Harry's Email (Lite)

Well hello.

Before I start, I want to let all of you less accomplished readers (you know who you are) know that at the bottom of each paragraph I will be writing a one-sentence summary in bold print so you don't have to read everything. If you think that paragraph would interest you, you can go back and read the whole thing.

After a long day of travelling, I arrived in Delhi at 11pmish to make the exciting discovery that India has another rush hour at midnight. I don't know why, but it was standstill traffic for an hour, and it sucked. Also, you have a better chance of getting to your hotel in one piece if u jump out of the plane as it flies above it, than if u take a taxi there. However, the Indians take their street decorations very seriously. At many intersections you will often pass red, yellow or green lanterns that the city has generously set up for the tourists' viewing pleasure. The locals seem not to appreciate these ornaments and ignore them completely.

Driving in Delhi sucks.

I was taken to our hotel, which was in the middle of Delhi's red light district, and stayed up the few hours left of the night. We took a train to Chandragarh where we met the Indians who would hold our lives in their hands for the next few weeks. I had planned to sleep on the 5 hour drive to Bilaspur, and although keeping my eyes closed sheltered me from the edge-of-your-seat feeling of impending doom of driving the winding mountain roads of the outer Himalayas, the winding, rocky, bumpy, jerky roads of the outer Himalayas did not allow me any sleep. Occasionally, when I was able to ignore the vibration of the land-rover type car and relax, the window would meet my head quite aggressively to remind me to stay awake.

Our hotel in Delhi was in the middle of the red-light district. My head hurts.

We started clincs the next day. We set ourselves up in army-style tents on the roof of a brand new but not yet operational medical clinic. (they didn't want us tramping on the new floors...) I worked in the pharmacy. Apparently, indians dont' like hearing they are healthy when they come to the doctor. In fact, they don't consider it a complete visit unless they leave with some pills. Even better if they get an injection. We hand out lots of pills. Mostly ibuprofen and vitamins. Also, lots of Tuberculosis, GERD, Worms and eye problems. Thankfully, no leprosy as of yet. I was also pleased to find out it is curable, very easily curable. :)

Leprosy is curable.

I'm gonna get more general now cuz it's getting late.

Our hotels have had no real showers (sometimes a shower head, no curtain, somtimes no water comes from the shower head) no toilet paper and about 30 seconds of hot water. The bathroom floors are thinly disguised sheets of arctic ice. We have also been camping. Our toilets are holes in the ground. We wipe with the baby-wipes we brought. (I am never using toilet paper again). To shower we go into shower tents with big buckets of boiling water. We then use little buckets to pour this water on our heads. I have burns. There are stray dogs everywhere. We named one that limped around our first campsite Tripod. She was amazing. She sat and waited patiently for food, snuggled by our fires, didn't bark, didn't beg, best trained untrained dog i've ever seen. The trained domesticated dogs from across the street tried to attack me, I fought them off with a big stick. I am not kidding, I was scared shitless. At our second campsite we had an untrained stray dog who would sit on command, would give "paw" on command and was also very well behaved. I find this pretty cool.

WAAAAAAAAH! I'm dirty. Some stuff about dogs.

We've had more medical clinics at some schools, at our campsite and at the house of the ex Health Minister. I learnt to take blood pressure, hear rate and all that stuff at triage. I also decided to organize the camp since patients were pretty much running around with their heads cut off. Little old ladies continuously escape the waiting room and sneak into the tents where doctors see patients to try to skip the line and also to laugh whenever the doctor asks the patient about the condition of their poop. Occasionally, I have to call out the patients' names and tell them where to go, what to do, etc. Unfortunately, the names are illegibly scrawled on pieces of paper by the guys at registration and also they are indian names. The locals make me repeat them over and over just so they can laugh at my bad pronunciation. After a while, one of them feels bad and comes over to help me out...and then asks me to read out his friends' names a few times so they can have a laugh too. Bastards.

I am licenced to practice medicine in the state of Arkansas.

The night of february 9th, Karin, Anjum and I stayed up with a bunch of the Indian drivers to wait for my b-day at midnight. Karin surprised me with a little bottle of champagne and a mini-bar grey goose. The cook brought me a plate of chocolate chip cookies with a candle in the middle. The next day we had clinic in a tornado, birthday cake for lunch, and then drove for 4 hours on the edge of cliffs at .5mph through fog, rain, high winds and mud. I was in bed by 9:30. Happy Birthday to me...

My 20th birthday was to my 19th birthday as Rolle/South Brunswick/Abitibi is to St Tropez/Vegas/Montreal.

Now I'm in Manali. There was a bar in our hotel yesterday so I tried to get drunk for my belated birthday...and failed. We played kings, I took shots, but by midnight, everyone was in bed, so I gave up.

It's cold here. we're in the middle Himalayas now. It's not that it's so cold, probly around zero. But ther's no heating in the hotels or in the cars, so it's 24 hours of cold. I'm wearing layers to eat my meals, to watch tv, to use the computer. I will be cold for the next 2 weeks. This sucks. The food does not. Our cooks are really good and we've been stuffing our faces. Everyone has gained weight...go figure. Today our clinic was at a school and all the little Tibetan/Nepalese kids were ridiculously cute.

Just skip this one.

Yeah k, this has gone on too long and i'm tired. You get the picture. Thanks for all the b-day wishes.

Love to all,

Harry