On Saturday I went with Sapna, the Nepalese medical student doing a clinical internship with Dr. Koirala at the Putali sadak clinic, to the hospital where she studies. It's an Ayurvedic hospital known best for its care of jaundice patients. I don't want to exaggerate, but the experience was kind of harrowing. First of all, the complex wasn't built to be a hospital; the property was bought by government and turned into a public hospital later on. The buildings are essentially huge and residential, almost like hotels. They're not even clean, let alone as close to immaculate as humanly possible like American hospitals. We first went into the men's ward (it goes without saying that we climbed several flights of stairs-elevator is unheard of)...the first floor had three patients in a huge room with about twelve empty beds. One man was belligerent and wouldn't talk, so we didn't go over to him. We spent the most time with a wizened old man who had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and I practiced taking blood pressure (which I still can't do properly) and using the arguably obscure stethoscope (which I can) to hear how lungs shouldn't sound. Then we went upstairs to the jaundice floor, where there were maybe twenty-five or thirty patients whose problems ranged from mild to very severe. I should note that there were not even curtains to divide the beds, let alone separate rooms for the patients...I practiced taking patient history and palpation (with Sapna's translating assistance and patient instruction) and we spent some with with a few of the patients, though not much. We went back downstairs and took a full patient history from a new patient in the non-jaundice ward, who happened to be a classic example of a vata constitution and had problems directly resulting from the behaviors and imbalances associated with that dosha. It was exciting.
We walked out and across the dusty courtyard to the women's building, where there was a grand total of five patients. One was a woman with some kind of menstrual trouble, three I don't know about (one was hooked up to the lone IV in the entire hospital) and the last, quarantined in a corner of the immense single room (maybe fifty beds total) was a seven-year-old girl who had TB meningitis. The entire time we were in the hospital--maybe 2-3 hours--I didn't see a single nurse, and there was a doctor coming in to make rounds in the men's ward as we left. This little girl couldn't speak and was covered with a blanket. I initially thought the old woman lying on the bed was the patient, but as we approached she sat up and rolled back the covers to reveal this tiny figure on the bed, chewing her lip, eyes rolled up, arms and legs folded. She had been in the ward for two days, having come from another hospital in Kathmandu that Sapna said was in "worse condition" than this one. As we left, she began to cry, and her grandmother and mother were trying to massage her legs and pacify whatever discomfort she was in.
After all that, we walked around the courtyard and looked at some of the medicinal plants growing around the complex. None of them are processed or used at the hospital. Still, it was nice to see them: guduchi, amla, and marijuana among others. I took some pictures and then we wandered around Durbar Marg for a while as the sun set. It was wonderful to talk to Sapna about all kinds of things, not only related to medical studies but also about Nepali versus American society, and our personal experiences of various expectations and silent (or not so silent) pressures on women in our respective worlds. On Friday we're going to spend some time going through a fantastic book I have based on polarity therapy, which itself is essentially an adaptation of Ayurveda.
Sunday was the 24th consecutive day of a hunger strike that Tibetans in Kathmandu have been holding. Earlier in the week Ama-la had mentioned that she, Pa-la, and Tsering Dolma were going to be there on Sunday, and invited anyone else in the family to come, and I decided to go as well. Popo-la got so excited about me going that I was almost startled, and everyone in the family was so grateful and kept saying how much it was helping that I was going and supporting them, and how much it meant to everyone. So on Sunday we headed over to Swoyambhu and settled in under the giant tent of Tibetan fabric. We waited for about an hour on the hill outside while the previous group finished chanting and had some thukpa (the strike runs in 24-hour cycles), and then went in and sat down. Almost immediately the man running the affair came over to me and asked me to come sit in the front and center, next to the one other Western girl there, Lorena Rodriguez from Spain. He made some introductory remarks in Tibetan, including introducing me and Lorena, and then we embarked upon our 24 hours of fasting. Most of the time was spent praying, though there were about five or six hours that I was just sitting and looking around, or talking to Lorena. We got water at 3PM, but other than that, there was nothing whatsoever to break the rhythm of just sitting. On Friday I'd gone with Tais to get a mala at the stupa, and I was really happy that she showed me how to use it, because it was a very intense and new experience to use the mala beads and chant mantra (om mani padme hung). The Tibetan momo-las (grandmothers) were thrilled to see me with the mala...it made me feel very good to make them so happy just by being there, and wish that I could do more. Vans of tourists heading to the stupa drove by, and each time they would pull to a stop and stare at us and take photographs, and all of us would flash the peace sign and they would respond in kind and then drive off. It was great to spread the message. I almost got attacked by a monkey when I got up to use the bathroom one time, but aside from that, it was a very peaceful day.
To make things simple, I'll just copy and paste the little article I wrote on Facebook:
The uprising that started in Tibet on March 10th is still spreading worldwide.
Though the protests at the Chinese embassy here in Kathmandu usuallywind up with demonstrators in tears and often with violence (freelyavailable photographs now attest to the force used by Nepali police)many Tibetans, including monks and nuns, continue to fight against the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa and other regions of the country. However, it's equally important to note that aside from these unfortunate incidents, there are peaceful means of protesting as well.These passive methods are also widely used, especially here in Nepal.There are many candlelight vigils held for the monks and nuns who arebeing killed in Tibet and to show solidarity with them.
I spent this weekend at a hunger strike by the Swoyambhunath stupa, with more than fifty Tibetans, and one other Westerner (Lorena Rodriguez, from Spain). These gatherings receive less attention from the media than active protests that quickly become provocative and violent. The people present there were about half from the monastic community and half laymen, and of the laymen, most were Momo-las (grandmothers). The strike has been going on for 24 consecutive days and will go on indefinitely, at least until the Olympics. The strike consisted of refraining from eating or drinking (besides one water break) for 24 hours, sitting together in a large tent, praying, chanting, and so forth.
There were a multitude of signs and banners in several languages:Nepali, Tibetan, English. They called for a UN fact-finding mission,for immediate provision of emergency medical services in Tibet, and forthe international community to press China to allow free movement ofpeople and provide access to daily needs for Tibetans. Aside from theinherency of the situation, there was nothing overtly political aboutthe state of Tibet's state, so to speak: no mention of autonomy,independence, or the like.
Everybody there supported the struggle of Tibetans against the Chinese occupation of Tibet, but perhaps more relevant, they also act as representatives of the true strength of the Tibetan people and Tibetan Buddhism. They condemn violence, whether perpetrated by Chinese or Tibetans, not condemning the perpetrators themselves; at the same time, they recognize and want it to be known that there is a clear imbalance of power in this conflict. There is a definite oppressor and oppressed, a definite victim, though any can be villains. I was there because I do believe justice is on the side of the oppressed.
Please check out the following link to photographs of the hunger strike, as well as other recent protests in Kathmandu:
Now, if you scroll far enough along in that slideshow, you will find a picture of Lorena and myself at the hunger strike. A Reuters news agent came over to interview us sometime in the morning, and gave a short interview; naturally this hasn't been used anywhere. I'm hoping that when I go again on Monday, this time with Caitlyn and hopefully Tais, some of our words might find publicity as well as our pictures. Anyhow, after the protest, we all drank thukpa (which apparently has a very flexible meaning, because in this case it refers not to noodles but to rice soup with cashews, paneer, and Tibetan cheese in it...under other circumstances I might have been sick from it, but it tasted positively delicious) and butter tea, and Ama-la and Pa-la and Tsering Dolma and I went up to the stupa for a couple of hours. First we got watermelon (a monkey stole mine, and Pa-la's) but we made it up unscathed, and it was beautiful and sunny and we had a lovely time. In fact, we also happened to see a very interesting thing almost as soon as we got up there: two nearly white snakes were mating near the temples. They were braided together like the caduceus.
When we got home Tais and Phuntsok had made us lunch, which was very sweet and also thoroughly appreciated, since we were all pretty hungry by then--after the stupa we had gone to sit in Buddha Park, which is this fantastic place with three ENORMOUS gold statues of Avalokiteshvara, Shakyamuni Buddha, and Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava). It was ludicrously sunny and hot, so the hunger caught up with us quickly, and even the chili in the tofu didn't bother me at lunch. Of course, Phuntsok readily admitted that his basic reason for cooking was what I'll call "karma by association"--if he and Tais made us food, they would automatically get some of the merit we got for participating in the strike, as Ama-la said, "without asking." Haha! Either way, lunch was good, and I'm bound and determined to get them to accompany us when we go again on Monday.
There's much more, but this entry is getting super long, so I'll write it in fieldnotes form (haha). Met a brilliant artist, Pasang, who uses old pangtes (chuba aprons) to make beautiful mandalas and designs. His cousin Tashi runs the store, and he was telling me about how his parents suffered discrimination when they first came to Nepal from Tibet; because they ate meat and the Hindus didn't, they weren't allowed to touch vegetables in the supermarkets, and they were poor and not socially mobile because they didn't speak Nepali. Now it's enormously different...the population of Tibetans in Boudha has grown so much that even the Nepalese owners of Gemini Supermarket speak fluent Tibetan, and any shopowners who learn the language do much better business. Still, there is a division, and I can sense discomfort even at home sometimes when self-conscious upper-class Nepalese people come over.
On that note, I will end this entry and go on with various other items of interest later on!
1 comment:
hello! your blog is quite interesting.... i think i am going to search for you on FB :)
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