Vacation Time!

**I forgot a story in my “Tip of India” trip!**  

(Saturday) Before we headed to the beach for the sunset, we traveled to a temple that our professor was very excited to visit and pray in.  We sat in the car and waited for our professor because he wouldn’t be long.  We had a beggar with a missing leg knocking on the window of our car who was super scary looking and kept staring at Julia, trying to get her attention.  It was awkward and uncomfortable, so our driver yelled at him to go away.  He stayed near, and it made for an interesting wait.  Also, while we were waiting we saw a boy keep kicking around a stray puppy which made us super sad!  We wanted to jump out and take the puppy from him, but realized it wasn’t exactly our place.  We figured he was just causing some mischief, but then he would pick up the puppy and try to beg with it.  When that failed, he went back to kicking it around.  We later found out that his mother was standing nearby, doing absolutely nothing.  Nobody else stepped in to do anything, either.  Clearly, the stray dogs in India are not treated like we treat our dogs here in America.

 Now...to the real topic of this blog...

Tuesday 7/10/12

Monday night, we were basically finished with our research projects and we were able to leave for a fun-filled week of tourism.  We spent some time with our friends from the kitchen while packing for the week.  When we left for the bus, we were surprised to find that the bus stop was basically the side of the road lined with shops – much different than the bus station we were expecting.  We were initially on one bus with lounging chairs and then about 2 hours in were able to switch to our sleeper bus.  It was great to lay down, and we got all settled in to our “bunks.”  In keeping with the theme of bathroom issues on the bus trips, this trip was no exception.  The bus made a few side-of-the-road stops, but none for women.  Our professor was up this trip and knew that 4 of us girls had to use the bathroom.  He talked to the bus driver and they figured out a stop where we could get off.  We were sent off of the bus, but there was no bathroom there.  It was the middle of the night, so many of the shop fronts were closed.  There were men outside the bus who were directing us down a dark, gated closed alley.  At least that’s what we thought they were saying.  I’m pretty sure that they were trying to tell us just to squat in the darkness of the alley, which we were NOT going to do when they were all outside of the bus watching us!!  After 3 or 4 minutes of being completely confused, our professor came outside.  “What is the problem?”  Us: “There is no bathroom!”  He spoke with the driver again, and they decided the bus needed to go further down the road and let us out there.  Again, we were sent off of the bus, alone, wandering around looking for a bathroom.  We still could not find a bathroom and there were men by the bus again trying to tell us where to go.  After a few minutes, our professor came out with the bus driver and said we had to go down the street.  We followed the man to the bus company’s business store front which was on the second floor of a building.  We had to WAKE UP employees that were sleeping on the counters of the business (it was strange and uncomfortable to intrude), but we were finally able to use a (Indian) toilet.  After all of that excitement, we woke up around 10:00am to find we were stopped at a truck stop-like area to let the driver get something to eat.  We finally arrived at our first location, Mysore, a whole 12 hours after we left Chennai!  It was a long trip, that’s for sure!

We were picked up by a driver, but the car we had was not very big, especially for all of our luggage PLUS us!  Some of the items needed to go up on top of the car on the luggage rack, but they weren’t strapped down because we “weren’t going very far.”  We were wary of this, but decided to put some things up there.  Of course, MY backpack is the only thing that fell off of the roof into a busy intersection!! We stopped and our professor jumped out to get my backpack.  I don’t think anything broke, but it was frustrating to have it fall when we were assured that it would not.  We checked into a hotel that was very nice – quite possibly one of the nicest we had been to.  This hotel even had a glass door to separate the toilet from the shower!!!   We found that to be very exciting!  We headed downstairs for a breakfast buffet and then headed out touring.  First, we went to the fancy Mysore Palace that was much more modern than the wooden palace we toured at the tip of India.  We hired a tour guide to show us all of the fancy places and secrets of the palace.  It was beautiful and interesting to learn about the history of the palace.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside of the palace, but we bought a DVD tour to bring back to the US. 

After the palace, we traveled up a hill to a temple where our professor went to pray, but we just stayed outside to look out at the mountain scenery.  Next, we visited the site of another Shiva bull – the second we visited of 5 total in India.  Here, we stopped at a vendor on the side of the road who was making small statues out of stone.  It was super interesting to watch him carve the details right in front of our eyes!  We all got a small statue which we then got personalized.  The craftsmanship was amazing.  This boy who was most likely about our age spoke wonderful English, and he said he learned the language not through school or to go the US or England, but just to be able to do better in his “business” to communicate better with the tourists.  The last place we visited Tuesday was another palace that had been turned into a hotel.  This hotel was SUPER high class, so we just stopped in for a King Fisher (our second beer in India) and to admire the extent of wealth and beauty.  When we left the palace, there was a man who did a short magic show in the parking lot for us.  He was MUCH better than expected, and was thoroughly entertaining!  He even involved his audience, causing Daryl to “pee” into a bottle (some kind of magic…).  After this, went back to the hotel for the night.

Wednesday 7/11/12

Wednesday we woke up early in order to visit everything planned before it got too hot.  The first trip of the day was to venture up a mountain to the world’s largest monolithic statue, Gomateshwara.  This statue is a place of worship for people of the Jainism religion and is an important place to visit for them.  We counted the steps going up the side of the mountain, and it was something over 600!  It was a hike, and I was struggling being afraid of heights, but I made it up there!  It was cool to see, but different than I expected.  I really enjoyed being able to experience something so important to another religion so different than my own.  Going back down the mountain was worse (scary-ness wise), and I actually think I somehow pulled some sort of muscle in my calf, because it hurt for days after! 

Next, we visited the two “soap” temples – temples near Mysore that are made out of soap stone.  The first stone temple had 2 more of the Shiva bulls (now 4 out of 5 in India – pretty impressive for a 6 week trip!)  These temples had amazing detail because of the texture of the stone – soap stone is much softer, so more minute details are possible.  It was fun to look at all the different scenes carved in the temples – many of which dealt with stories from the Hindu religion.  At one of the temples, I got caught up by some boys who wanted to take a picture with me (nothing new…we had been getting this all trip long).  Our professor finally chimed in and said, “ok, only one more picture, and then I’ll have to charge.”  As we walked away, he said he thinks that they only wanted a picture with me because I was the whitest of the group.  Thanks…

In between the two temples, we stopped for lunch at a fancy restaurant which looked somewhat Japanese, but had an Indian twist to it.  The ride back to our hotel at the end of the day was extremely long, so we were tired and ready for bed by the time we got back!

Tri-Seas of India

Saturday 7/7/12

We arrived at the tip of India and loaded into a very nice car – a change from our full size vans we’ve been traveling in so far.  The issue, though, was that there were only 5 seats and there are 6 of us, so we had to rotate who got to straddle the two captain’s chairs in the middle row of seats.  The suspension on this car was much nicer than what we were used to!  Definitely made for a nicer ride, but my car sickness (that I’ve really never had until India) still persisted at times.  I’m thinking that the car sickness is partly due to the malaria meds, partly due to the way they drive in India, but I know it isn’t much fun.  Never actually got sick, just felt nauseous a lot.  We drove about a half hour to check into our hotel, which was a very nice.  At the end of the hall, we had a BEAUTIFUL view of the tri-seas and the monuments that we would later visit.

The southernmost tip of India is the only place in the world where three bodies of water meet – the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea.  It is known as the tri-seas area.  It was amazing to realize I was in such a cool place.  Once we were settled into the hotel, we went and had a buffet breakfast in the hotel.  We then headed down to a boat which took us over to an island where a few temples stood.  There is another island right next to it with a huge statue on it.  It is a 133-foot-tall sculpture of the Tamil poet and saint Thiruvalluvar, in Kanyakumari.  We related this statue to our Statue of Liberty because it was so large and surrounded by water.  Loading the boat, I felt a little bit like the Titanic because we all had to grab a life vest from a huge pile on the shore.  I’m not sure I trusted the boats 100%, but it’s all about the experience.  The temples were neat, but I enjoyed the breeze and the water more.  It was easily 10 degrees cooler at the tip, and I just love being on the water, watching the waves, and smelling the fresh(er) air. 

After the trip to the island, we journeyed to a super-high bridge that we walked across.  On the way there, we passed some rubber tree farms, so we got out and examined the "sap" collection of the rubber.  Amazingly, when we got to the bridge I was ok with the height because there were rails that went across the bridge, but Daryl was not and basically could not look over the edge.  It was a beautiful view, but it was about to storm, so the skies were not clear.  After we crossed the bridge, we got to try some fruits and even learned where an almond comes from!  

After this, we traveled to a wooden palace nearby.  This was very interesting to look at the intricacy of the architecture and all of the different materials they used to build the palace.  Very royal!  For  lunch, we got to have my favorite -  flaky bread (paratha)!!  Apparently this is something that you can only get in southern India, so sadly I won’t be having any when I go experience American Indian food.  After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to check out and get a few souvenirs made.  We drove to a spot on the beach for the sunset, and there were a ton of people there.  Unfortunately, it was a little cloudy, but the sun still set and it was beautiful.  We got to stand in the water where all three seas meet – something I’ll never be able to do again. 

We headed for a bus ride home at 8.  We had a sleeper bus again, which was great because it meant I could actually get some sleep!  I was sharing the bunk with Pamela, and we woke up about an hour into the trip, both needing to use the restroom.  Every hour the bus would stop, but it was on the side of the road.  So the men would get out and pee on the side of the bus, but the women couldn’t do anything!  (As a side note, I should mention that for all the traveling we did, we RARELY saw women traveling with us – we were usually the few, if not the only women traveling.)  After 3 or 4 stops, we couldn’t wait any longer.  We tried to wake up our professor to get him to tell the driver to stop, but he was sound asleep in a double bed with some Indian man we didn’t know.  We tried calling his phone since he wasn’t waking up, but it was turned off.  I tried shouting over the man, who had JUST been out to use the bathroom, but he pretended he was asleep and wouldn’t help me by tapping our professor next to him.  I obviously would feel weird reaching over the man to tap our professor, so it was up to us to solve our own problems.  We could no longer lay down because that increased the urgency to go somehow, so we were sitting up in our beds dying.  We realized our only option was to bother the driver, which we didn’t want to do because, well, he was driving a huge bus in Indian traffic!  “Bathroom?” We questioned him.  Most likely, he didn’t understand English, so we decided as few words as possible would be best.  He looked at us like we were crazy and he had no clue what we were saying.  We figured we were out of luck, and decided the next side of the road place we stopped, we would just have to squat next to the bus and shield each other – Julia also had to use the bathroom by now.  All of a sudden, about 1:15, we started to pull into a gas station-type area where there was a bathroom!  Halleluiah!  We literally ran to the bathroom – one of the best things ever.  Only the three of us and one Indian woman got off of the bus to use the bathroom.

Sunday 7/8/12

We arrived back to the hostel at 9am.  We had breakfast, and when we got back, we noticed a note laying there – the care package my parents sent had arrived and was ready for pick-up at the post office!  Sadly, the post office is closed on Sunday, so I would have to wait until Monday to get the package, but I was sooooo excited!!  For the rest of the day we rested around the hostel and got caught up on a few things.  A few of us headed to the mall for some last minute shopping. For dinner, Dr. Kannan took us out to a nice place with his family and the Gunaseelans (from the lab).  I was introduced to Dr. Gunaseelan’s family as Jim Carrey again – what a surprise.  Everything I thought looked good was apparently very spicy, so I couldn’t order it.  Dr. Mohan ordered me some sort of vegetable dish (stir-fry?) with bread, and it was decent, but a lot of food so I couldn’t finish the whole meal – imagine that.  I also bit into some sort of spice that I must not have been supposed to eat (Indian dishes commonly have extremely hot peppers, cinnamon bark, or other spices that are in the dish for flavor, but you are not supposed to eat.  I usually get a late memo on this, and therefore eat things I shouldn’t).  This particular spice tasted like I bit into a huge chunk of incense at Church.  Yuck!  That kind of spoiled my appetite for the dish after that because that was ALL I could taste, and I had no clue what it looked like to know what I was supposed to avoid.

Monday 7/9/12

Monday morning we were able to relax.  Our task for the day was to finish our abstracts and work on our powerpoint presentations for the International conference we were to present at.  We all had to split up the research projects so that we all had an abstract to write, so my specific abstract was “Evaluating the incidence of Tuberculosis amongst organized and unorganized farms in Tamil Nadu, India.”  In research, you don’t always know what your results are going to be, and for my research, we assumed that we would find some tuberculosis positive cases, especially in the unorganized farms, because we had found a few in clinical samples.  However, all of the cows in these farms that we tested were negative for tuberculosis.  This is good for the area, showing potential that preventative measures are being taken, but it did not make my results very exciting!

In the afternoon, we had some time to run some errands.  We got our pictures printed for the picture frames we were going to give as gifts, and it was at a photo printing company – there is no CVS or Walgreens photo printing computer where you do it yourself – here, you go to a man with your memory drive from your camera, he loads them on his computer, and you tell him how many of each picture you would like.  Our driver came to try to help us translate, but it was still a bit of a process.  Next, we went to go pick up my package at the Indian post office.  Wow, this was something else.  It was located in what I can try to describe as an extremely run-down strip mall, and the post office was a stretch of 3 doors/offices on the second floor.  There were basically no signs, and definitely none that looked anything like what I’m used to post office signs looking like.  After waiting for the employees to finish their lunch, one man helped me get my package.  He had to go in a wooden trunk that was locked to get it, and when he gave it to me, I had to sign for it and give a phone number and such.  The package looked like it had gone through hell and back – wrapped with rope that I know my parents didn’t wrap it with, beaten and bent in the corners, etc.  When we got it back to the hostel, I immediately opened it.  Inside was lots of goodies from America, but there was an issue – my mom sent individual jelly packets – the ones at the tables in restaurants – and all of those burst open.  That meant no PB&J (so sad) and also meant that everything in the package was covered in sticky jelly.  After cleaning up the mess, we all gazed at the food that was so familiar, yet so unfamiliar to us now.  Easy mac, miracle whip, pudding, applesauce, tortilla chips, black olives, bean dip, taco seasoning, nacho cheese dip, pancake mix, and syrup were some of the items included!!  Such an exciting day! 

We went to the vet school to edit our abstracts with the professors and then attended some of Dr. Mohan’s anatomy lecture where he was dissecting a dog.  We returned to the hostel early to help the kitchen staff make dinner and make some of our very own American potato salad!  We didn’t have mustard, though, so we had to attempt to make some mustard from mustard seeds (which they use as seasoning in a LOT of dishes)!  It was an interesting experience, but it worked out really well and everybody said it tasted great.  That is, everybody but the Indians – they did NOT like it, but I guess they aren’t really used to the taste of mayonnaise. 

Another Lab Week

Monday 7/2/12

Monday morning we went into the B/TB lab to process samples from the weekend.  We sorted all of the samples out and did all of the preliminary tests.   In the afternoon, we were supposed to go back to the lab and process more tests in the afternoon, but there was a quick “Indian” change of plans – apparently there is always a plan “B.” We were going to process samples in the afternoon, but we were shuttled to the university farms again to interview more about mastitis and collect samples for students of mastitic milk. While out at the farms, we got to see emus and 2 more ostriches (at a different university farm than the first).  This was exciting and a nice change-up from the lab work and interviewing!

A demonstration on the proper way to catch and restrain an emu

A baby water buffalo at the university farms - soooo cute!

Tuesday 7/3/12

Tuesday, we spent the whole day in the lab, mainly working on running ELISA tests.  This was my first time doing this test, so I was a little nervous that my technique would be bad or my eyes would bug out from staring at teensy-weensy plate with just under 100 wells.  I actually ended up getting my plate to work, and it was the only one so far to work!  It has been frustrating because we haven’t figured out why these tests are not working.  By the end of the day, we decided there was not necessarily human error, but that it was most likely the machine that reads the test that was causing the error in the plates.  Either way, I got a little bit of satisfaction out of the fact that mine appeared to work!

An example of the milk ring test - the middle sample is neg, and the 2 on either side are positive because they have a nice clear ring of pink on the top

Dr. Gunaseelan is the man in charge of the B/TB lab that we are working on.  When we first got to India, he was trying to remember all of our names (American names are actually hard for Indians because they are nothing like the Indian names), so he was assigning a celebrity to remember.  Audrey is Audrey Hepburn, for example.  When he got to me, guess what he picked as my name?  Jim Carrey.  Well, this is not exactly any Carrie/Kari/Kerry I know, and, well, technically this is a man and I am clearly not a man (even with the shorter hair, I’m pretty sure I look like a girl), but I just kind of laughed and went with it.  As the days progressed, he continued to call me Jim Carrey.  After a few days without stopping, I told him “You know, it’s actually kind of funny you call me Jim Carrey because I have a boyfriend back home, and his name is Jim, so people have referenced Jim Carrey around me before.”  He seemed to just eat that up, thinking that he was psychic or something and knew the connection without actually knowing.  So from then on, I have conned the nickname “Jim Carey” with just about everyone because he will literally introduce me as Jim Carrey.  When we were talking to Dr. Gunaseelan, he was talking about how my test worked and he called me Jim.  Just plain Jim, no Carrey tacked on.  So apparently now I have only one name and am a man in one man’s eyes.

Wednesday 7/4/12

This morning, we headed to the lab (again) to run the ELISA for the 4^th time since we think we know what the issue is.  For lunch, Dr. Mohan ordered a catered 4^th of July celebration to celebrate with all of our professors, fellow student “helpers,” and Virginia Tech students.  It was not quite your typical 4^th lunch being that it consisted of all Indian food, but it was a special gesture to try to celebrate and acknowledge our holiday.  In the afternoon we went back to the lab to finish the tests.  After the lab, we went to the field at the college and played some cricket, along with the guy who came from Virginia Tech.  For dinner, the cooks made a real great effort to make an American-type dinner, which was very nice and an awesome gesture!  It wasn’t your burgers and dogs, but an Indian version, I guess.  They actually found some corn on the cob for us too, which was a special treat.  Even though it reminded me of Halloween corn, it was amazing after missing so many things about the USA!

Thursday 7/5/12

Thursday morning, we spent our time back in the lab.  This was a chance to get the rest of our results verified and talk with the professors about any last questions we had for the research projects.  At 10:30, Pamela was supposed to head over to talk with the mastitis project leader, but we had only been over there once, so someone was supposed to come and lead her over there.  Well, surprise surprise, nobody showed up.  At 10:40 I figured I could probably find us our way back there or at least get us close, so we headed over there and found it!  The professor was like “Dr. Mohan told me you would be here at 10:30.”  It was frustrating trying to apologize and let him know it was not our fault we were late, but communication issues hindered that and we just had to deal with the fact that he thought we were late and incompetent.  It was exciting to know that this was the last day we would really be in the lab – all of the tests had been completed, and we would just put our results together when we returned from our weekend trip.  Yay!

In the afternoon, I went up on the roof and laid out for about an hour reading.  I don’t really like to lie out in the sun (I get bored easy) and I need to put sooo much sun screen on.  The weather channel said it was 99 degrees felt like 104 with humidity.  Yuck!  On the roof, I finished my book that I had been reading – The Help.  I enjoyed it, just wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending.  But it really was a great book.   For dinner, instead of eating at the guest house, we were invited to eat at another professor’s house – the warden of the hostel in charge of us.  The food was very good and we had some new things, so I ate quite a lot actually, which was a big change for me!  Too bad our professor wasn’t there to witness it – he still thinks I’m starving myself apparently.

Friday 7/6/12

On Friday, we woke up early to hit the road for a big event put on by the college - World Zoonosis Day.  This is a day when the zoonotic diseases department picks a village to travel to.  They provide free vaccinations and other simple care to the farmers in the area.  In addition, they locate a school and educate the children about zoonotic diseases so that they are more aware and can be more cautious about them.  This was a great experience!  I enjoyed working with the children the most – they were super excited to sing in English for us, answer our math questions, and tell us the English word for animals.  The thing they were most fascinated with was our cameras – they all wanted us to take pictures of them and with them, which was great! In walking around to do some work with the animals, it was interesting to see the different animals and how they are housed.  The vet students wouldn't let us do much in treating or restraining the animals which was a bummer, but it was still educational.  It was a very hot day, and I had my undershirt, my scrub shirt, and a heavy-duty jersey shirt on, so I got hot very quickly.  This was the first time the head had truly bothered me, and I was starting to feel some heat stress.  Thankfully, I was able to head back to the school, drink some water, and sit in the shade when we were done, and I started to feel much better.

On the trip back home, we packed 16 adults into a van for a 2 ½ hour car ride.  When we were introducing ourselves to the students traveling with us, when I said my name, I got the response, “Ahh, yes, The Mask.”  Apparently India knows Jim Carrey very well!  When we got back to the hostel, we quickly packed and headed off for our travel to Tip of India!  We took a semi-sleeper bus, and we were in the back row, so our chairs didn’t recline very much.  Long story short, I could NOT get comfortable at all (I can’t sleep on my back or sitting up), so I only got about 2 hours of sleep.  The rest of the time I was “tossing and turning”, getting more and more fed up with the way people drive in India and the jerking/slamming on the breaks that made us fly around in our seats.  How anybody got any sleep is beyond me!

Village Trip #2

PICTURES TO FOLLOW: INTERNET HAS BEEN TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD PICTURES :(

Friday 6/29/12

This morning we were invited to breakfast by a professor who lives in another one of the hostels just across from ours.  There were 3 veterinarians from the college there to talk with us and make us feel welcome.  We had some different breakfast foods, so it was good to mix it up, but they were all a little spicy for me!  It was fun to learn about some of the different things going on in the college that we weren’t aware of, learn about the professors, and teach them a little bit about American culture, too!  Then we went back to our hostel and packed for our weekend trip to Dharmapuri. 

We traveled by air conditioned train.  The trains in India, at least where we were sitting, were totally different from American trains!  They had “bunk beds” that you reserved, but there were three per wall, so there was very little space for lying down.  The middle bed folded down so that people could just sit on the bottom bed as seats if nobody wanted to sleep, which is what we did since it was a day trip.  I brought my book with me, but it was hard to read with the noise.  It got pretty crowded in our cubby at times – at one point there were 8 adults and 2 children in a space reserved for 6 people!  That’s India for you!  I’ve learned that the idea of personal space does not exist in India, and that people are rude.  Most people are very nice when they talk to you, but if you are in their way, you must move NOW even though there’s no room for you to move anywhere!  In check-out lines, there is no concept of lines.  It is whoever can throw their items and money at the cashier the fastest.  I would be so stressed out at a cashier with arms and money flailing everywhere.  I find myself getting very upset when I get pushed or get passed up when I was clearly waiting in a line.  I guess when you live in a country with 1.2 billion people, you have to learn to push your way around and fend for yourself!

We checked into our hotel, which was an old palace.  It was not quite what I was expecting, but we got a little taste of Indian royalty =P.  We traveled to some waterfalls that were about an hour away and got there just as the sun was starting to set.  On our way, we saw some wild monkeys for the first time which we were very excited about.  The area was gorgeous!  We rented these woven-boats and had a little Maid of the Mist-type tour around and under the falls.  To get down to the river in the canyon, though, we had to climb down these extremely steep steps.  I learned a few years ago that I am a bit afraid of heights, so this was a huge challenge for me, but I did it!  It was an amazing experience between the cliffs, and absolutely beautiful (perfect romantic float on the river in the canyon).  I described it as the Indian version of gondolas.  It was extremely relaxing.  There were some caves in the canyons, and the boat “captain” let us get out and climb around in them for a few minutes.  On our way back to shore, it was getting rather dark.  We looked up and saw all of these animals flying around in the sky.  They were bigger than any of the large crows we’d seen, so we couldn’t believe how big the birds were.  Then we realized that they were bats!  These are the largest bats I have ever seen, and they were flying in hundreds right above us!  Really neat – I wish I could have captured it with my camera, but it doesn’t have night vision.  Bummer!  We went back to the hotel and slept like babies (once we shut our bathroom door because our toilet had the habit of flushing itself every 2 minutes!!)

Saturday 6/30/12

Saturday was a day full of sample collection.  We visited numerous small dairy farms in the morning where we collected samples and some information for our mastitis project.  We had a veterinarian from the area accompanying us around to the different areas because she knew the farmers personally.  After some of the dairies, we went and visited one man’s chicken farm.  The chickens were housed in cages very similar to laying hens in the US right now.  He seemed rather innovative with his practices and is making quite a fortune off of the birds.  He grows his own feed on his land, which helps keep costs down too.  We had the “privilege” of watching semen collection for Artificial Insemination (AI) in the chickens and actually got to perform the AI ourselves.  After we saw all the baby chicks, we enjoyed some jack-fruit.  This fruit was extremely sweet, but then it left a strange after-taste in my mouth that I didn’t care for.  Otherwise, it was pretty good and a lot of the students really enjoyed it. 

We traveled back to the hotel for lunch, checked out of the hotel, and traveled back to areas with farms in the afternoon.  We collected samples from areas where there were a lot of farmers within walking distance of each other who all owned one or two cows.  We had a few crazy cows there – one of which we truly couldn’t draw any blood from because when we tried, it reared up on its back legs a few times like a horse.  I’ve NEVER seen a cow do that!  Especially when she’s supposed to be 8 months pregnant! In these areas, we started to get a crowd of children following us around.  Most were way too shy to talk to us, they would just look at us and giggle.   It was rewarding when we actually got to talk to them a little bit (some know English fairly well because it is taught in the schools) and got to take pictures with them.  They LOVED seeing their picture on the camera after we’d take it! Once we were finished in the villages, we went back to the hotel restaurant for a light dinner and waited in the bus office for our bus home. 

These buses are air conditioned and semi-sleepers – they lounge pretty far back!  They do not, however, have a bathroom so we try to avoid traveling in them if we can.  We knew this beforehand, so we all took a bathroom break before getting on the bus.  It was dark and relatively quiet, so I was laying there trying to go to sleep, and all of a sudden my stomach did a huge flip-flop and I felt sick.  Like stomach, I’m-going-to-throw-up sick.  And then the panic set in.  I’m in a bus with NO BATHROOM.  I’m in a bus where no one around me speaks English except my group, who are all asleep by now.  If I had to throw up, would I have enough time to run up to the driver and tell him to pull over on the side of the expressway?  Can he even do that? Would I fall over people's luggage in the isle on my way up and vomit right in the isle?  If I made it to the driver, would he know English well enough to know what I’m trying to say?  Would he understand my violent vomiting motions?  Or would I be up there, trying to tell him what’s about to happen, and it takes him too long to understand and he gets covered with my vomit?  Then I’d have a mad Indian driver on my hands, plus a mad bus because the whole bus would smell.  I laid there, just in sheer panic, all the while the pain and gurgling getting worse.  I finally decided my best option would be to open my backpack and get my tennis shoe ready.  That is the only container-type thing I could think of that I could use.  And then I spent about 2 hours “tossing and turning” in my chair, trying to tell myself that it’s all in my head and if I fall asleep, I’ll feel better.  Luckily, I did end up falling asleep and when we were at our stop in the morning, I felt much better! 

Sunday 7/1/12

We walked home from the stop at 5am.  It was the first time I had been out on the streets of India without a huge hustle-and-bustle happening.  We got back to the hostel, spent a little time online, and then went back to bed.  We skipped breakfast to sleep in and had lunch at 11.  For the rest of the day, it was relax/catch-up/post pictures/research.  We met our neighbors who had arrived over the weekend – VA Tech.  We weren’t aware that they were coming until a few weeks ago.  It’s nice to have some fellow Americans around!  We’re not the only ones getting stared at anymore!  I think there are a total of 5 Universities here now – lots of students from all over!  It truly feels like an International area now, with so many foreigners!  

In the evening, we got all dressed up in our saris again and attended a dance recital.  This was traditional Indian dancing, and it was the girl’s first solo performance.  It was wonderful to watch the different dances she did and was extremely impressive how long she could dance for (one dance was at least a half hour long!)  I really enjoyed this and appreciated her talent – I just wish I knew more about what the different dances/rhythms/moves meant.  After the dance recital, we went out to dinner at a pizza place to celebrate one of the professors, Dr. Kunnan’s, promotion he recently received.  It was a Papa John’s, and it was amazing!  They had the garlic butter sauce just like in the US!!  Delicioso! 

Can We Ride The Ostriches?

Tuesday 6/26/12

In the morning, we went into the lab to get more information and get some experience with PCR and elisas.  We split into two groups – one went to the Brucellosis/Tuberculosis (B/TB) lab and one went to the Newcastle lab.  I was in the Newcastle group, so we worked on extracting DNA for a PCR that was going to be run in the afternoon. 

When we were headed to our van to drive home, Daryl was pulled aside by a man with tea in his hand, so we thought he was a legit guy from the vet school.  He didn’t know English, so he told us to come with him and he was going to show us.  Daryl must have thought he was saying “Dean” because that’s where he took us – to the Dean’s office.  He had us all put our names on a piece of paper.  Everyone around was laughing at us, and I know they spoke English better than him, but no one was saying anything.  Daryl asked for tea, but then he tried to charge us so we didn’t get it.  When the dean walked by, he didn’t even acknowledge us.  Apparently, the Dean did not need to see us, so we had no clue why we were being held by some strange man who worked there.  We had to call our professor to come save us because he wouldn’t let us leave.  Being abducted in a foreign country? Check.

In the afternoon, the B/TB lab didn’t have any more samples to run and our professor was super busy, so we stayed around the Hostel. 

Wednesday 6/27/12

Wednesday morning we went into the lab for a lecture about Rabies.  Since we don’t have much rabies in the US in our pets anymore, they had some videos to show us that we wouldn’t see in the US.  We then reviewed our B/TB data, planned how to put our presentations together, and listened to another lecture on alternative forms of milk.  From the research, they found many different things being added to milk to get better prices or make it cheaper for themselves.  That lecture made me realize that I never want to drink the milk in India!! 

After lunch, we travelled to a peripheral vet clinic that is associated with the TANUVAS veterinary college.  We visited various farmers and their farms, interviewing them for our economic losses of mastitis project.  Two of the people from the B/TB lab had to come with us as our translators because none of the farmers spoke any English.  It was frustrating because it took a very long time due to issues with translation and understanding. 

A crowd of cows.

Some of the farms had 100+ cows!  

I just love these cows!

Thursday 6/28/12

The entire day of Thursday was spent traveling to and visiting the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) farm.  This farm is set up as an example for farmers in the area.  This is the same farm we started at for the chicken collections, but this time we actually got to see the other animals.  We saw cattle, water buffalo, goats, sheep, pigs, and ostriches.  This is the only larger-scale ostrich farm in India.  They were huge!  And we got to pet them!  We didn’t get to ride them, however, because they are not considered tame yet and are still pretty wild.  Bummer!  For lunch, we had a variety of Indian rice and other side dishes, which were all way too spicy for me.  We had rabbit and pork as well.  I actually did try the rabbit, but it was way too chewy for me, too spicy, and when I ran into a who-knows-what bone, I was done.  Then the girl next to me got a liver and I was definitely done eating the rabbit.  One bite was sufficient to know that it’s not going to be my favorite meat!  In the afternoon we collected milk samples for the B/TB project and then headed back to the hostel.

Little goat kisses!

Red sheep!

I LOVE piglets!  Babe!!

I wish we could have ridden them!  Still, the closest I've ever been!