Just want to update everyone on the eyecamp in Humla. The trip has been eventful if nothing else and we have to give 100% of the credit to Kandal and the Seva team from Nepal for their patience and effort.

Highlight of events:

1. We had to wait 3 days from Nepalgunj for the sky to clear to catch the flight up to Simikot – Every morning, we get up at 4 am, get ready to leave to the airport by 5:30am. Then we would wait at the airport until 11:00 to see if the flight will fly. Everyone just sits around in 35 degree heat just waiting and looking at the sky to see if it clears. Sometimes the sky is clear in Nepalgunj, but there is low visibility in the mountains and vice versa. The Seva team from Nepal had driven 5 hours from Lumbini to here and we had flown in from Kathmandu.

2. Finally we were able to fly up – as you notice in the photos the amount of equipment we had to bring. There was a total of 10 of us. We were each allowed 15 kg of luggage and it was $2 US/kg for every kg over the limit. The Seva team Nepal had to bring everything up from medicine to pots to disinfect, to surgical equipment, stools, generator while we had 1000 pairs of sunglasses/reading glasses with us.

3. We fly up to Simikot – guess what – halve of our equipment got left behind by the airline. Fortunately, a second flight was able to get out from Nepalgunj with the rest of our equipment.

4. We start setting up right away upon arrival and there was already people waiting at the gates for us. People had walked days to come to the eyecamp. Some carried their mothers or children on their backs. There is no cars or vehicles in the area and the whole area is mountainous.

5. Surgery started that afternoon (things took a little longer to sterilize b/c the water was so cold here) and prescreening started and we worked non stopped until night fall (it gets dark at about 6). Everything had to shut down when it got dark – there was no electricity in the area b/c the canal was broken and it was not expected to be fixed for several months. There usually is some electricity in Simikot. So most people rely on Solar batteries which can provide about 3 hours of electricity a day. The only thing that was keeping the surgery going was the generator that the Seva Team brought up. The team came back to the hotel at about 8. We did not stay at the lodging at the hospital b/c the rooms were occupied by all the people that came in for the eye camp. Our guest house was a 15-20 min walk (or should I say hike) from the hospital (the photo of the stone cottage). It is brand new and have flushing toilets!

6. The next day – problem – our generator broke down or they couldn’t get it started. We were 2 hours late in starting the surgery as they try to fix the generator and try to locate another one in town. They found 1 in town at the Nepal Telecom office. They want some a huge sum of money for us to use it for the day, but thank goodness, we managed to fixed the one we brought and off we went again for the full day.

All in all, we had 68 surgeries done so far, handed out over 800 pairs of sunglasses/reading glasses. I think over 1000 people went through the camp. Dr. Yeshe said it is less than expected b/c many people are still tending their fields as it is harvest time. There is only one set of crop grown each year in Humla due to the climate and this food has to last the whole winter for these people. As soon as the snow comes, contact with outside the valley is very limited. Flights are suspended and mountain passes are closed. Thus, these people are usually on their own for the winter months. From the looks of things, the canal in which generate electricity for Simikot will not be fixed before winter.

That’s it so far. Just want to thank all those people who have donated to this to make it happen. I hope I got everyone here and please feel free to pass these photos onwards. I will have a full report complete with photos and captions sometime in Nov. when I am home in Canada again. If anyone have questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact me at this e-mail.

Joanna
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Hi,

By now, you should have received some e-mails with photos of the Humla eyecamp. This hospital that Dr. Yeshe and Citta has established here in the middle of nowhere is amazing. The lay out of the buildings are well thought out. We have one surgical building (Toby’s building) with a large yard in the front and an overhang where people can sit and wait outside away from the sun and rain. There is one large surgery room attached to a large storage/disinfecting area along with several examination rooms. We have another building that can house 40 patient beds. We have a building for the kitchen and staff room. Then we have the building with several examination rooms. Each building have several examination rooms and there are space to accommodate a good number of patients and a good number of medical practices. A good number of patients are able to wait outside but still shelter from the elements. The facility was big enough and each area well laid out that despite the number of patients that were waiting at any one time, it did not seem too chaotic or overwhelming.

Toby – your surgical building is absolutely gorgeous (not exaggerating). To have a facility like that in the middle of no where is amazing. It is very well built and very clean. The floor is actually lino that looked like laminate. But the pretty velvet curtains in the operating room must go – can not be sterilized. Kandel said this place is 5x better than the government hospital in town (he manage to get down to see it). Did you see the photo of our surgical bed and lamp – they just received it 2 days ago right before the eyecamp. The bed got put together, but they could not get the hydraulics to work yet. But what a difference it made.

One suggestion I would make is that paths to and from the buildings should be made wider esp when there is different elevations. It is difficult to get from the main examination building (Dr. Yeshe’s office) to the surgical building which is higher up. Right now it is just a really narrow broken foot path up. And the path to the hospital from the bottom of the hill should be widen. Right now it is just a foot path with overgrown bushes on either side.

There is so much pride in this hospital and the locals really respect this. It has been an absolutely amazing trip so far.

Penny – I will send a more detailed report when I get back home and I will also send a disc of photos for you for sure this time. Kandel and his team did an amazing job under the circumstances. Lots of happy people and smiling faces. The 1000 pairs of glasses made such a difference for us – made lugging those 2 duffles from Canada and spending 6 hours ransoming them from Nepal custom 100% worthwhile when you see those smiles. I also owe Kandel a new generator – I had him leave the one he brought with Dr. Yeshe. Can you authorize the purchase and I will donate that amount to Seva when I get home. I think he said $1000 should cover it.

Micheal – Clasina Van Bemmel – the other Seva donor that travelled with Raju and me was so impressed with the facility that she said she will provide Dr. Yeshe with a large permanent generator for the facility. In the meantime, I had Kandel leave the generator that the Seva team has lugged up from Lumbini with Dr. Yeshe so he will have at least something to use while the power is out in Simikot.

Full report when I get home.

Joanna

Pashupati looked at me and said in a hushed voice, “We can go inside to the room.” Now I was a little nervous. Why was he still being so secretive about the Siligit exchange? I replied immediately, “No problem. We can see it here.” He looked a little taken aback, shrugged his shoulders and agreed.

The old man pulled out a small plastic container and I slowly opened the top to see what looked like black oil inside. The smell was somewhat like the manure-tainted hay on the bottom of horse stalls. That smell of a straw and manure mixture is quite unique and this rock oozing mineral goo had the same nasty smell. The amazing thing is that when I touched it, it was hard as cold toffee and looked like shellac. It was the strangest consistency. The old man saw me staring at it with amazement and probably knew I had no idea what to do with it. He stuck his pinky in there and slowly moved it until a piece came off. He stuck it in his mouth and didn’t die, at least in front of me. So I did the same. Well, the only thing about this strange substance that made sense was it tasted as nasty as it smelled! I guess no pain, no gain, as they say.

Then Pashupati pulled a small plastic bag from the old man’s backpack. The bag contained another health “thing” that is apparently popular in Chinese and Tibetan medicine. He called it cordycep, but later I was told it was known as yartsa gunbu in TIbetan. It’s a caterpillar fungi, which is the result of a parasitic relationship between the fungus and the larva of the ghost moth. This medicine is half plant, half animal! You find it growing in the Himalayas, sticking out of the ground like a grassy mushroom, and when you dig it up, you get the worm combo with it. I couldn’t bring myself to try it. This one was too soon before I had a chance to recover from the hay-manure-shellac substance. That quote from the three witches concoction in Macbeth suddenly lost its shock value. “Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog.” Bla bla bla….Been there, done that!

Ramkala had fallen into the open fire in the kitchen room of their village home about three weeks earlier. The family had done little to clean or care for the wounds. It wasn’t out of malice or neglect but rather from being uneducated and without proper facilities to care for the child.

Ramkala was brought into the hospital and was covered by a hoard of flies on the half of her body that had been burnt. She drew everyone’s attention as the flies were shaken and her clothes were removed to check the wounds. The room was filled with the sudden, shocking stench of both infected and decaying flesh inhabited by maggots.

We were all overwhelmed with the child’s condition. I was amazed to see her eyes remaining calm and unaffected, almost interested in seeing all the foreign people bustling about this large building. She had grown used to her condition. That didn’t last long as she was taken into the next room where the infected skin was removed and dressed. Her screams were heart wrenching; she held everyone’s attention.

After Ramkala had been treated, she was joined by her sister Munimati and their father upstairs in one of the hospital rooms to rest. The father became restless. We assured him that he was fine and should stay awhile so we could monitor Ramkala’s condition. I went to the room a few minutes later to find he was gone! Munimati said he had gone to the market to get cigarettes?

As time went on, I feared the worst- that Ramkala’s father, deaf and poor and unable to care for his children, had found a place they were cared for and decided they were better off with us than in their village. I know of many cases where children in the Humla region are given to human traffickers to get food, education, a job, anything other then being another mouth to feed– especially young girls, as they are more of a burden on a family. In my mind, I felt that if I was Ramkala’s and Munimati’s father, I may have done the same for them.

During this stressful waiting time, Kamael Sugrim from mPowering, who was in Humla to survey the area for a future program, played with Munimati. Kamael was amazed to see the speed with which she copied letters in English and spoke things taught to her. Quickly, she was opening up and communicating with the notebook and a series of smiles that were very telling. You could tell the potential this young girl had and I thought of what little opportunities she would be allowed in this region.

Later in the afternoon, much to my surprise and relief, Father showed up with “a” cigarette from the market and a few sweets for the children. We fed them and settled them in for the night in the upstairs room. Munimati sat close to her sister, first feeding her anything that came to her, then taking a lesser portion for herself.  She was quite attentive to Ramkala.

The next day, Father was showing signs of unrest. He said his wife was the only one now working their only plot of land. There is a very short growing period in Humla and they needed to be farming. We stressed that Ramkala needed to stay for treatment and asked him to please wait another day. Everytime I came to check on them, sitting in front of the hospital in the sun, he complained about losing work time. I was again afraid we would lose Ramakala to the overall need of the family to gather food at this time for the long, hard winter. But she wasn’t well enough to leave.

Luckily, one of the members of Roshi’s team had given the father a pair of sunglasses they had brought to distribute. This completely transformed the father and put a before unseen smile on his face that had no end in sight. Now, I thought, he would never leave.

Ramkala and family stayed at the hospital for a good four or five days, and with the cleaning and injections, the little beauty looked fresh and ready to head back home. They were given new clothes and hats, and along with dad and his new sunglasses, they all had a sense of pride and health as they made the long journey home back into the mountains to work the fields. Mom must have been infuriated as she stood up in the field, back snapping, seeing them hopping down the trail smiling with full bellies and new clothes….Where were her sweets?Click to view slideshow.

During the recent Nepali holiday festival of Dashain, I was sitting at a restaurant next to some Nepalis who, after a few Whiskeys, got chatty with us. They asked what country we were from.  I asked them what they did as well and the man across from me said he was an Ayurvedic herbal distributer. I took this occasion to show off my newfound knowledge of the regional medicinal terms and said, “Oh, do you sell Siligit?” The man looked at me somewhat amazed. The rest of the party continued to drink and carry on but the man across from me kept glaring over at me and said, “how do you know of Siligit?” We spoke about this at some length and he said he would see if he could get me some. He knew someone that could get this and would let me know later. We exchanged numbers; his name was Pashupati.

A few days passed and I started to get some text messages from Pashupati that he had found a Siligit source and that it would cost around 7,000 rupees a Kilo. This was around what my Govt. friend said he paid so I felt this might be worth a try. I texted back that I would take a quarter kilo just to see if it was good. Not that I would know the difference between good and bad Siligit, but I had no idea what the stuff looked or tasted like. The following day I received many strange messages asking if I wanted it or not. I said yes, I told you I will be in Kathmandu city Friday and we can meet then. After sometime I received yet another text saying some Russian party want the stuff as well, please confirm and let me know where to meet. OK, now I was starting to feel like I was in the middle of some illicit transaction and competing with the Russians. Being pitted against each other by my Supplement “dealer” was starting to feel a little odd. I thought to myself, “is SILIGIT some code word they use here for something a little stronger?” The texts continued. I set up an appointment to meet at 7pm this evening to make the trade. I have no idea what I will get or whether I should have it tested for water buffalo dung or local sewage.

I didn’t think so….

When we final got our tickets displaying our “destination” we opened them and saw this wonderful little reminder of the hospital for locals traveling for health care out of the region. Apparently the owner of the airline is a good friend of Dr. Yeshe’s and thought to do this himself.

The fire lit under the enormous cooking pots lit a small side portion of the complex Banyan tree base intertwined with hundreds of snake-like tentacles stretching into the tremendous canopy of the tree, giving the appearance it extended in every direction for eternity. The men shared stories in their local language of Oriya. I couldn’t follow the conversation well, but the cadence of both the young and old voices, woven into the ever-present drone of the multitude of insects both penetrating and surrounding the tree were enchanting and hypnotic.

When the simple fare of Dahl and rice were cooked, some of the Priyal began spreading long woven mats under tree nestled within the impressive undulating roots that looked somewhat like the back of the Loch ness monster we use to see in doctored black and white photographs from the cover of the “Enquirer” magazine at grocery store check-out.
Other Priyal sorted through a pile of large banana leaves, slapping them together to clear off debris and placed them in front of the mats as plates. Everyone sat in a row on the mats except for the assigned keeper who dished out the food with a “Dongka”, or ladle made with a bamboo stick wedged into the side of a half coconut shell. Prayers were said and the food quickly disappeared with the aid of the right hand. The previously chatty conversation was replaced by a very satisfying chorus of loud slurping.

As we finished eating, I heard gradual deep growls emerging from the dark periphery of the tree. It grew in intensity. The local undomesticated dogs lay quiet in the day as farmers worked the fields, but in the night they rule over forged territories and mortally defend them. They were now vying for the rights to the anticipated residue of Dahl and rice left on the banana leaves being tossed to the periphery of the tree; into the night. No one seem to pay any attention to the sound of the vicious fights that ensued as we all packed up to leave. The fire was put out. We shared a few smile before heading home to sleep. The moon looked amazing over the tree as I looked back from the hospital.