It took 48 hours of traveling to get here (including a very long layover in Singapore), but we finally arrived safe and sound in India. We got in late Wednesday night and made our way to the AIMS hospital on Thursday. We spent the day getting a tour of the hospital (it is incredibly massive!) and meeting different doctors. Then on Friday, we went back early in the morning and spent the day working. Another volunteer and I spent the first half of our day in the nnicu. The doctors and nurses there were very excited to have us and asked us to provide training classes for the nurses so that they could carry on with our massage work when we're gone. So this weekend will be spent putting together some slideshows and lesson plans for a class next week!
After the nnicu, we had lunch and then were taken to various ICUs to work on patients there. It turns out that a lot of the departments want their nurses to learn massage so that they can provide it to the patients, which is a good thing! It will help Heart Touch become a regular part of the hospital and add to the sustainability of the project, which is definitely a goal of ours.
It's been an exhausting week just getting here and working, but it's always rewarding to be appreciated. The parents of one of the babies I worked on approached me outside of the hospital to thank me. They were so sweet and I'm looking forward to seeing their little one again.
Unfortunately we can't take any pictures at the hospital, so I can't visually share the work we're doing with anyone the way I did when we were in Cambodia!
