this is a brief summary to catch you up to speed with how everything has been:
i left Toronto on the 29th of june, arrived in Mumbai on the 1st in the wee hours. i stayed at my uncle's house until the morning of the 5th when i arrived in Hyderabad and was taken to CHAI headquarters in Secunderabad.
being the weekend, the first day involved settling in, the second involved a short visit to a farm/training centre/soon-to-be-completed care and support centre of CHAI's just to 'take it it'; then in the afternoon a lame attempt to explore the city was made by the 4 of us which ended in a long trek along the promenade of the lake, making the local newspaper, and seeing things we probably would not have seen had the planned sight-seeing tour fallen into place.
then next 2 days involved learning more about CHAI, the programs, ideology, and services involved. this took up the mornings, so the afternoons were free. monday, the other girls went into town to find a bank. i played antisocial loner and stayed home, discovering and making good use of the library (i.e. the internet). the second afternoon we went back into town, i changed some money and we tried to do some shopping. 2 of the other girls had a cell-phone acquisition adventure/trial which took a while to sort out.
wednesday we visited a public (government) hospital in Secunderabad. it was huge, and saw an impressive number of patients, however it was not an overall positive experience (it involved some rather rude doctors insulting us while we sat there and tried to politely take it). (politeness is hellish sometimes. i don't know who invented it or what purpose it's supposed to serve, but really, good grief!. although we did make the local newspaper again (but this time we never actually found a copy of the article).
thursday we visited a faith-based hospital, which was a much more pleasant experience. friday we left for and arrived at the care and support centre in Warangal.
the centre cares for HIV/AIDS patients, about 1/2 of which have active pulmonary TB. they see about 90 patients a month, with approximately 60 in-patients at any one time. there is a male ward and a female ward, and 2 4-bed rooms for "infectious diseases" where the more serious male patients went. the patients at the centre are there for an average of 10 days, coming in because of various opportunistic infections which are common with HIV cases. each patient has an attendant - a family member who is with them at all times and performs most of the personal care for the patients. there are 3 nurses on duty during the day, one during the night, as well as various support staff. the doctor will come once a day for rounds - to prescribe medications and refer patients. care and medications are provided for free to the patients.
what is interesting is that there is an orphanage attached to the centre ("care and support for children"). there were 56 children, most orphans, all HIV positive, from 4 years to 12 years, both girls and boys. most of the kids had watched one or both parents die at the centre and had no where else to go. they were given food, medication, clothes, education and the centre was their permanent home. it was an interesting and pleasant contrast to hear laughter or young voices reciting the alphabet in the midst of suffering and dying.
there are quite a few 'special' experiences that occurred during the 12 days that we spent there, which i hope to be able to elaborate on in greater detail.
we arrived back in secunderabad on the 23rd of july. during these past few days we (in no particular order): did a city tour; finished a report on the Warangal CSC and submitted it to CHAI; visited a private/corporate hospital; walked through a slum; had a home-cooked meal at friends' house; and did a whole lot of laundry.
issues with power outages and internet outages and such things, (as well as potential carbon monoxide poisoning - either that or becoming too used to afternoon siestas) has made updating this blog difficult until now. there will potentially be internet at the next place that we shall be visiting - certain primary health centres outside of a city called Eluru, east of Hyderabad. we leave tonight by train.
one of the other girls whose blog i referred you to earlier has been posting pictures and updating, so you can continue to check that out: uibeloindia.blogpost.com. i make no promises about updating, as even if there is web access it is rather frustrating to share it with 3 other internet starved individuals, plus whoever else needs it for actual work.
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