Slumber party

It has been really nice to move into the deptartment staff house. I had really wanted to live there, but the professors in Chennai were really hesitant because it's not like a hotel where there are lots of amenities- they were concerned about us sleeping on the floor, not having clean water etc, but these worries haven't proved to be real problems. Anandani (U of Arizona MPH student) and I have been there since tuesday night. Besides us, there is Viji Ma'am, a middle aged woman who is a counselor for the HIV program here and in Rasipurum (35km away)- she is not married so she stays in this house since people don't live alone here ever really. Anandi is our age, the lab technician who runs the CD4 counts here and is also in a MS in bioinformatics currently- we share a room with her. Tiliga is 28, a nutritionist with the program. Sarasvati is a counselor in Rasipurum and her husband lives in Chennai, so she lives with us when she works in this district. Janila, also counselor and lab technician, is 24. There is also Antoni- a fabulous counselor here. Since he's male, he can't live in the house, but he lives close by and eats all of his meals at the house (he is dating one of the girls/engaged to her pending her parents' approval). 3 of us sleep in each room, so we bought our own cushion-mat things and sheets that we just put on the floor and I bought a mosquito net since it's not quite mosquito free. The house all cooks together, so that's really nice too- i feel like we're always having tea or coffee whenever we're there- pretty much 2-4 times a day- filled with lots of sugar and milk, but we only drink about 4oz at a time. Anandani and are are taking their drinking water supply (delivered by truck from the mountains, but not filtered) and just filtering it into a big storage jug for ourselves so we don't get sick.....this is easy- in fact easier than the hotel cause we'd have to buy water there for 75 cents (22rupees) a liter and waste so much plastic.

Hopefully we'll go on a bit of an adventure tomorrow (we work 1/2 days on saturdays here).....