Thursday, May 19, 2011

Free day

I was surprised to find out that only was Tuesday, May 17, celebrated as Buddha's birthday, but it's also celebrated as a holiday and all businesses are closed.  After seeing postoperative patients in clinic, Dr. Byanju offered to have a driver and one of the ophthalmology residents act as a guide for me and drive me to some areas of interest to the north.  During my entire stay so far, I have yet to see the sun.  The skies are constantly overcast, and little did I know that there are actually mountains not far to the north.  As an aside (since I know some of you reading this would be interested), the vehicle that has been my transport vehicle most of my stay is a diesel powered Toyota LandCruiser, which also has a 5-speed manual tranny.  When that vehicle wasn't available I got to ride passenger on a motorcycle, which helped abate to some degree the mid-day heat.


Prior to our travel north, Dr. Byanju requested we make the several kilometer drive to the India border (to the west) so he could buy some bread.  This is an open border to residents of Nepal and India and as such, the border is a flurry of activity.


One of many tour buses getting ready to cross the border into India.


Looking back at Nepal from the border with India.



 




The top picture is not great, but lets you know where I am.  Palpa, like every other place I've been in Nepal so far, feels VERY heavily populated.  While in Palpa I visited the hospital, which is sponsored by Lions Club, and is affiliated with LEI.  The middle pic is the operating room inside the Palpa hospital.  Notice there are two tables and only one operating microscope.  It seems typical in this region for there to be two patients in the operating room for each surgeon.  As one patient is being operated on, other staff are readying a patient on the nearby table for their surgery.  This setup is primarily with cataract surgery, since retina surgeries require much more time.  The bottom pic was taken as we were driving through Palpa.  The cow is privileged.  While I've heard lots of horns blaring at cattle, I've never seen anyone lay a hand on one.

The software I'm using for this blog is not being user friendly right now, so I will continue it with another post.



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