Hospitals and Temples and Bird Sanctuaries, Oh My!

Yesterday we toured the hospital / medical school on the campus of KVCET, which offers free care to people in the nearby villages. We dropped off 250lbs of medical supplies donated by hospitals and health departments back home. The biggest difference we saw between this hospital and the ones in the US was the lack of privacy. People wait for doctors in the large, main hallway, and patients are not hidden behind walls or even curtains most of the time. At one point we were called over to see a brand new baby, maybe 10 minutes old, while they wheeled her exhausted mother out of the delivery room. We were invited to talk to any of the patients and ask them why they were in the hospital.

After visiting the hospital we met with the superintendent of the medical school who told us about braces for post-polio sufferers and people with clubbed feet. Right now, the braces are available and not too expensive, but they're very heavy. We're meeting with someone else on Monday to talk more about a possible International Senior Design project from MTU to design a lighter brace.

Today we went to see the local high school, which educates 300 students in grades 6-10. We were surprised to learn that 80% of these students go on to college. The high school is located in a rural area but it seems very well equipped, and we are hoping to visit again and do some of our science demos there. The students were very enthusiastic about our visit and we're hoping that enthusiasm will help overcome the language barrier if we come back to show them the demonstrations we've prepared.

We also visited a bird sanctuary today, which was a beautiful place with a large population of cranes, ibises, and other tropical birds. We also saw our first wild monkeys, who were very friendly and even tried to take a swipe at Nicole's water bottle. After the bird sanctuary we visited a local temple, a beautiful place that we're told is about 200 years old. There are statues of Hindu gods made of solid gold and we witnessed some sort of ceremony with the temple keeper. It was very, very hot in the temple and we weren't sure what was happening but we experienced a vital part of Tamil Nadu culture.
Tomorrow we're venturing to Chennai to do some shopping and sightseeing.