The weekend rafting was great! I'm pretty sure most of the things we did on the river would be against safety procedure back in Canada! We're in a period between the dangerous monsoon rapids and low winter rapids so we had a nice strong current and great rapids. The raft I was on each also had the best guides by far! Both days my raft's guide had us doing cheers and playing games such as where we stood on the edge of the raft holding hands and tried to pull each other off into the water or stood and leaned on our paddles while going through rapids.
There were also times where guys would board the other raft and push people off or would swim around and yank people backwards into the water. We spent a lot of time in the water when there were no rapids to say the least. We also got to go cliff diving at one point!
Our volunteer leader, Ruth, said that was the first time she saw that happen too! We camped on a beach by the river and had a huge BBQ followed by "rafter's punch". The punch was apple juice, sliced apples and rum and was served warm. It tasted like alcoholic apple pie! The second day the first thing our guide did was launch the raft onto a huge rock like a ramp and almost flip the raft. We definitely had the best guide. The rapids were larger and faster the second day with more jumps, whirlpools and close calls. At one calm point, our guide had us flip the raft about four times intentionally. The last time two girls held on and were launched back into the raft! The whole weekend was amazing!
I spent Monday at work in the emergency ward. There was a man who had a collapsed urethra and so had a catheter inserted right into his bladder through the skin. It looked slightly painful. Also had a nice discussion with the newest doctor there. He's getting married in about 20 days and is probably the calmest groom to be I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure he's buddhist and he sees marriage as a "spiritual union" so I think he's going to be fine. He was giving me medical advice all day like asking what kind of symptoms to look for in certain cases and the order to treat them in. Always start with pain, that's what I learned. He also quizzed me on some things and luckily I knew the answers. He also advised me that Bhutan is a great place to practice medicine once I'm done school. I think I'll have to keep that in mine for later.
I miss milk (it's all yak milk here, and a female yak is a nak, so it's nak yak milk) and being able to get my hands on fruit I can trust.
Tuesday there was a motorcycle accident in the ER. They were both horribly lucky and came away with just cuts and gashes. I also had another conversation with the new doctor and found he finally got a letter of placement for Stupa hospital! I'm happy for him, I think he'll make a great doctor. He was quizzing me again. I feel like I've been in residency for those couple of days. I tried working the lab again, but the people there didn't want to talk to me and just kind of ignored me. I found out the lady I would need to work with since she likes to teach, Sunita, was on night shift. It's disappointing since I bought a book on lab tech procedures that the guy working in the lab before me, Jens (Denmark, pronounced "yens") had and was hoping to work there for the next 2 weeks. After that I've put in to switch to NOH (Nepal Orthopedic Hospital) for the last 3 weeks. They're much busier and I'd have many more opportunities to work directly with patients doing dressings and such, as well as watching more surgeries.
I got to work in the lab again on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday was with Jens as well, so it was fun learning all the basic stuff and the different things he's learned. I've done some clerk work and prepared urine examination tests. It might not be the most exciting stuff, but it's hands on for the whole day and that's good enough for me.
Friday there was a talent show at Snowlands organized by Grace and Jude. All the kids were super-talented with poetry, singing, dances, and skits! They did a great job!
Saturday was another self-organized trip by everyone at the hostel. Everyone had gone except Jens, who left for Tibet that morning and Grace who went to a Snowlands soccer match. We all rented scooters and Sebastian rented a motorcycle in Kathmandu and we went south to the Lele valley. It's a rural area where not many foreigners go so it was really great. We had to go travel on a dusty mountain road to get there, so I was very brown after a very short time. Lele was all green hills and small villages and was so very tranquil.
From there we traveled to Godawari, another small village where Bobitra, the lady who cooks for us, lived with her husband. We visited the Shanti Ban Buddha, a giant golden buddha overlooking Godawari.
We also traveled up to the Godawari Kunda, which we thought was a sacred spring, and it seemed like all we could find was men bathing. We went to sit in the botanical garden forest after that. It was beautiful and we really could understand why it is so popular on Saturdays, the Nepali peoples' holy and often they're only day off.
After that we rode up a rocky mountain trail where I fell over a couple of times due to potholes. The girl riding with me, Jennie, took it all in stride though. Our next stop was Bishanku Narayan, a Hindu shrine at the peak of the hill. Nepali people love stairs, so we climbed another set to get up to it. There's a cave there with a legend that if you can't fit through it then your sin is pride or gluttony.
Surprisingly, all of us fit through.
The view from above the shrine was amazing and we thought it would make an amazing picnic spot.
From there we kept on the mountain trail until we reached where the path sloped down again. Then it turned into more of a green, slimy hiking trail. We kept following it though and rode our brakes the entire way down. It felt like being in the middle of a rainforest with walls of green leafy trees on each side. The hum from the cicadas filled the air around and it was all I could hear besides my scooter. My scooter kept stalling too, so it was mainly just silence. It was definitely a one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. After that we booked it through Lubhu, another small village. I almost hit a bus trying to pass another bus in front of me. Luckily I stopped just in time and so did the other bus. Phew. On the way into Kathmandu me with Jennie and Jude lost the others at an intersection and we had to find our way back to Thamel on our own. We somehow pulled it off and made it back with five minutes before the scooters had to be returned. The entire trip was great and an amazing way to see Nepal. All of us want to do another scooter trip again!
Monday we went to a wedding reception of a famous bollywood actress that Santosh, who runs the hostel, knows so we went to a 5-star hotel and had a great night of food and drinks. Lots and lots and lots of food. The bunch of us scraggly, way too casually dressed volunteers didn't quite fit in.
Tuesday was the nest interesting day. Me, Sebastian and Nicki went to an eye hospital in Banepa to observe eye surgery. We observed about 5 cataract surgeries. There surgeon was real quick at cutting open the eye, removing the clouded lens, washing out the cloudy film in the eye, replacing the natural lens with an artificial one and cauterizing the wound back up. It almost seemed like a scene from a horror film with the eye being held open and blood pooling around the eye. I'll spare you pictures of that.
Yep, things are really sterile. You're allowed to bring a camera in...
We also saw the anesthetic being injected through a large needle being inserted beneath the eye and tilting the point towards the eye. That was enough to numb the muscles around the eye and the optic nerve. Being the first surgery I've seen I thought it was really fascinating. On our way there and back we saw a humongous statue of Shiva in the hills. I really hope we go back there sometime.
This week I've been working in the pathology lab. I've had more chances to prepare different tests like urine examination slides and white blood cell counts where I stained the different blood smears. I've also done more filing and stuff. I've learned different things about blood biochemistry, as well. Sunita wants me to learn to collect blood so I hope I'll be able to do that in the next couple of days before I move to NOH.
Well, that's all that I've had happen for the last while. Namaste.
P.S. I have a beard now!
You don't know the name of temple in Nala doesn't mean that it doesn't have name>>>
ReplyDeletefor your kind information its Shirstikanta Lokeshwor' karunamaya Temple of Nala...
Its one of the 4 karunamaya of Kathmandu Valley