MCAT Scores

If you're reading my blog your either family or a close friend.  I thought everyone would appreciate getting a med school application process update.

It is 2 AM India time and I just got off the phone with my mother.  Today was the day I found out my MCAT scores.  Drum roll?...... 35! I know what you’re thinking; the exact same thing I’m thinking, there is no way I am smart enough or did well enough on the test to earn a 35.  I walked out of the testing center thirty days ago hoping for a 29... praying for a 29.  I thought I did bad because I got a nasal infection the day before I took the test, took pseudoephedrine right before the test (which I took for my nose but also acts as a stimulant and jacked up my nerves to the point my head was spinning), and bombed the first third of the test (or so I thought). 

Iadmit without hesitation that God abundantly blessed me with an above average score when I didn’t earn it or deserve it.  Pslam 8:31-32 “…If God if for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”  A modern day David and Goliath.  A pure miracle.

I feel like a completely new person.  I look forward to the next 4 weeks in India and can’t wait to start filling out secondaries.  I’m not sure if I have ever been this happy in my entire life. Studying for that test and worrying about my results for a month has been agonizing.  I can’t imagine how I would have felt if I would have gotten a 25 while here in India so far away from home and support.

 I know this post has nothing to do with India but it’s a pretty MASSIVE update in my life.  God is good!

Ajanta Caves

June 26, 2011

Holy Moly!! Carved by hand... and I thought building a retaining wall was hard.

Today we saw the Ajanta caves.  They are one of the world heritage sites in India.  As the photos show they were remarkable!  We hired a taxi driver for the weekend to drive us the 5 hours to the caves.  It took about 6 hours because our driver got lost in the Indian countryside, which gave us a chance to see India without the tourist gloss.  The countryside was absolutely beautiful.  At one point we saw an elephant being ridden through a small rural town.  It’s face and trunk were decoratively painted, but I think it might have been being used for work.  We drove by pretty fast so I’m not sure, but I think it was hauling something.  How crazy is it that elephants are used like horses here and it’s normal to see one walking down the road!

Because we woke up at 6 to catch the taxi the caves were pretty exhausting when we finally arrived at 3 (after eating and checking into hotel).  It reminded me of my family vacation to Mesa Verde in Colorado.  There were 32 caves with the final cave holding an entire temple completely carved out of the cave’s rock.  They were made in the 17^th century and I’m not really sure how the Indians made something so fantastic with so little technology (aliens?).  I guess that’s why it’s a heritage site.  By the end of the day I was beat.  Walking up and down the stone stairs and taking what seemed like hundreds of pictures with the local tourists was tiring.  Everytime we stopped walking our “followers” would politely ask, “xcuse…picher picher?”

Mom, dad, Laura, Rachel, Aunt Deb... just like Mesa Verde?

My medical school secondary applications have just started coming in as well.  This is bitter sweet news because it’s an exciting time but each secondary requires an entirely new application with unique essays for each.  It’s good to reply to them within 3 weeks once I receive them so I’m going to have to work pretty hard filling them out while I’m here.  I applied to 12 schools so that’s A LOT of applications.  Prayer for the medical school stuff, my new program coming up with new people, and safety in a crazy country would be appreciated!  Hope all is well.

Meandering Mazes

June 24 2011

This week has flown by!  Everyone is gearing up to go back to America the start of July as I get ready to move to the rural rotation.  I’m getting excited to finally leave the noise, heat, and stink of Mumbai. 

My favorite drink in India,

pure sugar mango juice!

On Thursday night during clinic our doctor needed to make a house visit.  It was around 9pm and we had been with him since 6 but we decided to tag along.  It was a pretty slumy part of town and we had to weave down an ally then down progressively smaller passages until I was hunched over in a tunnel-like path wide enough for one person.  When we arrived at the house the lady was laying on the bed half comatose.  She had a large cut on her foot from where she had stepped on a nail and it had become horribly infected.  She was also overweight and had diabetes.  We checked her blood sugar and it was over 500.  You could also see the red-marked infection had started to climb up her ankle.  The reason her blood sugar was so high was because she had stopped eating for three days, and because of that, thought she didn’t need to take her insulin.  Our doctor was very upset she had waited so long to call.  He decided she needed to be checked into the hospital pronto with IV antibiotics.  The doctor seemed to be one of the better doctors we’ve rotated with so far.

This doctor gave placebo injections to make the patients
feel like they were getting treated.  He said without the injections
the patients would go to another doctor.  That's just good business.

This weekend two of the girls in our group wanted to take another mini-vacation from our hostel so they are planning on staying in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (which is super fancy).  I plan to mooch Internet, TV and good AC.  On Saturday the other girl talked me into accompanying her to a set of famous caves about 5 hours out of Mumbai.  I really want to get the full India experience and see as much of the country as possible.  Hopefully it is as amazing as the brochures say.

Why?

June 22, 2011

(Sorry this one is a little bit of a Debby downer J)

It’s 2am and I can’t sleep.  I’m not homesick.  I’m not lonely.  I just can’t fall asleep.  This happens now and then, which gives me time to lay in quiet and think.  My days in India are starting to blur together.  The shock is slowly leaving and the feeling of “normal” is setting in.  It is getting increasingly harder for me to blog every day because I feel like I’m blogging about normal life now (haha). 

Small slum along the highway

Tonight all I can think about is how many people are suffering across the world.  In Mumbai alone over 10 MILLION people are living in slums.  Hot, stinky, smelly, uncomfortable, bug infested, slums.  I’m laying in my bed, clean after showering, listening to my ipod.  Why do I get to have a bed?  The people sleeping in the dirt are still people.  They’re no different than me.  There’s so much about life I don’t get.  I feel like the only way I can feel upbeat and happy while surrounded by such poverty is to ignore it.  Ick.  There has to be a way to fix these problems!  Problems like this have been fixed in the past…. Who fixed them?  How’d they do it?  How come 3^rd world countries exist in 2011?! 

The streets are littered with piles of garbage.

Each individual of the 10 million has a story, a personality, a dream.  If they were born in America they’d grow up to be doctors, pilots, professors.  The whole situation bothers me, partly because I don’t understand WHY and partly because I feel so bad for these people.  It’s unfathomable to try and imagine what it would be like to grow up on the other side of the fence.

Pray for India.

Back in Mumbai: The Dirty City (haha)

Wow… The first two weeks are finally complete.  Group members have started talking about how they’re halfway done (because they’re only doing 1 program, not 2 like me).  Recently I’ve been experiencing a lot of contrasting emotions.  I can remember the first nights I spent alone in the hostel anticipating the arrival of the new group members like it just happened.  On the other hand, I feel like I’ve been living in India for at LEAST a year (haha).  To think that I still have 6 weeks to go makes my stomach churn because I’ve already experienced so much, to experience three times (6 weeks) more stuff is kinda overwhelming.  I do look forward to leaving Mumbai to relax in the shade of the Himalayan mountains in two weeks.  The constant noises and smells of the city are starting to wear on me.  Living in the slums of Mumbai has to be top 5 worst places to live on earth, and the slums are EVERYWHERE.  Even the nice parts of town have slums forming around gated apartment complexes and Porsche car dealerships.

The overnight bus ride back from Goa went much smoother than the trip there.  The other group member I was traveling with had prescription anti-nausea narcotics for chemo patients that we both took before we boarded the bus.  13 hours later I woke up in Mumbai. Perfect!  While I didn’t throw up again, I was still super grimy and greasy.  Being greasy here is so much different from the greasiness in the dry climate of ND.  In ND if you don’t shower for a day the grease is a thin film that’s slippery.  Here in India, the grease is an actual thick, leathery layer that’s sticky all over the body.  We took a taxi back to the hostel and along the way we had to drive through slum areas that were full of trash and debris.  My window was down and I could feel the trash particles from the dust stick to my leathery-grease face.  There was nothing I could do about it except lean my head back against the stained dirty head rest. haha

This week we rotate between two private clinics.  The first from 1-4pm and the second from 6-9pm.  At the first clinic I noticed that the doctor was giving every patient a shot no matter what their ailments were.  I asked him what exactly he was doing and he told us he was giving them “placebo injections.”  I then proceeded to ask if he was charging his patients for it and he truthfully said he was! Haha!  He said that way, the patients who can’t afford the more expensive medicine can get it for free from the placebo funds built up over time.  A little boy age 7 came in and was crying because he was scared to get “the shot.”  His mother was dragging him into the clinic wanting the doctor to give him the shot.  To the doctor’s credit, after seeing how scared the little boy was, he explained to the mother that the shot wouldn’t help the boy, and he would heal on his own.  The little boy was happy, but I think the mother was disappointed.

Lastly, our new group member arrived.  She grew up in India and moved to Texas when she was 10.  Because of this, she speaks fluent Hindi AKA our new translator.  It’s amazing how everything instantly became easier because the language barrier was less of a problem.  Ordering food, taxi/rickshaw directions, and talking with the doctors were probably the three most frustrating language barrier challenges before she came.  Now things are looking up. Namaste!

Elephants!

Today I laid by a pool with palm trees swaying overhead, stood in the Arabian Sea, drove a left handed stick shift on the wrong side of the rode, and RODE AN ELEPHANT!  Talk about an eventful day… 

On the beach of the Arabian Sea

It all started with an all I could eat buffet at 10am.  I had a made-to-order omelet, fresh pineapple and mango, and a large glass of squeezed guava fruit juice.  After changing into my swim suit I basked in the hot Indian sun and swam in the pool.  It was nice to relax away from the noise of Mumbai.  We were lucky it didn’t rain today because there was an 80% chance.  Afterwards we walked down to the beach to watch the Arabian Ocean’s waves break and recede.  The beach was pretty dirty however and trash bobbed up in down in the frothy water.

Because the locals love taking pictures with Westerners,
they were excited when I asked them if I could take a picture
with them.  This was taken at one of the Hindu mosques near Goa.

After the Ocean we wanted to rent a car and drive to a spice plantation with elephants and also see some of the local temples.  Because no one else felt comfortable driving a left-handed stick shift on the opposite side of the road though India’s crazy traffic, I was named the designated driver.  It took me some time learning how to shift with my left hand and to understand how much room I had on my passenger side.  I dropped the outside tires off the road a couple times before I got the hang of it, but I was still driving with more control than many of the locals.  There is no such thing as a no passing zone in India, so the cars would swerve in and out of traffic.  Passing a car as another car zipped by going the opposite direction down the narrow road seemed pretty normal by the end of the drive.  While it was scary to think how close the passing vehicles really were as we crossed, we never ended up getting in an accident.  I enjoyed driving like James Bond because there was little risk of getting pulled over by a traffic cop (because there were few if any).  It wasn’t like I was going 60mph though.  I don’t want to build it up too much.  At max it was like 50mph, but there were times we were within inches from other motorcycles and cars.

A black elephant posing after I tamed the wild beast. :)

The last stop on our drive was the spice plantation/elephants.  We followed a small single lane paved/dirt road about 5 miles off the highway into the jungle.  When we arrived at the plantation it was closed, but there was still an elephant chained to a tree under a big blue tarp.  It was said to see the heavy chains wrapped around the elephant’s ankles.  Even though I felt bad for the elephant, I still wanted to ride it really bad.  How often do you get to ride an elephant in India!?  It cost 600 rupees ($12).   After I paid the man he led me over to a stone staircase where the elephant would walk up to and I could hop on.  The elephant trainer was also on the elephant and I sat behind him.  It was interesting to see the elephant’s gray, tough skin and the long wiry hairs that covered his body.  The elephant’s back was pretty boney too, so my butt was already sore halfway through the ride.  I couldn’t imagine riding an elephant a long distance like a horse.  Halfway through the walk it posed with its trunk curled so the girls could take its picture.  Pretty neat!

Buses and Throw-up

This was before I died.  The guy on the left
is one of the Indian buddies we made
on our trip.

Out of the 5 members of our original group, the other boy became homesick and flew back to America.  It is now Lindsay, Shelby, Ashley, and me.  The group had planned to take an overnight bus to Goa this weekend, but two of the girls bailed and bought plane tickets instead.  Ashley and I were the only two who rode the bus, which turned out to be pretty agonizing.  The bus was scheduled to depart from downtown Mumbai at 9pm so we caught a rickshaw at 7 and waited in a diner for 45 minutes after check-in.  The bus had bunk beds lining the walls with about a 2-foot wide walkway.  We met three Indian guys who had just graduated college and talked with them for a few hours.  They seemed like any other 20 year old guys.  Because I was starting to get carsick I retired to my bed and tried to fall asleep…  Then the agony started.  The bed wasn’t long enough to fit my whole body into it laying down because I think they were designed for 5’4” Indians.  Also, the bus driver was outstandingly terrible.  He would punch the accelerator then slam on the breaks and swerve around dangerously sharp corners.  Because it was dark, I wasn’t able to see what the road looked like, but we were swerving left and right around corners so sharply I was constantly rolling back and forth across my bed.  I felt like I was on a ship in a storm.  When he slammed on the breaks, my head would hit the headboard.  I started feeling extremely carsick but prolonged the through-up about 7 hours until 6am when I finally gave in.  Because there were no bathrooms, I found a small plastic baggy that caught about 80% of my puke.  Unfortunately, that left 20% to roam free.  Without water to rinse my mouth, I ended up with puke breathe the remaining 5 hours.  Another interesting fact is that there are very little garbage bins in India because everyone just throws their trash outside.  Because the bus didn’t have a garbage or roll down windows, I had no choice but to stash my puke baggy in the shoe rack at the foot of my bed.  Disgusting…I know (haha).

Besides the gross puke story no-one really wanted to know about, I also thought multiple times that we were going to crash.  Because there is little traffic control in India, I’ve herd many people drive drunk.  The driver probably wasn’t drinking, but there were turns in which I would grab on for dear life as we took a 180 degree turn about 50 mph.  Since I was in a top bunk I could feel the bus lean and lean and lean until I thought it could have been on two wheels.  The driver would then gun it back up to 60 mph for about 50 yards, then hit the breaks back down to 40-50 mph and turn sharp the other direction.  SCARY!

I’m alive and well and loving India so far.  I expected obstacles and knew that this wasn’t going to be easy.  I have no regrets coming; have made good friends and memories that will last a lifetime!  Hope all is well in America.

Through a Fly's Eye...

Left: Alex, Clif, Lindsay
(Hanging out in our green scrubs before the C-section)

The last day at the BSES hospital we had the opportunity to watch a C-section.  The mother looked extremely nervous, which triggered me thinking about how I would feel if I knew I was about to have a spinal tap and then a baby.  I came to the conclusion I couldn’t really imagine how nerve racking it would be to be sitting on the hospital bed, as the hospital staff prepare to stick a 4-inch needle in my spinal cord, then pull a baby out of my stomach.  The anesthesiologist messed up the spinal tap, so the mother was put completely under using gas.  As the nurses swabbed the mother’s skin with iodine, a fly landed on her belly.  It wasn’t very reassuring.  While the preparations seemed pretty sketchy, the C-section was performed perfectly without any complications resulting in a healthy baby.

The C-section was a highlight to the hospital rotation.  This weekend I am off to Goa (the Cancun of India) where we’ll be relaxing for a long 3-day weekend.  We are taking an overnight 13hr sleeper bus, which should prove to be an adventure in itself.

Gastric Sleave

Clif and I drinking our free daily coffee.
 (Indians pride themselves on being hospitable.)

Today’s hospital experience seemed a bit more organized.  After meeting the human resources guy, Rupesh, we had our free morning coffee and were sent up to surgery.   We watched a gastric sleeve surgery (kinda equivalent to a tummy tuck) and then a cleft lip repair.  For the first time while at the BSES hospital, the surgeon took us aside afterwards and explained the gastric sleeve surgery and the other types of bariatric surgeries.  He also explained the requirements for being qualified to get the surgeries done.  I found it funny in the United States, one needs to have a BMI of >40 but in India it’s only >32 if there are pre-existing conditions (heart/diabetes).

The head of the lunchroom was very happy to take pictures
 with us. He said it was his "good luck."

Lunch at the hospital was also an experience.  The lunchroom is a large outside porch-type of thing sticking out of the 3rd floor.  In the corner there is a small AC room with a big sign that reads “ONLY FOR DOCTORS.”  The head of the lunchroom came out and escorted us into the doctor room (probably because we were white and they assumed we were higher up).  After waiting for our order for about 15 minutes he came out and told us that it was almost done and it would only be 10 more minutes.  50 minutes later our food came! ☺  I didn’t mind the wait, but I was excited to get my food.  After digging into my large Chinese pasta dish, my mouth burst into fire!  India had gotten me again (haha).  India is famous for spicy food.

Left: Clif, Alex, Lindsay, Rupesh (hospital coordinator)
His daughter came to visit and he wanted to get a picture of all of us with her.

After lunch we talked with Rupesh and received another cup of coffee.  Then we went to the pathology lab and looked at some blood slides.  It was interesting but I didn’t really know what was going on because I hadn’t had the classes yet.

Lost and Gone Forever

Dressed up for clinic.  I've been getting
teased that I look like a  nerd in this pic.  Oh well.

This week I started my rotation at the BSES city hospital.  Last week I was in a semi-slum clinic following Dr. Hajari.  In the hospital we were given the department we wanted to follow for the day and I chose surgery.  After I changed into scrubs I went in to watch the end of what I think was a hysterectomy.  Apparently the surgeon had lost one of the suture needles, and they were in the process of taking an x-ray of the lady’s belly to see if it was still inside the body cavity before closing.  The lady was completely awake, not intubated, there was no anesthesiologist in the room, and her belly was completely cut open (I could see all of her guts).  On top of that, the bed’s mechanical lift battery was uncharged so they were trying to manually lift the bed high enough to slide the x-ray machine under.  ON TOP OF THAT… the surgeon was rooting around inside the lady’s open incision with both hands looking for the needle while the lady moaned in agony (I think the lower half of her body was relatively numb because she wasn’t screaming).  The lady then started throwing up.  It ended with the x-ray getting taken, the anesthesiologist putting her under, and then she was sewn up.  It was kind of a drastic first surgery experience.

Weekend Break From India

Because they are fixing up the hostel we are staying at, we were moved into a different one during this week.  After, we will move back for the last two weeks.  Luckily, the new hostel has AC, TV and room service.  While this might not be the true India experience, it is really nice to have a break from the poverty.  I feel guilty saying that.

The monsoon has officially begun, which means constant rain for the remainder of my stay in Mumbai.  There will probably be some days of sun, but not very many.  It is a relief because now the temperature will drop from the 100’s down to the 90’s and 80’s.

Last night the group wanted to find somewhere to eat American food because everyone is pretty sick of the mush.  We found a nice spaghetti place next to a coffee shop with wireless internet.  We ate then had coffee and served the web.  I was pleasantly surprised because the NBA playoffs were being shown on TV as well.  Talk about American!  

Rickshaw AKA "auto":  This is the death trap that I
will probably end up dying in before the trip is over. 
I want toget a picture of how bad the traffic is to show
everyone...

It’s amazing how many things are different here and how the differences layer upon each other creating an atmosphere that’s almost another planet.  I’m keeping a list of differences that I am going to post at the end of the 4 weeks in Mumbai.  The weather is hot and muggy ALL the time which zaps my energy and makes me tired very quickly.  There is constant noise outside that never ceases.  Honking, yelling, whistling, and roaring engines make up a steady droning background.  The drivers here honk constantly because it helps them communicate with each other that they are getting ready to pass and are in close proximity.  Our morning lecture is very hard not to day dream through because the doctor talks to us about very simple concepts multiple times (he kills the horse, drags the horse, drags it some more, then buries the horse).  I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s REALLY frustrating.  Once he has nothing else to say about the subject at hand, such as today’s HIV/AIDS lecture, he will pick a random topic and just keep talking.  When he has finished he will pick another random topic.  It is incredible how much he loves to talk.  Our local coordinator is a lot like that as well so I believe that it’s an India thing.  Indians also love to entertain guests.  In the middle of every lecture, the doctor’s hired servant/secretary brings us all luke-warm cokes.  Another small difference in India is that actually COLD drinks do not exist unless one's in a higher scale restaurant.  While everyone has refrigerators, they set them so the drinks are slightly chilled/room temp.  I’m sure they do this because electricity is expensive.  It is irritating listening to the doctor ramble in a 90 degree muggy room, then be given warm pop.  AHH! Haha…oh well. Such is life. 

PS: Something funny that is COMPLETELY true of 99% of the Indian population is the stereotypical head bobble seen on cartoons and television.  They all bobble their heads when talking.  I think they do it when they are thinking, but the other group members have different hypotheses.  The mystery of the origin of the head bobble continues…

 

Daily Happenings

This is the area of town that I was lost in during my second day here.  It was me with another girl, and the sun was going down fast.  Luckily I no muggings or pick-pocketings happend...  HOORAY

My day started with me waking up at 6, rolling over, waking up at 8 and reading a bit until 9.  At 9:30 we left our hostel to travel to Dr. Bahkti’s office where he gave us a 2.5 hour lecture on leprosy.  The subject matter was interesting but because of the language barrier Dr. Bahkti kept repeating himself 3-4 times and talking to us like we were four.  He wanted to make sure we understood what he was talking about (which we did).  After the lecture our local coordinator and the India coordinator met up with us and took us out to lunch at a nice café.  I split two dishes with another member of our group, which turned out to be too much food.  Next it was off to Dr. Hajari’s clinic/hospital.  Today his nephew was visiting/job shadowing him.  Because the nephew had just finished his 5.5 year medical school program and was better at English, it was nice to have him there to explain things more thoroughly.   In India students go straight from high school into medical school where they spend 4.5 years.  Next, they have a one year internship.   If they want to specialize (he wants to be a cardiologist) they must take an entrance exam.  He told us out of the 11,000 yearly applicants, only 4,000 will be selected into specialty programs.  Also, in India it is rude to sit quietly in the corner while job shadowing and watch the doctor to patient interaction.  If I were to do this, they would think that I was uninterested.  His nephew told us we are supposed to ask the doctor questions while he’s talking with his patients, and almost interrupt their conversations.  It will take some time to get used to.  After we finished clinic, we went to “the hub” which is a westernized shopping mall with American groceries!  I bought Nature Valley bars, Indian Oreo cookie knock-offs, and Doritos knock-offs.  After storing the food back at the hostel, we left to catch the train to downtown Mumbai to do some bartering with the street venders and have a nice meal.  Our local coordinator told us to ask for ¼ the price that the sellers are asking and then haggle from there.  After at least 10 minutes of arguing, I bought my first souvenir (not sure yet who it will go to).  He wanted 750 rupees and I talked him down to 300.  I was very proud of myself until I asked him if he still ripped me off and he just laughed in my face.  Oh well.  On our way home after eating we decided to take taxi’s because the train station might be closed and a taxi is only 300 rupees (a little of $6) total.  Our group of 5 students had to split into two different taxi’s so we ended up egging on the two taxi drivers to race us home.  The trip was about a 40 minute taxi ride but we did it in 25 min.  Each taxi passed each other multiple times, ran red lights, and swerved dangerously close to oncoming traffic.  Because there are no traffic police in Mumbai and the fine for hitting somone is supposedly $20, traffic is chaotic.  It ended with their taxi driver swerving in front of us to park in the driveway, then our taxi driver swerving around him to park on the lawn a foot from the doorway.  In the end, my taxi won the race but both taxi’s saved us twenty minutes.  More coming soon!

Gateway To India

(June 5) Because our program doesn’t start until tomorrow, we had a chance to explore Mumbai yesterday afternoon before two more of the other participants arrived.  Claver (the local coordinator) took us to the train station where we bought tickets for 17 rupees (50 cents) and caught a train down town.  Claver didn’t come along, he just showed us how to get on the train.  Ashley rode in the girls only car because if she would have ridden in the general car where I rode, bystanders would have grabbed at her during the trip.  The train only slows for 10 seconds at each stop with no doors, so I jumped into the mosh pit of people running on board and was sucked into the train by all the pushing and shoving.  It felt like a goal line stand in football with the offense trying to get onto the train, and the defense trying to get off.  Once on the train, noone was afraid to stare directly at me, even if they were inches from my face because it was so crowded.  After about 40 min train ride, we were in inner city Mumbai.  Ashley wanted to go to the Gateway of India so we went exploring.  We ended up getting lost in what felt like the slums, but a bunch of people were more than happy to give us directions (probably because we were the only Westerners in site).  I thought we were going to get mugged, but we didn’t and called a cab once we were out of the slums to take us to the Gateway of India.  Afterwards we ate at a very fancy restaurant ordering a 3 or 4 course meal and only being charged 1000 rupees (about $10 each).

(June 6) Today we started our actual clinical experiences.  There were 4 patients in the small private clinic we were at.  There was a malaria case, typhoid/malaria, viral infection?, and gastrointestinal case.  The doctor saw 15 patients in less than 30 min and wrote 15 different prescriptions.  I thought it was funny how the doctor assumed so much and wrote prescriptions without doing any testing.  He told us testing was to expensive and that it took too long.  He seemed very competent.  More to come!  I need to go to the grocery store to get shampoo, breakfast bars, and then out to eat... 

Greetings from India

I arrived in the middle of the night to a monsoon like thunderstorm that forced the plane to circle Mumbai for an extra hour.  After getting my bag at baggage claim and going through a couple different passport checks I was out of the airport on the sidewalk.  Because it had just rained the temperature was in the mid 80's with the smell of trash(not exactly sure what the smell was) in the air.   I found my pickup guy holding a sign with my name on it and got into a cab with him.  As we swerved around people, buses, and a wild pack of dogs I looked out the window to see what looked like a warzone.  Massive amounts of construction were with rubble everywhere.  It was a pretty fun taxi ride.  I'm stayig at the Mumbai college dorms which are nothing like the dorms at the University of Montana.  The local coordinator called them a hostel, but they seem like dorms.  I have a shower, toilet (with toilet paper!) and a air conditioner that works about 30%. I"m definately lucky.  The following morning I was supposed to meet with my local coordinator so I slept 4 hours then woke up to get ready for him.  He never came.  There are going to be 4 girls and 1 other guy in the program with me.  I'm staying with the other guy in a room, but so far, me and a girl named Ashley are the only two people here.  We went out to eat about 11, and then walked around to see the sites: street vendors everywhere, rickshaws and taxis driving crazy, and a whole bunch of people staring at us.  Right now I'm in a crammed internet cafe that is more like a big closet with 6 computers on each wall.  Everything is going pretty good, and I at a huge chicken lo-mein meal for 2 dollars.  Not bad!  I will post pictures next time, but I felt like an idiot pulling my camera out to take pictures when everyone is starting.

Adios

My bags are packed, my passport is stamped, and my tickets have been printed.  I'm sitting in Bismarck's small airport waiting to board in T minus 2 hrs.  It feels like I'm on a roller coaster that is climbing the tracks as the click, click, clicking slows before the scary plummet.  There's no backing out now so I guess I'll just say a prayer and grit my teeth. haha. I'm excited for what lies ahead.  Goodbye America!