I started my morning off with watermelon from the hotel and one of my granola bars for breakfast. I then took my first tuk tuk which was quite the adventure because they are small and can easily squeeze their way between traffic. We managed to fit 4 of us into a 3 person tuk tuk by having one of the girls from the program sit on my lap. We went to the Department of Psychiatric Social Work, NIMHANS, Bengaluru. Our first session was an introduction and multicultural aspects in mental health care in India. The next session was a welcome and introduction about the department of psychiatric social work. Then we went to my favorite spot, the brain bank. This was a large room with human brains and organs. It displayed different diseases and conditions in which changed the brain's shape in some way. I could have spent hours in there. Oh yeah, I also held a human brain with my bare hands. Afterwards, we went an orientation and visited the Yoga centre. Following was lunch prepared by one of the top cooks in the state. We had rice, noodles, potatoes, Indian potato chips, and custard with fruit. It was pretty good! Our final part of the afternoon was visiting NIMHANS centre for wellbeing. We were served lemon tea twice throughout the day and it was delicious! The bathroom at the department had two stalls that were holes in the ground and one with a toilet, you can guess which one I used. Obviously, I used the toilet and we had a shared roll of toilet paper for everyone to use.
Later on in the evening we went to a shopping mall by tuk tuk. There were a ton of cars and traffic. I was beyond anxious the entire time. I was so worried that we would be kidnapped, the three white girls in the back of a tuk tuk. We did make it there safely and the mall resembled an American mall. I went to McDonald's and ordered a 9 piece Chicken McNugget and a Pizza McPuff. The McNugget was different but good, however, they did not have any ranch which was a disappointment. The Pizza McPuff was interesting but not very good. Gabs, Anna, Clara, and I walked around the mall together. The mall had a small grocery store where I bought skittles and Indian mango candy. It was nice to experience a mall in India. The tuk tuk ride home went by much faster and smoother. Until tomorrow.
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