What a week!

This has been a week full of field visits and intervention planning.  And paper writing. So, here's some pictures!

Cafeteria kitchen!

Hibiscus flower!  Apparently Indian women eat them for PMS...

How many girls can you cram in a seat?  Apparently 5.

Meeting at the Panchayat's house.  She's the President of the village (similar to a mayor).

More monkeys...

We started out the day with some more monkeys... Apparently one of the men who lives here has been feeding them, which explains their constant presence!

We then had a productive field visit in the Ambalapattu area!  Since my last posts have been kind of word heavy (and because I need to spend time working on my paper), I'll just throw up some pictures!  Enjoy!

Back to school we go!

Water tap at the school for handwashing!

The GI team went to primary (elementary/middle) school!

While geotagging the water system in Ambalapattu, we (Alex - ICTPH, Erin R., Stephanie, me) stopped to check out a water tank. 

I just can't get enough of watching people carrying things on their heads!  It's so impressive!

PUPPY!

Ravi's friend preparing some coffee for the GI team!  It's such a great process to watch:  pour a layer of sugar in the cup,  followed by milk, coffee grounds, and then the boiling water.  Then, you pour it back and forth between two cups to make sure everything mixes.  Soooo cool!

Christmas in June!!

It's official: June 20 is my Indian Christmas.  Today, I received two giant boxes of American goodies from home (thanks, mom!).  Although I'm really excited about the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl Champions t-shirt, I think the plethora of chocolate goodies is my favorite!  Unfortunately some of the chocolate didn't arrive in the best shape.... No worries, the mass M&M was still delicious!

In other news, I just had my first confrontation with the monkeys.  I was sitting all alone on our balcony/deck doing some video chatting, when I began hearing some ruckus coming from upstairs.  Then, out of nowhere, the beast and I locked eyes.  He (or she? I was too terrified to notice) was sitting on the stairs chewing on something that looked like a battery, curiously staring at me.  Then another hopped down the stairs behind it.  I quickly (and I like to think calmly) walked down a flight of stairs to the floor my room was on and made it to my door.  I realized I should probably go close the entrance door to our hallway to make sure they don't scare any of my classmates should they come out of their room.  As I headed back to shut the door, laptop in hand, I realized I was too late - they had breached our floor.  "Sorry classmates," I thought, "you're on your own."  I've been sitting safely in the comfort of my room since the encounter and plan to stay that way until dinner is served, which is unfortunately on the balcony/deck.  Eesh.

Oh yeah -- in other news: I found my first "Gluten Free" label yesterday while shopping and wanted to share!

Happy Dad's Day!

First and foremost, happy father's day!  In honor of the holiday, I have decided to indulge in what I remember to be my dad's favorite candy bar:  Snickers.  So good.

Also, in response to my sister-in-law's request to see some of the MC Hammer pants, I've included a picture of my classmate Whitney wearing her pair.  Sorry, K, but I don't have a picture of me rocking the Hammer pants yet (knock on wood), but should one become available, I pinky swear that I'll share it!  However, I do plan on wearing them when I'm back home, so you may be lucky enough to see them up close and personal!  Now that I know you're infatuation with them, you may be getting them as a souvenir!

To throw in a quick public health/educational sentence about the pic of Whitney, she is actually standing on a scale outside of the Oriental Market, weighing herself.  Although this service costs 1 Rupee (i.e., about 2 cents), after learning what the average annual income of Indian families is, I doubt that this scale gets used that frequently.  Either way, we get to enjoy a delicious picture of Whitney rockin' her pants!

Megan and I also spent a large majority of our weekend cleaning and doing laundry.  We used a stick broom as our first round of sweeping, in order to get the big dirt balls, but then Megan went over the room again with the animal hair broom.  Interesting.

Speaking of sweeping, people here always seem to be sweeping.  Inside. Outside. Everywhere.  I find it a bit oxymoronic that people sweep sand off the streets to keep them clean, but continue to throw their garbage in massive piles right next to their homes.  I guess you do what you've gotta do within the environment you live...

The last exciting thing we did this weekend was laundry.  Oh, General Electric, Maytag, Whirlpool and more generally you dryers, how I will never take you for granted again!

Check out our sweet new clothesline.  Pretty rad, if you ask me!