Blogs from Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal, Asia - page 5

Schwer bepackt mit Taschen und Tüten voller Kleider- und Spielzeugspenden schleppen wir uns am Frankfurter Flughafen durch die Sicherheitsschleusen als ich im Augenwinkel sehe, wie meine Tasche herausgewunken wird. "Gibt's ein Problem?" " Haben sie ein Messer in der Tasche?" "Nein natürlich nicht!"Meine Tasche wird geöffnet und etliche Packungen mit Spielsachen und Stiften werden herausgenommen. Plötzlich hält mir der Sicherheitsmann eine Tüte mit Wachsmalstiften vor die Nase und darin befindet sich tatsächlich eine Messerklinge. Die habe ich vorher noch nie gesehen versichere ich ihm. Er schaut mich zweifelnd an und öffnet die Tüte. Auf der Klinge steht eingraviert: "Anspitzer für Wachsmalstifte". Uff. Ich fühle mich etwas besser aber das Ding ist trotzdem ganz schön spitz und scharf und so wundert es mich etwas, dass ich den Anspitzer nach kurzer Absprache mit seinem Chef wiederbek... read more

Day 2 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Kathmandu, Nepal Arriving 2pm at Kathmandu, Tribhuvan International Airport a little worse for wear. Transport has been arranged to meet at the airport and take to Hotel Happy Home, part of the friendly service offered for free when staying with them (http://www.hotelhappyhomenepal.com/). This will be our home for the next three (3) nights. Kathmandu is the starting point of our Nepali Adventure. Settling in to our rooms we quickly decide to wonder the near by streets of Thamel, the temperture is slowly dropping from a pleasant 24c to a cool 10c, we are very supprised how clean the streets are and no over crowding of tourists. While in search of a working ATM which was a little bit of a challenge, (out of order, not accepting foriegn cards, or ... read more

Today Mike got to Kathmandu hooray! I spent the morning at the hospital doing some more shadowing and working on our project that we now realize is not very feasible (very hard to measure the effect of hand washing on hospital infections when the hand washing program has already been started and there are few patients). Anyways, after some time at the hospital I went back to Thamel to prepare for Mike's arrival. I got him a SIM card (it's a big deal to get-- you have to give them a copy of your passport, a passport photo and your thumb prints! It seems like overkill!) and cleaned up the room a bit. I had to take a fan from one of my classmates who's here, Graham's, room because it's really hot here for Mike. It ... read more

Not the best of days that's for sure. It started off fine, I met up with the other volunteers for breakfast and then we went to the hospital as usual. Unfortunately, my stomach was on the rocks and I didn't realize just how much until just before lunch. We were going to get started on the murals in the deluxe cabin. I started to not feel too well, so I went with Erik to the cabin where he started to do the rough sketches of the murals on the wall. I just laid down on the bench and watched his artistic genius. I kept feeling more and more sick unfortunately and got sick in the washroom. It took me awhile before I had the courage to take the bumpy/crazy cab ride back to Thamel. It was ... read more

Today I spent another day at the hospital. In the morning we saw a hydropressure reduction procedure for intussusception in a young child (basically they use water pressure to pop out the telescoping intestine and monitor via ultrasound). Dr X was working on this for his PhD thesis and is a novel way of treating intussusception. Yesterday, I was talking to the head doctor and asked whether he had some walls to be decorated in the hospital, so we came up with the idea to paint the walls of one of the private rooms (cabins) to something more cheerful for sick children. I'm not much of an artist but fortunately one of the Ottawa group, Erik, is. Today we picked out the pictures we'll paint on the wall; Disney themed — Aladdin (Genie and The Carpet), ... read more