Can I take you on a (up)date?

WOooo-AAHHH, it's been a brick! I hope everyone has at least slightly enjoyed my GoPro vids and I promise to say "umm" or "uhh" 25% more in my next upload, don't worry. I just had to write a mid-internship update for the Parents Fund Internship Grant that I was awarded and so I decided I better slide some updates into this platform as well.

I’m just short of the midway point in my internship and I couldn’t be more excited for the next half! This has been an incredible experience and every day I am faced with new challenges and ideas. I’ve been hard at work in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. I’ve gone into the field and watched our Mobile septage Treatment Units (MTUs) at work, I’ve learned how to test 14 different parameters for water quality analysis, I’ve given a presentation on Public Health differences in the United States and India, and I’ve been exposed to countless awareness, construction, and education projects in the nearby areas.

In the next week I’ll be traveling to Thiruppullani, outside of Ramanathapuram, which is 200 Km south of where I have been staying. While I am there, my team will be taking water samples and doing some field testing and then observing some Street Plays that are used for community education on better water, sanitation, and hygiene behaviors. I should be in Tamil Nadu for just about three more weeks, then the plan is to head to Kolkata in West Bengal.

India is definitely testing my limits. I've been stung, bitten, and annoyed by every bug imaginable, I produce a gallon of sweat every night, and people consistently try to communicate with me in *full-on* Tamil, but I've developed amazing mosquito-killing skills, learned how to wash my clothes better, and repeated the word "purrid" (= I don't understand) at least 3000 times. I owe a lot of my success to my close friends here, like Janani and Venkat, and I'll be so sad when I have to leave them! I guess that's what WhatsApp is for.