Nepal’s notoriety for blackouts did not seem like a major issue to me, or at least that was until all of my electronics ran out of battery at exactly the same time. This was both a blessing and a curse, as my camera was unfortunately grouped into this poor powerless subset of devices. However, back at home I’m constantly plagued by my personal attachments, and having no form of communication at all was surprisingly refreshing and relaxing.
In fact, I can’t even remember what day I last logged my Nepalese misadventures. This may mean a little bit of repetition as I can’t back check what my last post was about since the internet is still sporadic.
Today is a Nepalese holiday – Janai Purnima & Raksha Bandhan, meaning we have a day off from the hospital. I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop up the street, which boasts “real coffee, not Nescafe”. I kid you not, that is what the sign says. I’ll give it to them though, the coffee in Nepal is usually incredibly watered down and subpar, so I jumped at the chance to taste some rich caffeine. It still tastes like Nescafe to me. 100 rupees worth of Nescafe.
This past week and weekend has actually been quite eventful. We spent early Saturday morning going to the City of Patan, also known as the City of Art. Here we saw many temples, sculptures, and visited a few of the World Heritage Sites. As much as I love cultural history and art, nothing will compare to my experience up in the small Himilayan city of Nargakot.
Just a short 90 minute drive out of Kathmandu (perhaps longer but our driver was intense), I can’t even begin to describe the experience. From the moment we started up the narrow, incredibly crowed and unsafe mountain road, it was nothing but a sensory overload. I was told how beautiful it was, but it was beyond what I expected. No picture will ever do the view of the Himilayan Mountains justice (which is good since my camera was dead). At night, the hills are scattered with little lights from the houses of the locals that lived there. The contrast of these lights against the dark sky made me feel like I was actually in the sky. Being that it is monsoon season, there were clouds floating around everywhere, and at one point it enveloped me. Now I can officially say I have sat in a cloud. Another scratch off the bucket list (but does it count if I only thought of adding it to the bucket list once it happened?). Given that Toronto has nothing like this, I savored the moment. I sat there shivering all night until I saw the sunrise in the morning.
View from the top – what the mountains looked like from the top of Nargakot. All that white fluffy stuf? Yeah, clouds.
As this is monsoon season, everyone told us that we would not be able to see the sun through all the clouds. Luckily, a little hole opened up during sunrise just enough to burn our retinas with a little bit of solar beauty.
Following the once-in-a-lifetime weekend, this week has been a little bit more depressing. Being extremely sick one day, I had to miss out on an entire hospital day. From what I hear though, it wasn’t a good one. Two of the patients in the ICU passed away, and they were young too. Supposedly, at least 100 people lined up outside the ICU crying and mourning them. The next day, there were only two patients in the unit, and on these slower days I like to sit with the sisters (nurses) and staff, learning more about the language and culture. Pro: the ICU is air conditioned, offering a respite from the heavy humidity and heat. Con: sometimes you are left as the only person in the room when a patient is taken off life support. Having a large language barrier exist, I wasn’t even aware that this was the nature of the conversation transpiring beside me, until all the alarms went off and I was the only one left. Now, not having had any real clinical experience… maybe this is how it’s done. Maybe when someone is taken off a ventilator, the entire room does actually clear out. Regardless, it seemed a little morbid to have to die alone, and so for whatever the reason I couldn’t make myself leave (I’m a total emotional suck).
Buddhism and Hinduism seem to be the dominating religions here in Nepal, both emphasizing reincarnation in the afterlife. To the three ICU patients this week – I hope you are in a very beautiful place, with fresh air, flowers, and lots of mountains (and maybe some unicorns, because they are awesome).
thebirdtrap 