Note: I didn't have internet access all weekend so this blog is for Thursday July 14
Today we rode an hour bus ride to a special needs school to play with them for two hours. In India it is considered really bad if you have a disability so many of the poor disabled kids are orphaned. We sang primary and nursery songs, colored, played little games and danced. It was so fun to see how excited they got at such little things. One boy was really talented at drawing, another was miraculously good at playing toss with a ball. He also could slap his foot on the ground and make a really loud noise like a fire cracker. He got a kick out of seeing us all try to do it. One girl was so proud that she knew her numbers 1-100 so she wrote them down as fast as possible like three times. It was really neat to interact with the kids. They made necklaces to sell so I bought two they are super cute. They didn’t want to leave and two boys snuck away to walk us to the gate. After that my favorite part of the day was next!
We went to the colony to meet with a couple of leprosy patients to clean their ulcers, redress their wounds and document their progress. So leprosy itself does not particularly inflict wounds on patients. Leprosy degenerates nerve tissue in appendages so a patient can step on something sharp or hot and not feel it or injure themselves in any other way. Then, they can’t feel it when the bugs and rats infest their bandages and eat the wound away further. To cure leprosy we start with healing the wounds. All in an assembly line we removed bandages, photographed the wounds, cleaned their feet and legs, trimmed their nails if needed, applied neem leaf oil to the area and rebandaged. I was in charge of washing an old lady’s feet that only had three of ten digits. It was very sad. Neem leaves are a natural insect and rodent repellent as well as a moisturizer so it is perfect. It also is really good for the stomach so when we found some in the yard we ate them…completely disgusting! I totally understand why insects don’t come nippin when neem leaves are involved. The patients thanked us and we headed back to campus.
We went to the colony to meet with a couple of leprosy patients to clean their ulcers, redress their wounds and document their progress. So leprosy itself does not particularly inflict wounds on patients. Leprosy degenerates nerve tissue in appendages so a patient can step on something sharp or hot and not feel it or injure themselves in any other way. Then, they can’t feel it when the bugs and rats infest their bandages and eat the wound away further. To cure leprosy we start with healing the wounds. All in an assembly line we removed bandages, photographed the wounds, cleaned their feet and legs, trimmed their nails if needed, applied neem leaf oil to the area and rebandaged. I was in charge of washing an old lady’s feet that only had three of ten digits. It was very sad. Neem leaves are a natural insect and rodent repellent as well as a moisturizer so it is perfect. It also is really good for the stomach so when we found some in the yard we ate them…completely disgusting! I totally understand why insects don’t come nippin when neem leaves are involved. The patients thanked us and we headed back to campus.
Dinner today was fish. I normally really don’t like fish but this was delicious…even when you get bones in your mouth and the fish heads are floating in the curry ;) Even with rice for every meal I really enjoy Indian food.
Putting the kids to bed was sad because I knew I wouldn’t see them until Monday. They all were saying they were more fun than Delhi and the Taj Mahal. I wanted to learn their names perfectly so bad so one of the older girls grabbed my hand and we literally went through everyone like twelve times before I finally only stutter on a couple of the twenty girls. Next week I’ll have them all down. One girl, Rosemary had a loose tooth. Every day it progressively got wigglier. I knew it would come out during the weekend and I did not want to miss it so I helped her pull it out. She was so excited! She ran around showing all her friends in the other houses and told them the story talking fast in Tamil using cute big hand motions. Then they said some short chant and threw the tooth off the balcony into the night. It translates directly into: two to the sky, one to me. It means to give of yourself freely to the Earth. They also taught me how to say it in Tamil but I can’t write it. We left sad that we wouldn’t see them for three whole days!
For Delhi the next morning we had to be awake by 2:30 AM…so what was the point in sleeping, right? A few of us stayed up talking and had an awesome time getting to know each other better til we decided to go to sleep around 12:30. Ready for a fabulous weekend trip!
P.S. I haven't had time to upload any photos. Tomorrow I will do that and tell all about my weekend excursions!
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