We woke up at 7am today, to get ready for our first day of placement. Last night as we were getting ready for bed our water konked out, so we were in suspense as to whether it would be back today or not. Unfortunately there was not a drop of water to be found in the lines. We had a little bit of water stored in the hot water tank, so we heated that up to wash with. Its amazing what you can make due with if you try – we both washed up with maybe 2 L total of water (and that was including me washing my hair!). You know, its funny…if I were anywhere else, and the power was constantly going out, and the water was going out, I would probably be freaking out or at the very least irritated. But in India its all just par for the course.
We were ready to go by 8am, but we weren’t meeting with our director until 9:30am. Our breakfast also hadn’t arrived yet, so we sat on our bed and read for a while, just trying to pass the time. We went over to the office building and discovered that the director still hadn’t arrived. This worked out okay for us though, because it allowed us to go eat the Iddli and unidentifiable sauce that had finally arrived for breakfast.
When we returned to the office at 10am the director still hadn’t arrived, but we were met by another woman, Raja, who managed to find our clinical supervisor, Karthik for us. Karthik seems intense, but very knowledgeable. We also met an Indian physio student who will be interning here for the next three weeks as well. Karthik gave all three of us a tour of the facilities, and then brought us to (finally) meet with the director. The director welcomed us, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to be overly involved in our time here at SPASTN. Priyanka and I had a few questions, namely about the water situation in our building, and also where to go to buy more Salwars (since we only have three each), and she directed us to other people for help.
The facilities at SPASTN are pretty amazing. It is basically a large school with classrooms for children of varying ages and degrees of disability. There is a physical therapy area where kids come at specified times for their therapy, a speech-language therapy area, a toy library, and a music room. One of my favourite rooms in the main facility is the sensory integration room. One half is totally padded, with what looks like a giant jungle gym in the room, including a zip line. The other half has a curtain that you can close to make the room totally dark. You can also turn on fluorescent lighting that lights up all kind of glow in the dark and white objects posted around the room. Apparently using lights like that, or just using a large flashlight makes it easier for low-vision or developmentally delayed children to focus. The other area of the school that is really neat is the vocational training centre. Here, children (I think ages 14 and over) learn to skills like printing, cooking, computers and crafts. They sell the products that the kids make (like printed advertisements, wedding invitations, candles, gift bags and jewellery) in the community. I think I will definitely be bringing home some things – its neat stuff!
Karthik told us that usually interns at SPASTN are here on a purely observational basis, and seemed rather taken aback when we told him that hands on experience is a large part of our internships at home. He took it in stride though, and said that this week he would like us to observe, and then we could possibly start some hands on training next week.
We spent the rest of the morning observing in the sensory integration area and music room. The music room was cool – the music teachers seems very nice, and all the kids really respond to the music. Its kind of the Indian version of Rainbow songs!
In the afternoon we observed in the physio gym for a few hours. It was a little bit frustrating and overwhelming, because the physios never really explained to us what they were doing with the kids. The spoke with them in Tamil, and it was difficult for us to get a sense of what their treatment goals were. We would ask after each patient, but it felt a little bit like we were in the way, and being an annoyance.
Before we left we asked Priya, the physio that we met on the weekend, to take us out to shop for some more salwars. It seemed like she wasn’t very happy with the idea ( I guess she is a busy lady after all) but she agreed to help us out tomorrow, possibly.
We finished around 4:15 and got ready to head into town to try and sort out our internet and top up our phone. Topping up the phone was a piece of cake – we got about 90 more minutes of calling to Canada for 151 INR, which is a little less than $4 CAD. The internet was trickier…we stood in the shop for a good half and hour, and kept getting brushed off by the sales man. Apparently getting an internet dongle is a big deal for foreigners, and he kept trying to tell us we didn’t have the correct documentation, and to come back tomorrow. Eventually we gave up and left, frustrated. We went to a local internet café and checked and sent a few emails, far from the unlimited internet we were hoping to take with us. It would be really nice to have internet in our rooms, just to feel a little more connected to the outside world. It would be so much easier to keep in touch with friends and family that way, not to mention look things up for the project Karthik wants us to do for him.
We took an Auto rickshaw back to the compound (and managed to bargain him down from 60INR to 30!) and the security guard escorted us back to our building (it was dark and we didn’t want to have any run ins with snakes).
We ate dinner, talked to our families, and chatted with each other a little bit about the frustrations of the day. Now we’re just sitting quiety, relaxing for a while before bed. I’ve only been here for a matter of days, and already its been a life changing experience. I don’t want to sound like I am complaining all the time – no sense in going to a new country to complain that things are different from home, but they are SO different from home! Its interesting – things that are so simple for us to do at home (like go to the store and buy something) take so much longer and are so much more complicated here. Little things, like its so much harder to cross the street here, because there aren’t traffic lights everywhere, and the cars don’t really watch for pedestrians. It’s a huge contrast to Canada, and it makes me realize genuinely how fortunate I am to live there. I think the reason why some days have been difficult since coming here, is because we are actually trying to LIVE here for 6 weeks. Its not like we are on vacation and staying in nice hotels, traveling around. We’re actually trying to integrate ourselves with the locals and live like locals. Its definitely harder, but more realistic, and I’m glad to be doing it, because it gives me a more real picture of what life here is like.
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