We have returned to Chennai from our trip to visit other tsunami affected areas to the south. During the fours days we visited six villages and operated clinics at five. Due to internal strife in one community, setting up a clinic was not possible. We began our journey by stopping at the village we had visited the previous week, Muttukadu, to deliver slates for the preschool children and tops and jump ropes for the other boys and girls. We had a grand presentation program under a newly erected tent in which the children sang songs and I played my flute for them. We presented teaching charts for the teachers and slates for the children and they gifted us with drawings that had been done in response to the tsunami. The vivid images of a full blue and wavy background embedded with images of houses and people were very dramatic. The narrative on the back of the drawing I was given detailed the fear and loss of the young boy who had drawn it. I encouraged the teachers to now have the children make drawings of what their lives will be like when they have recovered from this tragedy. We followed up with some children we had given treatments to the previous week, then spent the evening visiting as I taught a small group magic tricks and how to fold origami cranes. We finished the evening meeting the fianc� and �would-be� parents-in-law of Vijay, one of our team members. From there we headed to Mamalapurum for the night. The various visitations and clinics all rang similar, yet unique in the individual flavor of the village and the manner in which the clinics were conducted. In one village we found a nice sandy spot beneath palm trees where mats and chairs were placed as a treatment area. In another we set up the same clinic space of mats and chairs atop the remnants of a house knocked down by the tsunami, piles of rubble, tumbled boats, and the fragments of familiar household debris around us. We offered treatments for consistent complaints of sleeplessness, diffused body aches, headaches, chest wheeze, and the internal and external tremors brought on by the utterance of the word �tsunami.� In one village an 80-year-old man who had been recovered from the rubble and carried to the temple as dead, only to later be revived, sought treatment to help him sleep and return to his favorite spot of solace only a few feet from where we were working on the beach. In this same village, young women brought out a five month old boy to get treatment for his cold.
In another village we gathered in a backyard as drums, trumpets, and cannons heralding a funeral for a tsunami victim echoed in the background. The villagers hacked open coconuts for our refreshment. In each village we were welcomed openly and treated with dignity, only later realizing the deeply intimate contact we had we these remote and incredibly beautiful people. We utilized virtually every method in our �bag of tricks.� Hypnotic breathing and relaxation, visualization, massage, hands-on energetics, aromatics, and even a special knotted cord meditation method for recovery, specially adapted by our skilled fishermen team members. We encouraged the drinking of fresh water and recommended further medical care for those cases that merited it; even providing some funds for one villager in dire need to get to the hospital for care. Mitta found a homeopathic pharmacy in Pondicherry and we stocked our kit further with simple remedies to help ease aches and pains and stimulate recovery. We watched with wonder as Dhamodharan went from following our verbal instructions, to crafting the sessions on his own, recognizing which elements of the process were best applied where and when. We encouraged the villagers to learn these methods and practice on one another. The richest of moments came when, watching the light disappear and fleeing from the Cusos (mosquitoes), Dhamodharan gathered a group of about eight women together to teach them the relaxation method and �Stress Management 101�.
We returned to Chennai exhausted but exhilarated with the successes we had experienced. Last night we visited the tiny rooftop room that Dhamu�s ten family members sought refuge in for nearly a month before the kindness of their �American friends� made it possible for them to rent a new home. We returned to Dhamu�s village today and set up a clinic on the site of Vijay�s former home on the beach, now a familiar rubble pile. Under a recycled banner tarp held up with crude poles, we practiced the same routine, treating the same complaints. Late in our treatments a woman spoke at length of heartbreak she had been experiencing over time, likely intensified by the community trauma of the tsunami. As we guided her through here relaxation, she began to weep and shake, a condition familiarly reported but not previously observed. We moved here from the chair to the mat so she could be more comfortable. Her mother, daughter, and other family and friends, following our demonstrations, placed hands upon her to comfort her. As we continued to offer her encouragement, a family member reached over and took hold of the woman�s right hand, placing it upon her heart in the practice of self-comfort she had observed in our treatments. Once again I was fill with such gladness, seeing the treatments change hands from ours to the local villagers.
Tomorrow morning we attend a wedding, a grand Indian tradition and the first of three I have been invited to during my stay. After the wedding we will conduct another clinic and follow up with those we treated today. On Tuesday, Vijay will take us out on the sea.
I have received many words of encouragement and great support for this effort. Thank you for your support. I am sending photos to Lenise and they will be posted on the web soon.
Vanakam Nanthree,
Timothy
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