Long Weekend

6/21
Daniel and I headed back to the construction site without gloves again, which turned out to be a poor decision. We spent the day shoeveling the rest of the dirt into the room to raise the floor and using a metal weight attached to a wooden post to pack the dirt down. The vibrations and splinters knocked my hands entirely out of commision after a few hours. Blister city, so I had to take the next day off looking for work gloves, unsuccessfully.

Several volunteers are leaving in the next week so there was a farewell party at VSN HQ under a tarp over the porch. Everyone was glad to have an excuse not to eat daal bhat, so the party lasted quite a while.

6/22

Although the glove hunt was fruitless, I did manage to make it to the post office to mail some postcards which was interesting because the stamps have this adhesive that only works if the thing is doused in water so I was standing at the counter with a spounge clumsily dabbing my pile of 35 rupee stamps with brown water while trying to attach them before they either dried or dissolved.

After a nap in Pepsicola, Dan and I headed to the local volunteer haunt, The Hut, where the owner was hosting a 'Continental BBQ' for VSN volunteers, which was also popular as yet another opportunity to escape dal bhaat. After eating about 14 pieces of grilled chicken, Dan, 3 of the other volunteers, and I caught a taxi to the tourist district of Thamel which is the only place in kathmandu that doesn't shut down at about 9pm. We ended up staying out late, splitting 2 250 rupee hotel rooms 5 ways, meaning we had clean beds and hot showers for about $1.60, followed by american style omellete, french toast and drip coffee for maybe $3 per person.

6/23
Over the past 2 weeks VSN received a much needed infusion of medical talent. 2 final year UK med students and 2 first year American students are now filling the role of Yet the Dutch G.P., who left last week. On Saturday VSN arranged a 'Health Camp', where a Nepali internist, OBGYN, and Pediatrician saw patients for free at our temporary ward 2 clinic for several hours. The medical students ended up taking over after the doctors left while there were still patents waiting. In all over 120 patients were seen, so the event was extremely successful.

Today
It's back to the c-site with another pair of hands, Pablo a volunteer from the west of Spain. I think we're going to install the new door and maybe knock off a piece of the roof. Just lost interest in typing so I'll leave the rest for later.