Second stop in India: Jamhked. Here we stayed with CRHP which stands for Comprehensive Rural Health Projects. This is a project that focuses on rural health and provides free medical care for people from the villages. They have a hospital there, an artificial limbs workshop, a preschool, a farm, and a center called Helping Hands where they make things to sell like tapestries, scarfs, skirts, wallets, and notebooks.
To get there, we took a 12-hour bus ride from Mumbai. We made stops along the way to use the restrooms but one time I had to pee so badly that I went on the side of the road. Literally on the side of the road! Not behind a tree, not behind a bush, but on the road! I told the driver I would go on the road because I really had to go but I was expecting more like walking to the trees and peeing there, but there was a fence separating the road and the bushes, so no bush for me. I’m sure some people driving through saw me, but that’s alright, I was going to die if I hadn’t gone. At least I had toilet paper. After a few hours on the road we stopped at a restaurant for lunch and I began to feel a little car sick. I was sitting at the back of the bus, so after the last stop I moved to the front of the bus. I though my carsickness would go away but it didn’t –it started to get worse. At one point I grabbed a plastic bag because I thought I was going to throw up. After all those (suffering) hours in the bus we made it to CRHP (without vomiting yay!). We settled in and went to dinner. The doctor there took a look at me and said I was dehydrated. Oh, I had already vomited twice at this point (not in the bus though). I spent the night in the infirmary feeling awful –my stomach hurt, my head was pounding, my whole body ached, and I felt super dizzy. The next day I got a blood and urine test done and got positive for UTI. Apparently getting a UTI in India is different than in the states so you don’t get the same symptoms, which was nice –it didn’t hurt when I peed. I still felt very tired and my body was still hurting so I slept the entire day (unfortunately missing programming). The next day I still felt weak but good enough to return to program!
Our stay at CRHP was very chill but at the same time I feel like we did a lot. The first days we had an orientation where we watched videos about all the things this project has done, we participated in a class where women learned different life skills like healthy eating habits, agriculture, taking care of sick babies, etc. The last days we did skills rotation. The skills where: 1) hospital, 2) farming, 3) Helping Hands, 4) pre-school, and 5) artificial limbs. I never went to farming just because we did so much of that the first trimester, but I went to all the other ones. Making the artificial limbs was cool. The guy taught us how to do them with the local and cheap materials they have. They use aluminum for the leg and attach a rubber foot to it depending on the shoe size. It takes them just one day to make a leg and it costs around $100 to make, but the patients there get it for free. The artificial legs also work really good in that area since they are made out of aluminum and not carbon fiber plastic (like in the states) so it won’t melt in the heat since it’s so hot there. While working in the hospital, I saw different patients that have had surgery on their hands and foot from burns and birth defects. We learned how to clean it and dress it. We got the opportunity to do it ourselves but of course I didn’t even try –medicine is not for me. One day a surgeon came in to tie the fallopian tubes. There were at least 40 women there. The surgeries lasted the whole morning. The doctor would do surgery on one woman and 5 minutes later he would move onto the other one. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity of witnessing that, literally being in the operation room and watching a surgeon perform an operation. Some Winterline students even got to perform the surgery! Yes, they actually tied the fallopian tubes. That’s crazy, I don’t know how they didn’t pass out. After watching like three or four surgeries I got out of there. Three students also got the opportunity to see a C-section! That’s crazy. I didn’t go to that, there were too many people in the room but I don’t think I would’ve gone even if I could’ve. I would probably had passed out. In Helping Hands we did a coaster out of bangle bracelets. They cut the bracelets in tiny pieces and glue them on a piece of wood to make the coaster. The pre-school was so fun. We did the pre-school pick up where we would pick them up and bring them to the school. It was nice because we got to walk around the villages and visit the locals houses and see how the live. The kids were adorable! One time I was walking and out of nowhere I feel someone grabbing my hand and it was the cutes little girl. She grabbed my hand and didn't let go until we got there. In the school we just played with them and then they watched a movie and had lunch. It was so cute. Everyone loved spending time with the pre-school kids.
Next stop: India ISP! (Independent Student Project)
P.S.: I made a video about our time here but there isn't enough wifi where we are staying right now so I would have to wait for a better connection to upload it. But it is coming! Soon!
