The One Where We Trek To East Godavari

We are in East Godavari!! I think we’ve all been dreading the trip to East Godavari since the beginning of this trip, maybe because Altaf tried to terrorize us by telling us stories about an uncomfortable journey and limited plumbing. It made for some great jokes for the past couple weeks, but when the time came for us to pile into the van I think we were all a bit terrified. Car-sickness is the one thing I can’t handle, and especially when we’re all crammed into a small space...

It actually wasn’t too bad at all—sure, we almost got killed multiple times on the road here, and it was kind of a cozy fit in the van, but we made it in one piece. We left Hyderabad early yesterday, stopped for breakfast, then went on our way. We stopped about 4 hours in for a short break at someone’s house on the way, and also stopped at one of the Project Reed mosques. We met some people from the surrounding village, and got to see some of their homes and living conditions. It’s interesting, the people here are born Muslim but because there is no Muslim influence they’ve been following the Hindu religion. We kept driving and reached Eluru around 10 pm. We stayed at a pretty fancypants hotel in Eluru, except for the giant grasshopper that kept hopping onto our bed. This morning we drove out to where the medical camp was supposed to be held. A group of doctors and some other people (including Ameenah, Dr. Maimuna and Mesbah bhai) came to offer free checkups and meds to the people of this village. I assisted one of the doctors with taking blood pressure while they did preliminary checkups on women who were coming in. After working for a few hours we took a break for lunch, then our group headed back to Hyderabad.