Jan 17
Today I hopped on a motorbike with Tsering Sherpa, one of
the interpreters at our clinic, and we drove off to Godhavari. We left the temple grounds at 8:40, the air
crisp, the sun just coming over the hills.
The road was bumpy, dirt road most of the way, paved for some it. As we came around the bend leaving Chapagaon,
the landscape opened into green valley to the right of us. There were a few small smokestacks in the
distance--the dark smoke not even close to competing with the misty pink tone
of the morning. We breezed past small houses to the left, women
preparing the morning fire, families gathered around their porches, drinking
tea, beginning their day. Goats here,
cows down the way, chickens and dogs dotting the scenery. If it weren’t for the patients scheduled to
come to the clinic, I would have insisted on stopping to take photos. Next
time I hope to! At the end of the day.
Further down the road both sides opened up to terraces of
bricks, like a blanket over the rolling hills. Here, Tsering revealed the
reason for the smokestacks—this whole area a brick factory. I have never witnessed industry so
beautiful. Many houses are built with
this rich sienna-brown-colored brick, but today’s (this week’s? this month’s?)
production was grey. He explained that
they used to make them out of clay, but that recently they have begun making
them out of cement. Color or none, the
scene was breathtaking.
When we arrived at the clinic, our other interpreter for the
day, Mishal, had not yet arrived, so we walked
down the road a short way for tea. As we
crossed the small concrete bridge over the tiny brown creek to the patio, three
women immediately approached Tsering and began talking to him, concern on their
faces. After a minute or two, he turned
to me and said that someone in their family had passed away the day before, and
as the custom mandated, they were now supposed to fast all day out of respect
for the deceased. When going for
acupuncture, this poses a problem, for anyone who has gone to get a treatment
on an empty stomach is a prime candidate for what we call “needle shock”, a
phenomenon where one breaks out into a sweat, becomes short of breath, may
faint, or sometimes even vomit. In fact,
one of the women now standing there had experienced this very thing the other
day. It made for a great story by the
practitioner returning that day, as apparently, in between retching, she had
announced to the room “it’s okay, it’s my fault, I didn’t eat today!” Well, naturally, they were all concerned and
were letting us know that they couldn’t make it to clinic. 24 patients had been booked for the day, so
we figured that those from surrounding villages who were not associated with
the death would still come for treatment.
So we set up shop, on the third floor patio of a building,
out in the sun, overlooking the rest of the village. This is the Godhavari clinic. The morning was
bright, warm (yes!!), and beautiful, and seven patients received needles, some
cupping, moxa, and herbs for their complaints.
In the afternoon, the wind picked
up, threatening disorganization of our pop-up treatment station, and trying to
set sail to our small paper files. The ground is covered in dust, and so to
avoid dirt and pulverized cement in our eyes, we ventured to the small room
adjacent to the rooftop, where we treated another nine patients in a
construction-zone, a door lying flat in the middle of the space. I am
learning what relief work is truly like.
It isn’t glamorous. It’s dirty. Standards
of cleanliness must be shifted, and lots of hand sanitizer gets used. Alcohol swabs today became some of my best
friends (yet still a distant second to the incredible interpreters we work with. Seriously.
These guys are what really makes this whole operation work).
Slowly, I am learning some key words that help me to
directly communicate with my patients. Duksa,
pain. Is it tender here? Duksa.
Or, is this okay? Tiksa tiksa, a
patient will say in reply to that question, their heads bobbing from side to
side(lateral flexion, no rotation) in an extremely Nepali form of saying, “yes,
fine.” This head shaking had me
confused the first day of treatment, as the closest reference I had was the way
we might say “yeah, whatever”, or “so,so” but here in Nepal, it has a more
affirmative meaning.
Later in the day, in the midst of post-lunch tiredness and
restaurant-style rush of patients (in other words, I was slightly overwhelmed)
I noticed this beautiful woman sitting
there, waiting for treatment, who I had seen before, but couldn’t quite place
where. A few minutes later, when I could
finally sit down for the intake with her, it dawned on me. She was the woman who had served us tea this
morning and who had shown me ultrasounds of all her organs, and doctors notes
about sciatic pain for which they were recommending surgery (although no issue
was revealed by scans). She was also one
of the ladies who was not going to be eating today, thus having to miss
clinic. “I wasn’t going to come here”,
she explained, “but then everyone else was going, and I thought, if everyone
else is going, why can’t I?” Perhaps the
custom also allows for sneaking a biscuit so that one can get treated, because
this was her strategy!
As we drove back through the villages, through the small
stone-pathed shortcut, through the neighborhoods of people of all ages walking
along the side of the road, past children playing ball in a vacant lot, back
through the brick fields, up and down through the rolling hills back to the clinic
in Chapagaon, I felt enchanted by the scenery, the people, by this life. We arrived back ‘home’, and rolled up through
the iron gates, the young monks playing in the yard, witnessing our
return.
I knew while we rode down the path this morning that this
was going to be the day to write about.
Tonight I left our post-dinner chat early, as romantic as it is by
candlelight, as it will be lit every night this week. Our new electricity schedule leaves us with lights
and the possibility of connecting over the internet at the most inconvenient of
times. Thankfully it popped on earlier
than expected and I didn’t have to wake at midnight to post this, but rather
just before 11. And mind you, I am completely aware of this fascination I have with the electricity, or lack thereof...I can't stop talking about it...
I really don’t know how to finish this post! And there is no time for editing, or picking
over it too much. My hands are cold and
I am ready to fall back asleep, provided the dogs outside don’t go berserk as
they love to do at intervals throughout the night, and particularly in the
morning just before the gongs begin, of course!
Good night all, Namaste. Aaah, there go the dogs.
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