OCT-B-7
OUR FINAL CLINIC DAY IN
REACHING BEYOND ONE THOUSAND PATIENTS,
AND ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO START THIS DAY
WITH A RUN,
WITH THE VAGARIES OF ELECTIRCIAL POWER
AND HOT WATER BUCKET BATHS AS A LIMITATION
The weather, the team, the situation here on a rainforest hillcrest in Kalim Pong, and the circumstances of civilization (i.e. hot water and electrical power) have all made it rather difficult to get up and about to see and do things in the environment of West Bengal. But, the patient demand has also required us to be in the full time practice of high volume medical care for over 300 patients for each very full clinic day of each of the four in a row while we have been here.
Las evening
I tried to get a message out by internet, but both phone and electrical power
were not cooperating, so I will try again before we leave Kalim Pong tomorrow
for a site called Mandang, and then on to Gangkok, Sikkim, and leaving from
there to a place which has a name you know, Darjeeling. That will be the site of our last clinics and
from there we will make our way back to Bagdogra to get a flight to
I am waiting
again for fellow runner (s) to appear to see if we can get out for a good run,
since it is only foggy and showing only a wet mist, without the downpour that
scratched the last two days’ attempts at the run from this same starting point. I am looking now toward Kanchenchunga where I
had seen the glare of white sunlight off glaciers for only a few minutes at
dawn yesterday before the rain clouds came and wrapped not only the mountain
top, but also the Sood’s Garden Retreat and me and all others who might have
made so bold as to look up and about at that hour of dawn, before crawling back
in bed. We will see how far I can get
today.
A GOOD RUN, AT LAST, IN THE FIRST NON-RAIN (BUT STILL
CLOUDY) DAY IN KALIM PONG AS WE SEE THE MARKIET DAY SET UP AND CONTINUE ON TO
SEVA SADAN HOSPITAL
FOR THE BIGGEST PATIENT DAY YET,
PUTTING US OVER 1200
A run at last! It was only damp and cloudy but not actually raining for the first time since we have arrived in Kalim Pong, so I met Jackie and ran through town and then off to the area where the market would be set up for this Saturday—the biggest market day of the week. We were ahead of all but some early porters carrying in the vegetables and spices for their big day, and I did get a chance to shoot a couple of pictures as they began their day just before we began ours.
Ah, I was dreaming of a “hot shower” (or our bucket bath equivalent) sine I noticed on departure that the electricity was on. After getting clean and warm, I could then email that pair of messages I have tried to send for four days of non-functioning email internet. Wrong on both counts! When the room cleaners had seen that the electricity was on, they came in to our room and turned off the water heater of the tank, so not only did I get a bucket bath only, but it was cold at that!
But the good news was that two of my colleagues had got access to their email accounts and had sent messages, so I brought over the disc on whi8ch I had been typing messages on the laptop when I could get the bugs out of the “corrupted files” so as to store them on a clean disc, and popped it into the machine. Wonderful! I got access to my GWUMC account and immediately tried to attach the birthday message to Milly, typed up two days early and now heading toward two days late. “This page cannot be found.” That was the single response to everything I tried to do, even opening messages and trying to reply to them. Then the power went off, so there was nothing I could do except consider it a wasted hour with a zero yield. No, not zero, since the machine “ate” my disc. So the yield of my efforts has been negative! The metal flap over the floppy disc got caught, bent and trapped the disc which was finally pulled out stripping the flap off and jamming the machine. So, a total meltdown in the efforts to send any message back home about the trip thus far and a couple of timely messages I have been trying to send for several days. So, I will have to redo the efforts on a new disc to recoup the lost messages on the “cleaned up “ floppy disc I had just managed to produce.
BUSY CLINIC AT SEVA SADAN,
WITH SCORES OF INTERESTING CASES AMONG HUNDREDS OF PATIENTS IN A
SOMETIMES CHAOTIC PRESS OF BODIES
I pushed
hard to keep that stations going with at least as many translators as examining
students and run as much through as we could.
But since it was not raining, the patients turned out in droves on this
market day Saturday, almost all of them with an envelope of X-rays or their
endoscopy report, far more sophisticated services than we can get, all of them
eager for a second opinion from the American experts with the principle selling
point being that it was all free with generous amount of medicine given away to
be a bonus. So, by
FOLLLOWING A FULL DAY WITH A RECORD NUMBER OF PAITENTS,
WE WALK THROUGH TOWN AT THE CLSOING HOUJRS OF THE MARKET DAY, AS I HAD
IN RUNNING THROUGH THE OPENING HHOURS OF MARKET SETUP THIS MORNING, AND IT
CONCLUDEDS WITH A MARCHING BAGPIPE BAND ALONG MAINSTREET,
UNDER THE CASTLE-LIKE BELL
FOUNDED BY THE YOUNG
Despite the
long day and full clinic, I had wanted to walk back from Seva Sadan in order to
see the big market day in Kalim Pong, which I had seen being set up when I ran
through it after dawn. I had also seen
the unusual temple and orphanage there that had been run by the Trust of the
Charity Order of the Hindu Sect that also ran
I walked up through the market that had been scurrying to set up when I was there earlier, and now it was also filled with porters who were carrying large loads on tump lines aver their foreheads to break it down after the biggest market day of the week. I could hardly be incognito, since I seemed to be the only westerner in the market, but I did stand in several places long enough that they got used to seeing me and no longer nervous about the cameras I was carrying and taking pictures of the spice markets, vegetable stalls, and the passersby doing their marketing or begging, as was the case with one colorful Sudra who was dressed in his ascetic robes and carrying a brass begging bowl to the spice sacks. I liked the sights and the smells. Then, I heard the sounds.
The sounds
were of a bagpipe band and drums of a marching band in full Raj regalia
marching down
You will see those sights and hear those sounds which I had captured on tape and film, before going back to the Sood’s Garden Retreat, to get ready for our evening dinner out, in a special place which is said to have a spectacular view—when you can see it weather permitting, and in this instance, only by night, despite a full moon, the rim of the Kanchenchunga Range was shrouded in clouds. But, after a long bus ride, we did overlook the lights of Kalim Pong on the hillsides below, where I am usually running and looking up through a very thick cloud cover at this very same hill on which this Deolo Restaurant is run by the West Bengal Tourism Association, our hosts for this evening's dinner, preceded by a bit of pool and beer in the bar.
It was an
interesting climax to the week of work in