India – Our Home
I have only spent a short amount of this blog telling you about the technical side of this mission. These trips can be very emotional as we have traveled half way around the world and your senses are at the highest they may have ever been so I like to talk about the people, the culture and our team. As I keep in touch with friends and family back home I get asked a lot about “what is it like there?” So today I would like to tell you a little bit about what our medical team sees daily as they do their amazing work.
You know we have been in the Sewa Eye Hospital Trust which really doesn’t completely describe the facility. “Our Home” for this week is a four story building that sits on a street that is barely big enough for two very small vehicles to pass side by side. It is right in the middle of a neighborhood, not on a large campus as hospitals are in the US. You hear the constant sound of mopeds and honking as you enter the facility. There are significant trash piles on each corner and no sidewalks, but the street is very active with people, vegetable and fruit carts, and cattle. Whoa! Yes, cattle. They roam free here and don’t be surprised as you get out of the car if one brushes by. On the front step is an older gentleman that acts as a guard in a nicely pressed fatigue-type outfit with white hair and a big bushy white mustache.
Arrival At Hospital
Once inside, to your left is a small Hindu temple for the staff, families and volunteers. After passing the temple you climb a curved staircase to the second floor where our team of three surgeons work in two surgical suites. These rooms are about half the size of those back home but to me look like any normal surgery room with large round lights above each surgery area, but these particular hospital rooms have marble on the floor and walls. Just outside the suites is a room about 9’ x 14’ (probably about the size of a small bedroom in your house) that has three couches, three coffee tables and a refrigerator where 15 Medical Missions volunteers sneak in to have lunch along with any number of hospital volunteers. Just 20 paces away is a room with 9 beds for pre- and post-op. It really does seem to be a nice set up. There is no typical patient room like we are accustomed to in the United States. There are large wards of anywhere from 20-50 metal cots depending on the room. The cots are perfectly lined up and actually look quite comfortable. There is a group of young men that clean the floors many times throughout the day and many other volunteers that keep a watchful eye on the patients.
Pre- and Post-Op
The building reminds me of an older office building back home with small passages to get from one section to the next. The reason it might feel that way is that you are moving from one building to the next. Space is tight in India and most buildings are like a stick of chewing gum, narrow and long. So it appears there are two buildings you move between if you work your way from the surgery suites to the area the patients recover in. I have been told by our medical staff the facility is very organized. Supplies are close by and of course everyone is so helpful and appreciative that we are here.
Surgical Suite
That is the quick brick and mortar report on where we all go each day while we are in India. But I know that the layout of the building is not what has made this truly our home for week. It is the all of the mission volunteers and the people we have met here.
You can work or live anywhere, but it is the people that make your home what it is. There is a calming feeling having your friends and family close by just in case you need them. All of you should know it feels very safe here. We are in a wonderful facility each day with people that are taking great care of us and are concerned more about our well-being than their own. These Mission trips are important and leaving the comfort of our everyday life is what we choose to do. You venture away and go where the need is, and along the way you meet some loving and giving people that help make any place you work or stay feel a little bit like home.
