picked up and driven to Docta G's hospital. Nirmala is staring at Portia like, where's your coat & scrubs?

We're all like, ...what?

And Nirmala's like, oh wait Portia you know you're coming right?

And the three of us, meaning me, Sophie and Michelle are like YEAAAAAH PORTIA! GO GET YOUR COAT!!

So the four of us get to go together!!! We're SO excited, even if we just get to see one of those 10-minute appendectomies (they didn't tell us what kind of surgery it was going to be). I was kinda hoping for a C-section, even though they were known for being REALLY SHORT. Like, 5 minutes to get the baby out. WOAH.

Luckily all this buildup didn't lead to an anticlimax because we get there and not only is it a HYSTERECTOMY but it's also the REMOVAL OF A GIANT OVARIAN CYST. And when I say giant I mean it in the grandest sense of the word. Ladies and gentleman this cyst was BIGGER THAN MY HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was so big that when we first walked in we thought the patient was pregnant. She was in her 40's maybe, short, and looked otherwise in good health. So anyways Docta G comes in, gives her an epidural (meaning he numbed her nerves below the waist- she couldn't feel anything they did), and gets right down to business by slicing her open as she's still kinda awake. Actually we all thought she was sleeping but then once he's cut her uterus open with the scalpel the patient, really out of it, starts humming away and it was totally like the twilight zone :O!!

He had to cut farther and farther up her stomach because the cyst turned out to be even bigger than he'd suspected. He simply couldn't pull it out of her without cutting more space for it. At last he managed, with a few nurses helping, to pull the entire cyst out. It was roundish and brown/pink with little veins running over the surface and it looked like it was densely packed because the surface was bulging out. Then, suddenly, Docta G popped the cyst and cystic fluid starts flying EVERYWHERE. It's brown and looks like bile and the nurses had to rush like hell to get the draining instruments on that thing because all of the fluid was flowing down into the woman's open stomach.

At this point my eyes felt about as big as saucers and when I looked over at the others they were all looking surprised and excited and in awe too (also, we'd all gotten much closer to the operating table-- I was maybe 5 inches away at this point).

Eventually, the entire thing was drained. It filled up two of these huge containers-- with cystic fluid alone! Then Docta G held up the saggy outside of the cyst to show us what was left. We're maybe an hour and 15 minutes into the surgery when this happens. Everything gets pretty calm again as Docta G pours a whole bottle of water into the woman's opened stomach and uterus, then drains it out to make sure they didn't leave a lot of cystic fluid just mucking around between her organs.

Then there's another complication (this surgery was supposed to be SHORT??). The Docta is taking out her ovaries and he finds yet another cyst growing-- this one maybe half the size of my fist. HOW did that patient let the cysts get so big????

Luckily this cyst doesn't pop and since it's only attached to the ovaries the Docta and the nurses manage to take it out along with the hysterectomy. Then they throw it in a shallow tin bowl, which is placed in front of us. I don't know whether to stare at her ovaries or to look up at the surgery still taking place. I'm worried if I look away from the ovaries someone's going to take it and throw it out or something so I move my eyes back and forth until, yeah, one of the nurses does take away the ovaries. She puts it on the floor, which was strange.

Also, there was one point where the Docta took out this weird, white bean-shaped thing. Even now I still have no idea what it was and I don't think he did really, either. It kind of just fell out of the woman and he picked it up and showed it to the other nurses in the room. All of them looked at each other and mumbled some stuff, looking vaguely confused, and the Docta placed it on the woman's torso somewhere that wasn't cut open and just left it there. Strange...........

The Docta tells us as he continues working that one of the nurses, the main one, is getting married. We congratulate her. I wonder if she's ever going to do surgeries again after she gets a husband.

Then Docta G invites us to look over his shoulder as he stitches the patient up. One at a time we each go and take a bajillion mental snapshots. I couldn't believe how close I got to be able to see him stitching up her vagina!!!! By now the surgery had been around two hours. Docta G said we could leave, since it had been such a long surgery, but of course we were all like NO THAT'S OKAY WE'LL STAY!!!

We watched him stitch her up no problem and after a little over two and a half hours the surgery was finally over. WOW!!

That's all I could say for a while.

WOW.

Our evening shift was more eventful than the morning one (although nothing could be more eventful then the time in between!). We went to the Aruna hospital, visiting Paediatrics with Dr. Ramanathan. There were SO MANY PEOPLE. In one hour, we saw 70 patients-- I counted. And every single baby got a shot! Often, they'd be crying, and then they'd turn to look at us and just stop and stare with really wide eyes. Some of them would smile and wave (: !! It was cute and endearing because they're babies, but not quite as cute when the parents pointed and went look, a white person! But overall it was an enjoyable visit. There was one baby in the NICU which was born at 27 weeks. He was miniscule!! Also, when the doctor went on the in-patient rounds there was this one really sweet girl who followed me and Sophie around waving :)

I can't stress enough how much nicer it was to be back at the office. Different hospitals have different feelings and the one at the leprosy hospital felt very oppressive. If you stay there, something's really wrong with your body. That's why I couldn't be an oncology specialist or anything like that where there isn't much you can do for people. Leprosy is especially bad because so many people in India have physical jobs like construction work, and what are they supposed to do when they can't use their hands??







DAVY DAY FIVE 5 5 5:
The Visa & Shopping Day
Also When I Learn About FACKIN CRAZY INDIAN LEECHES

But I digress. Moving on to Friday, in the morning Sophie went to the Government Hospital while I went with Hannah, Mayah and Isabelle to get our Visas done. Because out of every like 100 people, a random person is stamped and if that person doesn't get a visa while they're in India they won't be allowed to leave the country. And no offense to India but it's not somewhere I wanna be stuck the rest of my life so we all missed our shifts to fill out paperwork. At the Visa office we also saw a picture of Markus (guess he got stamped too!), which was strange but funny. I told you he's funny without trying to be! :P

We actually got out early from that so Hannah and I went to a short shift in the Mathi Hospital to see the Cardiologist Dr. Mahendra sekar. We didn't do much cardiology, which kinda sucks because I'm really interested in it, but we did see some proper interesting cases there. This one guy had acute liver failure and his stomach was really swollen and his eyes were yellow from jaundice. Another man had really bad malnutrition. Also, we met the Dutch/Sri-Lankan girl everyone at the office was talking about because she was hot. She was also not very nice and totally ditched me and Hannah mid-shift. OKAY GIRL YOU DO THAT.

I can't really remember what happened after that... y'know, after that murderous rage towards thats dutch-sri lankan girl... no no I'm kidding. Oh it was funny Hannah and I kept trying to read her notes but though they were English letters it was definitely transliteration so we were looking at it like SMORGASHLIOH... is that a medical term? xD

OH! I remember. We were driving back to the office in the van with Mayah and Isabelle and Hannah & I asked if we could go to Khavita instead since we still had some time to kill. Have I mentioned Khavita? It's like a big Indian department store I'd heard a group of other girls had went to and gotten good stuff from it.

So Austin, one of the administrator guys like Pabsss, was like okay we'll just drop you off there on the way back to the office! And Hannah and I were like YES SCORE!. Isabelle came along too, but in the end we only had like an hour to shop because then we had to grab lunch and get in the Moving Palace to travel to Thekkady, where we were having our weekend funnnn. KEF KEF KEF! Actually it was super kef. But anyways we went to Khavita and I got a ring (FINALLY! My finger felt so naked all summer man did that sentence sound weird) and a maroon & orange outfit called a Salwar Khameez (I think) which is basically a long embroidered tunic with baggyish pants and a scarf which you have to drape perfectly & attatch with pins. In India, young women usually wear it more than they wear sari's because they're simply more practical. I also got a scarf which came with this pair of burning red pants decorated with suns and a diamond line down each side. I HEART THEMMM =]

Also because we spent so much money (for me it was the equivalent of around 10 bucks... but for them it was a lot of rupees) we got these supercool bags to take them back to the office in. All in all an awesome shopp =]

We get back to the office, eat lunch. Then we bring our suitcases down... we'll be staying in Thekkady for three days (two nights). I sat down next to Sophie and Elanor, Cat, Renata & Jess were behind us. The guys were all sitting together up front (sexist bastards :P). The ride was god knows how long, and the only really remarkable thing was when we drove right through a monsoon. Oh, just a little rain, right? WRONG. It was so foggy you couldn't see a foot outside our bus!! And it POURED. Right into our bus, which has the biggest leaks known to mankind. I almost drowned. It was traumatic. No I'm joking it was awesome I wish I had pictures :)

We reach Thekkady, and they tell us we're going trekking tomorrow morning before breakfast for like 3 hours. Oh, and by the way guys, there's leeches so watch out.

When I first hear this, I'm cool with it. There's leeches in the lake in my other camp, after all (NA'ALEH!). I got one on my ear once. So, are we trekking through muddy waters then? I ask.

Pabbu gives me this weird look (I mean most of his looks are weird, but this one was more like YOU'RE weird). Um, no? he says. Dry land. They're land leeches.

Oh, okay.

WHAT THE FUCK>>????

Fucking land leeches what are they on TREES? Will we be walking around and some wind comes and twenty leeches fall from the fucking SKY because they were on a high BRANCH??? Since when did leeches decide to ditch the water and start crawling along the dirt and in our shoes and up our pants and WHAT???

Also, the land leeches are like FIVE TIMES BIGGER than American leeches. Those aren't leeches, those are fucking KILLER FLYING TADPOLES right there.

Anyways. I rant for a bit, we get to our two-star! hotel (and for the longest time I was really pleased at how fancy it was compared to where we'd been staying previously, actually convinced it was like TEN star), we go to eat dinner. I get stuck sitting across from BEN, oh woe is me. Naaaah it was a pretty awesome dinner-- me, Ben, Elanor, Cat, and Sophie all at one table. Sophie and I had spent lots of time together, obviously, but up until now we didn't really see much of those three (and I LIKE THEM A LOTTT!! :). I don't remember what we talked about during that meal but I do remember I got this weird chicken Kings platter (so did Elanor) and IT WASN'T SPICEY. A highly unusual occurrence in India, as experienced by Davy. I also got a chocolate milkshake and felt like a happy 3 year old. Ben got this weird lime soda and they were like, sweet or sour? And he ordered sweet and literally they just dumped a pound of sugar in it, which all sank to the bottom.

After dinner Ben, Cat, Elanor, Sophie, Tristan, Pabbu and I make our way upstairs. When we were climbing up the stairs, Ben was making fun of me for something or other. I turn around to answer back and the second I do he falls down like 5 stairs xDD
He still blames my telekinesis powers for making him miss the banister.

After all these hardships we finally make it upstairs to this kinda makeshift lounge thingy Pabbu quizzed me on people's names and I PASSED TAKE THAT :) and we took out a pack of cards and played BS, only it's different in the UK, and they never say bubblegum or peanut butter which I found really funny and so whenever I lied I would just crack up trying not to say peanut butter, and then everyone would know I lied anyways.

I still won (for who can bullshit better than Americans? ;).

Then it was Jean's birthday-- Jean was a girl from that group of six who we'd last seen at the Leprosy place. Their group arrived after us, having not taken the super special awesome Moving Palace to get there. We brought up Jean's cake (although at that point most of us didn't know her.. but we were happy for her and her bday anyways :) and put in candles (Elanor did a fantastic job.. the rest of us just stared at the REALLY FANCY CAKE).

She came up the stairs and all of us had an impromptu kinda party thing, hung out for a while. Then Sophie and I went to our room because we are just carazay party animals like that :P. We got into bed (wink wink JOKES JOKES NOT REALLY I mean yeah we did get into bed but not like INTO bed if you know what I mean) and talked about how awesome tomorrow was going to be, because seriously everything was so much more fun when the entire medicine group was together :)







DAVY DAY SIX 6 6 6 6 6 6:
Davy's Sick Day (Don't Worry It Was Still Fun)

The next morning we had to wake up at like 6 in the morning. I wake up and I'm like, oohh, today is NOT a good day for my stomach. Sophie's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah. My internal organs are mad at me. And she's like, oookaayy....

So we go downstairs and eat breakfast, get into the Moving Palace and drive to this boating place. We had to get there REALLY EARLY because apparently it's a really popular place for everyone to go to on the weekends (Thekkady is the most touristy spot we visited in India). We wait at the boating place for a while just hanging out, and then we get into this boat which is like a safari jeep if the jeep were a boat. We drive around on this lake for a few hours. The lake was pretty, and we saw some wild boars, but compared to interning in hospitals in Sivakasi it was just a chill vacation thing. Ben, Cat, Elanor, this girl India (I know right!), and Sophie and I basically just chilled and talked and played hand games and it was fun :)

When we reached the shore again a great load of Indian people came up to us with cameras. Some people didn't even ask before they jumped next to us and snapped a few pics of them next to the white tourists. We make our way up to a food place where it says on a big sign 'Beware of Monkeys'. We have a huge bag of snacks which we ate on the boat, and this HUGE monkey comes up out of nowhere suddenly and snatches it away! He runs onto this island in the middle of the road and tears the bag open and starts eating a mini-banana (common in India, about as big as my fist! And some of them were red!).

We all kinda clump together around a few trees where there are the most adorable baby monkeys jumping around. Now comes the EPIC PABBU-MONKEY FACE OFF as a giant mommy monkey jumps down right in front of us. Everyone backs off immediately into a wide semicircle but Pabbu stays. He stares at the monkey. The monkey stares at him. He stares at the monkey. The monkey stares at him. Everyone stares at Pabbu too-- THAT MONKEY IS GOING TO KILL YOU PABBU!! DON'T DO IT!!

Actually, nothing happened. After like 10 more minutes the monkey left, obviously humbled and quite possibly traumatized from being on the receiving end of, for a full quarter of an hour, the patented Amusing Face-Off Facial Expression, courtesy of Pabs, copywrite India 2009.
Chyeah I have pictures.

We go to this open kind of restaurant where we order sodas and omelettes. There's also a giant stick which someone was assigned to keep banging on the ceiling when the monkeys tried to jump in, to keep them away from the food. Different people wielded the stick.. I believe it was mainly the administrator British guy (who's name I never found out, and who may or may not have malaria), but Renata and Quintin also used it a few times. Any food left over we threw outside the restaurant, where monkeys instantly jumped for it. They were kinda cute, actually, peeking over the roof like that-- except when me, Ben, Sophie and a few others were literally sitting right under said monkeys.

MORE SOON TO COME!

Obama Drama (Comma, Trauma?)

So, the inauguration was today.

(Long time no post by the way, huh?)

I've gotta say I'm almost deliriously happy. I love Obama. Not even like Dr. Chase love, but like genuine, mother-who-cries-at-her-child's-wedding love. Or in this case, her child's inauguration. Not that he's my child, though that'd be totally cool.

Except then my mom would ask why I have a black baby because he doesn't look Ethiopian and that's means I didn't sleep with a jewish guy, which is so not a-okay.

Well yeah. Gobama, cuz all that is just dandy. The only thing is, I'm apparently the only person in my class who thinks so, because I was the only person clapping the entire hour. 

Yes. Imagine it. 

Me, the jewish white liberal cross utopian-socialist, clapping enthusiastically for our first African-American president (not to mention first liberal in a while) amid dead silence. 

Okay, there was some noise.

Of people laughing at me.

Fuckers.

On the bright side, my faith in Obama Lovers will hopefully soon be restored, because I will call every one of my camp friends until it is. 

Status: Complaining to Laura.

Laura's reaction: "WTF? Dude. It's not often we get to witness history like this."

My answer: "Seriously. I mean, we've only had a black president, like... *counts fingers* never."

Laura: "Well, we all clapped. Which is why you should come here!"

New Status: Thank you god, I love my friends.