Wednesday, June 29, 2011

6. 28 - Better understading the extent of the effects of leprosy…

These two stories come from the book “Gift of Pain” by Dr. Paul Brand that I had quoted earlier…I am putting them in here because they help to illustrate the extent of the damage to parts of the nervous system in patients with leprosy.

“ A woman in a village near the leprosarium was roasting yams over a charcoal brazier. She pierced one yam with a sharp stick and held it over the fire, slowly twirling the stick between her fingers like a barbecue spit. The yam fell off the stick, however and I watched as she tried unsuccessfully to spear it, eac jab driving the yam farther underneath the hot redcoals. Finally, she shrugged and looked over to an old man squatting a few feet away. At her gesture, obviously knowing what was expected of him, he shambled over to the fire, reached in, pushed aside the hot coals to retrieve the yam, and then returned to his seat. As a surgeon secializing in human hands, I was appalled. Everything had happened too fast for me to intervene, but I went immediately to examine the old man’s hands. He had no fingers left, only gnarled stubs covered with leaking blisters and the scars of old wound. Clearly, this was not the first time he had thrust his hand into a fire….
A few days later I conducted a group clinic at the neighboring leprosarium. My visit had been announced in advance, and at the scheduled time the administrators rang a loud bell to summon patients. I stood with other staff in an open courtyard, and as soon as the bell rang a crowd of people emerged from the individual huts and barracks like wards and began to move towards us.
An eager young patient caught my eye as he struggled across the edge of the courtyard on crutches, holding his bandaged left leg clear of the ground. Although he did his awkward best to hurry, the nimbler patients soon overtook him. As I watched, this man tucked his crutches under his arm and began to run on both feet with a very lopsided gait, waving wildly to get our attention. He ended up near the head of the line, were he stood panting, leaning on is crutches, wearing a smile of triumph.
I could tell from the man’s gait, though, that something was badly wrong. Walking toward him, I saw that the bandages were wet with blood and his left foot flopped freely from side to side. By running on an already dislocated ankle, he had put far too much force on the end of his leg bone, and the skin had broken under the stress. He was walking on the end of his tibia, and with every step that naked bone dug into the ground. Nurses scolded the man sharply, but he seemed quite proud of himself for having run so fast. I knelt beside him and found that small stones and twigs had jammed through the end of the bone into the marrow cavity. I had no choice but to amputate the leg below the knee….”

6.28 – brick by brick…

I was able to work with the construction team today… We moved a lot of bricks stacks of cinderblocks to a bunch of different houses in one of the colonies so that they can use them to build their bathrooms. We worked from about 8:30 until about two.




On the way home, we visited the local “snake charmer” that lived in that colony. He has drank increasingly larger and larger amounts of venom from different snakes to give himself an immunity to snakes such as cobras and different vipers! He had a viper just sitting in a potato sack when we got there and just reached in and pulled him out!! He layed him on the ground in front of all of us (he was about four feet away) and then layed a metal bar on the end of his tail. For about ten minutes we watched as he poked and prodded at the snake making him really mad…His body got bigger and bigger as he hissed louder and louder. He did this so that the venom would build up in his mouth. He then picked the snake up and “milked” it by squeezing the venom out of his fangs by pushing his head on the edge of a cup. This “snake charmer” has built up an immunity to different snake venoms by doing this… milking the snakes and drinking diluted snake venom! Yikes!!









My afternoon with the kids has been the same as the past week and a half and still so much fun… Anitha, Maryambee, and about ten other girls and chased each other and just ran around for an hour and a half for free time… somehow I was always "it"?! Haha :) Just another good and rewarding day!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

number two tuesday continued...

It is overwhelming at times to be surrounded by people, both the leprosy affected patients and the kids that you want to give all of your love to. At family time, for example, there are about 25 girls ages five to 13 in my family. All of them want to be loved so much. You can just feel their thirst for love and you only have so much you can give. You can only talk to one girl at a time and you only have two hands to play with one little girl’s hair, you can only read to a couple of the girls at a time.... They have a lot of love to give though, which makes it easy to continue to try and give more in return.
The boys took us over to the bike shed that they have here during play time. They ended up being one short, so Michael did not get one. He was really sad at first until he and I decided to play in a pile of garbage nearby the school. Sounds weird, but there were computer parts in there that he loved taking apart… we didn’t stay too long because I had a feeling that there was probably a scorpion or snake living in the pile of rubble…yikes! We decided to have races instead!





My friend Carson and I with the school’s pet goat, Lola!




More pictures of EeEEnndiahhh…






* Nick, I was talking to one of the coordinators for the RSO program and we are going to talk to some people about what some ideas are for an Eagle Scout that would really help these people…they know who you would need to go through and contact and stuff… I will tell you more about it later!!

6.27 – Gifts of Love


*Chennai India: Gremaltes hospital
I was with the medical staff for today. We drove to the Gremaltes hospital in Chennai that was founded by another charity foundation in Germany about twenty years ago. Their mission started off with only the care of patients with leprosy, but they have now expanded and treat for tuberculosis, eye care, cataract surgeries, physiotherapy, dermatology, and just general medicine as well. This hospital was supposedly one of the nicest in India…it was still far from what we have in America though.
I had an experience that I will never forget while working in the hospital today. We had been going around to each of the different patients…mostly talking to them and trying to make them laugh. They have a very adequate staff on hand, so our main job was to comfort and entertain. I was a little bummed at first because it was such a neat experience to help bandage the feet of the patients the last time that I did medical, but it ended up being a huge blessing.
We sat and talked with a lot of the outpatients that just come in from the streets for their free medical care. We then all went upstairs to visit some of the inpatient units. Because of the treatment for leprosy, it has stopped progressing (especially as an awareness of the the disease and testing at a very young age- leprosy prevention is vital). Even though it has stopped progressing though, there are many that, due to inadequate care for their ulcers, form on the extremities, and have to seek long term medical care.
We went into one of the lady inpatient wards first. They were all sitting on their beds, lined up in a row in front and behind us. We had been instructed to do everything that we could do to get the patients to do move their hands and feet as much as they could to help their circulation (once again, their nerve endings are damaged in their extremities and so they cannot tell when they do not have circulation in their hand or their foot). We sang for about fifteen minutes… you can see the picture below of us singing “I’m a Little Teapot”…they would smile, move their heads back and forth, and try to do the motions with us. Every song, we would just clap to the beat, even if it was “There is Sunshine in My Soul Today” and they would all try to clap along.


After singing for a while, we all sat down with each of the patients to try and talk to them (one of the hardest things while I am here… not being able to speak to them in Tamil). There was a sweet, tiny lady that my friend Courtney and I sat with. We would talk with a lot of hand motions and facial expressions, just trying to ask her name and talk to her about how she was feeling. She pointed to her feet. The left one was all bandaged up to prevent any further damage to the areas with ulcers. She pointed to her right foot and poked and pinched it to show us that there was no feeling in that foot as well. As I was touching her foot, I looked up to see her eyes full of tears. Courtney and I just sat there and cried with her, holding her hands. She would kiss our hands and we would kiss hers. She would wipe away our tears and we would hold her.


This went on for about ten minutes and then she sat up, trying to tell us something. Courtney figured out that she was telling us about her family and that she has two sons and one daughter. There was still something that she was trying to tell us though and we could just not figure it out. Then, one of the doctors came into the room and started translating for us! We asked him to ask her what she had said about her children. As he asked her and her eyes began to fill with tears again as she told him how her sons had rejected or “disowned” her because of her disease and that they did not want to have anything to do with her. She has been at the hospital for a year now (and has had leprosy for over twenty-five years). She is being released from the hospital this week and will be staying with her daughter who is still willing to care for her. As she cried, we just continued to cry with her, literally just hurting inside (with the poor doctor standing next to us probably not knowing what to do). I cannot explain the love that was in the room, not just Courtney and I, but the other patients and volunteers as well. My heart felt like it was full but it was breaking at the same time. The experience was truly a tender mercy- I have never been able to feel so much love for one person and feel so much love from a stranger at one time.
She then just cried to the doctor, asking how someone from so far away come and love her so much. She told him how today had been an especially hard day for her, but it was a “god-send” to have us there. I needed her just as much as she needed us.


There is so much that I cannot express on this page…
Other than my family and some friends, I do not know who has been able to read these stories that I post… I realize that most of them are more like journal entries and might seem personal, but I want to share with everyone the feelings and experiences that I have been able to have while here with these people…
I have gained a greater appreciation for love today that I hope to carry with me forever. There are people around us every second of every day to be loved. Of course here in India in these colonies, but there are people to love and let into our lives everywhere we go. Pain is temporary in this life and, in certain ways, serves as a physical and emotional protector. It builds us. It hurts so much to see others in pain, but this too builds us and helps us to gain more love and compassion. I love these people here in India. Thank you, thank you, thank you for those who have helped me to get here. I couldn’t say that enough.


“Leprosy work is not merely medical relief, it is transforming frustration in life into the joy of dedication, personal ambition into selfless service.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Monday, June 27, 2011

6.27 - "The Gift of Pain"

Today was a really good day. I spent the whole day tutoring and subbing for a math class (it was first standard… or grade…math, so I could handle it)! My friend Carson and I are going to be subbing for the class this upcoming week. It was a little hard to do the subbing because the group of kids in the class are the ones who have an especially difficult time with their math and reading, but it was so much fun.

*The classroom that Carson and I are working in!... and some of the crazy boys :)
Nick and Spencer, this little boy (Savil) that I am tutoring kept refusing to read his assignmed books. He thought The Little Red Hen was too boring and he only wanted to read the “knight” books in the library. It made me think of you two so we took a picture :)


Satia (my friend in my “family” who has been really sad about Jessica leaving… the one who calls me Corey) and I are reading the Boxcar Children books each night with each other. It is a lot of fun- it reminds me a lot of when I was little mom, reading with you every night :) I am really starting to love these girls so much… it is so easy to do when they all want to be your best friend and love you.

Some pictures of the “Pathway of Hope” that leads from the school to the volunteer’s hostel where I am staying. Each of the squares has the name of different supporters of the program or little sayings…





Kim, our medical coordinator, shared some quotes from Dr. Paul Brand who spent a lot of his life working in some of the hospitals here in India with those affected by leprosy.
Dr. Brand said:
“I have never made much money in my lifetime of surgery, but I feel very rich because of [the patients I work with]. They bring me more joy than wealth ever could. And they bring me hope for other suffering people. In [many of my patients] I have indisputable proof that pain, even the cruelly stigmatizing pain of a disease like leprosy, need not destroy. ‘What does not destroy me makes me stronger,’ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used to say, and I have seen that proverb come alive in many of my former patients.
Once, [one of my patients,] Sadan, actually told me, ‘I am happy that I had the disease leprosy, Dr. Brand.’ I looked incredulous and he went on to explain, ‘Without leprosy I would have spent all my energy trying to rise in society. Because of it, I have learned to care about the little people.’ A statement from Helen Keller came to mind when I heard those words, ;I am grateful for my handicap, for through it I found my world, myself, and my God.’ Although I would certainly never wish leprosy or Helen Keller’s afflictions on anyone, I take comfort in the fact that somehow, in the mysterious resources of the human spirit, even pain can serve a higher end…[and] everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater suffering.” - Dr. Brand’s book, The Gift of Pain
We are driving to Chennai in the morning around six and so it was neat to hear this perspective of pain. In the gospel we learn that there “needs be an opposition in all things” so it was neat to hear it in terms of a doctor who has been working with patients that are suffering from same pain as the patients that I am working with.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

6.26 - happy happy Sabbath!

Every day is my favorite day. Wow. Today we left RSO at 7:30 and drove for a little over two hours to go to the nearest church in downtown Chennai. I will definitly be more grateful for having a chapel just a four minute walk from my apartment or a fifteen minute drive from my home.! Their nearest temple is in Hong Kong. Maybe ten years down the road they will be able to build a temple in India?! They had fourty baptisms in the Chennai mission alone this past month!! It was one of the neatest experiences to be able to go to church with some of the people in India. The church is growing and spreading everywhere! We went to the Chennai India 3rd ward and there were about thirty people there… most of them spoke English, but some of them spoke only Tamil. It was neat because our Sunday school teacher would teach some of the lesson in Tamil and then some in English. I just love the people here. Some of the students from the RSO choose to come to church each week also!

*Some of the primary children and me (the lady in the background was the first member of the church in Chennai!!)

*"Indian society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"!!

Probably one of my favorite parts of today was singing with all of the members in sacrament meeting. We sang “Jesus Once of Humble Birth” and “How Firm a Foundation”. The church is growing and it was one of the most touching things to see today. I love this gospel.

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand."


Their relief society president, Chelladurai Elizabeth, gave the lesson from a talk by President Uchtdorf from October’s 2010 General Conference. I got to talk to her afterwards and she was telling me all about how she became a member of the church. She has been a member for nineteen years now and was introduced to the gospel from a family friend and now she has a son coming back from a mission on the 29th of July! Her other son is the second counselor in the bishopric! She also knew very little english when she got her calling as relief society president three years ago, but is now really fluent. Wow! Elizabeth was so happy and friendly.

*Elizabeth and me :)
One of the missionaries pulled my friend MK and I aside right after Sunday school and he asked her to give the baptism talk for Brother Jerin after church- we didn’t even know that there was a baptism, haha! We got a group of the volunteers to stay after church for the baptism. It was so special… he was actually the nephew of Elizabeth!! He had come to Chennai for college and started to go to church with his aunt and uncle. He was a very sweet, quite boy. There was a little makeshift baptismal font in a tiny room right next to the chapel. You could feel so much love in the room.

*MK trying to hurry and put a talk together before the baptism!!

*Jerin with the missionaries (from southern India) and his aunt and friend



*Some of us with Brother Jerin, Elizabeth's nephew :)

The chapel was in a couple of tiny rooms in the basement of an alleyway apartment. I would have never seen it if I had not been looking for it...it is really neat though. There is a new chapel being built that is HuGE and probably THe most beautiful buildings that I have seen in Chennai yet!

*A picture on their church bulletin board of the ground breaking cerimony for the new chapel

*Driving past the new chapel! It will be done in the next two months.

We ended the night by seeing a performance by the lifedance kids. Joseph is the kid in the green. Some of the volunteer coordinators said that he has just always had a passion for dancing, even before he came to RSO. It is fun to see him love something so much. “Romeo” is the little boy in the maroon shirt that always break dances. His nickname is romeo because he is just always flirting with all of the girls :) The performance ended by all of the kids and pulling us up “on stage” with them and we had a dance party!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

6.25- Saturday already?!!

On Saturdays, there is no school so all of the volunteers took a short trip to Manalaparum, a city that is right along the Bay of Bengal… about an hour and a half from the school.
My friends and I had a lot of time to barter (Nick and Spencer… The stores were filled with chudadars (their traditional dress that I wear every day) and other girly stuff…I wanted to buy you two Aladdin pants, but I figured you would probably not want those…haha).








This man’s nickname was “Jolly” and he was probably one of the nicest and happiest guys that I have met in India! He is working away from his family in Manalaparum and has not seen them for months…he owns this tiny little shop to support them. When my friend Ali and I went in, we looked around for a little bit and then just didn’t see anything else that we were interested in. Instead of trying to sell anything to us, he talked to us for almost ten minutes about how to be happy!! He gave ali an extra gift as we were leaving. She said that she wanted to pay him for it, but he insisted that it he would be much happier if she would just take it as a gift from him…


We were also able to see some temple ruins that were in the city as well. This rock on the temple grounds is called the Butterball. It looks like it is going to fall over any second, but they tried to move it by attaching twelve elephants to it and it wouldn’t budge!






This family group kept asking to take pictures with us… the Indians here are so beautiful!


A little bit about the Indian people… the cattle are their most holy animal. In every city and on every road, there are cattle that just walk through. They hardly ever pick up the cow manure in the streets because it is sacred and holy as well (anything from the cow is sacred to them). They are so sacred that if you hurt a cow while driving, you will be put in jail!


We were also able to stop at the Bay of Bengal and swim for a little bit! I didn’t bring my swim suit, so I wore some chudadars and a t-shirt! (apparently this bay is notorious for having lots of sharks?!)





On our way back we stopped off for dinner at a small junction and had the best nann that I have had so far! Yummy!!




Every Saturday night, the kids have a movie night for the kids with all of the volunteers. If the child has had enough “good marks” for the week, then they are able to go to movie night… everything is set up here to try and reward good behavior. Tonight we watched Tron…or tried to at least! I was with Nathia, Maryambee, Satia and some of us fell asleep during the movie- they said that the boys had picked it and I don’t think that they were too happy about not watching a princess movie!