hello friends :) so i here i sit, at the brink of my last big trip in nepal.
this weekend we're going to pokhara, the next largest city from kathmandu. it's about 8 hours away, and so i have a verrrrry long ride ahead of me... i don't think i'll be riding on the roof this time! i'm going with melissa, marion and charley - perhaps more if we can convince them to come! i think it will be pretty relaxing - there is a lake by the city, a world peace pagoda (aka giant buddha) and lots of hiking and biking opportunities. apparantly you can usually see gorgeous views of the mountains.. if it's not monsoon season! so that part is a little bit sad; we're missing a lot of the scenery because the grey clouds are covering it all!
this week i've had a lot of quiet time. melissa and i have had a lot of good talks, but she's rediscovered her iPod :) so i've had a lot of time to think and read and ponder a lot of things. i have time to be a little more descriptive, so i'd like to take a stab at explaining a day in nepal.
so i'm not really sure what time everyone gets up... by i often wake up around 5 (for the first time, then go back to sleep) and i can hear a number of people outside my window - children talking, the swish of water as a woman handwashes her clothes, horns honking in the distance. i usually go back to sleep until 7 or 7:30, and once maya sees us up, she brings us tea in our room. i imagine that they think we sleep in really late! if i get up a bit earlier, i can smell incense coming down the hall when i open the door to go to the bathroom. this is because tikki is praying in her room - chanting and spinning a prayer wheel - i think that's what it's called; it's on a stick and it spins round and round. we have breakfast around 8:30 or 9 - dahl batt. i can't remember if i've explained this or not... it's rice with lentil soup and curried vegetables. sometimes there's this little seed in it that tastes like soap :S we usually get served much more than we need... i've had to throw away my food more than once because i really couldn't fit anymore in!
we usually head off to work around 9:30. it takes us twenty minutes to walk to the stupa hospital. we first head off down the little side street that we live on - it's full of tiny little shops in shacks that sell snacks. offer phone services, or sell meat that is covered in flies... doesn't usually smell too pretty! within 2 minutes we've hit the main road that we follow to the hospital. if it hasn't rained in a while, the dust is swirling between the masses of vehicles driving by - tuk-tuks, taxis, minibuses and motorcycles. if it has rained, we dodge the puddles as we walk down the uneven brick sidewalk. lately the garbage situation has been better - i think the garbage men were on strike for a while - but in the past we have walked past piles upon piles of garbage - i'm thankful for my labcoat at this point so i can breath through it and not smell fermentation! we pass a lot of different people on the road - almost all of them shorter than me. if i see someone at eye level, it really takes me off guard! there are buddhist monks, women in tsaris, teenagers in american clothes, and beggars wearing any random sort of mixture. there is actually one beggar that follows us every day - one day he walked right past and then came SPRINTING after us to tug on our clothes and murmer something in nepali. i have no idea what he's saying and i usually ignore him. however, i am feeling very uncomfortable with the whole thing. i don't know how to respond to those less fortunate around me. so many people tell me that you're compounding the problem by giving them money - they become dependent on tourists and some of them are just scamming you. but do you just ignore someone's need when it's right in your face?
when we get to the hospital, we go to the ER and put our stuff away in one of the little cubbyholes that hold various papers and other doctor's belongings. i don't usually take valuables to work because it's so open. the ER consists of two open rooms with four beds and one dressing room that has a curtain around it. if other privacy is needed, there are portable dividers to put up around the beds. there are always two doctors in there, and some of them are a lot friendlier than others! lately the doctors have been striking because of some unrest - apparantly someone died in surgery and the family wants to sue pretty much. so now all the doctors are on strike, and only the ER is open. i watched 3 people be turned away today because the ER at stupa hospital wasn't equipped to deal with their injuries. so we spend our time between watching small things in ER, asking the doctors questions about patients, looking at patient files in the general ward, and random aimless wandering. sometimes one of the doctors takes us to a patient, tells us the symptoms, and goes through how to diagnose what the problem is. that is actually really helpful - i'm learning a lot - but he has a thick accent that is hard to understand at times. today we saw something different - two of the head doctors met with abuot 30-40 women from the community and surrounding villages, whom they call "friends" of the hospital. they are volunteers that want to make a difference in the health situation around them. they pass on general health information that they learn from the doctors once a month, and then teach their friends and neighbors. it seems to be a pretty good idea - especially when people can be so ignorant about basic health practices. gastroenteritis is extremely common here - vomiting, diarrhea, etc., and the common nepali thought is that drinking water will make it worse! they don't understand that by drinking oral rehydration salts, they can be cured really fast.
we usually leave work at 4; however lately we've been taking off earlier because there is nothing going on. when we get home, we have tea and biscuits and hang out in our room until we eat supper aroun 8:30. so we talk, learn nepali, hand wash laundry, play with the little girl who lives upstairs... sleep... it's not very intense :) kind of nice to take a breather and relax! supper is dahl batt (usually)... again. i get reallllllllllly excited when we have something else... which has happened 4 times i think in 3 weeks. roomies, i hope you don't want to eat rice next semester at all!
i think that about sums it up. this is turning into a really long post, hope it was interesting! :)