Chennai - Almost the end!

Nilit and I are in Chennai! Following a few days of sight seeing after our volunteer work in Patna, we arrived here - our final destination before returning home. To be honest, it's nice to realize that.

I haven't written much about the little things that we have gone through, and the hardships. Before leaving, I promised myself that if I'm going to blog about our experiences on this adventure that it wouldn't be sugar-coated. If people want to read about what we are going through, they will know what it was really like.

So here goes: Yes it's been rewarding, but it's also been hard. There have been days that I've cried homesick and frustrated, times when we've had to bite our tongues and exercise our patience. There have been times we have been hungry and dehydrated, and unable to communicate this to the people around us. We have had stomach problems. We have had nights that have been so hot that we can't sleep and when we uncover ourselves for some cool relief, we're only welcomed by mosquito bites. There have been months of cold bucket baths. We've encountered shy people, welcoming people, overbearing people, friendly people, and deceiving people - everywhere we have gone. 

We have had language barriers. I speak some Hindi, but that doesn't work in Tamil Nadu or rural areas of Orissa. We have made mistakes and miscommunicated. I even put a tape mark on someone's eye pre-op (to indicate which eye requires surgery) that was the wrong eye, because I misheard the Hindi. I realized it quickly, but the family noticed it quicker.

When you look at all the individual little things that make you work a little bit harder than usual, or act a little bit different than usual, it doesn't seem like much. But when you add it all together for so many months, it gets pretty tiring. 

I do think there exists an adjustment period during which you get used to any new environment. I'm sure that we've adjusted to India more than we realize, and I even expect to be a little thrown off returning stateside. But I think adjusting completely has been hard for us because we haven't spent long periods in each location. I would say we adjusted in Orissa because we were there for the longest stretch of all the India locations (a month). We knew the local market and became friendly with hospital staff. While traveling for sight seeing and going to Bihar and Chennai, it's been much harder. Suddenly you have to adjust to new sleeping quarters, figure out the bathroom/shower situation. Where can we get filtered water? Where can we wash & hang our clothes? Should we put up the mosquito net? Plus, adjustment when you meet new people - your coworkers. It takes some time to just figure out the appropriate & most effective way to talk (or hand gesture) to someone - and we have truly worked with countless numbers of people here. That can be hard.

All these things are not things you have to do when you're in a place called "home" - no matter where home happens to be. All this is figured out while you adjust, then you begin a routine. You know where to get things done. You know what you can safely eat without becoming sick. You know how to talk to people around you, and you become comfortable. I miss that comfort.

I mention these things only in an effort to provide a complete picture here, nothing else. I'm not complaining (not here, anyway - I save that for venting to Nilit and emails to my friends - thanks for listening you guys!). I am grateful to be happy and healthy, and to be in a place where we can decide to live abroad and unemployed for 6 months. We knew we wouldn't have a place called home, and we knew that it would present challenges and new experiences we couldn't have any other way. We live an amazingly blessed and easy life, which becomes even more apparent when you meet patients who can't even afford a pair of shoes.

Not to mention the pros of our trip here have far outweighed the cons, which I hope is evident in this blog. We are helping people. We helped the hospital in Orissa with lots of administrative tasks, and we are still planning to help them remotely by continuing to work on the fundus camera project and a medical records database project. Chennai has been really rewarding because we are in a position to be able to provide a good amount of hands-on help to the optometrists. We learned (read: created a cheat sheet for) Tamil numbers, so we can do visual acuity tests with a Snellen chart. Recently, we visited an outreach camp in the slums of Chennai with the optometrists and helped perform free visual acuity tests on over 220 patients and handed out free reading glasses to people who needed them.

Nilit working hard.

Using the cheat sheet!

Motorcycle driving through the eye exam. No big deal.

And that's just one example of an outreach camp - one during which we actually brought our phones to snap a few pictures, and one during which we knew the count of patients. We also handed out glasses to patients when we were at the outreach camps in Patna, Bihar. When it comes to glasses some people just walk away with their new pair. But most people open them, put them on, and look down to the registration paper they have in their hands. I can't tell you how many times people's faces light up with excitement once they realize they can read again; or if they can't read, they can at least see the small font. They look back up at us with amazement, as of we just performed some sort of magic trick. They also thank us profusely, saying a silent "namaskar" with their hands, smiling big and nodding their head at us. They then go on to tell the people around them that it works! Look at this number, I can see it! The others generally don't get as excited as them, but the happiness is contagious.

There have been countless moments like this, related not just to handing out glasses but to talking to post-op patients, and taking their hand and exchanging smiles despite the language gaps. There was a woman who told us we were "God's workers" as I helped her take her surgical covers off. On one particularly hilarious day, Nilit had just finished screening a patient at a camp who then got up out of his chair. Before either of us knew it, and before we could get the next patient seated, out of nowhere an elderly woman with a hunched back grabbed the plastic chair and headed toward the door. She moved slowly but persistently, only looking ahead and using the chair as a walker. We were so dumbfounded, we just watched her walk ever so slowly and leave the room, and Nilit kept the screening pace up by doing standing visual acuity tests. I then watched her slowly leave the front gate of the building. She just kept looking forward, using the chair as a crutch. All the staff looked around at each other, completely puzzled and paralyzed by the odd situation. What is she doing?! I think she just stole that chair. She sure was slow, but she got away. Ha! It was absolutely hilarious. Nilit has a theory that she's been planning a chair robbery from the school for months. Who knows, but we still remember that and get a great laugh out of it.

We have also met such hard working hospital staff and doctors,  who work terribly long hours, oftentimes skipping meals and getting few hours of sleep. We wonder how they can do this everyday. It has all been truly fun, awakening, and inspiring.

So, our time here is creeping to an end. I have begun to count down the days. I just hope that we can soak it all in before we head back. It's all important, I think - the inspiring times, the sucky times, the frustrating times, and the happy & fun times. All things to remember, ponder and hopefully learn something from.

I also have wanted to thank those of you who encouraged this blog and have continued reading! It's been practically therapeutic for me to get these sorts of thoughts down, and I'm sure I'll be glad I have it all "on paper" years from now.

This is not to say goodbye of course - we will continue to post. I still have a couple of Guatemala "throwback" posts already scripted, and I know Nilit has some things to add. 

So stay tuned! :)