Oh, The Adventures!

Saturday 6/23/12

This weekend is dedicated to sight-seeing around Chennai while our professor goes off for a weekend retreat at a temple.  Today we went to the shore temples in Mamalapuram.  These temples are all located apart from each other, and were all built around 1400 years ago.  They used to be active temples, but now they are more like monuments.  The salt breeze that blows from the Bay of Bengal and the waters that sometimes reach them have deteriorated them a little bit, but they are still in great condition.  We had a tour guide from the temples that spoke English very well, so we could understand most of the history of the temples.  Again, I’m not the biggest history buff, but they were very interesting to see and hear about! 

One of the coolest parts about the shore temples was that we were so close to the shore, we got to visit a beach of the Bay of Bengal for a few minutes.  We couldn't go in the water - couldn't even put our feet in - because it is so polluted and dirty, but I get to say I've been there!!! (I think that may have just been a story we were told though so we didn't go in the water...I'm not sure!  I can't imagine it's any more polluted than other bodies of water.)

Next, we went to a crocodile/snake park where there were a bunch of exhibits of different crocodiles.  Most of them were just floating in the water, so the biggest excitement was to see them move.  It was almost like a zoo, only just for crocs (and a couple alligators).  The snake part was closed for holiday, which I was bummed about because they catch cobras and such and show the audience how they make the anti-venom.  I saw something on TV a while ago about that, but I was excited to see it in real life.  Alas, no luck.  For lunch we ate out at a pizza place.  This was my first full meal since being sick, and I’m doing great!  (knock on wood!)  Then we went back to the hostel for the rest of the afternoon and got to relax. 

Sunday 6/24/12

Today we went to the National Shrine of St. Thomas Basilica.  This was quite a religious experience – once in a lifetime!  Only 3 Churches in the world are built over the tomb of an Apostle, and this is one of them.  When we got there, we went to a chapel where we meditated and prayed.  We could hear a mass in Tamil going on behind us in the Church.  At 9:30 we attended a mass in English which was very similar to the mass in America, but the music was more of an Indian flavor to it.  The priest spoke English very well, so we were able to understand most of mass.  Afterwards, we went to visit the tomb of St. Thomas and pray for a little bit there too.  We visited a small museum where they had very old writings, carvings, and even the arrowhead that killed St. Thomas.  I wanted to get some souvenirs, but they didn’t have a gift shop =(.  After church, we came back to the hostel, had lunch, and relaxed. 

 A few of us headed to one of the malls in the afternoon to do a little more shopping because we were starting to get tired of relaxing in the hostel.  I made a VERY good friend at one of the shops – he said we were his first customers and this was the first day his shop was open.  He just got married, and wanted us to look at the photo albums from his wedding.  Then, after we bought our things, he wanted to show me how to meditate with my bowl I bought.  He had me close my eyes, took my hand, and made the bowl “ohm.”  Then he wanted me to lay down and do it, but I told him I could do that at home.  He told me I should be thankful for a free meditation.  The others girls were watching and laughing the whole time.  When we were leaving, he wanted a picture of us and then wanted to get in the picture with us.  “I want picture next to my favorite” he said, and came and stood next to me and put his arm around my shoulder like we were good pals.  We took the picture, but then it was DEFINITELY time to leave!  An experience I won’t forget, that’s for sure!  After dinner, we got our internet fixed again, so we were able to go online.

Monday 6/25/12

Today was one of the coolest days ever (cool as in awesome, not cool as in heat unfortunately).  It started like a lot of the days here have – dreaded getting out of bed, dreaded eating the same things for breakfast, etc.  We went over to the vet college to work in the lab, but we weren’t really sure what we would be doing since we finished up what needed to get done last week.  We arrived, and our professor said that they didn’t really have much planned for us.  Daryl asked “So we’re free to go to the zoo then?”  This had never been brought up before to the professor, and he was really just kidding, but our professor was like “Really?  You want to go to the zoo?  I’ll arrange it” and ran off.  We all sat there looking at each other, wondering if this was really happening.  He came back shortly and told us that everything was arranged – the zoo vet would arrange a trip around the zoo for us in a golf cart-type vehicle and if he was free, we could do a behind-the-scenes vet orientated trip.  Unfortunately, he was called off site by the time we got there, but we got to see a zoo in another country!  It was a lot nicer than I was expecting, and it was feeding time for a lot of the animals so most were way more active than I’ve seen at the zoos at home.  They had some types of animals here that we don’t have back in the states, so that was cool to see also.  We thought it was so cool that our research day in the lab turned into a spur of the moment field trip!  

We went to lunch at a restaurant nearby, and when Giri (one of the students that has traveled everywhere with us) called the vet, he was still unavailable.  He recommended that we go to a wildlife preserve/sanctuary nearby that was for lions and tigers.  It sounded cool, but we had no clue how cool it was going to be!  It was totally behind-the-scenes and the workers took us to see almost every animal!  They have individual runs and then they get called into a smaller pen for feedings and work.  They called a lot of the animals into their small pens, so it was literally a huge wild lion with nothing between us and him but a wire fence!  It was absolutely terrifying, especially when they would roar at the other lions or snap at the workers (who were actually trying to get that response from a few) but it was amazing at the same time.  I have never, ever been that close to a lion, or really even heard more than one roar.  Let me tell you: these cats are soooo much bigger than you think!  Those few hundred feet at the zoo distance makes them look way smaller than they are, and when they are roaring right into your face and you can FEEL their breath, it’s totally just something else.  They are such beautiful creatures, and it was so much easier to appreciate them up close – huge glassy eyes, monstrous paws, and teeth the size of my finger!  The tigers were not allowed to be brought into the small pens with us there because they are dangerous in small areas (like a lion isn’t?) but that was ok, because they came to see us at the end of their runs anyways.  One lunged at us twice, and it was terrifying, but awesome.  I can’t believe we got to have such a magnificent experience when all we were expecting to do for the day was work in the lab.  BEST.  RESEARCH.  DAY.  EVER.

Temples, Turkeys, and Toilets

The internet is SO slow here!  I've been trying to upload 2 pictures for an hour now.  I'm just going to post as is and will try to edit with the photos from the chicken trip later!

Saturday 6/16/12

On Saturday, we woke up early to check out of the hotel at 7.  We had breakfast, where I really just had a pancake-type thing (does not taste like a pancake at all) and jam, like a jelly roll-up…at least I tried.  It was not much food, and our professor called me out.  “Carrie is a very anti-Indian food person, I can tell” he says.  I told him that it’s not that I don’t like Indian food, I’ll try some and eat it for a while, but I can’t eat it repetitively day after day.  I basically feel like I ordered Chinese take-out (more like Indian take-out I guess), ate it for dinner, then heated it up for breakfast and lunch the next day.  I might try one or two new things, but most taste very similar.  Then, I ordered Indian again for dinner that night, and did the same re-heating process the next day, and so on and so forth.  Every day, the meals might change a little, but overall we are on repetition.  And I can do this, for like 3 days because it’s so new and it’s an adventure.  But when I’m eating the same type of bread and masala (liquidy) and sambar (liquidy) and rice, it gets old to my taste buds quick.   They (my taste buds) like variety – it’s just what they’re used to.  I’m not saying it’s bad, I just need to take breaks, and then I can eat the things again, after it’s been 4 or 5 days.  So I’m basically rotating – some meals, I can eat most of the things available, but then some meals I can only eat one thing because the other things we just had yesterday or the day before.  At home, I usually don’t eat leftovers for a day or two because I just had it the day before, so it hard to change once I’m here.  And I think he understands, he just gives me a hard time about it.

We travelled to the Chola temples, which is relatively famous and has been there for more than 1,000 years.  It is made entirely of granite – including the stone pathways – and is extremely intricate.  Nobody knows how they built it without any machinery – a mystery like the pyramids.  We had an awesome tour guide from the college who told us interesting things about the temple.  One story he had was about the carvings of guards.  These guards are like soldiers – they are guarding the inside of the temple.  And each one is depicted stepping on something.  The one he showed us was stepping on an elephant, which was being eaten by a giant, giant cobra, and then his foot is huge compared to these.  This is supposed to remind us humans that we are so so small compared to the soldier’s body, and the soldier is so small compared to the god in the temple he is guarding.  Basically, don’t let anything get to your head, which is the message of the white ash Hindu Indians put on their forehead daily as a reminder.  “You came from ashes, and to ashes you will return.  Don’t let things get to your head.”  We went inside the temple and had them say a prayer for all of the veterinarians and the animals.  I don’t know what he was saying, but it sounded nice.  We all were given ash for our foreheads.  The best part was that pretty much all temples have temple elephants, and we got to sit on one!  It was incredibly scary - so high up!  (I'm a little scared of heights)  Their skin is so scaly and rough-haired.  It would sway, and I would freak out!  But it was soooooo cool!

I may have a smile on my face, but I am FREAKED out!  So exciting!

A huge sculputre of a cow!

One of the temple "guards."

The group in front of the temple

After the temple, we visited a very old library, where there were books and paintings from thousands of years ago.  It was interesting, but I’m not the biggest history buff.  Plus, most everything was in Tamil (the language that is spoken here in the state of Tamil Nadu), so we couldn’t read any of the writings, but we could tell they were very old.  Some of the manuscripts were written on “scrolls” of palm leaves, which was definitely different.

We had some time to kill, so we went to get some more ice cream and cool down.  We had lunch where Dr. Mohan ordered us all the same dish.  It was huge - with bread and rice and tons of small dishes with different sauces and such.  I definitely couldn’t eat it all!  After lunch, we went to the bus “station” and loaded a semi-sleeper bus where the chairs lounged back quite a bit, kind of like a lazy boy.  Because the trip was during the day (1:00pm until about 9:30pm) I couldn’t sleep, so I watched India outside the windows and saw various interesting things.  I loved just people watching because India is so different than the US.  I saw some wild pigs, tons of cows, tons of goats, and even a crocodile (or what I’m pretty sure was a croc!)  I saw more trash than I’d like to see in my lifetime, and I’m fairly certain that an area of water we passed over was so polluted, the white things floating were small fish, dead with their white bellies up.  This made me somewhat skeptical about the fish industry here, but I hope that, being right on the ocean, there are reliable places where good fresh fish is available.  There were 2 movies that played on a big screen on the bus, but they were in Tamil so we couldn’t understand them.  It was possible to follow the basic storyline, however, just based on body language and inflections.  When we got back to Chennai, we ate dinner quickly and ran off to bed.  That may have been my best night of sleep yet!

Sunday 6/17/12

Sunday was a day of rest and recuperation.  Pamela and I slept in and skipped breakfast (on purpose – we told them the night before).  It was so nice not to have to set any alarm, but I still woke up around 8:30.  Still, it was nice just to lay in bed.  We did some much-needed blogging and relaxed all morning.  I did a load of laundry also.  Laundry here is done by bucket.  There is a washing machine in our hostel, but it is broken, and it is so small it wouldn’t do much laundry anyways.  So we do it by hand.  It is then hung on a clothesline – I don’t think they own dryers – and because it is so hot, it dries relatively quickly.  It is just difficult to really get out any stains or soils you may have on your clothes because they are not agitating against each other very much, and then it is near impossible to get all of the laundry detergent out.  We haven’t been using any fabric softener, so the clothes dry pretty stiff.  It’s not really all that bad, though.

After lunch, we headed to the college “track” and we learned how to play cricket.  It wasn’t too complicated, but I’m sure there’s a lot about it I still don’t understand.  Each time I hit, I got out, so I don’t think I’m very good at it either.  I played catcher quite a bit, but I was getting pretty beat up back there.  Every time I’d try to catch the ball, it would bounce up and pelt my arm or my face.  I’m not a fan of many sports with balls.  Never have been, never will.  Afterwards, we were surprised to still have internet, so it was a great day to have off since we could have some solid internet time. 

Monday 6/18/12

Monday we spent the whole day in the brucellosis/tuberculosis lab running our 40+ samples we collected in the village.  There was some miscommunication in the lab in the afternoon which made things a little frustrating, but overall it was a productive day.  We went to the basketball court and played basketball a little before dinner.  After dinner, we watched some of My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Tuesday 6/19/12

Tuesday we woke up early to travel to the Kancheepuram district to collect samples for our chicken research project.  We are testing the efficacy of a Newcastle Disease vaccination given in the form of a pellet.  The trip was about 2 hours either way by van, just because of traffic.  We had to draw blood on the chickens, which I’ve never done before.  There were a couple turkeys as well.  It was easier than I thought, but the small chickens with small veins got hematomas very easily, which is scary in a bird if the blood won’t clot.  All of the birds were a lot calmer than I was expecting, and the all of the people in the villages were very nice and very accepting of the free vaccine and letting us draw blood samples.  In one of the areas we visited the people are trying to become more advanced in agriculture, so we are trying to see what we can do as Michigan State University to adopt the village and help them get more resources to become more successful.  The day lasted pretty much all day.  Back in the hostel, we watched another movie and headed to bed.

Wednesday 6/20/12

Wednesday, we went into the lab in the morning.  We learned about the tests we will be doing for the Newcastle project (the one Lindsay and I are in charge of) and completed some of the preliminary work.  After lunch, while a few of us rested for a bit, some students went up on the roof to get some sun.  I said “No thank you – it is too hot!”  At 2:00pm, Dr. Kumar took us shopping. (Note: Dr. MohanKumar, Dr. Mohan, and Dr. Kumar are all the same person – I may refer to him by any of these names, but he is the professor from MSU who is from India).  At the first store, one of the students started feeling sick.  She was basically down for the count after that – we travelled to a drum store, Dr. Kumar’s music teacher’s house, and got ice cream, and the whole time she stayed in the hot van because she didn’t want to move.  She seemed absolutely miserable.  When we got back to the hostel, three more got sick within an hour.  Audrey and I were still feeling fine, so we went to dinner by ourselves.  It was very sad because it was an American-ish meal: “Chicken” patties (I’m not sure what was in those patties…couldn’t look at them) on bread to make a sandwich and we actually got some cheese on it!  It also had cucumbers and tomatoes on it.  It tasted really good!  Once we got back and went to bed, Audrey got sick right away.  I got no sleep because if all 5 were sick around me, time could only tell when I was going to get sick. I was dreading it all night, hoping it wasn’t true. 

Thursday 6/21/12

Had diarrhea a few times during the night, and at 6, I couldn’t take it anymore.  Things went downward from there on out.  We called our professor to tell him that we were all still not feeling well, so we had to cancel going to the wedding planned for this morning.  I was bummed about that because I was looking forward to seeing this other wedding - he said it was a going to be a much more traditional one and we could even talk to the priest about some of the different rituals.  Plus, I wanted to wear my sari again!  There's no way I could have lasted the ride, let alone the wedding or the food.  For me vomitting lasted all morning and diarrhea persisted.  We were taking medicine, but I couldn't keep it down, so I'm not sure how much it did for me.  All of the others felt decent during my worst time since I was the last one to get sick.  Our professor decided that our health was more important than the lab work scheduled for the afternoon, so we stayed in the hostel and relaxed all afternoon and night.  This was good, as I was nauseous all day long.   For dinner we had the same sandwiches as the day before, but all I could eat was a few cucumbers and a couple bites of bread.  An IT guy from MSU came into India today because he's here to work on a few things with our professor and the vet school here.  He was amazing with (hopefully) fixing our internet problems, so I'm hoping to have internet a lot more often now!

Friday 6/22/12

Today, I was feeling much better with my stomach (except what was coming out the other end, but I'd rather that than coming back out the way it came in).  I came down with a head cold, however.  I can't get a break!  One sickness after another.  I can't breathe all day long and was blowing my nose and sneezing all day.  We think we traced the bug we all got back to some fresh-squeezed lime juice we had at a restaurant in the chicken town.  Even our professor got a fever, which is sick for him in India! 

We spent the whole day in the lab.  We split half in half, some of us in the chicken lab and some in the brucellosis/tuberculosis lab.  In the chicken lab we ran two titer tests that should be interesting to compare to our samples we will get in a couple weeks.  Breakfast I couldn't eat anything but a granola bar.  For lunch we had spaghetti, so I was able to eat a little bit of that.  Dinner was veggie sandwiches which were decent and I ate about half.  Hopefully I'll get my appetite back soon!

It's Time to Celebrate!

Disclaimer: It's a long one!

Wednesday 6/13/12

This morning, most of us went to the “track” at the college and “ran” this morning.  The track is just a fenced in area filled with weeds and soccer/cricket fields, and my running isn’t much of running because I don’t like to run.  We have to run there because if we run out on the street, stray dogs will chase us.  It was hotter at 6am than I thought it would be, so I basically just jogged and did some off-ice training/aerobics-type stuff.  Today was a pretty similar day to the ones before in the clinic, but we collected 9 samples today!  We spent the morning in the clinic and the afternoon in the lab.  Today was the first day that I tried to take a nap in between clinic and lab because today was the hottest day, so I was very exhausted from the heat.   When I got to the lab, my stomach started to feel bad and within a matter of minutes I knew – my Indian journey had truly begun.  After a long search for a good bathroom – too long – I had to run back to the lab because there was no toilet paper.  No one had any emergency pepto on them, so I had to just cross my fingers that everything was going to be ok and it was just going to happen once.  When I got back, I was still feeling ok, so I think it was a one-time incident.  Let’s hope it doesn’t return!  Today is Pamela’s birthday and one of the guy’s from the lab as well (Ganesh).  We had cake in the lab earlier on, and then we threw a birthday party for dinner with Pizza, Pop, and Cake!  It was great to party American style!  The pizza was pretty good, too!  It tasted pretty close to American pizza and the cheese was great since I’ve been missing it so much.  The difference was the toppings – the only meat we had was chicken, and there were peppers and spices that made some of the pizzas a whole lot spicier than we usually eat in America.

The birthday celebration in the lab

Two of the pizzas we had for dinner - they look similar to American pizza

Thursday 6/14/12

We woke up around 5:00am to shower and get ready for the wedding.  Dr. Kunnan’s wife came over to teach us how to wrap our sarees because, as Americans, we are lost.  I still have no clue what she did!  Hopefully it will make more sense the next time so that I can do it again in the US (although, when am I going to wear a saree in the US?) 

The wedding was at 7:00am.  We arrived, and we had to dip our fingers in sandalwood, rose petal shavings, and sugar.  You threw the sugar in your mouth, and rubbed the others in your palm so that you smelled good.  Everyone who attended was given a rose when they walked in.  We found some open seats, and I thought that maybe the ceremony hadn’t started since there were people still coming in, people up all over talking to each other and being loud, and a bunch of people up on the stage.  I was wrong, though.  The ceremony had started at 7, and the bride and groom were surrounded by the most important people on stage – most of which were paying attention.  All of the guests were busy talking amongst themselves and it didn’t appear like they were paying any attention.  I was corrected that they are paying attention; they just know the rituals so well that they know when to pay attention and when to talk to everyone else.  It seemed rude to me, but it’s just a different culture.  There was live music that would blast extremely loud when there was an important part of the ceremony.  It was extremely loud, and then the guests were still trying to talk to each other above it – it literally just seemed like mass chaos and disorganization, when really it was completely normal.  The bride and groom (especially the bride) did not really look all that happy to be there.  Dr. MohanKumar said that there have been rituals going on for a couple of days, and they have had to fast, so they’re probably just tired and hungry.

All of us girls in our Sarees

We had breakfast in a different room, so we left the ceremony while they were still on stage – people just trickle out during the ceremony to go eat, so everybody does not eat breakfast at the same time like I was expecting.  Breakfast was served on a big banana leaf and there was a ton of food that they just kept serving out.  I couldn’t eat much because there was so much, and a lot of it was spicier than I was used to.  We also didn’t have any utensils to use (we’ve been spoiled at the hostel with a request for forks and spoons), so it was strange to actually eat solely with your right hand.  You eat with your right hand in India because, well, you are supposed to wipe with your left hand.  (And on the subject of wiping, if I didn’t mention this already, Indians don’t use toilet paper – they just rinse with water).  After breakfast, it was time for us to leave, although the ceremony would go on all day.  There was a lunch later, and then an elaborate dinner that night.  I hope the bride and groom at least got to eat dinner with everyone!

We went back to the hostel, took a nap until lunch.  After lunch, we did some shopping at a jewelery showcase center – they had silver, gold, and platinum.  I really wanted to get some platinum since I heard it was sooo much cheaper in India than in the US, and it is, but it is still WAY out of the budget for a college student!  Too bad =(.  We came back to the hostel, packed for our village trip to Thanjavur. 

Our trip to the bus station – at 8:00pm – was INSANE!  I swear every person in Chennai was out and about – cars everywhere, people everywhere, bikes everywhere – it was the most crowded I’ve seen so far.  We had never been out at night, and it was a million times crazier in the night than in the daytime.  And, it was way scarier because you can’t see as well.  We arrived at the bus station early, so we had to stand around for 45 minutes.  It was crazy busy, and full of dirt and trash – I was scared to put my backpack down because I thought it might pick up a disease!  The buses don’t have bathrooms, and it was a 7 ½ hour journey, so we all used the bathroom before we left.  It was 3 rupees to use the bathroom!  That was different.  And it was a hole in the ground!  Not worth the 3 rupees.  The bus was a full-sleeper which was literally cubicle “beds.”  On one side of the bus, it was single beds and the other was double…so that would be awkward if you were travelling as a single and you ended up being seated in one of the beds that was a double bed, and you were forced to sleep next to someone you didn’t know.  I slept ok on the ride, but it definitely wasn’t a great night’s sleep.

Friday 6/15/12

We arrived in Thanjavur around 5:00 am.  We checked into our hotel, and we got to nap until 8:00.  I didn’t have an alarm clock and I ended up getting a room all to myself, so I didn’t really sleep because I was nervous about not waking up in time.  Plus, my room was on the side of the hotel where the train went by every 45 minutes, so the noise didn’t help. 

I’ve decided that there is no sound-proofing in India, and that India is one of the loudest places I’ve ever been.  The birds are EXTREMELY loud at the hostel – they scream, they don’t tweet or caw.  The car horns never ever stop.  And some have little tunes to them – totally unnecessary!  I will be sooo excited to come back to the US and not have horns blowing every second of every day!  And the music – it is always extremely loud, which is fine, but it gets to be too much sometimes. 

After breakfast, we went out into the village and visited about 8 farmers and sampled their cows.  All of them were very receptive to us, and one even wanted to sing a song for us and give us tea.  It was great to get out into the villages and see a different way of living than in the city.  I really enjoyed it out there – it seemed peaceful and quaint.  Living by the basics and enjoying life.  We tried an un-ripe mango, sweet coconut milk and the inside of coconuts (I, surprisingly didn’t like it – it didn’t taste anything like coconut and it definitely wasn’t sweet!)  I had a personal pizza and ice cream for lunch.  This pizza was definitely different than American pizza, but was pretty good.  The ice cream was different too – it was fluffy – almost like moose, but it was cold so it was very good.  We had a few hours to burn, so I went back to the hotel room and read and kind of napped.  For dinner, we all ordered at a restaurant.  I ordered cream of mushroom soup, green salad, and a piece of cheese naan, which is basically flat bread with cheese.  This was the safest, most American thing I could find on the menu that I knew I could eat.  The cream of mushroom soup was fresh mushrooms chopped up in watery broth – no cream about it.  The green salad was not lettuce – it was chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions – plain.  The cheese naan did not taste like it had any cheese in it.  I guess I’m just used to cheese quesadillas with a ton of cheese in them.  Then it was bedtime, and I slept with earplugs in.

Drinking coconut milk  - as you can see in the background, I don't look super enthused. 

Some of the huts that were at one of the farms

Drawing blood samples from the jugular vein!  We typically get blood from the tail vein in cows in the US, so this was good (different) experience!

A local breed of Indian cows with dumbo ears!

My cream of mushroom soup

The "greens salad"

We got to go have a beer!!!!  Sooo exciting

Clinics

Our first couple days of work have been in the Large Animal Clinic.

On Monday, we saw about 15-20 cases consisting of cows, goats, and horses.  Tuesday was very similar, but a few of the cases were repeats from Monday.  Milk and blood samples were taken from about 8 cows for testing on the brucelosis and tuberculosis research project on Monday.  Tuesday, we collected from 6 new cases and did a few follow-ups.  When running the samples in the lab, we learned that we will have to be more organized in the clinic because the first day we couldn't see the big picture very well.  We've seen many different cases - nothing too out of the ordinary, but many cases of ketosis/not eating, a teat injury, blind cow, heat stress, and a retained placenta.  My favorite cases have been the water buffalos because they just look so different than what we see in the US, but we haven't had many of them.  We have already found a couple positive cases for the tests we have completed on the brucellosis, so that is exciting.  It is nice to get a positive reading when you are doing research because you know you are (hopefully) doing it right, and that your research is meaningful in the end. 

Indians commonly paint their cow's horns to make them look pretty.  A lot of the horses also wear necklaces and anklets!

We don't have these in MI!

 This was the cutest goat!  Super hairy!  We all wanted to take it home.

The have Red Wing Shoes here - didn't expect to see this!

 They made french fries for us one night!!!  We were soooo excited!

 A water buffalo.  This one was in really good shape - looks like a hippo body almost!  Their faces are quite frightening, though!

 This is how they restrain their cows here - just a rope through the nose.

 Working (and chillin) in the lab!












When not working at the vet college (college, NOT school), we've pretty much just been hanging around the hostel.  We did some yoga on the roof to a video that Lindsay brought Monday night.  We haven't seen the big cockroach again, but one of the doors has a huge crack under it, so I bet they come and go as they please.  We learned that the asian cockroaches are actually attracted to light and like warm areas, so we are planning to keep our room super cold and hopefully they will run away when our lights are off to sleep and not bother us.  This, however, became a problem when our air conditioner went out Monday night.  We moved a bed into Audrey's room (who's in the other hostel) and that was probably the best sleep I've gotten thus far - no fear of bugs, cold.  It was awesome.  Tuesday, they ended up fixing it, so we're back in business.  Not sure where we'll stay tonight, but at least wherever it will be, it will be nice and cold!