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Published: July 30th 2009
Leanne with Nanu
Puna's house for our 1st week in the villageEverest Foothills
For some reason we weren't expecting the Everest foothills to be overly mountainous, we felt we had done the walking we were going to do in the Annapurna region and the walk to Deusa health post should just be a 2 day walk down the valley nothing too strenuous. How wrong we were armed with a small library and a large medical kit, it was a long and heavy 5 day walk. Walking 18km daily with a daily pass to climb ranging from 3000-4000m, then descending back down to 1500m then back up after lunch. The monsoon rains didn't help and the leeches were out in force.
We were walking with a 19 year old from the village and we certainly met our match in walking, and apologize to anyone we have previously pushed too far whilst walking, which is probably everyone we've ever walked with. Young Bhuddhi didn't let us rest at all.
We were very happy to leave him in his village for our trip home, and walked the trail back to the road head in a more comfortable 7 days.
The village of Deusa is actually a series of villages ranging from 1500m on
the banks of the dhudi koshi up to the ridge of a mountain at 2200m. The health post was near the top of the ridge and the school was halfway down to the river.
For the first week we stayed close to the health post with a lovely family (Mother, son, daughter in law and 18 month old girl) they fed us dal bhat till we exploded twice daily (The whole village only eat two meals a day at 9:00am and at 8:00pm then straight off to bed, not too good for the digestion). The second week we stayed with the two English teachers at bit further down the valley, they are from Darjeeling and sponsored by the same organization as the health post ( Mohan, tez, rheema tez's wife and tez's son 2 year old dewang). With no toilet or shower facilities, we initially tried to have a bucket shower by the buffalo pen but this was a bit tricky. Therefore we opted for the luxury of the running water of the village tap. Saturday's appeared to be the villages shower day, so once the tap was free we gathered our clothes and discretely tried to wash under our
The Healthpost
It often becomes a social gathering where people drop into discuss each other's health concerns sarongs as the villagers seemed to do with ease. This is indeed a talent we had not yet acquired.
Leanne precariously washing her hair, whilst in her sarong was soon joined by a naked child under the tap and his mother whom insisted on washing the soap out of Leanne's hair also joined us, once she was satisfied with the job she'd done, a informal consultation commenced in Nepali of course. This was to happen the entire time we were in the village. Once her joint pain was addressed we completed our washing without gathering too many more spectators.
Once we moved to Mohan and Tez's house, we were relieved to see a more private tap surrounded by fields, but our showers never became private, we seemed to gather more spectators each time!
The informal consultations also continued, we lived in the middle of corn fields, and as it was the farming season, our room would often suddenly be filled with farmers with various ailments. The edge of my bed becoming the consultation area. At least Mohan was on hand to translate for this.
The health post was open from 10-2, these hours varied as some days you were
completely inundated with patients some having walked many hours to see you.
I worked with Mohan (the village English teacher whom was my translator) and Dev who is the newly qualified nurse that runs the post. She does do a wonderful job and it is a difficult one to maintain with such limited facilities. There is no running water to the health post, so washing your hands in between patients doesn't happen. Whilst the medicine supplied by the government doesn't last a month if it arrives at all. So without private funding for medicine, the health would be extremely poor. The nearest hospital which also has limited facilities is 8 hours walk away for us, so if you were old or unwell, it is much more or in some cases not possible to make it.
Dev was incredibly shy and trying to encourage her to make a diagnosis was often impossible, and often she wasn't even there, so Mohan and I just got on with it.
With no running water to most homes and extreme lack of hygiene, dysentery and worms were the biggest problems along with rashes and scabies and many many field injuries. Some of my diagnosis
Mohan & Tez
Mohan (english teacher & translator) learning to take BP. included, a suspected poly neuropothies whom I sent to Kathmandu, a man with suspected TB whom refused to go to hospital, even after explaining he may die if not treated and its highly contagious he could pass it to his family. He wanted to continue in the fields and would go after 1 month! Many children have high fevers and the families believe you should wrap them up more, you really want to wash the kid and look after them yourself, as they don't seem that concerned, and have usually waited many days before even bringing them to you. As was the case with a 10year old boy whom had not had anything to eat or drink for 10 days and I suspected he had viral hepatitis! Then a 5 year old boy whom had symptoms of meningitis, and the father refused to take him to hospital! This was particularly stressful, trying to make the father understand the child would die if it was meningitis and he needed very urgent care, yet the father insisted on sitting it out to see what happened. This was on my last day and he wasn't from our village so I don't know what
Glen & Tez
Adding the finishing touches to the science lab happened.
Overall it was a wonderful experience, an incredibly tough population whom just carry on in their fields regardless of what was going on with their health. As one lady I saw whom had a deformed spine a lump the size of a saucer on her lumber region, as she had fallen from a roof 30years ago and there was no medical facilities then! She was 60 now and came to see me as it was painful whilst working in the fields!
You really feel so deeply for them, I gave away the entirety of my medical kit, without thinking for a minute. When Glen got a headache, I had not even a paracetamol left for him!
However with the exhaustive list of dysentery and worms, and desperately wanting to make a real change in the village rather than just making it an experience for myself. Glen and I started thinking of what we could do with the high levels of preventable illness. So we went through the patient log book from the start of the year to collate some data for the campaign we were thinking of implementing.
Our findings were 33% of the illnesses was entirely preventable
Glen at the school
Educates 700 pupils from nursery to grade 10, students walk 2hour to school. if we could teach them the importance of handwashing, followed with a further 13% of rashes, also preventable if they were to wash more!
So after banging on to Mohan for weeks about this he was more than ready to help me make a change. It was school holidays presently but when school returned we were to commence a campaign, which would coincide with the visit of 4 Medical students from Manchester University. After calling Keshab whom was originally from the village now living in Kathmandu and helps to arrange the supplies for the village he was more than supportive of getting this started and he also informed us that there was currently a diarrhoea pandemic in western Nepal in which so far 300 people have died! (Stupidly enough we heard they flew a government official out to visit the village whilst sending medical supplies by donkey, which have not yet arrived!!!)
Keshab was stressed with the news from western Nepal, previously unaware of the danger, it got him into action and since returning to Kathmandu we have been in touch with the girls from Manchester whom are bringing equipment, and are going to start this education campaign,
The riverstone floor of the classrooms.
Note the space between desk and the bench seat, very crammed not only to the local school but to all schools in the district! We have sent paint back with some Sherpas, and Mohan has agreed to paint 'wash your hands to prevent disease' signs on the school toilets, and monitoring the 700 kids at his school.
It is great news and felt really good to be part of the initiative, it will be good to see how it goes in the future.
Glen worked at the school, building an new bench for the new science lab. The school have been granted a science teacher for the first time from the government. He decided to build a U shaped bench which should accommodate 50 students. All the timber came from eight pine trees which were cut down in the school grounds last year, none of the timber was the straight let alone identical. Armed with only a saw and hammer he first built the frame and then put the top on. It took 7 days to build with two local carpenters turning up for the last two days to finish plane the top. The school in general is in desperate need of repair, none of the windows shut in the
Reema & Dewang
whom we also stayed with classrooms, one of classrooms has a uneven river stone floor which the students have wedged sticks in to stop the desks from falling over. All the classrooms have no lights and are crammed with desks and benches for about 50 students per class from nursery to grade 10. (For any teachers reading this Mohan is keen to set up pen pal links).
The morning of our departure some of the villagers gathered to present us with 4 flower garlands each and kata's (Tibetan scarf) from the village, and buffalo milk which is given as a sign of respect. We were also sent with a letter to a monastery a days walk a way, Mohan had informed them that Leanne was a medic and to ask her about any ailments which the monks had. The teacher lama was luckily her only patient he had planter warts and she suspected he had worms but with out her translator she was unable to convey that he had to take a tablet to kill the worms and the ramifications to his Buddhist practice, so she sent him to the Tibetan doctor at the monastery up the hill to explain the case. We stayed
at the 200 year old monastery overnight and set off on the path in the morning. We were stopped all along the path with people wanting medicine, but were happy to have a slower journey. We really enjoyed the return walk taking 7 days. On the 6th day as we recited mantra's along the path we were joined by a fellow buddhist, once we started chatting much to our amazement he turned out to be the father of one of the young reincarnated lama's at Kopan Monastery. Where we had been studying for the 2 weeks prior to going to Deusa. He handed us a photo of his son with HH Dalai Lama, and a handful of dried yak cheese, that was too hard to chew so you had to suck for hours. So we walked the remainder of the way with this lovely man, asking numerous questions about his son, and how he was discovered, and if he knew the previous lama, and when he realized his son was special etc etc. He seemed worried we would be lost on route so stayed with us teaching us new mantra's, and becoming Leanne's new translator for the various health problems
of the locals, mainly dysentery, which Glen could now also diagnose if it was amoebic or bacillary and give treatment for.
Our bus ride out of there was a funny one. The monsoon rains had set in since the time we had left and the road was in some parts knee deep with mud. As it was potato season the roof was full of potato's to sell in Kathmandu along with a goat! So with a heavy bus and thick mud it was a slow journey, frequently stopping for us to walk ahead whilst the bus driver tried to negotiate the mud. We finally made it to sealed road by noon, however the journey did not improve, we burst an impressive 5 tyres out of the 7! The spare going on and off twice, finally getting to Kathmandu by 8pm and as the rains began, thats when we realized there are no windscreen wipers! This was the least of his problems as he drove blindly on, whilst the poor goat remained on the roof.
We have now found a beautiful flat that we live in looking directly onto the amazing stupa of Bodha. Thubten Dolma (aka: Jillian from
Geelong the buddhist nun we met at Kopan) lives upstairs, we spend most days with her discussing Buddhism, finding teachings and she knows Kathmandu very well and has been a great guide. Much like our mother Jillian from Geelong.
It is inspiring the amount of devotion to this stupa, often we wake at 1am when the first few circumambulators begin some walking some prostrating around the stupa, this continues to grow until it reaches a bustling hum at 6-8am before work begins. The number's thin out during the working day until 5pm when peak hour is on again until 8pm!
One person we have met has walked around the stupa 40,000 times in 5 years, reciting mantra's.
We will return to Kopan Monastery again soon, for a final retreat before heading to Thailand for a change of diet after 8 months of curries and chapattis.
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Tara Cahill
non-member comment
Heartbreaking...
Leanne, I don't know how you did it. Sounds like very hard work at the Health Post and then to have them not listen to you... I admire you, well done!! Tara