A touch tardy

Well this has been a long time coming! I have been very bad at keeping my blog up to date but I thought I would try and update you on what exciting things have been happening here.

I was in the paper… for giving blood. Not news worthy or so I thought until when a rather large needle was being inserted into my arm I looked away as I’m a little squeamish only to have the doctor physically turn my head so the cameras could see my face. Joy of joys there were a number of published photos of me looking rather warm whilst the nice man holding the needle in my arm was trying to get out of the photos, unfortunately a wiggling needle leaves a rather large bruise. I have been approached by a couple of people around the town saying they saw my photo in the paper. Apparently a foreigner giving blood is indeed worthy of the papers, or it could have been a slow news day!

Next week I was ill, to the point I had nearly convinced myself I had malaria. Luckily after a couple of tests it was discovered I do not have malaria or typhoid which is a relief. There are many things I would like to bring back from India but malaria is definitely not one of them.

Now on being rather poorly the last thing most people do is think ‘hmmm, I feel a bit better’ and go on a 6 hour car journey to Pakur and Sahibganj, but hey when in India. So off Tanmoy and I popped to Pakur. Tanmoy reliably informed me that these are two of the poorest Districts in India and I can well believe it. One of the first things someone said to me was that ‘life it tough here’ and it true. The infrastructure alone leaves much to be desired, some of the roads are DREADFUL and there are telegraph poles, minus the electric wires and one of the Primary Health Care centres we went to see does not even have regular running water (kind of essential for things like deliveries). It was however naturally beautiful as it is a jungle hilly area so at least it was nice to look out of the window whilst we were being shaken up in a 4 x 4. Sadly my camera battery died within the first two hours of leaving the office so I only managed to get a few shots, which are not great as you can see, in my defence they were taken from a moving vehicle.

The ill health Gods decided to smite me once again with a cold, which is slowly but surely going now. One tip – when someone says ‘EVERYONE is poorly during monsoon’ do not take it lightly!