Title: The Clinic, The Food, and The Mud
Date: 08/09/2011
There are so many things I want to tell you all about!
Today is day two of work at the clinic. I get woken up at 5:45 in the morning by one of the house mothers to go meditate, but have skipped out on the meditation for the last two days and have been using her as my alarm clock instead. It takes me that long to get ready in the mornings. First I have to crawl out of my mosquito net, shake out the blankets from the bugs that managed to get through the net, and then put everything back. Then I have to try to bathe. I haven't really figured out the most efficient way of doing this just yet. There isn't a shower. I have a bucket and a bowl. To wash my damn thick hair I have to bend over and stick my head in the bucket. It is pretty comical, really.
After the bathing ritual I do laundry so that the clothes can air dry during the day. Again, I use my bucket with the water that I used to rinse off with. At least I am resourceful. Then at 7am I head to the clinic and get bombarded with all the "sick" kids. Most of them aren't sick, they just want the honey water that Didi gives them for sore throats. But a couple I am kind of worried about. One has heart problems and has been running a fever and coughing for a couple days. He is pretty susceptible to infections because of his heart. He had some sort of open heart surgery, but I don't know which kind. So far we are just watching him and giving him honey water and grapefruit seed oil. A lot of the kids have cuts and wounds that I have to bandage. Wound care here at BU is something very different. They don't use gloves for one thing, and they spend what seems like hours just cleaning the cut. I insist on wearing gloves, most of the time. Luckily none of the children are HIV+ at this time, and most have been cleared of other infections as well. I don't think it is that we don't have access to gloves, I just think that it isn't the way they are used to doing things. Anyway... many people, old and young come in with big crappy wounds. Things that back in the US I would want to treat with IV antibiotics if I were a doctor. But here the Didi uses green clay. And guess what? It works! Better than anything I've seen back home, and much quicker.
Today and yesterday were mostly spent re-organizing the clinic. There are so many files that need to either be filed or put away, and so, so, so many medications that aren't used. People donate meds to us but don't know that we are all homeopathic, the Didi doesn't even know how to use any of them. But that might be changing. With my western medicine background and her eastern medicine background we are already compromising on things and learning a ton from eachother. I give Paracetamol (Tylenol) to the kids with fevers and headaches. I want to start using antibiotic cream on some of the wounds I see, just because what happens is the kids get mosquito bites, they scratch them, they open, and then they go out into the jungle and the open areas become ridden with whatever bacteria lives out there. Probably parasites too. There are bottles and bottles of antibiotics that we don't use either (but could be used for one of the house mothers who has real bad tonsilitis).
So, at about 9ish, after the kids go to school, I head down to breakfast which consists of rice, potatoes, and veggies of all sorts. If I had any illusion that I was going to get skinny while here, that has for sure vanished. The same type of meal is served for lunch, except for a few fried things thrown in for fun, and the same for dinner. I absolutely LOVE the food. It is a combination of Thai, Burmese and Karen. The spices they use are incredible and nothing is too spicy.
After breakfast I go back to the clinic and make "rounds", check on the kids who are sick and who stayed home from school. The house mothers determine who is too sick to go to school. I will forever be grateful for these women. These are usually single mothers who have no where else to go so they live here with the kids. They have a set group, usually about 5 kids to each room. Some of the house mothers are very young, like 15. Others are older and sort of lead the younger ones around. It is a matriarchal culture.
Today I had some time while the kids were at school so I made the trek to town through the mud, it has been raining all day. I can't wait to take more pictures of the amazing landscape. We are surrounded by green hills shrouded in clouds after the rain lets up. There is a lake in front and in back, and I will have to look at the map, but I am pretty sure it is the same lake. Everything is green. Except for the mud. The mud is red, a lot like Kauai. It stains everything it comes into contact with also. Hence the laundry every morning.
The kids get home around 3 and again raid the clinic for more honey water or lemons or apples. And of course more of them have cuts and scrapes from school. Today I wanted to go to yoga at 5:30, but was too busy with the kids. The Didi teaches yoga and meditation every Tuesday and Saturday to all the long-term volunteers. I tried to go later but got lost and was covered head to toe in mud anyway.
Oh, the dogs. Let me tell you about the dogs. And the cats. There are like 20 of them living here that I've managed to count. They are actually pretty well taken care of from what I can tell. Some are pups, some are old, some kittens, and a big cat that lives in the basement called "Puss". I don't know any of their names, but, then again I don't know any of the children's names either.
The one child I was talking about last time is actually a boy. They say he is "slow". It is so hard to tell. I think actually he might have a hearing problem because of the way he talks and gestures. He is so incredibly sweet though. He seems to have latched on to me like glue. He recognizes me and remembers that I took pictures of him and so I don't think he can be that slow. There is also an 8 month old baby who has down syndrome that was dropped off on our porch when he was 2 days old. This happens many times with many children. They get sick or they are born sick and their parents are from Burma with no papers and no money, so they just leave them here. Which is better than the alternative... I am sure you know the alternative, but don't need me to write here.
We have 150 kids here. Another organization in town, Children of the Forest, has 150 kids. Another organization provides relief work for some of the migrant families and helps to pick kids up in the mornings and take them to school. That's about 600 kids total that are safe, in a town with a population of 10,000. You do the math. And if you want to know what they are safe from, just google Burmese refugees and living conditions in border towns.
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On that note... I best be off to bed. Or to eat, since I missed dinner. Not that I need food. Fatty.
Thank you ALL for your continued love and support. If you want to help me or the organization send me an email and I will tell ya how.
Love,
Ani
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