The end of the India Program

The last week of the India program sped by with many of the highlights of the trip condensed into the past few days..our coordinators really went all out to make our final week here the best!

On Tuesday we had the best site visit of India- I think I can vouch for the group. We went to the local Tuberculosis center, or "TB Cell" which is included a clinic, lab and research center that is directed under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program of India. We toured through the facility and learned how patients are diagnosed, treated and cured. We walked through the laboratory where they stain the bacteria in the sputum of patients in order to test for TB, and were able to look into the microscope at the Bacilli on a slide- it was surreal to be that close to a disease that we've been talking about this whole month.. Elza used her nerdy chem skills to snap a shot of the slide through the lens of the microscope.. ahhh TB! We walked through the incubator and secured/autoclaved sections where they test for TB and store the samples.. It was interesting to compare this lab to the TB lab we toured in Switzerland at the Tropical Health Institute.

Woo site visits

so close to TB in the incubator ahh

 A few of us indulged in some traditional beauty and pampering by getting our eyebrows threaded, a brief process that resulted in lovely facial-bone framing shaped brows. We had our last two yoga sessions, which dwindled down to three of us for essentially a private class- bittersweet since we had no choice but to perform at 100% and to stretch at maximum in every pose (a drastically different approach to the casual and temporal encouragement of yoga practice at home..).

Yesterday we were finally informed that our suspiciously free afternoon would be consumed with with a competitive scavenger hunt throughout the city. We were divided into 7 groups and had 3 hours to complete as many tasks as possible such as: learn how to sing a traditional Malayalam song, film getting taught a bollywood dance, get someone to show you how to wrap a sari, go to a temple, run a lap around the Ghandi park, ask a vender how to make tea, send Alison a letter to South Africa, buy goofy presents for Chris's kids, get a picture with an animal at the zoo, get a henna tattoo of IHP on your neck, eat a whole chili pepper, try on traditional wedding gold, drive a rickshaw.. it was overall a pretty hilarious day!

Red Bacilli, fresh from the staining process!

Once we were done with our tasks we were given directions to our final location: a rooftop pool party complete with ice cream! It was a relaxing and fun afternoon and we couldn't have asked for a better end of the trip (besides having to crack down and write papers..). I'm so excited to go on vacation and hope to blog during it! We are going to Delhi then Delhouse, Darhmsala then Agra for the Taj Mahal. Can't wait for an epic adventure..

In a sari with the family and scavenger hunt team!

Pool party funnn

The host family, our last night together