Family and Animal Rescue

Goa has been incredible thus far! I am getting one of the best experiences here in the clinic. I have been working for only three days at the Assagao animal rescue facility and I've already done so much. The other day, I was basically in charge of giving all of the post surgical injections (ivermectin, enrofloxacin, meloxicam, and benzathine) and also helped a lot with pre anaesthesia. For the first time in my life I also put in the trachea tube! It was awesome. It is a lot of fun helping with the out patient cases (OPD) and I've been learning a lot about different treatment methods and why certain medications have been administered. There are many differences between Indian and American methods which I've noticed repeatedely.

There are 6 veterinarians that work here and 3 nurses. The total staff is very large, because they also have many kennel assistants and cooks, etc.. They do about 15 sterilizations a day here, along with 10-20 out patient cases.

I've also been visiting a lot of family and it's been wonderful. I am staying with my Uncle Allen, Aunt Henrietta, and cousin Neil. However, I've had the chance to see many other relations including Aunty Theresa, Bertha, Olive, Muriel, Eric, and cousins Avito and Ashwin! The days are filled with hard work at the clinic (usually 9 am - 5:30 pm) and the nights with visiting family, eating awesome food, lifting weights, and studying a little for the G.R.E.).

Gosh, there is so much to talk about but I will have to end this entry, because I need to catch a bus back to my home village...SALIGAO :)

From Bangalore to Goa

After 26 hrs of buses, I have finally reached Goa..

After taking my 10 pm bus from Trichy, Tamil Nadu...I finally reached Bangalore around 6 am. I spent about 12 hrs in Bangalore just walking around and eating in a few restaurants. It's a really beautiful place. At 5:45 pm I caught my bus to Goa and reached at 11 am to the capital, Panjim.

What can I say...I LOVE GOA!!! :) They have redone a lot of the roads and buildings here, because of the large number of tourists mostly. It's such a beautiful place. I really love the spanish/portuguese architecture seen in most of the buildings and homes here, which makes it quite different than the rest of India. Can't wait to enjoy some fish curry!

I have uploaded most of my pictures on facebook, so you can check it out.

Pictures!

So, I finally got to transfer some of my pictures to a small memory key, because most of the internet cafe computers here don't have CD ROM drives. I decided to use this entry to just show you some pictures, the first few are from Kerala. Here ya go..

My bedroom at the visitor's center (Animal Rescue Kerala). I really love the palm trees in Kerala.

Mani cooking rice for all of the dogs. Yes, that good lookin' meal is for the many dogs in the compound, not for us!

A view of the kennels from the balcony of the puppy house. A full row of new kennels can be seen on the left. These are much cooler for the dogs and slightly more elevated.

Playing with a few of the dogs. I'm holding Susy and I think Bruno is getting jealous!

On the roof of Avis Lyon's house. It's a beautiful view and the dogs love hangin' out up here too.

Here's the girl that asked if I was married (in the middle). Her mom is sitting on the floor. Also, the cute little girl on the right always asked for a school pen everytime I walked by her house to go to the main road, so I finally got her a black pen two days before I left. She was so happy, it was great!

The beautiful Kovalam Beach in the afternoon.

A few pictures from Tamil Nadu:

My hotel. It's not the greatest hotel, but it's near the Central Bus Station and that is very convenient for transportation.

The "children" watching some world cup futbol at Dr. Deike's house. I think Brazil was winning, ahemmmm.

Now that's a good 'ol South Indian Paper Masala Dosa!

A nice Christian Church in Trichy, Tamil Nadu.

Picture from inside Rockfort Temple.

A gorgeous picture of the city of Trichy, taken from the Rockfort Temple.

Loading up some Thiopentone for the next sterilization surgery.

Well, that's all for now. 3 more days in Tamil Nadu, then on to Bangalore and Goa.

Rockfort Temple and more

It's been over a week since I've been here in Trichy. The animal shelter work is going really well. Each day I usually help check the animals and give appropriate medications (tablets, skin sprays, antibiotics, etc..). Then we begin the sterilizations. Here, we usually do 8-10 sterilizations each day (spays/castrations of dogs mostly). I have been assisting the veterinarians with injecting the pre-anaesthesia, pre-operations (shaving operations area, betadine scrubs, alcohol scrubs), and during the surgery administering NS (sodium chloride) drip speed, giving more Thiopentone injection when needed, checking the animals color for oxygen monitoring, etc.. It's an important job to secure the animal's condition here considering no inhalant anaesthesia is used. This is the same as it was in Kerala. Due to cost, only Xylazine is given IV and Atropine is used as well. During the operation, Thiopentone is used to prolong the anaesthetic effects. The work has been a lot of fun and the staff is great. Dr. Padthma is the other veterinarian, Sivamani is the nurse, and Anuda is the driver. It is a small, but very efficient and fun staff to work with so far.

I also have been helping Anuda release dogs, because sometimes it is a difficult task to use the dog catcher and operate the sliding door at the same time. The other day, we released 10 dogs to their respected areas. They seemed extremely happy to get out of the van!

Today, being Sunday, there was no work to do at the clinic. Sivamoni, Anuda, and I decided to go see the Rockfort Temple. After about 500 steps, we got to the top and it was an amazing view of the whole city of Trichy. I took a bunch of pics which I will upload soon. The best part of the day was on the way back down the stairs when we were receiving our chappels back, we saw the temple elephant. We all took 5 rupees out and stood in line. I felt so great as I gave the elephant the money (grabbing it with his trunk and leaving a little slobber in my hand) and then he blessed me on top of my head with his trunk!

This is my last week here in Trichy. Friday evening (the 23rd) I am taking a bus to Bangalore (leaving 10 pm and reaching 6 am). I decided to stay in Bangalore for a little while, because I remember how beautiful it was as a child. Now it will be great to see as a grown up (well, big child). On Saturday evening (24th) I will take a bus to Panaji, Goa (leaving at 10 pm and reaching 5:30 am). Now, it's time to see Brazil kick some butt!

It's pretty hot

So, I arrived safely in Tamil Nadu..

As I pulled up to the Trichy bus station at 4:45 am, I woke up from some bad sleep and could not find my chappels, so I got off the bus barefoot with all of my bags and took a rickshaw to Dr. Deike's house.

I stayed at Deike's house for a couple of days. They are a very nice German family who have started the International Animal Rescue shelter here. I played with the many kids at the house. The two small children have lots of Indian friends who always come to play at their house. It's been great!

Today I moved into the hotel Anaandh in Trichy (the bigger city area). I'm going to be on my own now, taking the busy buses to the shelter each morning and coming back in the early evening (4:45 pm). It is a new experience being so independent in a very populated place, learning the bus schedule, and finding my way in a place where almost no one seems to know any other language but Tamil. Not even Hindi.

It has been extremely hot here! Today, I took the bus for the first time to the rescue shelter and walked around for 2 hrs from the last bus station to find the shelter building. I was walking in the blazing sun and it was about 45 degrees Celsius today. This road had almost nothing on it, just farmers, cattle, and goats for miles. Thankfully I found the place and got some water.

I realize it is so much better to wash my clothes by hand frequently, instead of waiting until half the wardrobe needs washing. Time to go back to the hotel. Thankfully I have a tv as well so I can watch world cup futbol. Go brazil!

I am getting very dark!

And on to Trichy, Tamil Nadu

I am leaving for Trichy tomorrow afternoon. I cannot believe that my time here in Kerala is almost over for this summer. It has been one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. Before I go, I want to close with a few things I have learned.

One thing I think we take for granted (at least I have) is the ability to communicate with people (friends, family, etc..) so easily. In America it is so easy to understand and carry on a conversation. Here in Kerala it has been a little bit more "interesting" than that. Sometimes the person doesn't speak very good English, so I find myself cutting out extraneous words like "is" or "and" sometimes. Basically, only stating the words in the sentence that carry the most meaning to what I am trying for the person to understand. Other times, the person doesn't speak english at all, so I have used more hand jestures (pointing, number of fingers, etc..) to communicate. Sometimes, a simple smile or a laugh conveys 1000 words and a common understanding is met. Communication here has not been too difficult, but it does make you appreciate the ability to talk quickly and using a lot of new age slang with friends back home.

Every day I walk to the Kovalam Junction for a meal, etc, I always say hi to everyone. The village people sitting in their houses are so nice and love to say hi and ask you to come talk. One house in particular has two girls (about 18 and 19 years of age) and they are very nice to me. I can't remember a single time I have walked by without them running to the door to wave or yell "HALLO" or "BYEEE BYEEE!" The other day I was walking (conveniently wearing a banyan) and stopped to talk to one of them. Her name is Chyma and she loves to watch cricket and loves the Kerala Hero, Mohan Lal. Her mother came to the door as well, but she doesn't speak any English. Then...the girl said..."Are you Marriage??" (meaning, are you married) and I said, "No, no marriage." After that she turned to her mother and they both giggled. It was pretty funny for all of us I think. Many girls there are constantly on the lookout for boys to marry around here. It is very different than in America...or is it???

I walked to a nearby lake the other day with my friends Linnea and Lal. Linnea is another volunteer here who is originally from Sweden. It was a lovely lake and you can see it from the roof of Avis Lyons house. There were some very small boys swimming and playing the water and I took some videos. It was priceless to see the boys run out of the water to me to see the video. They all watched the videos and laughed and wanted me to keep taking videos so that they could do it again. The look on their faces was just wonderful...they couldn't have been much happier.

Today I took a vitural 20 min tour of the whole Animal Rescue Kerala Shelter. I am currently transferring all of my pictures and videos to give copies to some of the staff members (Dr. Arun, Avis Lyons, Lal, etc..). I have had a very good experience here and it's sad to leave. I am going to be catching a bus tomorrow at 6 pm to Trichy...

Dr. Sequeira at work

The lake in the evening

Cute little "putty cootie" (puppy).

Trips to Trivandrum

The past few days have been very, very busy. I think all of the days now are just a blur and it is difficult to remember what happened on what day! Maybe that is a good thing :)

Two days ago, my friend Lal took me to Trivandrum on his motor bike because we had to get some misc stuff done there in the morning. Trivandrum can be very dirty compared to Kovalum, just because of the large population of people and the pollution. That morning we stopped at a small restaurant where he and I beasted two bowls of mutton curry and porotta! It was simply amazing. I can't remember when the last time I had such a spicy breakfast was, but thankfully my stomach has been a lot stronger than I thought it would be since I have been in India. Hope it stays like that! I have to thank my dad for that one, since he always cooks extremely spicy curries at home.

Later that afternoon I booked my bus ticket for Trichy. I originally wanted to get a train ticket, but the trains are quite booked this time of the year. I was put on a waitlist (no. 42) for the Non AC train, but I decided not to take it and to just reserve a coach bus. I will be leaving on June 9th for a 10 hr trip to Trichy. Hopefully after a good nap and some sight seeing I will meet Dr. Deike Schacht at her home and learn more about the animal rescue shelter where I will be volunteering for 2 weeks.

For now, I am really enjoying my stay here in Kerala. Avis, Dr. Arun, Saritha, Lal, and the rest of the workers have been very welcoming and have been teaching me a lot about how the center is run each day. Avis works very hard trying to organize everything like the workers wages, having enough supplies, animal food, and also walking and taking care of many of the animals herself. I respect the staff here a lot for the hard work they put in each day to make these dogs and cats lives worthwhile, especially in such a place where people have enough to worry about as far as jobs and family income.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. Lal and I went to Trivandrum and visited Adi's Grandfather. It took a little while to find the place, but we finally pulled up to the house where it was written "Additya" on the right side of the gate. I sat and chatted with him for about an hour and had a few snacks and it was nice knowing that I was able to see Adi's grandfather so many miles away from where we live in America. After helping out in the center throughout the morning and spending some time in Trivandrum in the afternoon, Avis, Lal, Linnea (another volunteer from Sweden), and I went to go see The Da Vinci Code in Trivandrum at 6;30 pm. This theater was absolutely amazing. I actually haven't been to a theater this large in America before. We had some nice seats in the balcony and I really enjoyed the movie.

I have taken about 200 pictures so far and 15 movies (some 3 mins long). My favorite movie is the one I took on the back of the motorbike through the city of Trivandrum. Since I decided to take my pictures at 5 MP instead of 8 MP, my 1 gb SD memory card has been doing extremely well for me. I can take about 150 more pictures on it and I have another card in my main bookbag for Tamil Nadu and Goa. I'll post the pictures later. That's all for now. Tata