It's Wednesday, and right now I should be in Surkhet, having spent the day on a bus coming back from 2 home visits. Instead I'm sitting at home in Pokhara. Early last week, we cancelled a couple of visits on the terai (plains) area on local busses because of impending strikes. I didn't want to get caught there, and miss this week's visits, where there were several patients I wanted to see. My plan was to take the INF shuttle last Friday to the mid-west region, and then a bus up to Surkhet. My backup plan was to take a bus (in the other direction) to Kathmandu, and fly from there to Surkhet.
By Friday we were in the third day of an indefinite bundh (strike) that was showing no signs of sorting itself out (still going...the Tharu, the indigineous people of the terai, are adgitating for recognition and proportional representation in all gov. jobs. And the government is too busy trying to sack the head of the Army who would retire in 2.5 months anyways, to do much about it for now). In any case, the shuttle didn't go, and everyone had the same idea about flying, and there were no flights to be had into that area for at least a week. I had to resign myself to the fact I was not going to make it there during this visit to Nepal, which is disappointing. Some of the patients I wanted to visit will be followed up by other people working for INF in that area. And I get an extra 10 days at home in my last 3 weeks in Pokhara - not a bad thing, really.
Case in point, this is my first night home alone since last Friday when I was supposed to go to the midwest! I've started my goodbye dal bhats (dinners), as well as having friends staying the weekend and trying to get some last minute shopping done before I leave. I suspect this will be what it's like for the rest of my time. It's intense, but good, as long as I don't let myself get overwhelmed. At work, I'm busy trying to wrap things up, make sure I have all the info I need to write up my project, and pass off things to others. It'll be a crazy few weeks!
Rich and Elly have posted more pictures from our trekking over Easter weekend on their blog. Check them out here.
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Hi Carol:
It's amazing to see that your time in Nepal is close to done. How fast the time has gone! I am sure you will miss everyone there - it'll be quite a culture shock coming back to Canada. You write an excellent blog by the way, very informative and interesting. Journalism as a back up job???
Look forward to seeing you sometime once you return. I gather you will first be with Sharon and Jerome in Cambridge for a while. Time to catch up on your quickly growing niece.
all the best, Aunt Frances
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