Not a lot of time today so I'll quickly fill you all in with this week's adventures...
Where did I leave off? Oh yes...Sarah and I ended up going to Tirunelveli in the end and saw the Kanthimathi Nellaiyappar Temple which is an amazing double temple. We got blessed by an elephant! What it does is it puts it trunk on your head and blows out really hard. Sarah told me afterwards that it wasn't just air that came out on my head but a big lump of goo...lovely!
This week has been extra busy with the incorporation of getting up at 6am every day to go to Yoga! Really enjoying it though. After Yoga on wednessday I went swimming in the river in our village with Nama (an American guy who also goes to the class) - but he hasn't been back to yoga due to getting sunburnt whilst swimming! On thursday after Yoga, Sarah and I went to the Agastya Falls with Carlo (an Italian man in his 60s) from Yoga too! We went in as it is meant to be holy water (and we were baking hot!)
The kiddies at the Ashram are mainly ok except for a group of 14 little ones which are in the sick room. A room the size of a box room back in the lands where you get semis. These are the kids that have got the skin thing, probably because its contagious, but I've been in to play with them a lot and they really really appreciate the attention! We've been doing jigsaws, reading books and singing nursery rhymes!
As for this weekend, all of the volunteers have met here in SIvakasi where the TPA office is. Today we had a cricket match!!! It was so much fun! I actually managed to hit the ball and run believe it or not! Thanks to Rob and Vince for bits of cricket knowlegdge I've picked up! One question though...all the boys at the schools ask me why England lost the Ashes...has anyone got a good answer for me?!?!?!
Just got back from the hospital here...a bit of a long story but basically, we drove past a collapsed woman on the pavement on the way back from lunch. I couldn't just drop it so I walked back to see (as most people just said leave it, she's dead). However she was actually breathing! I ran back to the TPA office and asked Pabbu to ring an ambulance (though I didn't know how efficient they were here). Went back and put the woman in the recovery position as best I could, luckily another volunteer, Hellie, came and helped me. Suddenly a crowd of about 25 people surrounded us (some telling us to leave her because she was "intoxicated"
and trying to take her out of recovery position. I was stubborn though! What really upset me was the fact that she was on the ground, completely covered in flies, choking on her own tongue and people could just stroll by...I found it so incredibly shocking I can't even describe how different I feel about things now...
Anyway, when the ambulance arrived, the driver shoved her in the back and started chatting with passers by, leaving her unattended (as there is no nurse in the back
). I jumped in (I know it was inappropriate but I couldn't help myself) and Hellie followed. Such a relief to get to the hospital where a (good) doctor put her on a saline drip and said she'd be fine now...she had an epileptic fit! Argh, what an afternoon! In England, we are very lucky to have 999...and even luckier to have people that will actually call it back home!
