Controlled Burn

Last Monday I arrived at work to find flowers and a birthday present all set up on my desk from my co-workers. It was a lovely surprise. The basket/vase holding the flowers is one of the many woven baskets made by patients and their families. The basket weaving technique is traditional, and the use of shiny paper from noodle and potato chip bags to give it lots of colour demonstrates how resourceful people can be to make something look beautiful, even without a lot of materials available

After opening my gift (a purse made of traditionally patterned Nepali material), I was told there was another fire. I didn't quite understand the instructions, as I thought there was another emergency fire situation, and was puzzled by the fact that no one seemed in a hurry to get out and stop it. Once we got outside there was no fire but lots of people, and slowly I figured out that this was going to be a controlled burn, to get rid of all the tinder-dry grass and bushes in the not-so-green pastures at Green Pastures Hospital these days.

First everyone got ready, with lots of green branches and buckets of water. Then the fire was set and spread quickly across the field. Most of the time the 40 or so staff just stood around, and then, when the fire seemed to get too close to a building, would leap into action, beating back the flames. And so did I, despite being dressed in nice work clothes, not firefighting ones.

The fire took most of the morning to burn its way across the field. There was a moment of excitement when it jumped the fence and headed toward the parked vehicles. Everyone lept into action, and the fire was beaten back from doing any real damage. I managed to beat my green branch into a single stick with a few blackened leaves left on it, by the end of the morning. I've posted some more pictures here.

The controlled burn happened none to soon, as a fire was accidentally started by patients at another point on the hospital grounds that afternoon. I thought it was more controlled burning, but no, it was unexpected, and it was very good there was limited combustible material around after the morning's burn.

On a separate note, today I got a birthday letter from my Grandmother, which I opened at lunch. All of my Nepali colleagues were astonished that my grandmother could write at all. Such a difference in cultural experience. None of them had literate grandmothers. I think of people my grandmother's age being really good letter writers, since letters were so much more important when they were younger. Such a different world.