Thanjavur leaving, Chennai going

Sonia and me in our sarees at dinner

All the pretty ladies in their sarees

The appropriately worn saree

Frozen Fantasy has fro-yo!!

Mom, you would like this wacky shopping mall.

Visiting the biggest shopping mall in India...yes, Subway and Pizza Hut were enjoyed by all. Globalization!

The sunrise over the Egmore Train Station in Chennai...so pretty.

Playing UNO on the train.

I am an absurd backpacker, complete with the hiking sandals, headband, and of course the backpack bigger than me. At least it's not a suitcase.

Only half of our ridiculous amount of luggage. So glad my mother taught me how to fit everything into a backpack.

All of us with Thenrall and her husband.

Thendral and me.Favorite Thendrall quote (calling her when we had trouble with a driver): "This is Thendrall. Everything will be ok."

Fruit party on our last night in T-jore...mmmm

Thendrall wrapping Leslie in her Saree

I owe some of you some updates...so get ready for a long post!

Last Monday we gave our presentations on how we are proposing to implement and evaluate our interventions. Whew. As I mentioned, this section has really shown me some of the logic and methodology of public health. And, alas, as I always thought I would be, I am in love with public health. Our plan proposes that 1) water filters will be attached to each water tap in the community and 2) community health workers will make home visits to mothers with young children to teach them about how to properly treat diarrhea with oral rehydration solution. The goal is to reduce incidence (through preventing disease as a result of clean drinking water) and to reduce morbidity (through enabling mothers to properly treat their children when they do fall ill). To be very very brief, actually implementing this requires 8 main activities that include things like training water filter maintenance workers, developing a curriculum for the oral rehydration solution education session and ensuring the community is on board and gaining something. We then need to evaluate whether or not each activity was properly completed. In order to do that, surveys, focus groups, self reported data and quantitative data are used. We also need to evaluate whether our overall goal, reducing incidence and mortality was achieved. Again survey data and self reported data are used.

Now this is not even the tip of the iceberg, but in the interest of not boring you all, I'll move on to talking about what I really like about this proposal. It seems that this approach of partnering with the village president and the locally-based community health workers has the potential to really build community and individual capacity. At the community level, structures are being established to deliver needed services. At the individual level, knowledge and awareness is being developed to enable mothers to keep their children healthy. And everybody wants good services and healthy kids.

Back on the train

So we headed back to Chennai on the overnight train Monday night so we could prepare for our final presentations at the ICTPH main offices. And we prepared in style. Our hotel is very comfy and has hot water! And a ten minute walk to the beach, which is a beautiful place for a morning run and meditation session. It's so invigorating to see all the people out early walking, running and doing yoga on the sand. And I can wear shorts here! Hooray!

The other thing I'm loving is the bustle of the city. I can hear the horns and the cars from our room and it reminds me of being on Michigan Avenue. I just love the urban hustle, diversity and feeling of lots of life in the city. Now it's also fair to mention that bustle and hustle might be understatements. Like really big understatements. Sometimes I wait for 5 minutes to cross the street. And it can be super frustrating when you're just trying to walk down the side of the road and scooters keep bumping into you. But something about all that is just so vibrant. Or so I keep telling myself when all the horn honking gets to my head...

So with the help of the availability of Diet Coke, whole wheat bread and avocado, we prepared for our final presentations.

And the last presentation...

Went well! All of the teams were so impressive with the amount of knowledge that they have gained over the past two months. It was really obvious in the way in which the presenters smoothly and clearly articulated their plans as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Most of the class wore sarees, which are appropriate formal wear. They looked so incredible beautiful with all their colors!! I, however, was not brave enough, as I assumed that it would fall off as I was giving my presentation. I felt a little bland in my pink dress shirt and borrowed dress pants, but at least I prevented a major wardrobe malfunction.

We ended the day by visiting a beach resort a bit outside Chennai for swimming and dinner with ICTPH. The beach was AMAZING. I spent most of my time playing in the waves, which were huge! The undertow was very strong, so a few of us partnered with some of the new beach-goers to give body surfing lessons. Reminded me of my old swim lesson days, but in a good way.

We then enjoyed a great buffet dinner and I borrowed one of Leslie's sarees. While I could not get it on properly for the life of me, it was fun to wear. It's so interesting how all of the Indian women here can tell in one second your saree is on wrong. When I was leaving the hotel, the lady working at the desk refused to let me walk out in public until it was properly done. I wonder if this is how men feel when women ask them if things go together? I mean, I really could not tell the difference from a properly worn saree and our makeshift saree wearing. Fascinating how we can just overlook some of the blaringly obvious points without even knowing we did it.

So today brings us to our last day in Chennai and our last day of the course. And leaves me with so many reflections and thoughts...some more beach meditation time is in order to finally start to process this stuff...