The Joys of the head lamp

Week in review in Than Goan Village

*Lived in hut with 3 friends and 2 small mice. The hut was cottage like and there were mosquito nets around all the beds (sort of looks like my room at home with the princess bed). The mouse was small and annoying but by the end he was my friend and as we left he sat in the corner of my closet like a scared little mouse- I think he was sad to see us go.
*Went to two villages to see patients with Doctor Paul ( looks like frank castanza from seinfeld)- The trips to the villages were very fun. Dr. Paul let us listen to the patinets hearts and lungs but for the most part played with the kids- gave out stickers and taught the hokey pokey ( the chiken dance did not go over very well- I think I lost them at put your backside in ( too racey))
*Sat in the Thank Goan village clinic for 6 hours a day seeing patientes with the good doctor and learning about rural medicine.
*Learned to take blood pressure (I am usally about 10 off-give me time I am still learning)
*Ate my weight in daal ( lentil goulash)- they fed it to us at every meal
*Ate 130 chipatti
*Played volleyball- yes there wa a sand volleyball court and I am so good that I may enter myself in the tournament at jones beach- who wil join me?
*Ate a peach with a worm in it then proceeded to puke it up in front of an old man (ok there was no puke but there was an old man)
*Feared for my life that a snake was going to bite me as I walked to the bathroom in the dark at night- supposedly there are snakes and leopards in the area but I did not see any and my headlamp proved to be quite useful.
*Went on a nature walk to look at the plants used as herbs( note: I once wrote a paper about healing herbs in 8th grade. I then proceeded to translate it into Spanish for spanish class and then used it agin for health class- this nature walk was a tribute to this healing herbs paper which I affectionalty referd to as "herbshea" ( because that is the way it was saved on my computer)- Hershea for eva!
*Learned that I am a slow and sweaty hiker
*Swam in a deliciously cold watering hole with wierd water bugs that everyone swore were harmless
*Played with my very fun groupmates

Now I am back in Dehradun, Half of my group left-stacey-austin and jeff-yesterday to go to Delhi before heading home-tear. Three of us rema- myself- alia and kate- and we are spending the night here before Alia and I head to Missouri to meet up with others to go hiking in uttarkashi area ( you can google it or google Har-Ki-Dun) to see what the hike will look like. So. I will be out of contact untill the 28th unless for some reason there is a computer in the Har- Ki-Dun valley. :O)