My Mother's Going to Kill Me

Posted on Facebook September 3rd at 9:53am CST

Disclaimer: Due to only living with people who speak english as a second language I infact am loosing sentence structure, bear with me, this may be painful to read but the content is good!

Hello world its me Sarah! I am going to tell you all about the last (almost) week I have had in INDIA! I should start out by saying the title of this is because my mother is going to kill me when she finds out I have been able to contact her since early morning tuesday my time but I've just been too tired :). Anywho I began my adventure on saturday at 4:15 pm and arrived in Amsterdam an hour earlier than planned so I decided since I forgot to call my family before leaving I should do it there which ended up costing me either 10 or 20 american dollars because Europe is crazy. That flight was fine, I sat next to two very nice people who loved to chat and by the end of it I knew their social security number... no not really, they just like to inform me on everything... So that was a fine flight but after that not so much.... you see while waiting in the Amsterdam airport I started to feel a little sick but thought nothing of it so I ate a muffin and a tea for about 8 dollars and went and waited for the plane to leave. Once flying in the air I got in the fetal position and prayed for the pain to stop... just kidding, my mother again is going to kill me. What really happened is that there weren't a ton of people on the plane so the seat next to me was open which was a blessing from God because I threw up about every hour until Mumbai... so that would be about 7 or 8 times. I was pretty out of it and in quite a lot of pain at some points in the journey but obviously I made it alive. At one point I was going to ask the flight attendant if there was a doctor aboard but I decided to sleep instead. She did seem very worried when ever she would pass by and my sick bag would be a little bit fuller. So I got off the plane and got into a crambed bus thing that took us very slowly to customs where I was sure I was going to be sick but I think God finally noticed I couldn't take anymore throwing up. So then I got my bag and went outside and saw my name on a peice of paper and the man who picked me up was very nice although I never caught his name. I know this is a lot but its almost a third done :). So then I went and stayed at the guest house in Mumbai for the night and then spent most of monday inside reading and sleeping until I had to ride the night train at 8:30 to Gulbarga.
So the night train... at first I thought the man was going with me on the night train but no I got to go all by myself! So if anyone has seen Slumdog millionaire the train station in that movie is exactly like the one he lead me to... Joshua 1:9 came in handy at that point not that I had any reason to be scared or worried its just preconceieved notions about train stations in India that made me nervous, exspecially being the only white person there let alone female. So then I got onto the night train and found my bed hanging from the ceiling above a man on the lower one and thought this is interesting... so I tried to sleep the best I could but the only way to know when it's your stop is to look at the time and seeing as I had no watch (not smart) and my phone had died and I have no charger (not smart) I had no idea what time it was and the poor lady on the bed across from me haning from the ceiling I'm sure got annoyed with me asking what time it was after the 4th time. So after four o'clock in the morning I decided to just stay awake and get up everytime we stoped to see what stop we were at. Oh and during this whole time I was praying so hard that God would send power into my phone so I could know what time it was, it went something like If you can move mountains with the faith of a mustard seed then why isn't my phone turning on? and he said because I am God and I am bigger than your stupid phone and will take care of it. And of course he was right because there was a man who got on the train to get me when my stop arrived, I could of had a good nights sleep but instead I decided to worry, what a stupid human.
Ah this is soo long sorry, you dont have to read, its more for my parents sake :).So the first day:I arrived to find a note on my bed from the Director, Dr. Abraham, and it said that the two swedish girls and I will have two women cooking, cleaning, and doing our laundry for us while we stay here ( I know, life is hard) and a lot of other stuff that I wont go into detail on but then at the back was my schedual for the month of september. I get saturday's and sunday's off to do as I please and the rest of the week I work from 9-1:30 and 3:30-5:30 again i know life is hard... I live in a house with my own room and bathroom and its just me and the two swedish girls, Johanna and Elin. They are both very nice and sometimes i feel like I'm taking on a swedish accent, ah! So I started work after Dr. Solomon showed me around the place which happens to be on the of the most beautiful places, I wish i could show you guys pictures right now becuase I don't even know how to explain it, I'm in India country with hills and trees, its very pretty. So every tuesday is Family Planning which in short means lets make it so you can't have kids. So I watched a tubectomy which is when they cut open women and tie there fallopian tubes and then cut them so there is no possible way for them to have kids. Of course while I'm watching this I start feeling a little faint,
1. i have never seen a surgery in person
2. it was a small room with a small window air, not very good ventalation...
3. the poor women were only locally anethsitized and they did two at a time so once they started on one women then another one would come in to get ready for the surgery and have to see what they were doing, they weren't even doing it to me and I almost fainted!They did put eye patches over the womens eyes so they didn't have to see themselves being cut open, maybe by the end I'll be able to not faint while watching, maybe even help out because nurses were helping and they keep calling us staff nurses... :). After that we went home and ate a wonderful Indian feast and due to my jet lag I fell asleep from 2pm until 6 am the next day... wow thats a lot of sleep!Wednesday:This day we headed out to one of the villages where, accourding to Dr. Sheeba, was the real india and boy was it something. We went to the Hindu Temple there to do a ANC Camp (anti natal clinic) which means in short gathering up the pregnant women and weighing them and taking their blood pressure and giving them some folic acid I believe... I can't remember for sure. We also gave cough syrup to people who had colds. While we were in the village the two girls and I went to the schools to meet the children and see what they were doing. They told us that 10 years ago there were no schools in the villages in india but then the government built schools but children didn't come until the last five years and now 80% of kids go, I think thats pretty amazing, ya education!
I just have to say this is the latest I've stayed up since being here and its only 8 o'clock so sorry if this is a weird posting. So that was wednesday, more food, more sleep, more doing rounds with the doctors.Today:Today was a seminar all day on HIV care and Infection control and stuff of that sort. It was quite long exspecially since it was in Cadana (the local language) and Mrs. Abraham would interpret the key points. Heres what I got from it...Wash your hands, clean instruments well, clean the sheets well, and use gloves. I got a little worried when they were telling this to the whole staff because I felt it was something that they should already know but this is a third world country and I guess better late then never. HIV stuff was really interesting. The private hospitals in india usually don't accept HIV patients because of the stigma. St. Lukes (where I'm working) is really great because they go to the villages and educate the youth on HIV and get rid of any stereotypes that go with it. The clinic gives out ART to people with HIV if they are willing to be admitted for 5 days so I've gotten to meet some of them. One man has TB, decreased liver function, and HIV so he isn't doing so well. TB is fairly common around here and becuase he has TB they can't start him on Antiretroviral treatment until thats undercontrol but because of his bad liver there aren't many drugs to use to help control the TB, it will be hard but I'm sure he'll make it. There is another woman in the ward who has TB in her abdoman and is in a lot of pain, she was moved to IC but whenever I ask about her they say she's doing better, I dont really know if I believe that though. And now its raining yuck. i feel like i live in a rain forest and I have the bugs that go along with it, stupid cockroaches. Ooo and lizards! Sorry about that tangent. The clinic is very primitave and sometimes I feel like I know more than the nurses but being here makes me want to be a nurse even more just because I'm shown how little I really know. Sometimes when they tell me things I want to just say hold on while i go look that up. They really do think I know more than I do, but I got to take blood pressure so I am set.

Tomorrow I may be on I dont really know, the two girls are going into town so I'll be by myself which is a little unnerving but I'm sure it will be good to get settled in. On saturday and sunday I'll be in town hanging out with the Swedish population so that should be intresting, it seems I'm the only American in India so I'll just have to do with the swedes :).Prayer RequestsNo bugs attack me and whatever bug thats in my bed that keeps biteing me would go away.That I wont be so tired all the time, stupid jetlagUnderstanding when it comes to people speaking in english with accents that makes it sound like they are speaking a whole different language all together.
Okay well thats all for tonight, I'll be back on monday night if not tomorrow night, I dont know what that means for you because i dont know what time or day it is in the U.S.
KVP - found my wallet and phone in my big bag :)
Family - I love you and miss you.
Friends - don't have too much fun without me
P.S. the male nurses wear white uniforms like they were from the 60's and it makes me laugh whenever i see them.