I have moved tents and now share with a female Indian administrator, her college has left to see the dermatologist.
This administrator will be moving to a flat in the city when the young volunteers come on the 4th February and I will have a whole tent to myself. I wish that I was allowed to have friends to stay, this experience is so worthwhile, and a very tiny bit if me wishes I was sharing this experience with someone in real time!
So I fell asleep after the writing the above and had a whole night of snake themed nightmares. (I am currently on the loo - yup) Last night you know I said that I was convinced that I heard a snake and felt a thump to the floor, well examining my mossie net for holes I noticed two linear slits on the side facing my head. I was sleeping in the tent alone before moving and was kinda afraid of all the wildlife noises and missed every bodies snoring so slept with my head torch on. I reckon the snake was attracted to the light. I had a discussion with one of the bosses over coffee and she is not convinced it was a snake but says it could be. I reckon it was attracted to my head lamp, slithered in via some hole and tried to bite my head through the net. Cheeky thing.
Hit the net and thudded to the floor.
There is absolutely nothing that. Oils explain the slits at all. Yikes.
I think snakes are gonna be the theme of my nightmares from hence forth.
We went over snake bite management yesterday over a case vac run through,
Nice to know all snakes in India are poisonous.
So a case vac is an evacuation of a casualty from a site remote from field base , co ordinated by a team at field base.
I have the field base medic phone and someone else has the emergency phone.
The team leaders at their various locations know who they can call and during their two day trip would have established case vac routes to the nearest hospital. One will always involve the field base bravo (car) but that may not be the quickest. The quickest may be a locals car. The car is checked and field base will pay for any repair, this is if the car would be the quickest form of transport to a hospital.
Anyhow the case vac is a highly structured procedure but had rarely been used, as most called in case vacs usually are down graded to a med rep with is a medical report and the patient can be managed by the team leader at the remote site (ie sprains). Sometimes the patient comes to field base for hydration or a once over by field base medic (me) but there have been pretty much no case vacs, nethertheless the procedure must be practised.
Once the volunteers come on the 4th we will be having 12 practises, I have to get this right!!!! (That's 150 people yikes)
I stopped writing this and picked it up after a day around Mysore!
Myself, one of the admin girls and a field base volunteer had a wonder around town.
Mysore is overwhelmingly bigggggg!
I know that it isn't the biggest town/ city in India but for me it was an adventure.
Indian people are entrepreneurs!!!! Everybody is selling something and takes great pride in it.
You can buy anything in India, from iPhone 5s to medications. No ID is needed for anything. If you have the cash, you get what you want.
You aren't allowed to take bags into shopping malls and your recipt is checked when you leave!!
We had an amazing veg curry in down town Mysore. I was the only black person in this very traditional eatery surrounded by eating Indians. I got stares and smiles and a lot of love. Indian people do not like to say no or rarely say that they don't understand. So this man came up to our table and said hello to me, he looked very important and held himself well (actually most Indian men do) I said hello. He said hello again. I presumed be was the boss and said, "you are boss? This is delicious thank you". My colleagues were giggling as the man nodded his head and said "yes ma'am yes ma'am, we shook hands and left".
I said to the table that I thought he was nice and they laughed and replied "he is a waiter". Oops
The food I had in this restaurant was absolutely bloody delicious. My god. And the amount of food, all veg all very tasty. Off course I ate with my hands, forks are dead to me. And so sooooo cheap.
We visited a bank, traumatic. Busy, full of people with big wedges of cash all trying to deposit it. Disorderd queuing. Hot.
I waited outside.
Outside, I noticed that I was in the western district of town. Lots of hippy looking people, with slight pompous. Admittedly I am in proper expedition adventurer clothing. I look like a tourist, I smell like a tourist and my berghaus day sack outs me all the time. So earlier that day I approached this white girl about my age in the supermarket because I wanted to find some cereal (I cant have curry for breakfast again) and the look she have me after looking me up and down would have curdled milk. Yikes. Then again as I was crossing the road this big old white man (in a lovely linen two piece may I add) just crossed my path bumped into me as if I didn't exist. Meh city.
I've decided that I do not want to visit any western places anymore, I'm gonna keep it Indian and traddional. We had a look in a yoga cafe, again too western, with people sitting with laptops and not talking to each other and not even a hello despite me smiling. I possibly may be a bit much for some folk so I totally understand the rebuffle lol.
What else, oh yeah I saw I a guy get knocked of his motorbike by a tut tut, he was alright. No helmet. Wasn't indicating. Bike alright thou. I wasn't allowed to leave the car to help him :(
India's road are bloody scary. No one stops for anything. Except cows. Cows get right of way all the time. People swerve to avoid cows but no swerving to avoid people!!! Few traffic lights. Man alive.
Oh the hospital, it was pretty standard I wasn't that impressed but was happy that any unwell volunteers would be evacuated somewhere self. It did however have a cath lab. (Where people who are having heart attacked caused by fat lumps in the arteries around the heart, have the artery reopened) this was impressive. There was a CT scanner and a radiologist. Now the ED had just four bed. There was a fully kitted ITU and even Physio. Dya know what I was impressed actually but it is american funded so I guess I kinda wanted to visit some more rural hospitals.
Right now I'm surrounded by team leaders all writing up their reports.
Il post some pictures of Mysore!
I think that I am gonna use this blog as a daily diary. It may get a bit boring for you despite things being highly exciting for me - I spent last night reading up on tropical diseases and looking at pictures of fulminant disease states, this made me happy.
I can't be specific about the people I see re names and conditions, but il try my best.
It's funny how the sun changes your body cycles. I'm waking up at sun rise 6.45 and jogging ???? Falling asleep at 10ish. Eating good curry - man the curry is good. I've taken a likening to powdered milk despite liquid milk being available. I feel like I'm cleaning my soul, life is so simple here. Washing with cold water just isn't a bother, not having to wear make up is a relief. I wear the same clothes and it's ok. My hair is wild but seems healthier in the sun. The sun is a medicine man.
Bit too tired to spell check the above but gonna answer some of ya facet questions in the next post.
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