Stepped out of a shop,and suddenly there were 1000's

Fifth convention of NWPP kicks off Himalayan News Service Kathmandu, August 22:A three-day fifth national general convention of Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (NWPP) kicked off in Kathmandu today.Earlier, NWPP organised a rally in which thousands of people of Bhaktapur participated. After passing through main thoroughfares of the city, the rally converged into a gathering on the premises of National Academy.Inaugurating the national convention, Narayan Man Bijukchhe, president of NWPP, said the nation should be made self-dependent.He said the dependency of Nepal on aid and relief from international communities has to be changed. “We should be capable of providing relief and support victims of natural disasters,” he said.The goal of national development cannot be achieved without advancement in the field of field of science and technology, he said.“Every party is opting for the Ministry of Defence, but none is interested in handling the Ministry of Science and Technology as well as education,” he said, adding, “ The budget for science, technology and education sector has to be increased.”Altogether 200 party members from 35 districts have arrived in Kathmandu to participate in the general convention. The party will have a closed session tomorrow. The election of the executive committee will be held on Sunday. The committee will have a tenure of five years.

The Prime Minister has been chosen

Nepal braces for revolution with ex-warlord as PM 1 day ago KATHMANDU (AFP) — Nepal is set for more major change after the Maoist leader and former warlord Prachanda was declared prime minister promising to deliver a left-wing revolution. The charismatic leader -- whose nom-de-guerre means "the fierce one" -- was overwhelmingly elected as the impoverished country's most powerful man in a vote by lawmakers late Friday. His ascent from rebel to national leader cleared the way for his band of ultra-leftists, who feature on a US terrorist blacklist, to forge ahead with their vow to radically reform the country. Nepal, the world's newest republic, has already undergone momentous change over the past two years, which have seen the Maoists end a decade-long revolt, unpopular king Gyanendra sidelined and then sacked and the 240-year-old monarchy abolished. The Maoists' number-two leader and top ideologue Baburam Bhattarai hailed a "golden dawn" and vowed historic change. "We feel that Nepal has found its hero. For any epoch-changing society, we need a hero," he said of Prachanda, a 53-year-old ex-school teacher. "After Europe's capitalist revolution, Napoleon came along. To institutionalise socialism in Russia, Lenin appeared. "In Nepal, to institutionalise the federal democratic republic after 10 years of People's War and mass popular movement, Prachanda is here. "We have already finished destroying the roots of feudalism in Nepal. Under the leadership of Prachanda , the main agenda of the new administration will be nationalism, republicanism, economic and social transformation," he said. The former rebels were on Saturday locked in negotiations with their allies to form the nation's first post-royal government. "We're in talks with the parties in our alliance and hope to form a government in the next few days," Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara said. Prachanda has come a long way. Until 2003, there was only one photograph of him in public circulation, but as he began work as prime minister, his picture was splashed across the front page of every newspaper Saturday. He was profiled largely sympathetically with writers charting his progress from teacher to revolutionary and finally prime minister. "New Nepal turns left, Prachanda turns PM," the Himalayan Times said in a banner headline. Naya Patrika (New Paper) went with "From the bunker to Baluwatar," referring to the prime minister's official residence. In April, Prachanda steered his party to victory in elections for a new national assembly, set up as part of a peace deal to abolish the monarchy and write a new constitution. But as premier he will face major challenges, including urgently dealing with soaring food and fuel prices that have paralysed an economy struggling to recover from the civil war. There is also the issue of integrating the 20,000-strong rebel army, currently confined to UN-monitored camps, into the national army. "The integration of the People's Liberation Army into the Nepal Army will see lots of arguments and counter-arguments. The way they deal with the army is very crucial," said Amit Dhakal, editor of the Kathmandu Post newspaper. "The Maoists will try to bring in populist and radical economic reforms. But financially they will have lots of constraints." Prachanda, who was inspired by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong and Peru's Shining Path guerrillas, has also had trouble shaking off his image as a ruthless warlord. Critics say the ultra-leftists have yet to fully abandon violence and that their feared youth wing -- the Young Communist League -- must disband to prove they are committed to peaceful democracy. "He is a communist hardliner, but now he has a responsibility to meet the standards of democratic principles," said top Nepali Congress party official Narhari Achayra. "This is an acid test for him to prove his commitment to democracy."

News snips

• Well, there will be no pics for this update. Here are some news briefs. Unfortunatley, I have not been able to figure out why blooger will not recognize my separate paragraphs. I will try bullets.
• Saraswoti's father passed away suddenly two weeks ago in the hospital. It was unexpected, as he was just checked in and was talking to people. He had a serious infection, but it all happended so quickly. Within minutes, the body was taken. Cremation is normally within the day or so. So, I did not see Saraswoti for two weeks after that, as that is the standard time for funeral traditions.
• Cholera is here. When we go to Patan Hospital, some halls are lined with the extra patients. It's a bad deal.
• The rains are beginning to lessen in frequency. During monsoon, it can take days and days for laundry to dry. I'd never ironed my socks before now.
• Got another leech (thankfully much smaller, and I interrupted his meal this time).
• There was a snake incident at the lab. I have pics but cannot post them...
• My laptop fan died. Therefore, my laptop will not turn on. A computer repair place (rare find) just let us know 2 & 1/2 weeks after inquiries were made that they may be able to fix it. I am to give them my laptop (on which my clutch is pretty tight), they will take a look, see if they can order parts and then see what they can do. Ho long do you think that may take?
• We sent a -80C freezer to a repair shop in March. They just notified us (August) that they cannot fix it. That is a reputable and good repair shop.
• I like my laptop.
• Anyway, the snake (maybe 4ft long; grayish with slight yellow bands; 2" diameter) was hiding in the overhang above the back door of the lab. I was able to watch as two of the guys used sticks to pop it out. Then Ganesh with a stick and Dil Bahadur with a brick rendered it dead within seconds. I was impressed with Dil Bahadur's aim.
• As we are a lab staffed with scientific thinkers, the bulge in the snake's abdomen incited curiosity.
• Yes, we did. Silwar used a scalpel. It was a baby bird (rather large - a bit bigger than a mockingbird).
• This is the season for drying kursani (chili peppers). The people somehow weave the stems to form long bundled chains of peppers that are hung to dry out second and third story windows. Beautiful. But of course, I cannot show the pics to you now.
• You would not believe the size of the slugs here. Think snickers bar.
• Which brings me to language. The other day, someone was talking about eating "slud."
• Wanna guess?
• Salad.
• "Suviets"
• Australian for napkin (serviettes). :)
• However, I'm probably the only one for some distance that uses the word "ya'll".
• Also, this week for journal club, the clinicians had wanted to have a special talk on "flu therapy". Someone else told us that there would also be discussion of "research station". It turned out to be "Fluid therapy and resuscitation".
• I can almost count to forty in Nepali. This is a big deal, since the number system renders practically every number 1-100 a different word. The second digit is actually hinted at by the first word.
• A baby has been born within the last 24hrs to Abidan and Muna, compound staff. Yes, there is a pic. A really nice one also with Jwala - but you cannot see it.
• In the previous post, I asked what you thought Dil Bahadur was doing. He is mowing the lab lawn. I have other pics to show you the small area that he spent the morning mowing in that position. It is not an easy job, and he was not even half way finished. No envy. If any one I knew from home did that, they would not be walking right for days. It was good thing the next day was Sunday and he was off. I've heard a rumor that someone in KTM has a push blade lawnmower (manpowered). I've yet to see a gasoline run lawn mower.
• I heard a story of a previous patient from a nearby village. She was working a threshing/grinding wheel (rotating stone on stone - probably by water buffalo). Her braided hair got caught up in the wheel. She carried her scalp in a plastic bag while she walked hours to the hospital. Dr. Wim Theuvenet, a plastic surgeon, was med superintendent of Anandaban at that time. He was able perform surgery on her.
• Today we had some new patients come to Patan clinic in KTM. Two of them were women. One wept as she did the preliminary tests to confirm her diagnosis. Another young one was 8m pregnant in reaction. Her husband came with her for this visit.
• But it can be very hard. Husbands can cast them out over this diagnosis.
• Please pray for them.
• Dhanyabad (Thanks)

Want to guess what Dil Bahadur is doing?

Some "friends" should not be brought home!

Well, I met my first leech recently.

In Nepali, it's called a jewghaa! Aren't you proud of my vocabulary skills??? They now include a specific "bug", rather that the generic term "keerah". :) Personally, though, I could have done without the introduction to that more specific word.

(Spotted sock courtesy of Mrs. Rita and Mr. Eddie)

In typical blond fashion, I spotted one inching across my bedroom floor and wondered where that thing came from. Blondly, I threw it in the toilet. It promptly crawled out of the water (stupid, they live in water, and their grip resists flushing). Someone told me that one can put salt on them to make them drop off when they are attached. I quickly dumped salt on it. It began to spit up blood and fell back in the water to once again begin its crawl upwards. Where did the blood come from? It must have recently fed!! On what??? It was only then that I decided to pull up the cuff of my jeans to look - and there was the bleeding wound.

Leeches use anesthetic (painkiller) and anticoagulant (bloodthinner). That means you do not feel the bite and then you bleed for hours after. Charming. I had carried it back from a medical camp into the house!! I dumped enough salt on it to flush it and then left more salt in the water in case it tried to crawl back. Uuuugghhhh! My coworkers that have to walk miles to work, arrive in the morning to wash the mud (monsoon) off their shoes and check for the leeches. They say that they are picked up most easily when walking through the grass. As a microbiologist, the breach of my personal skin barrier by a wet slug like creature that could have sucked elsewhere seems particularly invasive and repulsive. By the way, salt/soda/flame makes them regurgitate - so I will not be using that method to dislodge them from my skin!!! They say using a fingernail to break the suction is sufficient. Nasty, bloodsucking, slimy things...

Just so you don't think the week was uneventful...

Doctors call off strike in Nepal Kathmandu (PTI): Nepal Medical Association (NMA) has called off its three-day strike in hospitals across the country, after the government assured them of fulfilling their demands. The doctors across the country went on strike on Wednesday after the relatives of a deceased patient vandalised a private nursing home and threatened to kill the doctor who had treated the patient. Doctors had demanded the government to provide security for health workers and health institutions. The medical body withdrew the strike after the Health Ministry assured them of bringing in the Health Protection Bills and investigate into the incident. "Under the new arrangement the local administration will also provide one security personnel each to doctors as per the threat analysis if the government receives such a request," said Dr Senendra Raj Upreti, chief of Public Health Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation Division at the ministry. The government has also assured the doctors to provide security personnel with communications equipment at all private and government hospitals with more than 50 beds, Dr Upreti said. The government decided to allocate Rs five million immediately for Health Practitioners and Health Security Fund until the new act is enforced. The strike had halted all medical services except emergency at all hospitals across the country for last three days.

Devichaur Med Camp: June 28, 2008

(There are some rather good pics to go in this post, but the monsoon cloud cover is...well, interfering with the upload. So, just check back later and see if there has been sufficient break in the clouds for me to insert them. :) Someone was able to rally up enough cash to do another medical camp last Saturday. So, we loaded up a bus with hospital staff, medicines, equipment and volunteers and headed to Devichaur, a small village just a little further south.

But...let me back up a little to tell the story properly. Friday afternoon at 4pm, when the hospital offices close, I looked out from the lab to see a group of buhdeshies (foreigners) walk by the windows. Apparently some group had come by unexpected again for a tour. It is a very common occurrence. Imagine what would happen in your country if people just walked into the hospital main office and asked for a tour of the hospital?? It happens alot here. Anytime. So, I went out to see who this particular group was. Americans!! One was working as a short term volunteer for a year in KTM, while the others were friends that had come to Nepal for a ~2wk visit (Indiana and Alabama people). The group had met one of our short term volunteers at church. So, late on a Friday afternoon, they show up for a tour to see what happens at a leprosy hospital. I gave them a tour of the lab. They asked what was happening on Saturday, and I told them that alot of us would be going to do a free med camp in a village. They wanted to come. I made a phone call and arrangements for the 7 extra people to go with us. One was nurse and another was an engineer/doctor/dentist. Of course, on vacation, he was without tools. The other 5 were non-med people. By the way...a frozen shipment arrived minutes later for the lab containing some interesting packing materials. I had to find some children!! The kids here, not to mention the adults, had not seen anything like it before. The kids at home will know what this pic means!!! The next morning the hospital staff hurried about to find some dentistry tools and sterilization fluids, just in case there was opportunity for the dentist to do something. If God had sent a dentist, it was probably on purpose. There must be some"one" who needed a dentist that day. Well, within minutes of setting up inside the community school, the dentist had his first patient...and then another, and another... While we saw altogether roughly 310 patients that day, the dentist was the busiest of them all. The other doctors had to wait for him to finish before we could leave!! Another amazing fact was that the people were so happy to have their teeth pulled. And that dentist pulled teeth all day. The lady on the far right was the first. Seth Chandler's flashlight has now been used in two camps. It is a tremondously bright, engineer-approved flashlight that serves doctors and nurses here very well!! I keep it in my backpack. Thanks so much, Seth!!

What about the other extra five people that also came at the last minute to help? Do you know that we had a post for each one of them to work? We had not one person too few nor one person too many. We had exactly the right number of people for the camp to run very smoothly. Most did door patrol like me, and we had just the right number to cover every door!! God is good. The malnutrition was not as bad in this community, so most of the little ones had the right color hair. But there were several people identified that needed surgery. It is absolutely amazing to watch patients who have to be in tremedous, unbelievable pain walk distances to come. One woman had fractured her shin bone with a huge visible lump from 15 days ago. She walked there. A 20yr old girl came. she was 9 months pregnant with pre-eclampsia and very high blood pressure. Her husband had left her for another wife or woman. Her inlaws were not really taking care of her - which, in this culture, they are supposed to. In this culture women can't/don't remarry. They typically aren't educated. What prospects would she have for living? How? She was in a pretty bad situation, and only 20. She needed to be admitted to a hospital. Both she and the baby were at risk of dying. We sent her to the city hospital, which could perform a ceasarean if necessary, with a letter to bill us for all of her needs. From the dentist room, I could hear a child screaming and screaming and screaming. Nepalis flocked to stare in the windows. The dentist pulled an infected tooth, and fluids came draining out. Afterwards, a doctor commented that bad infections like that can often turn into meningitis. They said the child could have died without the treatment. This is no lie. The poverty is very bad and people are very uneducated. Therefore, they often do not seek medical care until late. Especially, if it is just a girl... So, today is Wednesday and we went to Patan hospital in Kathmandu to perform the weekly leprosy clinic. We went up to the maternity ward to see the 20yr abandoned girl. We held the so tiny one which was born Sunday. The mother's slightly older brother was there. Someone asked when she would be going home. She could not answer. She will leave the hospital in a few days, but it is a difficult situation. There is so much desparate need here. But in the midst of that, God does very good things. He arranged people to go to her village and put her in a place so she and her baby would not die. The doctor said that we came at just the right time. It had been critical. God did that. He sent a dentist to an area. There were so many there who needed it that day. Now that Dr. Indra, the surgeon, has come to Anandaban - we see many who need surgery in the camps. And he loves to do surgery. :) There is so much that goes on here at Anandaban. These camps only happen once every couple of months when some missionaries scrounge some donations together for us to go. But every day, the people at this hospital treat so many people. I will have to post some pictures and stories from them sometime. It's just that I get to go to the med camps; while on regular work days, I'm back in the lab doing behind the scenes work. :) Those last minute volunteers just showed up. They weren't altogether sure what they would do on Saturday. Maybe go to Nepali church or shopping. Instead God drafted them to the unexpected and employed them. During lunch break at the med camp, I overheard the dentist comment, "This is alot more fun that spending the day shopping..."