Untitled Travel Blog: A crazy couple weeks

Firstly Happy 4th of July!

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to submit any updates. It’s been very busy here and I was sick for a little while. A little over the week ago I had some bad stomach and digestive problems. I had diarrhea for a few days straight, and I also vomited a bit. The doctors here eventually hooked me up to an IV so I could take in fluids as I could not keep anything down and things were passing through too quickly. The doctors were great, and the ones from the US that were here took care of me. They checked on me frequently throughout the day, and made sure I had a steady stream of fluids coming in. I ended up losing about 10 pounds in 3 days, which brings my total weight loss since Bangladesh up to 20 pounds. It is not the healthiest, but I’m eating fine now and hopefully it will start building back soon.

After I was sick, because of all the weight loss and the inability to eat, I was weak for a lot of the last week. I could not walk around too much without getting dizzy, and I was having difficulty eating all that much. As a result I was not able to help out a whole lot with the mad rush to get all the construction finished before the VIPs arrived. I was feeling better by the end of the week, just in times for the guests to arrive.

The VIP’s arrived on Friday, in time for the hospital’s third year anniversary celebration. There were a few of the upper level Nyaya staff here from the US. Then there were a couple major donors, and Paul Farmer was here with his team. For those of you who don’t know Paul Farmer founded Partners in Health, one of the largest global health organizations out there. He is also a professor at Harvard and has a posting at the Brigham. I’ve read both books about him in classes I’ve taken, as well as books written by him in classes I’ve taken and for fun.

At the ceremony a number of people got up to spoke about the work the hospital has been doing. A number of politicians also got up to speak, and they spoke for quite some time. That night there was a banquet at the hospital with outside food brought in so things tasted different which was nice.

The next day, first thing in the morning a couple of the hospital staff actually got married and invited all of us to their wedding. We drove for about 45 minutes to get to a Hindu temple where the ceremony took place. I really had no idea what was going on most of the time but it seemed like a nice ceremony. After that, we went with Paul out to a community where we met with some community health workers. It was my first time actually making it to a community as I was sick the past two weekends, so It was nice to get out into there for a change. That night there was a wedding celebration where there was another big feast, and a lot of dancing. I did not dance at all but I did eat quite a bit. The food was great. I got a stomach ache again, but this time it was from eating too much, rather than eating too little or eating something that was no good.

The next day we took a trip to the district capital at a town called Mungleson. It was about an hour and a half drive but it was not a bad trip in the jeeps we took. When we were there we had a number of discussions about how Nyaya can further connect with the public sector here in Nepal. We also had a meeting with the district health officer at his office. He is in charge of all health initiatives in Achham. He gave us a tour of the district hospital which was unfortunately in a sad state and was pretty run down.

Monday was the group’s last full day at the hospital and we stated on campus and got work done for most of the day. The last of the VIPs left yesterday and it has been business as usual since, albeit a little quiet as few people that have been working here returned to KTM.

To summarize, it was an incredible time having them here. It was nice to have a new group of people to talk to, and getting to work with Dr. Farmer was just incredible. It’s one thing to read a book about someone or to read one of their books. It’s another thing entirely to learn from them and their experience. Everything became a teaching moment, whether it be about how to deal with a patient’s clinical manifestation, to discussing the systemic issues that negatively impact the health of a population. I learned as much or more in the last weekend about global health than I have from entire classes that I’ve taken.

As of right now, I’m feeling healthy, and the work is going well. I’m going to be here in Achham for another 4 weeks, and I’m looking forward to what happens next.