Medicine and Monsoon

(Boys from one of the villages)

Hello Everyone!

I am typing from an internet cafe in Pen. We have been working with an organization called Children's Future India (CFI). This is a nonprofit, working with rural villagers in the area, providing medical care, family planning, community development, HIV/AIDS clinics, student sponsorships, and more. Their parent organization is in Norway. It is an impressive organization that has done a lot for the community here. Today we shadowed a physician and 2 nurses at the Family Planning Clinic. This clinic provides basic medical care, contraception, and performs a lot of tubal ligations. We were able to observe the tubals and see some patients. The main physician there is a young woman, who was sponsored by CFI as a girl, and went on to become a doctor! One of the nurses there is a trained midwife, who delivers uncomplicated pregnancies in the villages.
(Emilie Dempsey, Bill Hunt, and Adam in front of CFI)

This afternoon we helped take basic weights and heights for well-child checks, and then spent several hours in the HIV/AIDS clinic. A physician comes to the CFI headquarters and sees patients, checks for any changes in their condition, and writes prescriptions. The patients go to Mumbai once a month for ART therapy. It was heartbreaking to see 2 young girls who were HIV positive and orphaned because both parents died of AIDS. Another young boy contracted the illness via blood transfusion. Many of the women contract the virus from unfaithful husbands.

We have been doing yoga each morning with Bhosle - a man here in Pen. Although my yoga practice in Lexington is different from what I am learning here, it is amazing to have the tools to understand each other through yoga.

(My yoga mat in front of the temple where we practice)

We have a wonderful cook named Shital, who cooks us 3 meals a day and cleans. We are getting incredibly spoiled by her, and don't know how we'll manage once we're back in the states. We are living with an Australian and 2 Americans. 2 are premed and one is in the Grassroots and Community Development program.

Monsoon has not been too bad (knock on wood). It is not as hot as I was afraid it would be, and there have only been 1 or 2 periods of showers each day. We've been very lucky and I hope the weather doesn't change. The sun hasn't been bad, so I haven't gotten burned, and only have a few mosquito bites. All in all things are going well, and we're just trying to get involved in as many hands-on activities as possible!