last blog for now....

Seems so crazy to sit here and try and write a last blog.....we are currently in Bali, Indonesia having a lil holiday on the way home, which to be honest now I'm here is the perfect transition back to living life in NZ....

Our last days at the ashram were chilled..a few last minute errands to the tailor (nice wee dress made for the equivalent of $3nz..), sorting out our heavy packs and spending time with the patients. So hard when they all ask "when are you coming back....please stay....come back very quickly..." . I want to say yes to all of these but we are also so torn in that we have not been home for 2 years now and miss our family and friends like crazy!

I really feel like this wont be the last time in India. Although some days il quite honestly say I hated the place, other days I just loved it. It is a country of opposites and extremes and am incredibly grateful to have had that time we did. It is beautiful and ugly, crazy and peaceful, greedy and generous. It ignited a passion for the poor and needy that I will pray I keep for the rest of my life....wherever that will be in the world!

What I have come to realise is that there are poor and needy people throughout the world. Yes there is a desperate need of aid and a revolution amongst the poor country's like India...Africa...China and many others.
I am completely positive we need to stop being ignorant to the struggles that go on in these country's and realise our responsibility to help.
A huge way to help is obviously financially. Find places that are trustworthy (cue the plug for the ashram....http://www.sewa-ashram.org) but also sponsoring a child, and putting a little money aside to help people you know of going to these places to help "on the ground".
I know I am changed forever from working in Delhi, but also can totally see how this is not every ones calling here !

I love the quote Mother Theresa said when talking about the poor in the 3rd world and the poor in the west. She said something like (sorry don't have direct quote)..."Yes we have many many poor in India, but you in the west are suffering from a much greater need-the poor in spirit. There are many people dying of lack of love and community".

I kind of want to take this as a mission statement for myself and I know Jake stands with me with saying that wherever we are in the world......its so so important to be aware of all that are around you. We do not live in a bubble as I like to sometimes think...so caring for others and giving out wherever you feel called is needed in all parts of the world. Trust me it will actually end up giving you so much reward in helping others. Brilliant.

Just a wee note to say thanks to all that have read the blogs-I know they have not been easy to read sometimes. Was real life for us though, and showed real lives of a tiny fraction living in Delhi.

Be encouraged that we can all achieve so much in this life time and if we are remembered for our bank accounts, new gadgets and latest threads then I feel we would have failed.
Build relationships and reach out to help others in all aspects of their lives. We have been given so much in lovely New Zealand and around the world that we are lucky to have alot more we are able to give out.

Thanks again for reading and your encouraging words.....made our tough days so much more doable. =)

Loads and loads of love...
Ruth and Jake

Yamuna Bazaar pick up

Homeless guy sleeping right beside the open sewer.

Waiting to see the Dr for his TB medication

The drop in centre with the local sewer running through.

Junkie in the trash.

This is Gopal on the street-traffic and people all around but not one who helped.

Sonu having his wash and shave

Gopal's swollen and dirt encrusted feet waiting for his shower.

Sonu tired and broken.

Sonu.

Had thee craziest last few days.
Went to Yamuna Bazaar with the head nurse from here (Uwe) and an Indian worker to look for new patients. We went first to a drop in centre in the heart of the bazaar where junkies and the homeless can receive free Dr treatment and clean needles. They work in two tiny dark rooms which sit right beside the open sewer. I had to step in this to get across to the small building. Nice. Got to take a few photos which was cool because usually you don't really wanna take out a piece of equipment that's worth a good 6 months of dirty drugs to them.

We drove to another spot in Delhi and weaved our way through the small streets through cows, rickshaws, scooters and cars to a small lot filled with trash and junkies.
As we walked through the trash I looked down to notice all the used syringes and needles sticking up through the rubble thinking thin jandals were not the best footwear I could have worn.
I found myself surrounded by junkies one wielding a needle and syringe totally off his face asking to money for "his two children". The look in his eyes of sheer desperation for drugs was so awful. I stepped around another passed out guy and found one patient with one leg missing and the other leg a big wound so we picked him up and chucked him in the back of the ambulance.
By now a crowd had formed as they do when you are the only white people they'd ever see in their part of Delhi. They surrounded the ambulance and one junkie who had just tried to grab the other male nurses camera asked us for money. When told no he reached in to grab the ambulance keys out of the ignition. After some yelling pushing some guys from the street pushed a few of them back so we could drive off.

We did a quick drive by the Bazaar again and found two guys a few metres apart. One was so emaciated and dirty and cried out in pain as we lifted him him up and into the ambulance. The other I found him completely naked under his disgusting thin blanket which was dark with dirt and flies.
We headed back to the ashram to shower and clothe them.
Seeing them naked and broken as a few other workers washed and shaved their heads was heart wrenching. They were the skinniest guys I have ever seen. Gopal could not lift his head he was so weak, and even after the full showering and shaving we still could not get rid of the flies.

Over the next few days we gave then the best medication and care we could and started TB medication for both of them. Sonu was the first to give up his fight in life. His lung collapsed late Saturday night. He was rushed to hospital but was refused by two hospitals after taking one look at him in his state and knowing he was sputum positive TB. The third hospital after alot of persuading intubated him but it was too late.

Gopal dying yesterday gutted me. I had spent so long with him begging him to eat and getting it interpreted he had to fight to stay alive. He asked for Pepsi which I got and then bribed him to eat a few spoonfuls of rice. Late yesterday afternoon I found him unconscious and after doing everything we could he started seizuring. After an agonising two hours waiting with him he died.
So frustrating as I wanted these two guys so badly to have a new chance in life, a little help out of the pits of destitution so they could see that they were important, and so worth loving and living.
Crying in my room that night Jake reminded me that even though they died, they did not die like a dog on the street as they would have. A little comfort on a crap night.

Holi, and the first of the goodbyes.

Bipul with his hand in the cookie jar

Some of the rad staff at the ashram.....

Sam wasting Prakash

Jenni's last night-dinner at the gorgeous Praseeda's

A few of her 17 kids....

One of the guys in the local market sitting on his fruit throne.

Celebrated parts of a festival over here called Holi. This is one of the huge Indian festivals where everyone goes crazy buying colorful paints and powders for a en mass water and dye fight.
The streets are bathed in a rainbow of colors and the silly people wearing their best shirts on that day trudge home to the washing machine.
Helped start the celebrating in the afternoon by myself and Sam starting a mass water fight....all fun and games until someone brings out the packet color dyes! Also hilarious until you try and scrub your face and the colors don't come off with the layer of skin that did. haha.

Had to say goodbye to another kiwi volunteer the other night Jenni-had an incredible selection of our favourite Indian foods (rice and dhal did not make the list) at Praseeda and Prakash's house while playing games with their brilliant kids. Lovely night. Crazy to think we only have 8 days here to go......

Giving Hope Foundation Orphanage

Jake with the CP boy at the orphanage. Cutest lil boy wanting to help too.

Me and one of the lil girls

The classroom.

Two days ago we traveled into Delhi with another aussie guy Ray that's working here at the ashram and Praseeda ( the mother of the 17 adopted street kids we have spoken of). We went to go see a small orphanage which is part of the hope foundation. We arrived and had to check the address...we were in a clean neighbourhood and the building was colorful and nice!
We were greeted by Wendy the manager who was so warm and inviting.
We walked into a mall room which was being used as a classroom for a group of kiddies, they were all well dressed and so so cute! One little girl who is unable to talk for unknown reasons babbled away using huge hand movements and even pulled a "hang loose" sign at me (thinking this was a mistake but kudos all the same).
Upstairs some smaller children played in a room with a huge hand painted mural of a scene from the bible of an abandoned baby moses being picked up by ladies at a river side. One boy with cerebral palsy was gorgeous. He smiled and laughed and his eyes were so playful. The other small kids loved attention and hugs and scrambled to take turns in hugging us.
One girl (who I am holding in a photograph) was found under a bridge. She has a skin problem where she bleeds into her skin so looks red and blotchy, she also has behavioural difficulties. When she was found and bought to the orphanage by the police she was so malnourished was just skin and bones, her cheekbones protruding. Now she is jumping around the room, asking for love and attention. My heart really broke for her, there is a very small chance she will get adopted into a family as she does not appear "normal".
So many of these cuties are abandoned in the streets, left not knowing who would find them, whether that be a kind or bad person, or hungry street dogs or rats. These kids are so helpless! Some parents are just so desperate and it is sometimes a question of if we let this new child live, then the rest of us die. I definitely struggle with this but I also know I have never been in a situation of absolute desperation.

We sat in the babies room and talked about the children's stories, who is adopting who and how the orphanage started. I love finding these places in Delhi. Sometimes you just feel like no one else cares and this city is just a massive survival of the fittest. which in alot of ways it is....yet there is still pockets of goodness like this orphanage. Wendy quotes "I do not want this to be a cliche orphanage, I want this to be a good time for them, in fact I want this to be their best memory". So cool.

Our neighbours the Rajastani nomads. Wanting to show us his prize bull-I took the photo and was outta there.

Chatting to a local family picking up some firewood.

Kaka-one of my favourite intellectually handicapped patients. So funny and lovely

Jake works hard so gets thirsty.....

Hahaha love some of the outfits worn here. All the clothes are donated so this sparkly number came from some kind American. I like to call him our ashram mirror ball.

Hanging out and coloring with the kiddies-Sara Gousty these are the ones you sent over! Rad.

Himalayas and good endings to munted feet..

Playing in the snow

The ski slopes when we arrived (apparently covered in 15 feet 3 days later although inaccessible!)

Mountainbiking in the Himalayas

One month to go.
4 and a half months have gone by and it seems like so much longer when we think of what we’ve experienced and seen in this time. There’s been hard times when we’ve missed home and it felt like it was still so long till we would be back there, but now we’ve only got 4 weeks left and we’re starting to worry about how we’re going to be when we have to say good bye to this place and all the faces.


We had a week away in the Himalaya’s in northern india at the beginning of Feb with some of the other foreign workers at the ashram. It took us 15 hours to drive there (one little missed turn makes a big difference). We were hoping to get some snowboarding in but when we drove to the ski area there wasn’t any snow so we ended up doing a 40km mountainbike instead. The next night it started to snow heavily (I’ve never seen such big snow flakes!) and didn’t stop really until we left. We were so stoked with the snow until the power in the town went out, the roads were all closed and we were stuck in a budget hotel with no heating or hot water for 3 days. It was still heaps of fun and nice to have some time away from the noise, dirtiness and crowds that are delhi.

So we left still not able to snowboard at all as it was impossible to get up to the ski slopes and we were lucky to be able to drive home. To get out of the mountains it took us 5 hours to drive 30km’s due the snow…the shovel (brilliantly nicknamed Novel the shovel) we brought before leaving was so needed!


We got invited to another wedding the other night. The Dr from the Ashram’s good friend was getting hitched in a rare love marriage. We were to meet the Dr at the wedding venue later that night. We got all glammed up in our Sari’s and the boys in their suit jackets. This wedding was SO so flash. Cant even describe it! Millions of fairy nights, massive flat screen projections with film crews documenting the whole wedding. Dance floor with DJ and lights,waiters bringing around mocktails with umbrellas, and most importantly row upon row of food stands from all around India.…..AMAZING!!!
We worked our way upstairs to yet another food area which we had to sample and mingled some of the curious guests (wondering why the pales faces were eating all their chilli paneer). When we hear the band starting up outside signaling the groom has arrived on his horse drawn lighted cart.

The fun drum and brass band plays while you dance like crazy while men throw 10 rupee (about 30 cents worth) notes in the air which are quickly snatched up by lil street kiddies (check out the video at the end of the blog). We danced for about an hour wondering where our Dr friend was…..Got a phone call from him asking where we were, which we said "with the groom"……which apparently he was too-we searched around but couldn’t see him anywhere. Our friend finaly comes around the corner cracking up as turns out we were at the totally wrong wedding!!!! I could hardly make the run out of the wedding as I was doubled over laughing. The rest of the right wedding was wicked though…….hmmm the food. We are planning to crash another wedding tomorrow night actually…..

Vishisht

Vishisht is a cool story. If you look back at our earlier blog called "another day, another dhal" you can see a photo of when we found him outside one of the Delhi hospitals. He had such a munted foot with bones and raw flesh overflowing with maggots. Finaly got him to agree to come with us and then to consent to get operated on to get the foot amputated as he was in sepsis (massive body infection) and a little crazy.
We thought the doc's would have to amputate his whole lower leg but they managed to just amputate the fore foot leaving a wound that would normally need a skin graft to heal but which wasn't available. We were worried it wouldn't heal but he is making massive progress every day with the wound healing beautifully. He’s still a little crazy but seeing him singing and drumming away with a massive grin today shows how far he’s come.

Had lunch at Jakes friends house a few days ago, sat up on his roof of his grandfathers house (which has been passed through the generations and now will be his) and watched the colorful neighborhood. The village sky was littered with homemade kites that the kids flew by jumping from roof top to roof top. Felt like I was in a scene from the kite runner.
Some of the cute shy kids hopped over to see us up close as we would have been the first white people they had ever seen in real life.

kite runners

So many mixed emotions about leaving in 4 weeks…..Taking it as it comes but already feeling like each day left I want to make the most of.

Lots of love. Ruth and Jake

Video of the girls dancing at the wrong wedding

Catching a ricksaw through Delhi

Babu got his leg!

Windswept in the jeep-Corbett National park

My safari buddy

How the kiddies get to school......A locked cage rickshaw. Brilliant idea

Elephant ride looking for tigers......

I liked this one.

Some alligators looking for lunch

Trying to sleep on the train....fun experience but definatly no sleep!




Its gotten busy again which is cool.....We had 2 days off for our 3 year wedding anniversary to catch the overnight train up to Corbett National park-about a 7 hour train ride away. Its known for its tigers, wild life and elephant rides. The train trip was an experience! You get woken up every half an hour with guys yelling "CHAI CHAI CHAI" , seeing if any ones up for a cuppa Indian tea. We got a 2 day tour with a guy in his jeep through the national park spotting loads of animals like owls, otters, crocodiles and alligators, dear, wild boar and loads of monkeys. Also loads of rare but boring birds.

We stayed the night in the reserve and went on a cool elephant safari at 7 am for a few hours through the long grass trying to find us a tiger. Didn't get to see one which was a bummer but still such a nice few nights away.

The public buses here are so funny. They cant believe it when you get on as no white people ride the buses here, and they arn't too used to seeing white people up north Delhi where we live. All the Indians within sight turn around in their seats to get comfortable enough to stare at you the WHOLE hour home. Makes things slightly awkward! Haha.

Babu Sadar - the pickpocket guy we picked up at the start of this blog (fell on train tracks and munched his foot trying to escape after stealing purses on train) has got his new prosthetic leg! Hes so happy and its hard to take it back off him as he wants to practice all the time. He says hes really keen to get back to his wife and 7 year old boy he left in Calcutta so we will buy him a train ticket home. So so hoping he doesn't sell this to go back to Yamuna Bazaar for drugs like so many patients do. Man its frustrating! You wan the best for these patients yet ultimately they have to make their own life choices.

We had a bit of a scare the other day when a lil 4 year old boy here I love called Arun (hes in a few pics-one on Jake's shoulders earlier in blogs) had a epileptic seizure and was found outside the kids house face down in a rotten sewage puddle. He was grabbed out while Jake and our friend Ruth tryed to sweep out his mouth and see if he was breathing. He was unconscious but still breathing ok. He came around but was really drowsy as they are post seizure.

I picked him up and drove him into the local doctor who checked his lungs and made sure he was OK which he was thanks goodness.

Its so hard as I definatly love this lil boy and feel I am getting attatched yet find it hard not to as he is just crying out for love and attention which his parents do not give him. You want to give them so much love yet know it will be hard when we have to leave in 6 weeks-both for us and the patients also.

Some good news is the guy Jake picked up from outside the hospital with all his foot bones sticking out and maggots falling everywhere has had his patial foot ampuation and its looking good. I was dreading taking the dressing down but its looking healthy so we can get a skin graft to cover it then send him home. He definatly abit crazy but harmless.

So many funny characters here which makes this place hilerious, never a dull moment!

Koi baat nahi

Pyara Baba

Two of our patients passed away this morning. One of our staff came and told Ruth before breakfast that they weren't doing well. She found them in their beds semi conscious and struggling to breathe. Pyara Baba had been with us for months and was on TB meds but over the last couple of months his brain had slowly deteriorated from TB menengitis and he had become one of the crazy characters that makes life at the ashram so colourful and different. His tall and skinny body been helped to the clinic for his dressing as he called out "koi baat nahi" (hindi for 'don't worry') was an everyday sight and sound that we'd gotten used to.
The other patient, Lakhan, was a more recent admission, also suffering from long term TB. He was old, emaciated, and had a chest drain protruding from his right lung that sucked in air every time he inhaled. He'd been walking around the ashram even as recently as yesterday, and didn't look too close to death. But this morning, he looked like another man, gasping for breath, eyes glazed over, and not responsive to questions.
The decision was made not to rush them to a hospital as they probably wouldn't survive the journey and the hospitals won't intubate someone whose sputum positive for TB anyway. So we put them on oxygen and spent the next hour with them, comforting them as best we could as we sat with them, holding their hands and inwardly hoping they wouldn't struggle for too much longer. Lakhan was the first to give up his struggle for oxygen and his laboured gasps became slower and slower until they stopped altogether. Pyara Baba followed him within minutes.
The Indian boys then wrapped the bodies in white linen and covered them with flowers from our garden and we had a small funeral service for them. A time to reflect on the value of life, its shortness and the importance of how we choose to live it.
Its been such a privilege to be able to help give these guys food, shelter, care and love so at least their death wasn't alone and on the street like much of their lives had been.

The new year begins

Raj Kumar

Cremation, India style on the Yamuna bank

A namaste from Kaka

Sunday night chicken biriyani

Rajastani nomad walking his sheep on the main road

hey!

Its been awhile since we last blogged, but not too much has been going on here. It is the middle of winter here at the moment...for some reason I thought India was always warm! Its so cold though, which is OK but as there is no heating there isn't any place to get warm again. You can only imagine what it is like living on the street at this time of year (like the 150000 people that do in Delhi).

All the patients are hiding in their beds under their blankets all day so the ashram feels more quiet than usual! The days here are very foggy and apparently we will not see the sunlight much at all for the whole of January. Bring on February!

One thing I'm loving at the moment is going running with Jake or my other friend Ruth on the back roads here. We definetly get some funny looks as 1) we are the only white people in this area. 2) We are running-apparently not a big market for exercise among the poorer Indians! We have got to know the local Rajistani nomads who live in the surrounding fields who greet us every afternoon we head out for a jog. They even stopped us the other day to ask us to help them pull a massive loads of hay off a tractor for their animals. So funny to be pulling on a rope attached to their hay load with turban wearing moustache curled nomads. One of those "what the heck?" moments for me for sure. Was loving it though.

We have just received a new grant to get two more patients prosthetics which is so cool! Our other grant through a south Delhi hospital had run out so we would have to pay for them ourselves...money that wasn't there really. So yeah a huge blessing to get a grant through another hospital!

More patients are turning up every week. Seems crazy that in a city of 20 million we are the only type of facility that helps these destitute patients in the way we do in regards to medical care and rehabilitation.

Things are chugging along. Feels quiet at the moment but maybe we are just getting used to the craziness that is India.