sleeping on the train that night was one of the best nights sleep I’ve ever had. And I finally got to sleep on the top bunk for the first time in my life (thank you Srivi). I’m not sure if it was because I was so exhausted or because the train was so soothing but I don’t care because I slept great. We woke up at 6 in the morning because we were supposed to reach our station at 6:30. Around 6:30 we reached a station and we almost got off but luckily we checked with Sudha Aunty who said it wasn’t this stop, but rather the next. Good thing she caught us or we would have gotten off at the wrong stop and that would’ve been a problem. Eventually we got to our station and when we got down, we were greeted by some volunteers who led us to the outside of the station. Then we all piled into about 12 autos (2-3 people per auto) to get to the resort we were stationed. It was so funny to see all these autos basically racing on the empty roads, and we had fun seeing each other as we were driving by. We were told that we would have time to shower and change before clinic started but unfortunately we didn’t get that chance. We all changed into our scrubs, ate breakfast, and then drove an hour outside the village to the first area we were serving in Puttaparthi.

When we got there, it was exactly how I pictured the rest of our clinical areas were going to look like. We were greeted by most of the residents of the village, who were all dressed up in their best clothes, ready to parade us through the village until we reached the destination of our clinic. Sometimes when you hear music like that, it fills your soul and you can’t help but dance along. A few of us jumped in and began dancing with the locals, and it was so much fun. In a short 20 minutes, we made it to the area where clinics were taking place. We sat under the tent while the villagers did their daily puja, we snapped some cute pictures, and then started setting up for our day of clinic.

We had set up clinic in such a way that triage and community education were outside under the tent, while sick and well care providers were seeing patients in a small building next to the tent. As soon as we got to this village, I immediately felt my heart connect, and within the first hour of being there, I realized why. This whole day, I served as a translator with one of the nursing students Cecily, and I really learned a great deal from her. Not only was she excellent with her knowledge of the medicine and with connecting with the villagers, but also she let me take the reigns with helping some of the people which really gave me a big confidence boost. It was apparent that these people needed the care. The other places we served had care facilities nearby, so we weren’t really dealing with a lot of sick patients. But in this village, of the first ten villagers we say, eight needed to see the sick care providers. We saw lots of small children with ear infections and the flu, a woman with appendicitis, lots of body aches and pains, people who really needed to see wound care, ect. For me, there were two moments interacting with patients that really made me feel like I was meant to be there.

The first one was we were seeing one woman. The day was really insane because we had so many people to see, and only a limited number of providers. When she came to sit down, I greeted her with folded hands and said Sai Ram, and apologized to her (in Telugu) that it was taking so much time because of how low staffed we were. You could tell she was very understanding but she said this that I think I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life, “Paravaledu tali. Neeku chaala manchi punyam ostundi. Meeru devudu laaga vachi manandarini kaapadaru. Amma nuvvu antha duram ninchi ochi, ee doctors andiriki memu emi antunamu sariga cheppi chaala goppa vishyam.” (You’ll get a lot of good karma for all the work you’re doing. Your team came like God and are saving us all. And to you dear, you coming from so far away back to your motherland and conveying to all these medical staff everything we’re trying to say is a really great thing) and then she put her hand on my head to bless me. I was moved to tears by her words. Later on in the day, as we were about to see a new patient, a bride native to the village was being paraded around by her family and so Sudha Aunty called us all to come watch. I told the patient that I would be right back and then ran to see the bride (who was gorgeous!). When I came back, I apologized to the woman again and she said “that’s okay. That girl is like a daughter to the village like you are. We can’t wait to see you paraded around the village when you get married”. These people who were so uneducated, who lived life one day at a time, were so respectful and appreciative of the care we were providing it was a truly humbling experience.

At one point in the day, all the village kids were crowding around the already narrow entrance way to the building where we were seeing sick and well patients. There wasn’t anyone needing to see the well care providers so I figured I’d find some way to entertain the kids to get them out of the way. As soon as we entered the village that morning, I immediately was eyeing the girls and their beautiful braids. So when I went to talk to the kids, after they got over their initial shock of me speaking to them in Telugu, I asked if someone would braid my hair nicely. The young girls were super excited and said yes. Luckily I was super smart and wouldn’t let them use a comb on me because turns out one of the girls (not the one who braided my hair but still) had lice so it was better to be safe than sorry. Everyone who walked by was pretty interested to see what was going on and some of the village ladies looked at me with such kindness in their eyes. After about 10 minutes or so, the braid was done and it was SO beautiful. Later after clinic was done, some girls put flowers in the braid and I felt like Rapunzel from Tangled.

Some other cool things that happened that day was that a calf was born right next to the building we had clinic in during the day. I came out just as it was trying to walk and reach it’s mother for some milk and it was SO adorable. The last thing we did after we cleaned up our clinic was take bullock cart rides through the village. This was something I had always wanted to do ever since I was little. The DSN students got on one cart, the rest of us on the other and we were off. I ended up sitting on the tiny little pole that connects the harness on the bulls to the cart and I was eternally scared that I was going to fall off. It was a bumpy ride but i felt like I was in a scene of a Telugu movie. The worst part though was because of where I was sitting, my knee kept brushing against one cows bum so I had cow dung all over my left left and the bulls’ tails kept whipping me and hitting me which was painful. But other than that we had a great ride and the bulls carried us all the way up the hill and to our bus.

We got down, bid the villagers farewell, and sat in the bus the almost 45 minutes to the Satya Sai Ashramam, which is what Puttaparthi is famous for. You can’t go in with uncovered shoulders, so Amy was super kind and bought each of us a scarf from a local vendor as a gift. We went inside the ashram, sat inside for some time, came out, and made our way to dinner. By this point everyone was well past the point of exhaustion, not to mention none of us had showered since the morning before and we were all sweaty and gross from being in the sun all day. The major bonus of that day was that the restaurant had free wifi so everyone was excited about. Then got back on the bus and made it back to our resort. It was almost midnight and we were all over the moon excited about finally getting to take showers. By this point in our mission, some of us were starting to get sick and it had finally made it’s way to me. Ever since dinner I was beginning to feel feverish and had body aches so I decided to not join Ridhi and the guys and rather just sleep it off. Best decision I could have made because I had no idea the kind of life changing experiences I would be having the next day.