Rest day

I was going to catch up on the blog this afternoon, or read the motorcycle diaries. But there was music playing this afternoon and everyone was busy in the girls room, playing cards, reading, studying Odia or looking at pictures. I decided to do nothing at all for a couple hours, happy to be where I am. 

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I woke up in a puddle, the world was a cloud, and it was pouring through the open windows. Outside, I walked into a wall of fog too thick to see my feet through and decided it was time to go back to bed for a few more hours. 

This morning after changing a bunch more dressings from the post-op patients, we went to another small village past the older school. The mud huts were all kept spotless next to huge piles of dried cow dung that they make cook-fires with. We helped feed a bunch of baby goats from a bottle and saw the areas where most of our food comes from.  There was also a little temple, nestled in the middle of 4 mud huts. 

There's an old, poor man who has been here since I got here. He came in with a huge bowel infection and has been here with his wife for a long time. He's homeless and the hospital provides him with food and a bed and tries to keep him clean and heal the infection. He's had a few surgeries and it doesn't look like he will recover. Both he and his wife are twig-thin and have some mental issues as well. The nurses and I have been changing his dressings every day and the wounds smell like death. We're trying to find ways to ease his pain as much as possible. I think it's been exceptionally difficult for the nurses to see the different cultural standards for care and the views on pain management. In western hospitals, pain is suppressed and hidden as much as possible. It's also moving towards the top in importance and becoming even more of a priority in places I've worked. Here, there is very little analgesic for most procedures (cleaning wounds, removing toenails, draining abscesses or hematomas). The people here handle pain with a stoicism I've rarely seen in American ambulances or hospitals. 

The hospital here has old and limited resources, but make the most of their supplies. The doctors, nurses and surgeons coordinate well and are always looking for new ways to improve their procedures. Biku in particular is always asking if there's another way or a better way to treat his patients. As limited as the care here seems, many of our patients come from inadequate government-run hospitals nearby. 

Around 4, we went to the village for tea at the hospital dressers house. Everything is super brightly painted and there were cows under the roof next door and they cooked us fried potatoes and vegetables over a cow-dung fire. Biku had told Digamba that we don't drink out tea with milk or sugar, so it was a super spicy black ginger chai tea. I was the only one who realized it was delicious. While we were eating a drinking, another villager stopped by and invited us to her house for tea as well. So we did an Indian leave (walking away) and went behind the house to this woman's hut for another meal and more tea before walking back. 

When we got back we had a refresher "yoga" session with Doctor Mohanti on the roof. It was quite uncomfortable and added a host of new bites to my collection. It took about 3 hours which was only two and a half hours longer than Dr. Mohanti had told us. He says he will test us when we get back from Puri in two days. 

It was past dinner time and then we hung out for a while listening to Spanish music and then went to bed. 

-AB 

Spicy fire tea

Yoga is not exercise

I joined the wrong cult

The school library with surprising books. I just borrowed old man and the sea.