Ponbu City Limits

There's this amazing sustenance economy that exists here in the mountains.

It's an incredibly remote place which is very hard to access. Every dwelling has a small piece of land in which they produce all that they need in order to live. Most homes have a cow or two for milk, some green vegetable garden, chickens, a grain called Millet which they ferment into a moonshine-ish homebrew and some of the lucky families even have a pig. There's generally an extremely small c-store of sorts that sells a painfully small variety of biscuits and candies within a few hours walk of each village on every mountain ridge.

They're proud people who make what they consume.

The romanticism of this ideal wears off when you consider the plague of these people. Malnutrition.

Almost every single child here is iron deficient. You see hypopigmentation of the skin. Stomach problems. They're missing vitamins and minerals. It's a problem with a clear cause and clear remedy.

Bananas are plentiful, but they lead to constipation.

It hurts when you watch sick children eating chocolate bars for lunch because it's all that they can get.

During our field clinics here it's common for the doctors to include multivitamins and iron tonic in each prescription. It's almost assumed.

We're about to start our second day of clinics here in Ponbu, a village of about 100 families at a few thousand feet altitude.

Yesterday was tough.

We saw a 17 year old boy who couldn't figure out why his legs were swollen. After observation, it appeared as though he had an undiagnosed major neuromuscular condition. There was nothing that we could do except to guide him on his way to a better equipped facility.

The image that's going to remain in my mind though was that of the thin frail old woman who arrived with her friends in the mid-afternoon. They were laughing and chatting. When it came time for the doctors to see her, she gave her age as 46. We thought that it must have been a miscommunication or mistranslation. She came closer and it became clear that she wasn't well. As she removed her shawl we realized that she was half the size that she appeared to be. She couldn't have weighed more than 40 pounds. Cancer was eating it's way through this poor woman's body. She was in incredible pain, but she kept smiling. Even after her visit with the doctor, and even after she had received devastating news, she kept smiling. Eventually she rejoined her friends and they resumed their apparently pleasant conversation, smiling and laughing as if nothing had happened.

There's a cultural component to all human interaction which is incredibly hard to deconstruct without being a part of it. I can't quite figure it out. Perhaps there's a degree of fatalism here. People seem to be very comfortable with whatever is in store for them.

One more day on this ridge, then we trek back to Samthar.

Thanks to all who have helped with this project so far. I can let you know that it's truly making a difference.

You can help us with this project by DONATING at http://www.indiaproject.ca