So as quick as anything: it has all changed, life, problems, the future. It's a strange world it's a wonder how many people view it as ordinary. Friday was an incredibly stressful day but not without it's metaphysical merits.
As aforementioned, we decided to take Sardip to a local medi-care unit to see a doctor specialising in intestinal problems. This was a 30 minute drive in a dusty car to the East of the ring-road. We got there, awaited at reception only to receive the news that the doctor would not see a child due to the social backlashes whenever a child dies in care here (entire hospitals have been know to close down for days). Shit. So, having come all that way we thought we would try the children's hospital in Lanzimpat, which is the one I mentioned that dogs roam around! We proceeded directly to the emergency room and found an on-call doctor to take a look of him. With this we had little luck, Sardip's sickness had been coming in bouts and due to the fact that he was presently ok and incredibly shy to answer the doctor's questions the doctor couldn't tell us anything, but the bruise like forms on his body did worry him, as us, so he scheduled the boy in for a blood test and a chest x-ray. Getting better. The X-ray results came but the blood would take another 90 minutes so I sent Sardip and Auntie back up to the orphanage to avoid the sweltering wait. As I was following them out the door, chest x-ray in hand, I saw two white young guys standing near the entrance - my luck had changed I thought, medical volunteers, the hardcores. Little did I know how much of a helping hand the next hour would be... I had happened to have run into a group of traveling surgeons from St John's and Great Ormond Street hospital, who after setting up a temporary surgery in a village in the mountains had come to the Kindi Hospital to drop off some medical supplies from The NHS and drop off the two medical students I saw for a week's volunteering.
The doctor in charge of the group met me warmly as i explained my situation and after taking a look at the x-ray invited me to tag along on their guided tour of the hospital lead by the chief pediatrician, a graduate from Delhi medical school. First of all the sheer coincidence of such a meeting, I believe, lies not in chance but in fate, in help. The idea that i can be in low-key children hospital fretting over a potential desperate situation and be given 5 angels from my own city like that, in the 2 hours i was there, increases my faith in Him ever so much more. They saved the day... they increased my faith in the Nepali medical system by allowing me to see every nook and cranny, every ward, every sick child, baby and mother. The introduction to the chief of medicine was all we needed, after the gracious introduction he gave me his card and told me that he will, if needed, put sardip on high priority and even lower the costs of his treatment as well as understanding my doubts about the country's medical care and assuring me that, again if needed, a British surgeon would operate if that's what it came down to. I picked up the blood results in high spirits to find they were negative for any none, testable blood or live condition. Good news, no India was needed and we could just keep an eye on him for the next month and see what happens. The chest X-ray, luckily taken, caught him to be suffering from pneumonia and i bought the pills to take care of that relatively cheap. End of one story, happy faces all round :)
This helped to lead to something even more wonderful. I don't know exactly what did it, between the meeting held between Rustam and the businessmen, the children's reaction to the split-up, or the compassion everyone showed to Sardip - a boy the businessmen are responsible for - but they decided on that very day, not to pull out of the orphanage. They have just stared paying off the debts occurred and hopefully by the time I return from the circuit there will be fresh fruit, vegetables and constant running water - as well as more random medical checks. It is truly breathtaking, to me, how so many things can change in just 24 hours and i feel all this didn't happen on its own, if you fight the good fight things have a way of working themselves out ;) I thank whoever is listening.
So i leave to the Annapurna range with Dana the day after tomorrow and tonight is my last night for a month with Rustam, Sangita and Bulsa. I will miss them and their hospitality but I am yearning for a change and the mountains, after my glimpse of the yesterday at Pharping, are calling me. Pharping in a mainly Buddhist area 20km south of kathmandu. I spent the day there yesterday as many of my friends volunteer in a monastery there are it was the start Tibetan Losar so we partied hard with the monks and nuns, and what started as a school-like performance followed by a delicious lunch overlooking the crystal clear mountains with the yellow city acting as if their front porch, it turned into a western disco where we and the holy-people strutted our stuff to dirty hip-hop and rnb... i have videos, they will be up soon - i can't tell u how funny they are!
Ok, i am aware for how long this is getting so bless anyone who has made it this far, i just have one little thing left to say. Once again, my old school - a place i used to call home, have showed just how little they know about rational, distinctive thought by expelling my sister for a crime she did not commit based on video evidence which allegedly also shows her innocence. I am not going to express my anger in entirety for the head of that establishment in public as I fear I will only make the problem worse. But I will say that since the entrance of a new force to that school, nothing good has come out of it. I have witnessed 3rd and 1st hand the unjustly hand of justice and force come down on many good people and evade many guilty. I include myself in both categories, much to my previous enjoyment but my lovely sister I can only place in the former. She is an innocent, sweet girl and no matter what Ms Thomas likes to say hiding behind her desk and distorted ideas, she is no thief. And i do very so much believe that a thief caught at the school, not-including the macbook snatching Charlie Moore, receives a suspension only especially if the charge is the loss of 15 pounds. It frustrates me to think that a human can come so far in life, to find themselves in charge of such a potentially wonderful institution full of happiness, music, intelligence and mischief and only come out hurting it, as well as their non-existent reputation from student, alumni and I fear many teacher alike. Alas ms Thomas that you do not have the common decency to speak to a grieving, confused parent over the telephone when that parent is lining your pocket with the money, the house and the free education you so clearly do not deserve. Do you not consider the irrational nature of your actions? Do you really believe that human being are to be disposed of like bad milk? Needless to say, I thoroughly disagree with everything that you stand for and possibly everything that goes through that mind of yours - and I will leave it at that. Eliza, my good sister, You are better than that place, and already at the age of 17 you are more of a person than your disposer could ever dream of being - count this as a blessing, for every evil is an angel in disguise.
I will speak to you all as soon as I can but due to high altitude it will probably be in a few weeks. I love you all.
what a rant from the Holy Mountain, but AMEN xxxx
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