Patna

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012577&l=10a43&id=1295520212

Some pictures- the internet is slow, so consider these a preview. One of my personal favorites:

It's raining. That's putting it very lightly. It's barely stopped raining for more than a few hours since I got here on July 1. We're in the middle of Monsoon season, and Patna has poor drainage. That means a ton of flooding. When we walk, the water is above our knees usually, and when we drive it feels like we're in a boat- we have a wake and everything. I should have brought my wakeboard or waterskis.

It also means the power goes out constantly. It's pretty amazing to be in surgery (sometimes with a needle stuck in the eye) when the power goes out. An assistant holds a flashlight and they perform surgery by flashlight until the generator kicks in.

Patna is a lot different than Chennai. I am the only white face here (that we have seen), and everyone stares at me everywhere. The patients often ask me about myself in broken english, but mostly people here don't know any english.

I'm living with the Sinhas, a family with 3 ophthalmologists and a gynecologist. Really inspiring, smart people who are teaching me everything from diseases of the eye to indian food and life to other ways of the world.

Our daily schedule is rigorous. We wake up early and have tea at 8, followed by breakfast (usually a mix of both indian foods and eggs and toast). Then we head to the AB Eye Institute, where we see private paying patients. At the clinic, Asim (the other Unite for Sight volunteer here) and I take patient histories (in Hindi-I'm learning, but I am butchering the pronunciations) and make preliminary diagnoses for the patients. It's interesting- in the US or Canada, you wouldn't normally see many cases during these private clinic hours besides check ups and such, but since preventative care is not as wide spread in India, we often see cases of mature cataracts, pterygium, glaucoma, and other severe eye diseases in addition to normal check ups and glasses prescriptions. This is also when we get to see surgeries- we've already gotten to see several cataract surgeries and many injections of anti angiogenesis drugs into the eye for various reasons.

Then we have lunch at home at around 4pm. Lunch is usually indian food with a dessert of fresh mangoes. After lunch we head to a charity clinic, which takes place at a different location each day of the week. These are very busy clinics where we see up to 50 patients in a few hours, and these patients are so poor they have probably never seen a doctor before. Often we ask the patients to come into the clinic for further testing or treatment, which they do the next Saturday, when we see all charity patients at the AB Eye Institute.

After the charity clinic, we return to the AB Eye Institute to see more private patients until dinner at around 830 or 9 pm- again, Indian food with fresh mangoes. Then we get some much needed sleep.

Up until 48 hours ago I was lucky-the only effects of being in India were a lot of sweating and many mosquito bites, but then I got a fever, severe diarrhea, and a bad headache until this morning. The Ciprofloxin I took helped a bunch, but I'm worried to go back to eating everything, so I'm taking it easy on the food (yes, even the mangoes, although it hurts to say no when they offer).

The Sinhas are very inspiring- they keep this same schedule with or without Unite for Sight volunteers, and on top of it are active in the community- starting a full charity eye hospital next door to the AB Eye Institute, and with some funding from UfS they've started a charity School for Blind girls- we went there the other day...pretty amazing. More then 60 students, with graduates going on to prestigious Indian Universities- otherwise these young girls would be forced to beg on the street or worse.

Anyway, I have 9 more days here in Patna before I head off to Delhi and then to Europe. I'm still planning for Europe, so if you're there, let me know via facebook or email and maybe I can work my trip to be able to see you.

I'm starting to miss everyone in the states! If you haven't talked to me online since I left, shoot me an email to let me know what you're up to. The internet here is kind of spotty, but I'll do my best to respond!

Delhi

Stayed at a really sketchy hotel right behind Jamu Masjid, a huge mosque in Old Delhi. Only 300 rupees a night ($1 USD=42 Rupees). Jamu Masjid is enormous- it holds 25,000+ people.

Highlights of my one day in Delhi include:
-Jamu Masjid
-The Red Fort
-Gahndi's cremation site
-Canaught place (a market)
-dinner at United coffee house (very old- the guide book recoomended it- i thought it was over rated)
-gave my leftovers to a street family with about 6 kids.

I tried to DHL my tablas back, but it's $275!! They only do overnight shipping, and that's much much more than the tablas even cost! I guess I'll wait until europe.

When I woke up at 5 to go the airport for my flight to Patna, it seemed that most of the city's 40,000 street inhabitants were sleeping on the sidewalk outside my hotel. I had to step over and around them to get to the cab. quite an experience. remember, there are also goats, cows, stray dogs, horses, autorickshaws, bikes, and more on the streets here. Pretty different than Colorado Springs.

Summing up Chennai

Sorry for the delay in updates here- I've been busy. I'm going to sum up Chennai quickly day by day, then put another post about Delhi (where I was for one day) and Patna, where I am now.

Chennai- Day 1
A city eye camp- saw 174 patients, gave 99 glasses, 36 cataract patients id'ed
went to an indian rock concert (pretty fun), then a nice restaurant called Casa Picolla for dinner, where we met Shahul for the first time

Day 2
Another city eye camp- started learning Thamul so that I could do visual acuity screening and better communicate- saw 196 patients, gave 86 glasses, 25 cataract patients id'ed for surgery
that evening we went to Shahul's beach house- beautiful. he was there when the tsunami hit- was swept 1/2 km away and the house was destroyed but has since been rebuilt

Day 3
Went to the Hande Hospital- saw 2 cataract surgeries- Dr. Varman makes it look incredibly easy
went to Pondi Bazaar, a music shop (got tablaas!!)
ate at a terrible restaurant- most of the volunteers got sick overnight and my room mate Eric got hives- everytime he ate anything with spices (masala) he got hives. he's a big guy too, so eating naan and rice all week was rough- he got some protein shake stuff though, which helped.
Luckily, I haven't had any reactions (besides the typical light diahrea-sorry...too much info, i know) to any of the food here yet, which is great, because I love indian food.

Day 4
Day off
went to Mamalapurum with Senthill (volunteer coordinator) and some other volunteers. indians are charged 10 rupies, and foreigners 250....pretty ridiculous, huh?
anyway, it was some cool ruins and a temple on the sea. I climbed a coconut tree.

Day 5
Village camp (about 1.5 hrs away) saw 126 patients, gave 48 glasses, id'ed 29 cataract patients for surgery
went to a nice chinese restaurant that night called cascade with Shahul and Ajas before dancing at Pasha. fun stuff-ask for more details. the fried ice cream was amazing at cascade!

Day 6
Fishing village on the coast- eye camp- saw 110 patients, gave 44 glasses, 29 cataract surgeries.
beautiful village with cute kids all over asking us to take their photo and then crowding to see it.
went to St. Thomas cathedral downtown Chennai- interesting. went to seashell rest. for dinner right near Hotel Assai.

Day 7
Hande Hospital- 5 cataract surgeries and 1 retinal surgery
afternoon- did a goat's eye cataract surgery- so hard. I can really appreciate the skill and care it takes to do these now, and it makes Dr. Varman's quick and perfect surgeries seem even more amazing.
Casa Picolla again with Shahul and Ajas, then Cafe Mocha.

Day 8
Camp in the outskirts of the city- 106 patients, gave 48 glasses, 19 cataract id'ed
went to Pasha again with Shahul, where we met a girl who is 20- she gets married in 2 weeks to a guy she's never met and she might run away to the US. it was crazy to hear about her life- so different than western girls.

Day 9
Day off- no camps. no clinic, no surgeries.
slept in, then went to fisherman's cove with Shahul, Ajas, Eric, and Abrar. that's the fancy resort where bill gates stays when he's in india. had dinner at the park hotel, then went to hotel assai to drop off eric- his flight left that night. went to cafe mocha, where Senthill and Thanraj met us to say goodbye.

My flight left at 635 am the next day, so i went with Jennifer (who left at 500 am) to the airport at 2. fell asleep waiting for my flight and woke up 5 min after it left -oops! luckily, i was able to get on the next flight to Delhi with no extra charge (i still can't figure out how I managed that) and reached Delhi at about 1100.

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

Hello from Nepal!

I'm sitting in the airport in Kathmandu and it's about 730 am here. I arrived yesterday and met some amercians who finished a semester with NOLS at the airport in Dehli, and hung out with them last night here in Kathmandu. I'm waiting for my flight to Pokhara where I'm backpacking for a few days before heading back to Kathmandu for another night and then off to Chennai for Unite for Sight.

Let's do a recap though-

From Boston I flew to London, which was a ton of fun. I did all the typical tourist things; rode the double decker tour bus, saw big ben, westminister abbey, camden, buckingham palace, hyde park, pubs with Kiwi from French Woods, took the tube, went on a boat on the thames, went to borough market, and more.

Then I flew to Amsterdam for a brief stay to wait for my flight on to Dehli- breakfast at Barney's was amazing.

I landed in Dehli and was not allowed through security until 3 hours before my flight to Kathmandu, so I waited and met some American students who were also going to Kathmandu on a later flight. We met up (stayed at the same hotel) and went to dinner last night at a traditional Nepali restaraunt where they sing, dance, and you sit on the floor to eat. We ate with our fingers-the other tourists there did not. One of our waiters came with us after dinner to show us around- we went and watched football (soccer) and listened to a nepali band playing everything from marley to pink floyd- they were very good actually.

So, why did I go to Kathmandu instead of Darjeeling? There is a general strike there, meaning no tourists can come- it's actually dangerous for them to, so I switched to Nepal, which is awesome. I've only seen a bit of the Himalyas- it's very cloudy and humid here, but hopefully I'll get some nice views hiking over the next few days.

Anyway, I have to catch my flight, but love to everyone back home and I'll try to update this again once I'm in Chennai on the 20.

About to leave the US

Hey! So New York was great last weekend...

Here's the link to the public Facebook album: 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012201&l=db143&id=1295520212

This is a picture of a beautiful sunset in CT on the way up to Boston.

Tomorrow I finish shadowing Dr. Perry Rosenthal (and his team), Founder and Director of the Boston Foundation for Sight, who created the Boston Lens, a contact lens that rests entirely on the white tissue (sclera) of the eye, arching over a damaged cornea creating a space that is filled with artificial tears. The effect is to create a smooth optical surface over the diseased cornea that replaces its distorted surface that improves vision; a bandage for some of the most devastating corneal diseases that torture their victims with constant, unrelenting pain and disabling photosensitivity and for which there was no definitive treatment options in the past. Dr. Jacobs, Dr. Kwok, Dr. Carrasquillo, and everyone else at the Boston Foundation for Sight were incredibly kind, skilled, and great teachers as I learned about eye care for these few days.

So, I leave for London tomorrow night around 7:45 and arrive early in the morning. I'll be in London to the weekend, when I go to Amsterdam to catch my flight on to Delhi! On June 17th, I fly from Dehli to Bagdogra and then head up to Darjeeling until the 19, when I head to Chennai to start my work with Unite for Sight.

I'm heading to sleep, but I'll write again asap.

Bye to the US!

Heres my trip route:

you can zoom in by following this link:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1978202

So where is he?

Hey! Welcome to the blog!  I'll try to update this as much as possible.  Right now I'm in Bethesda with Ben Mackall and taking a class (kinda) at Johns Hopkins.  On Friday I'm heading to NYC and I'll leave there on Sunday for Boston, where I'm shadowing an ophthalmologist for 3 days starting Monday.

Everything is set for me to leave and go to India via London next Thursday.  I'll spend a few days in London and maybe hop over to Paris or Brussels and then head on to India, where I'm trying to work out going up to the Darjeeling area.  Up in Darjeeling you can see Kangchenjunga (the 3rd tallest mountain in the world).  There's some more information about Darjeeling here:

http://india.journeymart.com/darjeeling/default.asp

I'll be there for a few days, then I'll head down to Chennai, India to start my first of three Unite for Sight programs on June 20.  I've been doing all the last of the paperwork and stuff for Unite for Sight, and I'm really excited about it!

Anyway, if anyone is in any of the places I will be in the next week or so, let me know!