Chennai!

So, leaving Kathmandu was an incredible hassle. First, my flight got delayed 4 hours because of weather- it's monsoon season, meaning the weather is hot, rainy, and very cloudy and foggy. This meant I would miss my connecting flight on a different airline from Dehli. I arrived in Dehliu (5 hours late) (apparently the plane almost made it to Kathmandu, then turned around back to Dehli, then cam back to Kathmandu to get us- all with the other passengers on board!) and I was sent to the ticket window after clearing customs. I was told that they would cancel my flight and book me a new one, without refunding me for my original ticket, and making me pay for the new one. Then I got sent to 4 different terminals and maybe 20 diferent windows- each airline has several seperate windows for different tasks, all with rediculously long lines, and many agents who don't speak any english. Meanwhile, the weather outside was worsenning- clouds gathering and rain falling as I took crowded, hot busses from terminal to terminal, trying to figure out what to do. On top of it all, my phone stopped working. I finally talked to a manager who helped me out and as she handed me my boarding pass (it had been 3 hours since i landed by now) the whole power in the airport shut off.

luckily, it was only a minor blackout, so all that was left now was to wait for my flight for 3 more hours. hoping my bags were still somewhere, I waited. about 5 minutes before boarding, they announced that all flights out of Dehli were delayed indefinently. By this point, I had given in to being stuck in the Delhi airport for the rest of the summer.

Anyway, my flight finally left and I arrived in to the hotel here at about 1:30 am, after leaving the hotel in Kathmandu at 6:30 am.

So, I've been in Chennai 3 days now, and working with Unite for Sight is great!

There are 11 volunteers here total, and we've been doin eye camps in the city- today some of us went to the hospital and got to watch cataract surgeries and see post op patients. At each one of those camps so far, we saw over 200 patients, gave out around 100 pairs of glasses and identified about 15 candidates for surgery. Tomorrow some of us have a day off and we're going to Mamalaporrum, a city near here with a cool 400 year old temple there. Then on wed we do some village camps. Yesterday we went to one of the volunteer's friends, Shahool's beach house, which was amazing- huge place looking right out at the ocean right where the tsunami hit- he was there when it hit, and it destoyed his old house there and he was swept about a km away by the water, but was ok. Then we hung out and had dinner at the resort his father owns near there, which was amazing! Early sunday morning Shahool wants to go snake hunting for poisinous snakes- apparently one of his favorite activities. :)

The lack of pictures is not because I haven't taken any, believe me, but the computer cafes here are very old and the internet incredibly slow- this one does not even have usb ports, so even if I had the hour it would take to upload one picture, I wouldn't be able to. So, imagine up to a dozen indian children crowding around us and smiling and saying "hello!" they ask us to take photos by yelling "photo?" and then giggle, smile and run shily away after we show them the picture on the digital camera. Then a few minutes later, they run back and ask for another photo- one little boy stayed with us all day, asking for hundreds of photos.

This is a long post now I guess- there's so much to write about here, but I'll have to go now and write more later.

Eric