Balloons and Hand-games: Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre

(Journaled on March 31, 2012)

Early on Saturday, I went to the Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre with Sarah and Mya.  I utilized my navigation skills on the auto-rickshaw ride there.  As planned, we got there in time for the family meeting.  Everyone dispersed in different directions at the close of the meeting.  Sarah approached the two young boys and gave them balloons.  These were not ordinary balloons, but large balloons in odd shapes and with funny faces on them.  Shortly after handing out the balloons, Sarah and Mya decided that they would volunteer at the Leprosy Centre located less than a kilometer away and return in two hours so that the three of us could catch an auto rickshaw together. 

I was surprised that I was going to be volunteering at the HIV Centre by myself, but any anxiety that I had subsided as soon as I joined the group hanging around the entrance to the building.  All of the women had mehndi, known as henna in the United States, decorating their palms.  One of the more outgoing young men insisted that I put a design on his palm, so I proceeded to use my pen to draw swirls and angles on his palm.  After I finished drawing, he drew a house next to an apple tree on my palm with roads to the house running down my fingers. 

Last visit I found painting nails to be a great activity for the women.  With this in mind, I made sure to pack nail polish in my bag.  In fact, I packed color-changing nail polish that is coral indoors, but transforms into a deep purple when exposed to sunlight.  I went over to the women’s courters and painted my thumb and demonstrated the color transformation for the women.  The ladies found the polish fascinating and I started my rounds painting each lady’s fingernails.   One of the women still had her nails painted turquois from when I had visited two days prior, but she started scraping off the polish without hesitation in order to get the color-changing polish applied.  I only finished painting the nails of three women when they had to report to their morning chores. 

I made my way towards the main building in hope of making myself useful.  On my way over, one of the elderly female patients approached me in great distress.  She was weeping.  She grabbed onto my hands as she starred into my eyes and cried in Hindi to me.  I embraced her trying to comfort her.  She continued to speak Hindi to me with the tears gushing down her cheeks and her hands clenching mine.  One of the other patients came up to us and walked the elderly woman back to her room.  The other patient came back and said “Baby” and then motioned upwards to indicate passed away.  Then said, “Mental” and indicated that the elderly woman in duress lives in a separate quarters with the other patients that have psychological issues.  Apparently, the elderly woman believed that her baby had just died.  These psychologically disturbed patients are not able to participate in the family meetings.  Witnessing how the younger patient managed this episode shined light on how these women have bonded together and formed a support system for each other.

            Since most of the women were busy with their chores, there were only a select few who were available to socialize with me.  I found a group of a few women sitting on the steps of the main facility.  I situated my self in the middle of the small staircase and pulled out my notebook, not sure of what exactly to do.  Luckily, I did not have to think of any activity, because one of the men passing through grabbed the notebook and proceeded to write.  Once he was finished carefully writing out his name, he handed it back for me to write my name on the page.  Shortly after this, a girl who looked to be about 17 or 18 years old came up to the Centre.  We introduced ourselves and immediately hit it off.  We played a series of hand games, alternating teaching one another different routines.  Mid hand-game, she tightly grabbed both of my hands, leaned back, and started going in a circle.  We were spinning at full speed until both of us could no longer maintain our footing or balance.  I later came to find out from one of the other patients that she was blind.  When I first heard this, I was convinced that they were thinking of someone else.  But the next time that I saw her I began to notice how her mannerisms confirmed that she was functioning without vision.

Eventually, it was time for chia and I went inside to join the others who had just finished their morning chores.  Mya and Sarah arrived back from the Leprosy Centre and began making bracelets for the young boys and the women.  The young boys were still enjoying the large balloons from earlier.  When it came time to leave, I went to hug the woman who had scraped off the nail polish from Thursday and she asked me to paint her nails before I left.  And that is exactly what I did. 

Unlike my very first visit, I had to be basically dragged out of the Centre by Sara and Mya.  Every time I moved towards the door, I was drawn into another conversation with another patient.  This trend repeated itself half a dozen times between the time that Mya and Sarah told me that we had to go and the time that I physically left the facility.  

 First photo of the visit!  

 Say cheese!

 That large balloon proved to be dangerous :-)

Mastering the art of hand-games. 

 I love these two ladies!

 Saying farewell till next time.  

 The future of Bollywood right here.

 Mya making bracelets.

The cool guys of the bunch :-)

Saris and Manicures: Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre

To my pleasant surprise, the Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre allowed for Ana and me to be the exception to the no-camera rule.  Below is a journal entry about my experience followed by some photos taken during the visit.  Enjoy.

 (Journaled on March 29, 2012)

I began my journey to the Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre with Ana at 8:15am on Thursday, March 29, 2012.  I knew that the day was off to a good start when the first auto driver that we approached knew our destination and automatically switched on the meter.  The auto driver was also in a good mood.  As we hugged the corners, he would reach out and slap his friends, fellow auto drivers who were hanging out on the side of the road, on their backs.  About two kilometers into the ride he flagged down another auto and transferred us to him.  Fortunately, I have learned how to get to the HIV Centre, so I was able to navigate the driver directly to Sumanahalli.

Ana and I arrived just as the common room was filling for the family meeting.  We seated ourselves on the female side of the room and waited for everyone else to come.  Ana and I decided that we would ask the Sister if we could be the exception to the no-camera rule for volunteers.  Fortunately, the Sister responded to our request with a bright smile followed by saying, “Of course”.  We didn’t know this at the time, but one of the younger female patients ended up taking the initiative to help us document the visit by using Ana’s camera to take hundreds of pictures.  The family meeting began as usual with beautiful prayers sang by the women before everyone went around saying how they are doing.  Over the past visits I have become aware of the social dynamics within the Centre.  There are a few younger patients who appear to be relatively healthy and always seem to have control over the conversation during the family meetings by responding to everyone’s commentary.  Then there are the patients who are clearly in the later stages of HIV/AIDS who simply shake their head instead of verbally stating how they are doing.  And finally, there are the patients who are socially awkward during the meetings by having outbursts.  These socially awkward individuals are not welcomed by most of the other patients.  The social rejection of these few individuals was apparent during the meeting today when none of the female patients would make room on the bench for the awkward woman to sit.  Towards the end of the meeting, the male counselor voiced a complaint about the quantity of tea being requested by the patients.  The only patients to respond to the counselor’s accusation were the young and extroverted. 

After the closing prayer of the family meeting, Ana and I went to the women’s courters and started a round of songs.  We each sang a few verses of our favorite song.  After a dozen songs or so, we moved into some tic-tac-toe and drawing.  While searching her purse for another pen, Ana found turquoise nail polish.  The women did not hesitate to begin painting Ana’s nails.  I took this opportunity to put my manicurist skills to the test and began to paint the nails of one of the women.  Painting her nails was really fun to begin with, but I was having too much fun by taking extra measures to make her feel as though she were in a salon.  I gently blew on her nails before switching to the next hand and made sure that none of the paint got onto her skin.  Watching her admire her own hands after I finished was so rewarding to me.  I knew that I had accomplished my goal of making her feel special and pampered.

Amidst the different activities was an incident between one of the older women and a young boy.  I looked to see what was going on and the older woman had grabbed a wooden paint-stirrer and waved it in the air as a warning to the boy.  Confused, I asked what the boy had done and they indicated that the boy had hit one of the other patients.  When the young boy did not apologize, she lightly tapped him on the lips and cheek with the stick.  He burst into tears.  It was painful to restrain myself from comforting him, but I knew that it was not my place to interfere with their disciplining of the boy. 

Apparently I had been so distracted with the commotion that I had not seen Ana go inside with one of the women.  When Ana emerged from the back room she was dressed in a burgundy and gold Sari.  The women then proceeded to decorate Ana by tying her hair and placing a red flower in it.  She looked absolutely beautiful.  Before I knew it, I was being led to the back in order to be wrapped in a vibrant pink and white Sari.  The sight of us dressed up tickled everyone.  The women were giggling and repeating, “Hindustani! You Hindustani!”  Ana and I were then urged to walk to the main building in order to show the rest of the Sumanahalli family.  Every person who we modeled for laughed hysterically while attempting to give us compliments.  After being paraded around for 10 minutes, we returned to the women’s courters and visited for about 15 minutes.

The last part of the visit was very touching.  One woman unwrapped the Sari from me and I helped her fold the long cloth.  As she put the pink Sari away in a small compartment under her metal bed, it struck me; the Sari that had been wrapped around my plump waist was the same Sari that this shockingly thin and petite woman wraps around herself.  While in her compartment, she pulled out an old box that housed an old envelope with photos in it.  She handed the photos to me, describing each photo to me with a combination of broken English and hand movements.  I felt honored that she had opened her personal life to me.  Ana and I were both disappointed when we realized that it was time for us to leave for our afternoon classes at Christ University.  

 The famous "Daily Schedule".

  

 The best feeling ever is being greeted with a hug from this kind-hearted woman.  

I really do love this woman! ...Even though she continuously beats me in tic-tac-toe. :-)

 Ana and the gals.

All of us hanging out for a bit.

 Treating her to a manicure.

 My very first time wearing a Sari!

It is a lot trickier than it looks.

 I eventually had to take the hands-off approach and let her do her thing.

 Ana and me having one of our "moments".

 Walking to the main facility to dazzle the staff with our new Saris.

 Getting ready for the group photo.

 Look at this group of beautiful women!

 Coming from getting a tour of her photo album.

 Strike a pose!...They ask and I do.

 Ana getting her hair and Sari photo-ready.

The final product.  Simply beautiful.

Nap time is anytime anywhere.  I support it. :-)

Eye Opener: Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre

(Journaled on March 16, 2012)

            Although I usually visit Sumanahalli on Tuesday or Thursday mornings, I decided to take advantage of an impromptu invitation from some classmates to join them in going to Sumanahalli after our Friday Population and Poverty class.  Unfortunately, my usual volunteering partners, Ashley and Sphoorti, were unable to come.  This change of company and time of visit proved to alter the volunteering experience.

Although there were a total of seven volunteers leaving from Christ College, we all separated into small groups for the auto ride.  The plan was that we would all catch separate autos, with Ana and I paired together, and meet at the Sumanahalli HIV Centre.  Ana and I were not expecting that we would be separated from the other volunteers for the majority of our visit.  The first event to contribute to our separation from the others is that our auto driver did not know where the Sumanahalli HIV Centre was located.  Essentially, he took us to the town of “Sumanahalli”, but then asked us which way to go. We were not sure of the directions and decided to ask a pedestrian for directions.  The male pedestrian insisted that the HIV Centre was walking distance and that he would walk us there.  After walking for a few minutes and being led to two facilities not related to HIV, Ana and I became weary of the once seemingly friendly and helpful pedestrian.  Even after we assured him that we did not want his assistance any more, he continued to trail behind us.  Ana and I finally found an auto driver that knew where the Sumanahalli HIV Rehabilitation Centre was located and, despite the efforts of the stalking pedestrian, the auto driver did not allow the pedestrian get into the auto with us.  Finally, after a two-kilometer auto ride, we were finally at the gates of the Rehabiliation Centre.

Ana and I arrived when the patients had fifteen more minutes of naptime.  We used these fifteen minutes to discuss what games we would play.  There is an “activity room” in the basement of the main office that has materials for arts and crafts.  These materials held a lot of potential for fun group activities, but it was more of an intimate setting socializing with the women within their home. 

Using what we had, note pads and pens, we taught the women how to play tic-tac-toe, drew for each other, folded paper into neat designs, and played music on Ana’s iPhone.  These games evolved into dancing, but it was quickly shut down when one of the staff came out of her office walking sternly and with purpose in our direction.  I quickly signaled to Ana for her to sit down, because it was clear from the patients’ reaction that dancing was not allowed.  This was surprising, because during my first volunteering session, Sphoorti and I were not reprimanded for playing the game of dancing pass-the-bottle.

The elderly woman sitting next to me was dreadfully thin.  Her oversized kurti was draping over her skeleton frame revealing her thighs that matched the size of my wrists.  This was one of the many reminders of the condition that these women are facing every day of their lives, HIV/AIDS.  Although I had previously felt that I had an understanding of the ailments that HIV/AIDS causes, I now feel that I have a more in depth understanding of what living with HIV means.  No academy-award-winning film or best-selling book can really capture what these women are facing.  The feeling of hugging her frail frame will be forever engrained in my memory.

One of the useful features on Ana’s iPhone was a frog-game.  The women were very intrigued by the game using the touch-screen.  In fact, as one of the women were intensely playing, her son reached over and she immediately scolded him and pushed his hand off of the screen.  The young boy quickly pulled back his hand and examined his finger as if there was something wrong with it.  He did not understand the concept of touch screen.  This struck me as ironic seeing that my little cousin, who is in around the same age as this young boy, knows how to use the iPhone better than most grown adults.

About one hour into our activities, three of the other volunteers, Sarah, Mya, and Julia, came walking from the street.  Sarah immediately pulled out a deck of cards and we started a round of games.  It was a lot of fun to communicate the object of different card games without using words, but physical gestures.

Before we knew it, it was time to start wrapping our activities up so the patients could go for chai-time.  We were saying our farewells and telling them to enjoy their chia when one of the women corrected us and communicated that chai-time is not for drinking chia, but for taking their HIV medications.  Apparently, the Sumanahalli staff call it “chia-time” for the sake of sounding less negative.  This made me wonder what other activities listed on the public “Daily Schedule” were also misrepresenting the reality.