Cut and paste from email to moms

The clinic that I volunteer for is run by the most amazing lady I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Dr. Pradham does a little of everything, yet starts each morning having a cup of tea with me and making sure that I am eating well and getting enough sleep and keeping up on my studies. She is a demanding person, but through her efforts she seems to move mountains in such a stagnant country.

The leporacy center is a small 15 bed hospital where the worst leporacy cases are brought for more intensive care by Dr. Pradham and her staff. Every morning I start out by cleaning the patients' shared rooms. There are 4 to 5 beds per room and we have a rotation of when each bed sheet is to be cleaned. After everything in the room has been scrubbed with antibacterial wash I help the nurses to dress wounds. In a city with a very primitive water supply system and frequent black outs, sterility is often not even an option. Some of the wounds I dress are older than me. The bacteria that causes leporacy is close in biological terms to the one that causes TB, but luckily, 98% of the population has a genetic immunity to the disease. That unlucky 2% of people without natural immunity will lose sensation in their extremeties as the disease attacks their nerve endings. the ulcers are not directly from the disease, instead they come from the patient not being able to feel pain and thus not realizing when they have burnt or cut themselves. The wound will go untreated for years sometimes as most of Nepal is rural villages where no one is too concerned with hygiene or even know what leporacy is. Many of the patients at the center have ulcers that have festered and now reach to their bone. The disease is curable through antibiotics, but the damage done to the nerves is irreversable so even with daily attention the loss of blood flow to the extremeties will cause the wound to take a great deal more time to heal. After all the patients have been taken care of I usually start doing some of the little chores around the center like making dressing kits or making cotton balls (seriously, they hand me a sheet of cotton and I make the cotton balls one by one to save on the price of ready made cotton balls). Some of the patients make small art projects which are sold to offset costs of the center or to buy them little treats like a radio or new clothes. Twice a week Dr. Pradham takes her staff outside of the city to visist the larger center.

The elder house is another animal all together. Somewhere around 200 homeless, familyless elders live in an old temple that is falling to pieces around them. Row upon row of beds line each hallway and usually the residents are left to fend for themselves medically, but twice a week staff from the clinic go to take care of the sick and give medicines. I can't even begin to tell you what an awful place the home is.

The school is possibly my greatest trial. It is set up for children who otherwise couldn't afford to go to school. I get no instruction as to what I am to teach, I'm just sent into the room full children who want to ask me a million questions and all of them want to hold my hand and hug me. I've been working on thinking up games to play with them to help them learn english since the only books that they have are tattered workbooks that they review the same words in over and over.

I am slowly learning the languages. My family and the area of the city I live in mostly uses Tibetan, but mostly people speak Nepali. Many of the sounds are very different from anything I have spoken before and I get frustrated.

I am trying to keep a good pictorial record of my stay, but it is difficult when every time I bring out my camera all the neighborhood kids try to get in every picture and ask for me to take photos while they pose. It usually ends up that I get one or two good pictures of whatever I'm looking at and the rest are shot after shot of little kids crowding around the camera, giving the peace sign or the finger.

I must say, that I'm rather starting to enjoy handwashing my clothes in a bucket. It is kind of fun to see how much dust I collect just wandering around town.

Miki, Tais, and I have cracked the Hyatt wifi system, and now have really shitty internet in our rooms.

I miss fresh fruits and veg so much. Everything here has to be cooked because of the bacteria, but when I walk through the market all the veggies look so fantastic and are all organic because no one here can afford chemicals.

All the food is cooked in butter. Nepali tea is made with half water and half milk. My stomach is not adjusting well. I have had to get used to a lot diet wise.

The only cats that I've seen here have all been feral and it kills me a little inside. I miss snuggling with my kitties a lot.

It is awesome to be able to walk out of my house and in five minutes be at an ancient holy site. Despite my lack of religion, I love the feeling I get when I'm near the stupa. There is just something relaxing in the air.