We caught the bus in time that left Puducherry at 5:30 am to reach Thiruvannamalai. 2 days before this we contacted Dr Regi George (Gi as he is called) to see if we could meet him and also stay at their hospital. He was very welcoming and told me in detail about what bus we had to take, and what bus to take if we missed one of them. It's also described here on their website.
We used google translate tool to decode the tamil boards on buses. I learnt it only this time. It's quite efficient. You take a picture of the text and select on google translate app and voila!
From Thiruvannamalai, we had to take the bus going towards Salem but one that takes the route through Naripalli and stands at a different place than other buses to Salem. We caught a bus called Sumangali going towards Naripalli but later realised it wasn't going to Sittilingi. Nevertheless we got down at Naripalli and decided to figure out our way.
I'm happy this happened because we got to interact with an elderly lady with her grandson and a elderly man (not sure if they were related to each other). She had taken the boy to see a doctor at Salem because he had developed cellulitis of his fingers after an insect bite. We told her that we were doctors going to Sittilingi and both the lady and the man made sure we got into the right bus. Meanwhile she showed all the medications that the doctor had prescribed and I communicated using google translate and translate from Akshay who knew koncham (partly) tamil.
We reached the tribal hospital that afternoon.
At lunch in their canteen, we met a young doctor who had just finished pulling out a baby through C-section in OT.
After lunch, we got to meet Dr Regi (Gi) who along with his wife Dr Lalitha (Tha) started this work at Sittilingi in 1992. Told him about ourselves and our current work and interests and the intention of the visit.
There began the conversations that blew and widened my mind. Have you ever felt this when your thoughts are being broken, barriers being brought down and felt like your mind just expanded like alveoli with fresh gush of oxygen? The feeling was this to be precise. Conversations with Gi and Tha deserves a separate post.
That night Dr Palani, a young doctor was kind enough to take us to the guest house in car. Oh, his blog is another lovely piece to follow.
Next day, we got cycles for us to go around Sittilingi.
We even went on a nice morning walk through the fields
We used google translate tool to decode the tamil boards on buses. I learnt it only this time. It's quite efficient. You take a picture of the text and select on google translate app and voila!
From Thiruvannamalai, we had to take the bus going towards Salem but one that takes the route through Naripalli and stands at a different place than other buses to Salem. We caught a bus called Sumangali going towards Naripalli but later realised it wasn't going to Sittilingi. Nevertheless we got down at Naripalli and decided to figure out our way.
We reached the tribal hospital that afternoon.
At lunch in their canteen, we met a young doctor who had just finished pulling out a baby through C-section in OT.
After lunch, we got to meet Dr Regi (Gi) who along with his wife Dr Lalitha (Tha) started this work at Sittilingi in 1992. Told him about ourselves and our current work and interests and the intention of the visit.
There began the conversations that blew and widened my mind. Have you ever felt this when your thoughts are being broken, barriers being brought down and felt like your mind just expanded like alveoli with fresh gush of oxygen? The feeling was this to be precise. Conversations with Gi and Tha deserves a separate post.
That night Dr Palani, a young doctor was kind enough to take us to the guest house in car. Oh, his blog is another lovely piece to follow.
Next day, we got cycles for us to go around Sittilingi.
We even went on a nice morning walk through the fields
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