Go Blue!

The past couple of days have been great. On Tuesday, I missed the hysterectomy to go on a mobile clinic into the tribal areas. It was a full day experience with a doctor named Dr. Suman, a community health worker, a pharm tech, and myself packed into a van stocked with enough drugs and medical supplies to last us for the day and drove out for hours into the rural villages of Karnataka. We stopped in about 10 villages total, with people coming to our van with anything from acne to infected wounds. Some people came complaining of a particular ailment, but after a quick consultation from Dr. Suman, she would end up prescribing them a placebo drug - a multivitamin! She explained to me that this practice is not simply lying to the patient and tricking them - it reinforces the practice of actively seeking healthcare, something that is not as ingrained in the culture of the tribals. When we drove through the villages - many of the people and especially the children would stare at me. I would wave, and some children would wave back. Others might run and hide. But when I took my camera out and started taking pictures, the children opened up right away and were really excited to see pictures of themselves when I showed them on the screen.

My first picture at the stop. About 8 or so kids.

My second. Twenty or so kids. They went crazy every time I showed them their picture on the screen.

I thought to myself, "What would happen if I showed them the screen and took their picture?!" Unfortunately, after this picture, I started to fear for some of the little kids' saftey (you can see some of the kids in the front are sort of getting crushed by the excited kids on top).

At one point, eight or so guys were lined up next to me on a fence ledge. When I pointed my camera to take the picture of these guys, everyone that was below ran and tried to get in the picture. The line of kids standing in the back was probably ten or so kids.

Typical shot of the mobile clinic. We would normally have a couple patients, and a lot of kids that were curious as to what we were doing there.

On Wednesday, I got to visit the tribal hospital that specializes in Ayurvedic medicine called Kenchnahalli. Ayurveda is another philosophy of medicine that is practiced mainly in India. It is different from typical western styles of allopathic medicine in that it involves a lot of herbal medicines, yoga and meditation, and personalizatio based on your own body type. SVYM uses in Ayurveda in conjunction with allopathic medicine, especially to treat chronic conditions and in situations where ayurveda might be the better solution to the medical condition. Since I was visiting - the people thought it would be a good idea for me to get of ayurveda by going through a round of treatments. I ended up spending the day getting a full body massage, a session in a steam chamber, a hot bath (more on that later), and a yoga lesson. I also had a session called "shiroddhara" where hot oil was poured on my forehead, with the intended effect of raising my intelligence and helping to cure any sort of psychosomatic disorders or conditions around my head that I may have had (didn't have any).

Shot of the hospital. The entire campus was pretty small (you could walk to the other side in 5 minutes). The campus reminded me at times of a spa or resort, with its coconut trees and design of buildings. After all, there were facilities to administer and receive full body massages and steam chamber treatments (as part of Ayurvedic medicine, of course).

The first stop of my ayurveda experience. I got my massage on this table. You can see the stove and cabinet underneath where a lot of ayurvedic herbs and oils (everything is natural and there are supposedly no side effects to any herbal remedy) where things were heated up and prepared.


The steam treatment chamber. You sit inside and your head pops out of the whole on top. Because your body is covered in oils when you enter, the sweat that starts coming out as you're sitting in the chamber wicks the oil off your skin and when you step out your skin isn't as oily as when you left.

My hot bath. I was totally expecting something on the lines of a bathtub with bubbles and candles and leaves or something of the like, but not this time. I can't complain though - having not had a hot shower in 4 weeks, any hot water in a shower was good enough for me. I had a second one at night too after my shiroddhara.

Perks of being in the rural - monkeys roaming around the campus!

Dinner with the staff of the hospital. Dr. Dennis and Dr. Basaraj are on the right - they are both ayuvedic physicians.

I also got to visit the other school that is tied in with SVYM called the Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning. It's essentially a school that was started about twenty years ago for tribals that reside in the area. It's an amazing story to hear how the school started and how it has evolved to what it is today. Because many of the children over the past twenty years are first generation students, there were many difficulties encountered in acclimating the children and their parents to the idea of learning and attending school. One of objections by the parents was apparently the misconception that schools were "jail-like" for their children. So in order to compensate for this, the buildings were constructed with huge windows in the buildings that made the classrooms look like a gazebo. Starting from the youngest grades, classes are virtually conducted outside, which isn't a problem with the year-round warm temperatures. As the children grow older, the classrooms become more and more closed and what you might think of in a typical classroom, which accomodates their adjustment to school and routine learning everyday. This sort of innovation blew me away and I was left wondering what other sorts of adjustments were made to attract more tribal children over the years. The results are showing - there are families that are producing second generation learners, and children of former students who are now able to attend the very same school. Amazing.

This was the classroom for 1st to 4th graders. It was wide open with huge windows so parents wouldn't think it was a jail.

As you move on up, the classrooms stay relatively open, but more and more closed. This classroom was for 5th - 7th graders. After 7th grade, you move into a normal classroom inside a building.

We walked in around lunchtime. They all sat in perfectly straight rows, cleaned up after themselves, and went to attend to their daily chores.

Today, I took my first bus ride for about 45 minutes to a settlement called Handpost. After making friends with mutton and chicken butchers, an SVYM vehicle came and picked me up and we traveled to Mysore, the biggest city in the area nearby. I got a chance to explore two other educational arms of SVYM, the Viveka Institute of Indian Studies and the

Viveka Institute for Leadership Development. I was particularly excited for this part of the trip because I had heard that there was a group from Michigan that was here at the VIIS for four weeks of classses in South Indian music and dance. I met several of them in the computer lab and had lunch with their group. It was interesting to see where they had all come from and how they ended up in India. I also found out that I have the same class with three of them this upcoming fall!

While waiting for my ride at Handpost, I met these two brothers who were selling mutton. When I drove by in the evening, it was gone!

We ended the day with a trip to visit the antiretroviral clinic in Mysore that SVYM runs in partnership with another medical organization. I got a chance to observe the different arms of HIV/AIDS treatment - namely, the counseling, the labwork and testing that goes into diagnosis of the disease, the administration of anti-retroviral drugs, and the actual doctor to patient interactions and consultation. Because anti-retroviral drugs are very expensive typically, this clinic was unique because it was providing all drugs for free. India has become a world leader in production and distribution of low-cost, generic drugs. Because of that, world drug prices have dropped and thousands to millions have been able to receive therapy for their conditions.

The pharmacist at the ART clinic. Some of those drugs cost eight or nine thousand rupees per box (200 dollars), but since the government is supporting the program, the drugs can be given out for free.

Tomorrow is my last full day at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital, although I am trying to extend my stay one more day so that I can go on the mobile clinic that travels into the forests. Apparently, it's a very different and very exciting experience. On a good day, you might run into animals ranging from elephants, to leopards, to tigers, to wild boar. Hopefully it will all work out.

Go Blue!