Su Jok in Vizag

After so much anticipation and planning for this trip, my transition was much harder than expected. I’ve very homesick! I arrived at the Delhi airport in a huge monsoon downpour. I got soaked trying to get to the domestic terminal so I could fly to Bhubaneswar. My luggage, of course, did not arrive from London. I finally made it to Bhubaneswar, was picked up by a very nice stranger who spoke no English and drove me 8 hours to Vizag. I laid down on the back seat but kept falling off because he would slam on the brakes at every pothole, cow, pedestrian and overpacked vehicle on the road. Eventually I managed to hold onto the seatback even in my sleep.

From Vizag we drove about 5 hours on even worse roads to the BREDS office. In the middle of many rice paddies, not much else in sight. BREDS staff were so nice, concerned for my well-being (they communicated this by watching every move I made, every morsel of food I ate, etc), but nobody really spoke English, so I was left to battle the ants on my own. They ruined the snack food I brought with me, even though I packed nuts in 3 layers of freezer-strength ziplock bags. These ants are little guys, but when they bite, it hurts!

After a few days, I was driven back to Vizag (Vishakapatnam). It’s a coastal port city. Typical levels of air, noise and trash pollution. Added to this is incredible humidity. No amount of ‘product’ could control the frizz! The worst part has been my isolation. There’s very little access to telephone or internet. But at least there was Asha Begum. Asha is a BREDS field staffer and we hit it off right away. She is Muslim (Begum means Mrs. in Erdu, the language of Muslims in India), but still believes we were sisters in a former life. I agree.

Together we attended a 10 day training in Su Jok. This is an acupuncture variant that uses hands and feet. It’s based on the same principles as acupuncture so it was a good opportunity to review the 12 meridians, 5 element theory, etc. The exciting thing about it is that the basics can be practiced by anyone, without cost or risk of side effects. We plan to conduct a training for BREDS field staff, who can teach it to villagers.

Here are some photos of my arrival at BREDS, the Su Jok class, Asha and me in Vizag, Asha with Prabhas, our favorite Telegu movie star.