My last week in Nepal was pretty similiar to all the others in all honesty. At least until the end.
This is NOH.
Tuesday I saw another spinal surgery involving more large screws being jammed into the spine. There was also a partial hip replacement where the head of the femur was pulled out and replaced with a metal ball. When you think of surgery you usually think of delicacy, not the hammers, drills, files, and brute force the surgeons usually need to use here for operations. There was also a skin graft going on on a 16 year old boy who had fallen into a fire 8 or 9 years ago. He had serious third degree burns all over his right torso and arm. The skin graft was being placed in his underarm, where the skin stretches and tears. Since he's been having surgeries for 8 or 9 years his leg was covered in scars from all the skin that had been taken over the years. He had had surgery in India multiple times but it would continue to tear and not heal properly. The doctor told me and Luke (from Oz down under) that they ran tests and discovered carcinoma (cancer) cells in the tissue samples. That seemed to be the reason he wouldn't heal. That's quite a lot of difficulties for a boy from rural India, I think.
Wednesday was a bit of a strange. Oddly enough, even though I had been in Nepal for 8 weeks at that point it was the first time I had an "it doesn't have to be this way" moment at the hospital. Two injured girls came in to the emergency ward for wound cleaning and bandage changing. They both seemed to be somewhere in their mid-teens. The first girl had an infection in her foot and needed to have her leg amputated from mid-shin down. That was 5 years ago and she has been confined to a wheelchair since then. She had just come in to change the dressing on a wound on the end of where she had the amputation. In all honesty, that can't be a difficult prosthetic to make but it's possibly to expensive for this young Nepali girl. No one should be confined to a wheelchair when the solution is as simple as a piece of plastic shaped like a foot. The second girl had had severe burns over the right half of her face and neck. They seemed to be older since they were mostly healed except her neck, which seemed to be re-healing after tearing. Sure, the burns were severe, but plastic surgery would most likely not be difficult at all in the west. Nothing needed to be rebuilt, just scar tissue needed to be exchanged for clear skin. I find it hard that it would be hard to find a doctor with the skills and the money to do this in the west. For any girl, or anyone really, living in any culture with scars like that can make life ridiculously harder. And there's really no reason why it needs to be this way besides a lack of funds to have it done in one of the poorest countries of the world where, though cheaper than medical help here, everything needs to be paid for privately. That ended up being a difficult day for me, to be honest, and it's still a difficult memory.
Dr. Kugler ready for action!
Dr. Kugler in action!
Thursday there weren't a whole lot of surgeries to see, but one was interesting: I got to see Dr. Sebastian in action. He assisted a surgery where a lady who had a screw put into here heel to hold a fracture was ready to have it taken out again. At NOH, the doctors are the ones who do the operations. Senior doctors do the more complicated parts of the procedures, while younger doctors assist. I think there's maybe one or two dedicated surgeons at NOH, but I haven't seen them in action. Sebastion's doctor he was paired with did the incision and exposed the head of the screw where Sebastian took over, removed the screw and stitched the wound shut. He was shaking quite a bit while doing the stithes, but hell, so would I! I'm kind of jealous at the amount Sebastian has gotten to do at NOH but he's also a qualified physio who has the knowledge to back up assisting. He has more than just a clue about what he's doing, the initiative to act, and the balls to follow through. He has my respect for that and he can do it, so he might as well actually do it.
Here's me and Chika.
Thursday was also my final lesson with Chika, the Japanese girl I was tutoring in English. The lessons never really went beyond us just having a conversation and if something confused her, me explaining it the best I could. It was sad, I've really enjoyed practicing speaking with her. We had talked about almost everything, that kind of happens when you just sit and talk for an hour and a half twice a week for a month and it was nice getting to know her. To me, those lessons were a large part of my experience in Nepal since for almost half of my time there we had our lessons.
My last day of work on Friday mainly just consisted of me bumming around the hospital. I bought some cheap vitamin B pills to bring back (one month for 90 rupees, so like $1.20), checked the lab to see if there was something I could do, chatted with the lab tech since it was slow, and went to the emergency ward to see if there was something there for me to do. I had just been in emergency for a few minutes when the two girls I remembered from Wednesday came in again for another dressing change. All the nursing students were already occupied, so it ended up being me doing it. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience. Cleaning wounds and changing dressings isn't really fun at the beast of times, in all honesty. And after cleaning the cleaning the girl with the burn's neck I'm quite sure she was quite pretty before whatever accident happened happened to her. I feel like this is what it is to be a doctor in a nutshell. Something you'd really rather not do, on people you feel for, but you still need to do it, and do it well. Welcome to medicine 101.
That was also the day when I figured out I'd be leaving Nepal on the 18th. It was a depressing, but expected, outcome. I was finally able to stop worrying about money and go buy souvenirs, on the plus side I guess.
Dan, Ian, and Grace had gone traveling around to Pokhara and Chitwan National Park and had returned and we all decided on going on one last scooter tip on Saturday, because we survived two, so might as well shoot for three! We all named our scooters each time: first time mine was Sylvia, then Samantha, and the final time Coraline. They were all good scooters, but Coraline was a bit of a pain in the ass. I'll explain later. We set our sights on Nagarkot this time.. Nagarkot's a mountaintop village with breathtaking views of the surrounding Nepali landscape. They say on a really clear day you can see Everest. We weren't expecting anything as lucky as that, but we still wanted to go.
The day started off pretty eventful. I found this really good coffee shop at the advice of Chika which serves Nepali grown coffee and is yards ahead any of the coffee shops I've been to in Calgary. It was good having just a damn good cup of coffee again for breakfast. The breakfast wraps we had weren't half bad either. Right after we had rented the scooters and were leaving Thamel, I had a bit of a hard time getting through an intersection a traffic cop wasn't controlling due to oncoming traffic (unluckily, I was last in our line of scooters) and was for some reason questioned by the cop on seeing my bike license. Of course I didn't have my license, I don't even have a bike license and my driver's license was back in Canada since I figured "why would I need a license in Nepal?" So, I told the cop it was back at the hostel and I was going to go pick it up now. So me and him stood there in the middle of Kathmandu traffic for a while discussing what we were going to do next. He wanted to impound the scooter and get me to bring my license to the station and pay a fine, then simply wanted to give me a fine, but he never got around to it, while I offered to take the scooter back to the rental place or take a ticket if that's what he wanted. It hadn't dawned on me before I was writing this that maybe he was fishing for a bribe, but I wouldn't have given him one even if I had figured it out. I was leaving in two days, so not happening. Luckily, right then Sebastian rolled up and flashed his German bike license at the cop and the cop backed off and gave me a warning instead. The rest of the way to the hostel was uneventful though, fortunately. What a great start to the day!
Here's the kind of mud we had to travel through.
Here you can see the qualified physio taking care of important business while they bandage Kate in the background!
The road up to Nagarkot was really muddy from the overnight and morning rainfall so it became an adventure navigating the rural roads and staying upright. Unfortunately, this was also where we had our first casualty. Kate (from Chicago) burned her leg on the exhaust of Ian's scooter as she was getting off before a big mud hole. It was pretty bad, but not bad enough that it couldn't be bandaged up and certainly not bad enough to stop the girl from Chicago! We just had a bit of a first aid stop for a little while. All the future med students and the presence of the qualified nurse (my passenger, Steina, from Denmark) made it a pretty quick stop. After we passed all of the giant patches of mud the hill got ridiculously steep which makes it pretty damn difficult for our scooters to keep up speed, especially with two people on. There were a lot of fully throttled motors as we all tried or damnedest to get up the next stupid rise of the horribly cobbled road. Eventually I got my scooter (and Steina, I'm proud to say) to a flat area where we could rest and wait for Sebastian to gather up all the leftover passengers on his motorcycle and bring them up while the scooters struggled up. Yeah, Sebastian on the bike were pretty much our safety all three days, gotta admit. While we waited, we discovered a "village in the clouds" on the way to Nagarkot as clouds engulfed our waiting area. It was pretty much more of the same hills until we finally made it up to Nagarkot.
"The village in the clouds."
Once we got there, we had a brainstorming session, then followed some random Nepali guy we just met down another muddy-as-all-hell road to a hotel/restaurant with a balcony for lunch. There I finally got to try Choila, a buff jerky in a kind of chili marinade, that I had wanted to have for ages. I don't think it's come up before this, but since the population's 80% Hindu in Nepal, you can't eat beef. Killing a cow is life imprisonment in Nepal. What you get is water buffalo, or buff, which tastes leaner and more like bison, but it's still really good. As the clouds burnt off while we were eating we realized why people said it was worth it to come here: the views were spectacular and no matter how many pictures I took I could never really capture the pure awe of seeing the Nepali landscape below you.
As we left the restaurant I noticed my scooter was having the unusual and new found tendency of the rear tire skidding back and forth instead of gripping the road. Soon after that we came to the conclusion that my tire was flat and so we set out to find a shop and a shop is what we found; a Nepali guy running a shop out of his house, to be exact. It took a while to find and repair the leak so we had more time to sit and reflect on the scenery and for me to attempt to come to terms with the idea that I was leaving all of that behind the next day.
Once we finally set out again, we miraculously found a paved road and some relief from the terrible cobbled and dirt roads. Go figure the only asphalt road around was one by an army base. We made our way to the view tower at Nagarkot to check it out. There were some quite charming drunken Nepali guys in the tower wasted and high out of their minds. A few of us were trying to figure out how they made it down the ladder on the tower again. The view we saw was once again, worth the drive, and the drunk guys. The "road" down was another matter entirely.
These are the kind of views we drove to see!
It was pretty reminiscent of that green hiking trail we slid down on our first trek. It was another harrowing, slippery slope with trenches we had to drive around and sometimes through and slick mud to deal with. Before the trenches had even began to appear I had a bit of trouble when my rear tire decided to lose control and fishtail and my scooter slid. I stopped the scooter just in time from falling over completely, but not soon enough from stopping Steina from spilling out into the mud. Sorry about that Steina... The next bit of excitement was when ahead of me Sebastian's bike took a fall over and spilled off Kate and Grace. One of the trenches took his front down into it and he was able to hang on and keep it up but he hurt his shoulder. It turned out he sprained some ligaments as far as I know and was in pain the rest of the trip back but other than that he was fine. After that we took a short break a little farther down and the others made him a shoulder brace deal from a belt. I'm not sure if it worked though, but it was a good attempt. From then we were out of the forest and it's mud slicked roads and back to the horribly cobbled roads we knew before. At this point, we became in a bit of a rush since it was getting close to when we needed to return the scooters and in our rush we split up on to two different roads. Me and Sebastion with Kate, Grace, and Steina with everyone else going a different way back to Kathmandu.
We each surged on our diverging paths and Sebastian and I made our way down to a road that would take us back to Bhaktapur and then Kathmandu. We were just on that road when I started hearing a very disconcerting sound: my muffler dragging on the road... The bolt holding it in place didn't have a nut it seemed and there was a crack right by the engine we noticed which caused the exhaust to shake the bolt out and so it dropped. We stopped and with the help of some kind Nepali people we attempted to use some wire and rope to hold it up. After a couple frustrating tries we found a young guy who had a screw for us to use and lucky for us, that held. It seemed almost like we were home free, but not quite. After we got on to the main road into Kathmandu the last little bit of bad luck hit me: my rear tire simply exploded. Apparently, that's one of the worst things that can happen on a bike, but luckily, even with all the shaking and swerving and fishtailing I was able to get us to the side of the road without any damage to me, Steina, nor the bike. Well, besides our nerves anyways.
After this incident we went our separate ways again: the passengers, Kate, Grace, and Steina took a bus back to Boudha, Sebastion went on ahead to the shop and to get his shoulder checked out, and I wandered with my scooter searching for a place to repair the tire. It was Saturday, the one day most Nepali people have for a weekend, so of course everything was closed. I ended up deciding to drive to the shop on the flat. But, of course, my regular glasses were off in Martin's backpack, and, of course, it gets dark by 7 in Nepal so I had to drive back in the dark with no glasses on. I got to drive for somewhere around on hour on a scooter that had no control, on the side of the road with insane Kathmandu traffic, with only blurry glares to guide me. I figured my fun was done when I got to the shop, but when I got there they saw the tire, touched the exhaust and it fell off. It seemed the crack that caused the shaking got damaged enough from the road that it fell off. The guys at the shop decided to keep my passport as a deposit until morning when I would talk the guy's brother about paying for repairs. A good thing was that Ian got fed up with the horrible control of his scooter and kicked it, damaging the front, so they had his passport as well and I didn't have to go back alone. The rest of the night with everyone was a good way to unwind anyways. Luke's plan's got changed so he wasn't going to Everest base camp anymore so I chatted with him for a while.
In the morning, there was some apprehension, some mild discussion about who was at fault and I paid a much more reasonable amount than I had expected (500 rupees) and I got my passport back. Ian had a bit of a tougher time negotiating and ended up being ripped for 2500 rupees. Him, Dan, and Grace left Monday morning so he didn't have much of a choice. Like me, he just really needed that little book back. The rest of the morning was a mad rush of spending my money on souvenirs and gifts. I ran into Asim (from the UK), who arrived the day after me and was leaving the next day with Dan, Ian, and Grace and so I went around with him and we chatted about the different things we'd done over our months, and a couple new volunteers who just arrived tagged along too.
Martin, Amelie, the kids, and their dance.
In the afternoon, our plans were to go to the opening ceremony for the new building for LDC (Life Development Centre), a project where Amilie and Martin worked. LDC is a home, they call it a school but it mainly just takes care of the people, for mentally challenged people. The youngest there are kids and the oldest I believe is around 40. The old building was in Jorpati near NOH and the outskirts of Kathmandu. It was an old building with no way for the kids inside to go outside, no showers or baths, and was in as bad condition as any other urban building in Kathmandu. The new building was on the outskirts of the rural town of Sankhu, 20 km from Kathmandu, and had showers and many bathrooms, a courtyard that was going to be filled with grass and trees, and was in brand new condition. We were all really happy and excited to see the kids get this new building. The speeches were.....nice......but the best part of the ceremony, and what we came to see, were the traditional dances involving people who stay at LDC and people who work there. The highlight was definitely Amilie and Martin in traditional Nepali costumes doing a dance to a song that went on for 6 minutes. They both did a great job prancing around and waving their arms traditionally though (a damn sight better than I could have pulled off anyways)!
The brand new LDC!
Once we got back, I had to rush and pack. And by pack, I mean throw everything I was taking with me into my suitcases and hope I didn't forget anything. I left behind clothes, my towel, and a pair of shoes to donate to Snowlands school where I had already donated the guitar I bought in Nepal and my tuner, so that cleared up some badly needed space. It all fit, it was packed beyond belief, but it fit. And that's what matters.
As a last send off for myself, Grace, Dan, and Ian who were all leaving the next morning as well, we went out for dinner one more time to the Shechen monastery. For me, it was more sad than anything else. It was when I had a chance to look around the table, remember all the experiences I had with all these people, remember the ones that had left already and realize just how lucky I was and just how much I was going to miss all these people. The farewells were probably the longest I've ever had and the heartfelt for me since I was a child. Taking that cab to the airport and giving the driver the last rupees I had felt like the longest, quietest, and the saddest journey I've made in a very long time.
Hong Kong and the ocean. It's different...so unbelievably different...I should also mention I love the ocean. I should really just live by the ocean. I really should. Why do I live in Calgary?
Hong Kong was alright. It was another chance to contemplate where you've come from, where you are right now, and where you're heading. But hey, I got to see the ocean again, and at least that's something.
The Rockies.
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