Matt Goes To India: Road Trip to Tirupati

Hey Everybody,

Sorry about skipping a day in my blog, but it was because we went to a city in the state of Andhra Pradesh. We left Tuesday morning around 7 and checked into our hotel in Tirupati around noon. The Udayee Hotel was... pretty nice haha however, the WiFi was not super reliable... therefore the "no entry" yesterday.

We had lunch at one of the two restaurants on the bottom floor of the hotel, and it was incredible. I've been asked alot about the food so I'll post some pics and give you a general description... IT IS DELICIOUS. The food is usually rice covered by a sauce (Massala, Dhal, and other names) which will have alot of spices and either chicken, cashews, or different vegetables in it. You can also have different breads, my favorite is called Naan... so good. Most food is really spicy and so far I'm really loving it.

After we ate, we went out to a colony about an hour away that Rising Star only sees usually once a year, so they were super happy to see us. We treated over 70 people that afternoon, and they were so so grateful... it was awesome. One guy whose hands were in pretty bad shape was still getting us all fresh water to help treat the wounds, even though it was probably 10x harder for him than it would've been for anyone else. It was really humbling to see all these people, like him, who had really big setbacks still be positive and willing to help in anyway possible. It felt really good being able to help them out a little bit. After we finished we went back to the hotel, had some dinner and went to bed to get ready for day 2.

We woke up, showered, had some breakfast and went out to another colony that was a little closer (about 15 minutes away). Again, the people were so grateful and happy that we were there. I think we finally hit our stride, and we were able to see around 50 different people all in one morning.

The kids at each colony were super fun to spend time with as well. The language barrier is tough, but most kids understand the concepts of tag and tickling, so in that sense we were definitely on the same page. I was able to play with them in between patients and for a little while after we finished up. They were all really cute kids and we had alot of fun.

After we finished up in Tirupati, we grabbed a quick lunch and started our 4 hour ride trip back to Rising Star Campus. It's felt really good helping out these people, although I'm not doing much more than sticking a needle into them... it's something that ultimately helps get them feeling better with whatever ailment they have, so that makes it worthwhile. I'm so glad to be here and it just keeps getting better as I get more involved.