OCT-B-8
CLOSING OUT
WITH AN AMAZING TOTAL OF 1380 PATIENTS
FOR FOUR CLINIC DAYS IN THIS PROVINCE FOR MY FIRST WEEK,
AND GOING ON BY ROAD, OUT OF
AND INTO
AND ON TO OUR NEXT CLINIC SETUP IN
MANGAN
It has been
a full day in transit with a number of stops for permits, clearances, and
re-packing our stuff out of vans rented in West Bengal and transferring over to
Sikkim jeeps, but I have arrived now at dark in Mangan, in a “guest house” in
which the electricity (at least there is some here) is crackling through and
melting the connector to which I have attached my adapter. So, before the total meltdown, I will try to
describe our transfer out of the week in
SECOND DAILY RUN IN A ROW, AS WE RUN UP THE STEEP HILLS,
AND THROUGH THE POST-MARKET DAY QUIET KALIM PONG
I did not
see the mountain in the
I returned
from the run with visions of a hot watrer bucket bath, since I had been careful
to see that the heater was turned on in our bathroom, so that the water could
get hot. Unlike yesterday when I
returned from the run to find that all I had was clod water, today would be
different. That’s right. There was no
water, hot or otherwise. After an initial
dribble of warm water, which encouraged me to get soaped up, the water quit
altogether, so all I could use to rinse was the left over cold water in the pail
I had hoped to use to flush the Indian toilet, which being in
Well, that was just one frustrated hope; let’s try another. Christi had got up early and had logged on to the internet, and acutely had sent an email. I rapidly logged in and got---the same perpetual page that it has shown me all week “This page cannot be found.” It never did work, for me or anyone else all morning, so that must have been a fluke occurrence for her. I had tried to send Milly’s birthday message, typed two days before here birthday, and now, still unsent, two days after her birthday, at a time when she will have forgotten the significance this event. I have also tried to send another message, which has likewise been typed in several times and never has the connection been made. So, I will have to carry along these thoughts until I can reach some reliable machine somewhere, although it seems I am on my way to places more remote and less likely to have phone and electricity to be counted upon.
We were
supposed to have an “Indian Breakfast” due to the misplaced enthusiasm of one
of our group who expressed rapture over the spicy exotic dishes as a wake up
dish. So, I mostly had bread and got the
minimal stuff I have with me (remember
that all of my stuff for this trip is supposed to have arrived from Simla for
my use, but it is unaccountably tied up in Kolkata, from which it will not be
ransomed in time for this trip, if ever, for my use. So, we would be ready to go at
We drove to
Gangtok, the capitol of
I had been
in a similar vehicle going from Malaybalay to Cagayan de Oro in
We arrived in Mangan, and have found our way to facilities, that, at the most charitable, can be said to be “Rudimentary”. I had plugged into to the one outlet—as mentioned above—to take advantage of the flickering electricity to charge up the lap top, but for the puzzling and alarming buzzing and crackling sound accompanied by snap, pops and a bit of flaring smoke. It stopped after a while, and so did the green light indicating that I was charging my laptop battery. It seems the wall circuit had fried after shorting out and burning through the plastic receptacle in the wall, so I am flattening the battery on this text as I rush to complete the day’s account.
I walked
across the street to an “Indian dinner” which consisted of rice, “roti” pan
bread, and a veggie mix soaked in curry powder and pepper, so the best part of
this dinner for me, of course, is the liter of water that I had to drink as
fast as I could to extinguish the flames of the assault on my tongue and oral
mucosa. It is unlikely that I will gain
much weight on this trip! Another reason
may be that I scheduled another
One other
item: I saw the Asian toilet at the end
of the hall down from my room, and crawling up the wall was a large female
preying mantis. I thought this looked
neat, so I went back to take my camera back to shoot this “facility” and the
large insect who had chosen to perch here for prey. As I returned, she had decided upon her prey.
She flew directly at my face and perched upon my right eyebrow! Given the reputation of the female mantis for
her culinary tastes following her amorous pursuits, I elected to flick her off
and run back to leave the camera in the room and not to try to make any
portraits of amorous mantidae!