good first impressions 9/22

the trip to Glenburn Tea Estate from Darjeeling proper proved to be quite an endeavor... 2.5 hrs down a rutted, washed out, very steep and narrow, treacherous road. my roommate, silla, is a 20yo from iceland and we learn we'll be staying with the assistant manager of the tea estate and his family who are originally from south india. the wife, kala is reported to be a very good cook... bonus! our first day we woke very excited to be oriented and to hear more about the project and tea estate. we're told that the following day we'll be taken to see 2 schools of the tea garden and the medical center and what we want to do for our project will be up to us. as luck would have it, i wake up in the wee hours of the a.m. feeling like death rolled over, vomitting and the works. i'm extremely disappointed but come time to meet with our coordinator, i do my best to pull myself together, put on a cheerful face and keep a positive attitude as i really want to make the most of my experience here! we visit the first school which is very bright and lively and the kids sooo adorable (mostly nepalese with big round brown eyes) i know i'm going to fall in love with all of them! we then visit the medical center. i'm holding together o.k. but with waves of feeling really awful. so, we see the womens' ward in the med ctr and suddenly and violently the sickness also hits my roommate, Silla. she's hurled over the porch banister losing the contents of her stomach to the bushes. she composes herself and we continue down the road to the village center... as we're walking the sickness hits me full on again and i have no warning to the "accident" i have on the street. without a word i start waddling quickly back to the medical center outhouse... i've never felt so awful and not sure what i'm going to do at this point to make myself presentable. it becomes very evident to our project coordinator that we're both unfit for the full tea estate tour and we're sent back to the house for some rest. the next near24 hrs were spent in bed sleeping! a very disappointing first day on the project...