July 16th - Humla

We made it safely to the hospital and I was able to meet with the staff and see the work being done. I was glad to see that there were many women and children being brought to the hospital. That they felt comfortable to come. Also I saw many groups of people coming to the hospital…. old, young, women, men. I asked if these were entire families coming to the clinic to accompany someone. Yeshe said that sick people from the remote villagers form a group and travel together for safety! I can imagine the difficulties to travel even when you are well but if they were seriously ill and unable to walk, I wonder how they are brought to the hospital?

I was also amazed to find a young student doctor from Austria working at the hospital. His name was Stefan. He is a third year med student and was having an amazing experience working at the hospital. He got a long well with the staff. The pharmacist and he would play long games of badminton in front of the hospital to pass the time in the early mornings or evenings. One of the most amazing things he had learned was how to be flexible with what’s available. “You never seem to have the exact medicines for every ailment like at home,” he said, “so you have to find ones that may do the work in a more general way”.

We walked through Simikot that evening and met with a lot of the local govt. leaders and people that needed to see I really existed.

The next day I woke early to get some video of a few patients, the visiting doctor and interviews with all the staff. The flight was due to come at around 10am and I had to make the decision to take the flight if it actually comes or risk one more day. If the plane was unable to come the next day then we may be trapped in Humla for up to 10 days! I decided with the benefit in London with Prof. Gandhi, and the fact that I had all the brochures for the event printed in Delhi to be hand carried…I better take the flight.

The flight came on time and we made it back to Delhi with enough time to take the flight. I say “we made it back to Delhi”. I wish I could say it was as easy as that. From Nepalganj we had to pass through the border by rickshaw and do two lots of paperwork sitting in sweaty government offices trying to be polite to government workers holding the stamp in hand to allow us to leave Nepal and then again to enter India. Any chance they get they would love to complicate matters and drag the day on to make their life more interesting. I wasn’t giving them anything to latch onto. “Yes Sir” to every question, small talk and smiles get you through relatively unscathed. At the Indian border Donnie and I grabbed a taxi and traveled for around 4 to 5 hours to reach the city of Lucknow. We went directly to the train station and found that the reservation office was closed half day on Sunday and we were left to try finding a ticket to Delhi ourselves. We went to the “current” booking office and they were no help at all. The man behind the counter was not into talking to us and all he could say were “NO TRAINS” and “ALL TRAINS FULL” and along with the excruciating heat and hundreds of desperate travelers pushing from behind I gave up the one sided argument and an old man told us that we could take a “luxury bus” to Delhi. I took his advice and we raced by rickshaw over to the bus terminal and found the not-so-luxury bus there waiting to leave. It at least had AC but the metal seats were covered in a shredded vinyl thinly stuffed with ratty foam. There was a TV as well and it played vintage Amitabh Baachan films form the 70’s endlessly all night long and the sound was so loud that not even the cockroaches on the floor could sleep. Donnie and I sprawled out on the back seats. Even though the back of the bus bounces on the potholed roads worse then an amusement park ride, there was only one or two others ever brave enough to venture that far back so we could spread out for the 12-hour journey overnight. Well due to traffic, and a busted engine in the middle of the night the 12-hour journey turned into more of a 15 and a half hour journey! My back was spent. We arrived at Shashi’s by rickshaw sweaty and broken, but at the end of the journey. We cleaned up and had some tea and all was well.