We woke up the next morning at 4 o’clock to the sound of roosters crowing. We all silently agreed that was ridiculous and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the roosters didn’t agree with us, and woke us up at regular 30 minute intervals up to 6 AM, when I decided I was going to start moving. Not too long after, around 7, breakfast was served.
It was just as filling as dinner the night before, consisting of beans, chillies, beef, pork, noodles, and eggs. I’ll get a proper photo of it up one day. Afterwards we cleaned up and started clinic.
Dr. Mar Naw set himself up like a sage or some sort of bazaar merchant behind row after row of medicines: pills, powders, and tinctures. One after another, villagers began to show up, as they came Josh and Greg B. would take their blood pressures and pulse, then hand them a number. Within what felt like minutes, the tiny clinic, set up in the same place we had dinner the night before, was filled with at least 20 people. As much as each had come to see the doctor, it felt like a social event. There were people of every age group: mothers with children, old men and women, children, and young adults. They were all talking to each other, and when it was their turn to see Dr. Mar Naw, they spoke about their troubles in front of everyone. There were no secrets here. I couldn’t help but think about how vigorously we guarded the state of our health in America, about HIPAA, and about how closely knit the Lisu’s society must be for them to be so comfortable around each other. They may as well have been one enormous extended family. From what we had learned from Dr. MN that night, that probably was not so far from the truth.
We took turns in the clinic, acting as pharmacists, giving shots, and taking care of blood pressures. The pharmacists filled in Dr. MN’s Rx’s, which he filled out on tiny plastic packets that he would hand us. It was not easy to read what he wrote, and I immediately understood pharmacists’ pain.
The cases were mostly malnutrition, which Dr. MN treat with IV shots of vitamins, and pills of vitamin B and C. The second most common set of cases involved fungal or bacterial infections of wounds. We saw almost 30 patients within the span of about 2 hours. Then the rain started. We had chosen to volunteer during monsoon season.
So, of course, we packed up, and decided to start working on our next project. We would finish up the lattice-work and ladder of the new hut in the village. But first we needed the materials, so we had to the stop at the local wood supply shop. Off to the Bamboo Forest we went.
We spent the next few hours trekking through the mosquito-infested, soaked, muddy, and slippery rain forest. This entailed walking along one foot wide earth paths, which we constantly fell on, followed by absailing down treacherous slopes using bamboo saplings. At this point, we cut down some trees with machetes, chopped off the bottom 10 feet, which on a tree that appeared to be 30 feet tall seemed pretty wasteful, and hauled them back to the village, one by one, in the exact same conditions we he reached them in.
It was no vacation.
We got back and started working on the ladder, while Jum Tay took care of the lattice.
Overall, it was a day well spent.
That was a Friday, and so that night, before dinner, we had special guests. The kids didn’t have school, and ambushed us.
Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time they were through with us. And, after another dinner and lecture, we hit the sack.
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