Journal 10-16-2010

10-16-2010

In the morning on Saturday I went alone to a village called 66 Putter on the other side of the hill from Karigiri. I walked through the village hoping that people would talk to me. This part of the data collection process is a lot like fishing. I walk around hoping that the village people will show some interest and (nibble) or initiate some sort of interaction with me. Then I talk to them for a while, tell them where I am from, and answer any other questions they have. The conversation always reaches a point where they will ask why I am walking through their village. Then I whip out my testing notebook and show them the monofilaments, and ask if I can test their feet. This technique really works quite well. The test itself is kind of silly so once I get one person to participate the others in the group all want to go next.

I was able to test ten different people from 66 Putter before lunchtime on Saturday. Then I went back to Karigiri because we had planned to do something fun in the afternoon. We were originally going to go into Vellore to visit some tourist attractions like the golden temple and a fort. But we decided that the travel logistics were too complicated so instead we decided to climb up to the top of the hill again. The climb up is a little bit difficult because there is no path, and the decent is even harder for the same reason but it is really fun to walk around at the top. We sat on the top of the hill for about long time.

We made it back down to the guesthouse around 3 with minimal injuries from thorn sticks. When we got back we called up Kanav and Shubham and invited them to go out for pizza with us later.

At about 7:00 John, Leah and I went into VIT to get pizza with Kanav and Shubham. While we were at the restaurant Dad gave me a several calls, one of which I was finally able to answer. It was really great to talk to Dad, this is only the second time that I have talked to my parents while I have been in India. I have done a terrible job of keeping in touch with my family (sorry guys). But the lack of an Internet connection makes calling and emailing home a lot harder. Keep calling me!

After pizza we went over to Shubham’s house where we hung out all night. It was a blast. Regrettably I didn’t have my camera to capture Sanjay’s amazing dancing.