We woke to the same routine as the other days, me feeling a little down as it feels like we've been here for ages and we havnt! I thought I would love it but I'm finding it quite hard because the days drag slightly and all the food is the same. I find myself craving meat which isn't like me at all! Liam has taken to it better than me and he was the one dreading it before we came, I'm very proud of how well he's coping.Liam Managed to poop today!! Success! Not as bad as we were dreading apparently...now we're waiting with baited breath for my turn!
We walked the 20 minute walk/climb to our placements. In the medical centre I got all the medicines out and started to make a list and what they use them for. I spent the day sort of just handing the medicines over when asked and watching how it all works. Its very interesting seeing how it all works and I like to see all the villagers coming in, but I don't like a lot of what I see. Patients come in and are seen really slowly, even if no other patients are there the main lady (didi - meaning big sister in Nepali) will chose to sit and chat to people rather than treat them straight away. There was a lady who came for Iv today ( I still don't know why despite trying to find out- they seem to give it a lot) and she was the only patient in at the time. However didi had walked 3 hours this morning to get into work because of staying in a nearby village, so she just napped whilst this lady sat waiting. Other patients started to come in, didi finally got up to do something but didn't see to the lady for Iv. She must have been waiting for over an hour then she just got up and walked out, nobody said a word and didn't seem to think anything of it. Another patient was a little boy who was being sick and had a slightly high temperature. I would have been inclined to just say eat little, drink sips of water in the day and maybe take some liquid child paracetamol for the headache...it was nothing major. I said all of this but was told no, and for some reason (by no means the first time I've witnessed this) it was decided to give him an adult dose of amoxicillin. They made him take one there and then and he just threw it up straight away out of the window. They just wipe him up with their hands or old cloths that have already been used for other manky stuff. They then think to try and dissolve the antibiotic in water, so they put it in a bottle cap of water. It doesn't dissolve so didi takes the pen that is holding her hair up and starts poking at it trying to break it up and dissolve it before promptly getting the boy to take it again...resulting in him throwing up again. They finally gave him liquid paracetamol and told them to take the antibiotics with them. I got him to use some of my hand sanitizer because he'd been wiping his sick away with his hand and nobody really thought anything of it.
It's interesting enough but I'm really not enjoying it that much because all I am is an assistant finding the drugs I'm told to find and handing them to patients. I take people's blood pressure, check their temperature and get stared at and talked about in nepali. Theyre very interested in me and are curious, some people come in 'just to look'! I have limited medical knowledge so even when I know in my heart it's not quite the right thing to give I can't explain it to them, and when I do it falls on deaf ears. They just say 'yes I know' or ' you do it that way in England, not in Nepal'. A lot of the time everybody is talking to each other in Nepali and even when I ask for a translation I only get about half of what's being said so its hard!!
The medical centre closes at 2 so I go up to the school and teach 2 classes some English until 4pm. That's so much more fun! I love the teaching and like to get the children hands on in their learning because the teachers normally just talk at them and it seems a bit boring! Liam is really enjoying it as well, I think he could go into it as a profession after seeing him with the children and I've told him so.
We walked home with a couple of the children from school one of them is a cousin of the family were staying with and walks the same way as us. I was really tired this evening and my stomach felt dodgy do I didn't really eat much and we decided to go to bed early. Liam's eating loads here which is nice to see, but for me dal baht and dal baht and dal baht is getting too much for my stomach! We got one of the chocolate bars out of our secret stash and shared it during an episode of the big bang theory to make it feel a bit more like home....it's difficult though when everything is musty, damp and there are 2 big cockroaches within view! Liam has taken to trying to stay awake a bit longer because we always wake up in the night desperate for the toilet and it's not nice manoeuvring bare foot across the floor in the dark to go squat over the hole at night! We're rarely awake past 9.30 now though, its dark so makes you tired, which is good because we both like sleeping.
