I’ve unfortunately been spending the last few days with some sort of stomach bug restricting my appetite to bread and water and not the delicious Indian food. Feeling a lot better today and hoping that the nausea, fever, and distended abdomen will go away completely. I am glad that most of the symptoms occur in late afternoon so I’m able to get work done and function from the time I wake up at 6:30am until like 4pm.
I spent the majority of yesterday interviewing 4 cleft palate patients and taking their speech samples to ascertain pre-surgery speech level to eventually compare with 1 week post-surgery speech. The patients ranged from 14-20 years old and were all super sweet. I learned that some felt uncomfortable leaving their homes or villages since outsiders would not be able to understand anything that they were saying. My interpreter found it difficult at times to understand the patients’ responses. Although having a cleft palate does not equate to a physical deformity, impaired speech definitely lessens quality o f life.
The last day of surgery is today which is also a half day. Since there are no more cleft palate patients awaiting surgery, I find that my day is pretty much open. I accompany some of the high school students as they shopped around for saris, clothes, and souvenirs. When I returned, I started talking to Gary, the physician that wrote me medications for my stomach bug about the malnutrition among cleft lip and palate children. Operation Smile recognizes the fact that surgery alone will not change a child’s life and that many factors may preclude health. Nutrition is a major consideration when screening children to determine whether or not they are healthy enough to endure surgery. Gary and some others are trying to see if they can perhaps work with the Indian government to help provide supplements and formulas for malnourished babies that have little sources of milk or food and a non-breast feeding mother. These families are typically very impoverished and formula would end up costing about 20% of their monthly income. Food insecurity has always been an interest of mine and I am more than eager to work on this maternal and child health issue.
Kelly, Minh, and I got henna tattoos at the hospital since a henna tattoo artist was brought in. We were intending on going to Alcheringa, a major cultural festival in Guwahati, at IIT (institute of technology) but logistically could not make it work. Our interpreters invited us to a birthday party. We agreed to go as long as we could make it back for the Operation Smile party at 8pm which commemorated the end of the recent mission in Guwahati. A one-hour drive through the city and then into the mountains later, we arrive at the birthday party. There were about 30 locals, mostly translators working with us at Op Smile, and the three of us girls. First the birthday boy was sung to and blew out candles on his cake. Then he handfed me the first piece of cake, followed by Minh and Kelly. Right after that, major cake smearing occurred, much like the bride/groom tradition at American weddings. I came out relatively unscathed compared to some others. We were presented with local fruits, beans, and dinner which the three of us hesitatingly looked at initially and then decided what the hell, we were in India and with our local friends so we ate the food that we might regret later. The evening ensued with a small religious ceremony. I believe the priest, offerings, and chantings were dedicated to worshipping a Hindu god and not directly related to the birthday boy, but I’m not entirely sure. We got such star treatment from our translator friends. They allowed us to kneel before the priest while he chanted and observe. The prayers and chanting reminded me much of Buddhist tradition, especially on Chinese New Year where tons of fruits and food are presented to relics of ancestors or gods accompanied by incense and prayers. The entire experience was amazing and we were all so thrilled to be a part of it.
Immediately after the ride back from the birthday party, the three of us girls got dressed in kurtas, long Indian shirts/dresses and leggings to head over to the Operation Smile party. The staff party was held at our hotel, the Dynasty, in a music-blaring catered private room complete with a dance floor. We pretty much spent the night dancing to Indian, Latin American, and American nineties music. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to all the wonderful surgeons and staff members we got to know over the course of the 2 weeks. We got many an invitation to stay with fellow volunteers in their houses all over the world.
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