These are some pictures from Honduras and Nicaragua where Dhruti and I traveled around for a couple weeks before we met up with our groups for our projects

So I guess it's been a little over a year since I've posted here. One year of med school has flown by and now I'm at my last "free" summer. So of course I am traveling again, but not to India (though I miss it...especially that pani puri off the street!). This time I am going down to Honduras and Nicaragua. A few weeks of vacation and then a project that I've been working on putting together with some other med students and Dr. Morgan, a GI doctor at UNC. I'll just copy and paste some brief summaries that I have...I would definitely blog more, but my flight is at 6:15 in the morning! I'm excited about traveling with Dhruti for a little bit before her project in Honduras starts up at the end of June, lets just hope that the weather holds up. First stop...Roatan!

Hurricane Felix

Nicaragua is among the poorest countries in Latin America and has been struggling to recover from almost three decades of armed conflict and natural disasters. Hurricane Felix, which affected the northern Atlantic Coast, is the latest in this series of setbacks. The area of Nicaragua most affected, the Región Autonoma del Atlantico Norte (RAAN), is historically isolated and underserved due to a combination of factors. No paved road connects the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Additionally, the two coasts are culturally and linguistically distinct. The scarcity of resources in this nation combined with the geographic isolation of the Atlantic Coast, have resulted in an especially vulnerable population. Felix, a Category 5 storm, added to this burden (September 4, 2007), affecting over 180,000 people in Nicaragua and leading to over 100 deaths. The destruction of homes, public buildings, and water facilities by Hurricane Felix has led to lasting public health issues and exacerbated disease burdens.

Collaborative Sahsa Health Initiative (CSHI)

The Collaborative Sahsa Health Initiative (CSHI) aims to use a geographic surveillance system to asses the household health care needs in the Sahsa area of Región Autonoma del Atlantico Norte (RAAN) in Nicaragua with an emphasis on the burden of diarrheal diseases. This project will complement current efforts by the University of Nicaragua, León (UNAN). During the summer, 8 UNC medical students will work in an integrated team with UNAN faculty and students and local community health workers to collect household data through developed questionnaires. Following the data collection, the Geographic Information System will allow for the integration of data into a map which can then be utilized to pinpoint disease and health patterns. Analysis with ArcGIS software will provide a foundation for the design of future interventions by UNAN, UNC, and the community. The Center for Epidemiology and Health (CIDS) within UNAN has utilized this methodology for their surveillance system in León, and thus, has extensive experience. Additional information will be collected on the existing health infrastructure through interviews with community leaders and brigadistas (health promoters). Finally, a series of public health workshops will be conducted for these local volunteer health workers on topics including malaria and water sanitation.

The last few weeks have really flown by with finals, graduation, moving out, and trying to sort out my summer plans. Here I am, already done with my first leg of the trip in Englnad and Ireland. I am in the airport right now in Dubai waiting for my connecting flight to Mumbai and then back to Ahmedabad to work with Manav Sadhna(www.manavsadhna.org). I am pretty excited about being able to stick around one area for a longer period of time. Hopefully, I'll be able to get even more out of it and work through an entire project. At the same time, I am kind of sad being away from home from family and friends, but I guess before I know it, it will be mid-July and I'll be back in Chapel Hill. I'll get to relax for a few weeks and then off to school again. Anyways, I am going to try my best to keep this updated as much as possible in case you are interested in what I am up to. If you are ever bored, shoot me an email and let me know what you are up to. Time to take a nap. laaaaaaata.

Phone Booth in London

Howth, Ireland

Guinness Factory in Dublin


Temple Bar area in Dublin

Kilmainham Gaol (jail)

Typical Irish Menu

Random Stop on the Highway

Ireland is realllly green

Blarney Castle

WOW.

Typical Irish Breakfast (no I didn't eat this)

Toast, baked beans, fried eggs, sausage, potatoes, bacon, and black pudding (pig meat with blood and herbs (yeah i know...gross.)

Sheeps are EVERYWHEREE

Poulnabrone Dolmen (tomb)

Some kind of hut (I forgot the name)

Fish and Chips

So many cool Guinness signs around.

Ok so this is my third attempt to publish this blog...maybe the computer won't crash this time.

I updated my pics from two blogs ago so take a look!

I just finished the second leg of my trip to India and am in Chennai for the night before flying out to Delhi tomorrow early morning to start Hindi lessons. So despite how frustrating it was at the beginning, these two weeks have been amazing as I have been exposed to things that will affect me forever. I’ve also become friends with engineering students that were displaced from their villages after the tsunami. We spent most of our time trying to communicate in broken English, playing Carrom board, eating from thalis with our hands, and going to temples. I’ll miss those guys.

So for the most part, I spent my time in a rural clinic and the main Christian Medical College hospital. These clinics were really different from each other and much different than anything I’ve seen in the states as far as the types of cases, the type of medical care, and the administration. The rural clinic is a free clinic that serves the rural villages around it. They have such a large number of patients each day that the doctors and interns have to fly through them so everyone gets seen. Even if they spent a lot of time figuring out the best medical treatment, 99.9% of the time, the patients would not be able to afford the medication. And other times, many patients come in with very simple illnesses like a cough or general pain, which could just be a result of the difficult jobs they have, but they come so they can get the free medication. There are just so many aspects to running this type of clinic and to make it successful there must be a education program co-existing to prevent more diseases, which has been implemented with this clinic. While in the main hospital, I spent most of my time in the infectious disease ward where I saw patients with HIV, TB, malaria, and meningitis. This hospital was of course ridiculously busy and well over its capacity. Tamil Nadu has the highest HIV population in India so hopefully the government will be implementing this program to help the costs of medication. Right now many of the patients can’t afford the treatment or further testing and are therefore more prone to other diseases such as TB, which will quicken their death. Furthermore, AIDS education programs must be implemented despite the stigma attached to it.

Anyways, I’m off to watch Argentina beat Germany….and then Delhi!
Hope everyone is doing well.

Tried posting pics in this blog, but not working so check out Facebook.

Ok so finished my first round of trips in India. I am now in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, actually I am 30 km away from that small town. I am in a little village living in a hostel for two weeks working with a department that is part of the christian medical college. It's called RUHSA and it deals with people that live in rural areas. I am in the middle of deciding my exact plans for the next two weeks, but I know that it will involve HIV/AIDS education. But yeah, kind of sad here, not anyone else here really besides me so it can get kind of lonely, but I guess I got to make do of that. Watching episodes of Lost helps, but they will run out soon...eek...and this internet is dial up which is cool too. I guess it is about time to get kicking on that med school app too. Ok well, updates to come later...and i can't seem to upload the rest of the pictures from the previous blog.

If you get bored send me an email and let me know what's up wherever you are....

I can't believe I've been in India for over a week now. Once again I've been really bad at updating, but just a quick run down about the past week. It's been a hell of an experience and a lot different than I could have imagined. So I am here in a small town called Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu which is pretty close to Kanyakumari, which is the city in the southermost part of India. I am here with a group of 12 other people from the states and we are working with Habitat for Humanity. We aren't working directly with the houses hit by the tsunami, but close by. We did visit the tsunami site and the damage is still clearly visible. We have been working on a couple houses and it has been no joke. The weather is hot and humid and we are out there from 9-3. The work we've been doing is a lot different than Habitat in the states. The tools are different and the methods of construction are completely different. We've been moving dirt, stones, and clay with pans and buckets. We end up drinking like 6 liters of water each day without having to use the restroom at the site because we just prespirate it all out. We are living in this really nice hotel like a few minutes from the worksite where there is air conditioning and running water all the time, which is a luxury. So after a long workday, it's great to have somewhere pretty decent to stay. As far as things outside of the workdays. We've had bharatnatyam lessons for a couple days, yeah go ahead and laugh. That was pretty interesting as the guys enacted Krishna and the girls enacted Radha. We visited a temple where the guys had to take off their shirts for some odd reason. We visited a few other religous sites and of course we've been eating a lot. Dosas, idlys, saambar, waadas, thalis, chinese food, yeah it's been good...and dirt cheap! Anyways, I got to head out, but that's a quick sum up of stuff and I'll include pics when I get a chance. Btw....the funniest thing that has happened to me is that this kid yesterday kept on asking me in tamil if bruce lee and jackie chan lived in my town...haha...WAJJJJJJ

The Habitat Group in front of a Palace

Swami Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari

Thiruvalluvar Statue (Tamil Poet)

Sunset where three bodies of water meet (Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal)

Succhindrum Temple

Locals at the worksite

South Indian Thali

Saif Ali Kahn on the Lays Chips we eat each day during break time (Spicy Masla is the best)

Bharatnatyam Dance Lessons Initation

Hotel in Nagercoil

Me and some of the school children at the worksite

My new girlfriend =)

One of the classes of kids...dang...they are cute

Tsunami-destructed home