I just want the blogging community to know how hard I'm trying to be on being a dedicated blogger. And to show you my dedication I want you to know that I had this whole post almost finished and it was pretty great if I do say so myself, and lo and behold the computer crashed. . . . . . So here I am starting from scratch so that I can bring my stories to you.
Ok now that that is out of the way the past few days have been awesome and a little surreal. We spent Saturday going to a beach town called Mamalapurim.  The picture above is a rock called butterball rock. There has been teams of elephants trying to bring that ball down the hill and it won't budge. And yet it looks like it could slip off at any moment in time. We also saw some 14th century temple ruins which were very interesting. It's always fascinating to see the dedication of people through out time and the pride they put in their buildings.   After seeing those we went down the street to get some shopping in. Now I'm not a fan of shopping in general but shopping in India is EXHAUSTING! They will some how start bartering with you on something that you don't want to even buy.  And then on something you do want to buy you have to argue with them for a hour to get a fair price. And then with the currency exchange it was just overall an ordeal that I'm not looking forward to repeating next weekend.

 The good part about the day was the beach! We went to what was called Ideal Beach. And let me be the first to say it was truly "Ideal",  The ocean was the perfect temperature and I think it was the warmest bath since I've gotten here.  The sand was so soft and no rocks or coral to stub your toes on. There were beach huts to lounge out in and a waiter even came and brought you food. Thus the picture above with Steve sipping on a smoothie. There were also hammocks and palm tress so I think that I've sufficiently painted the picture for you to know how ideal it was.  My favorite part about it was that Steve has never been to a tropical beach before.  So when he felt the water I think he was surprised that his foot didn't turn into an ice cube that instant.   It was such a nice relaxing time and I think much deserved.

We went to church on Sunday. It was a long two hour drive so we had some time to snap some pics along the way. Once we got there though it was a nice slice of home.  I just love that the church is the same wherever you go.  I think that we nearly doubled their congregation but the didn't seem to mind at all.  It was interesting because alot of people spoke english but some didn't. So the teacher would have to go back and forth between English and Tamil. But overall a superb day. The church is growing a lot down here. They are constructing a three story chapel here and there is three branches.  The missionaries said that they had 6 baptism dates this week. So i think that the work is really starting to take off here. So it's exciting to see.

Today we spent the day at one of the many leprosy colonies. It was a fascinating experience to do what I do everyday in another country.  The medical techniques were different. And it made me very grateful for the knowledge that I have and the tools that we have in america for medicine. We are truly blessed. But that said it was great to make a difference today. The people were all very grateful and kept touching my face and saying thank you.  There are some very bad wounds that I don't think will ever heal.  Most of the patients have lost most of all of their toes and fingers.  It is sad to think that all of this could have been prevented by educating the Indian people.  It was great to see Steve in medical action as well. You should have seen him working that blood pressure machine!.  (I was all over that thing-Steve)  Enough said. I got to debride the wounds which was fun. And worked along side an Indian nurse who was very sweet and patient with me. Since I don't do to much wound care in my day to day practice.  Overall it was a great experience to get to see the smiles on these peoples faces and get to make a small difference in the world of leprosy.