August 6th: Back to Hyderabad

After breakfast at the hotel we checked out of the hotel (this involved its own level of drama) and piled into the vans, much later than intended, to return to NRI. When we arrived we briefly got to pop into the post-natal ward before being whisked off to present to the medical students and residents. At the end of the presentation we actually met several students originally from the US who had come out to India for medical school.

NRI students

A pediatric resident then took me to the pediatric ward where we were able to talk about my device in depth. A medical student joined us and we discussed features, how to really get through to mothers, and the challenges around cultural practices. For example, there are groups that don't believe in a child wearing any clothing for the first 11 days of live. The resident seemed frustrated by how difficult it was to implement change, but she seemed resilient.

She took me to see the labor ward and then returned me to the auditorium to meet back up with my group. We then went to find members of the prosthetic team who had been promised a Jaipur limb. When we found John and Jason, Jason proudly showed us the new limb that had been given to him. It was clearly his baby. We tried not to judge.

We all climbed back into the cars. We made a couple of quick stops on the way to the train station. The first was to buy fruit (mmmm bananas and pomegranates) and the second was to buy me some more spices (my first batch was mysterious MIA). We got to the train station around 1pm, but our 1:30pm train got continually delayed until around 2:30 or so. We sat on the floor, playing bananagrams as we waited.

Buying fruit

This train adventure was definitely more eventful than the one we took on the way to Guntur. Instead of the AC compartment, we were in the "everymans" section of the train. The windows and doors were both open, and we were able to see the Indian countryside fly by.

Countryside

Fiona looking out through the door

Our train didn't get into Hyderabad until 7:45 or so. We didn't manage to make it back to the hotel until 10 pm. We were exhausted and covered in train and hungry (no lunch or dinner, i.e. a bit crazed). We hurriedly checked back in, ordered food (this took about, oh, 10 or so tries), showered, and went to bed around 11:30 or so.