First full day in India

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I woke up early (about 6.30/7 am) in the morning to the sounds of the streets and chanting from a nearby temple. At about 9 or so I walked down the hall to Projects abroads office and met a volunteer there named Julie. She is doing Journalism in Sivikasi and like me needed to register her visa with the police within 14 days of arrival. We went and had extra passport photos taken since we would need them for forms and then we had breakfast at the Bell Hotel, where a lot of the volunteers placed in Sivikasi ate lunch. After breakfast, we headed off for Virudhunagar, where my hospital is and also the police station we needed to go to. It was about a 45 min drive from Sivikasi to Virudhunagar with Julie, Austin and Francis (two of the medical placement contacts). After a couple of hours at the police station sitting there and waiting around, we were informed to go and have lunch and come back later since it was their lunch time and everyone was going to go.

So we went and had lunch at a hotel in Virudhunagar and then went to Lysander hospital, which is where my placement is at. I met Stephanie and Flora, two girls who had been there for a month already and they are both from the Netherlands. The apartment at the hospital is amazing, nothing like I expected! It had 6 separate rooms, three of which are bedrooms and one is a kitchen and the other is a makeshift bedroom/refrigerator room and the last is a common room with couches and a TV. We also have two Indian toilets attached to the rooms with a shower in each and then also a western toilet right around the corner from our flat.

I dropped off all of my things and then headed off for the orientation of the city with Austin, where I was able to see the banks, train station and two bus stations. The town is also quite large, about 80,000 people live here and the three of us at Lysander are the only white people around.

After the orientation, I was able to quickly meet one of the doctors, Dr. Sigith before I headed back to the police station to finish filling out forms and signing papers. After all that was over, I went back to the hospital, bought a SIM card and met our housekeeper/cook, Shanta, who gave me a big hug and asked where my native place was (a question I have heard a lot).

Finally, I have a place to stay for a bit and unpack all my luggage, which is a nice thought instead of living out of a bag like I have been for the past 4/5 days!

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