With the change in the weather came common colds and infections, plaguing all the foreign workers. Luckily neither Annie or I have been sick yet (other than a few short lived GI malfunctions) so cross your fingers.
I have learned recently, that there are more inpatient deaths at the clinic than I was aware. Various medical students who are on rotation here at the clinic have informed me that they have lost their patients in the last few weeks. The reason, they say, is an unfortunate inability of the clinic to be able to spend money on differential techniques to diagnose the patients - in other words, they cannot spend money on running multiple tests like blood smears, x-rays, and CAT scans on severely ill patients, thus not able to come up with treatment that could be advantageous. This, I believe, is a mere fact of the hardship that the self-sustainable free clinic such as the MTC faces; the extreme version of managed care that from outsiders may seem unfair or inadequate. I personally think that the clinic is doing a fantastic job considering the grave circumstance under which it operates. The structure of managed care is a necessity at a place like the clinic, because they only have a limited amount of resources and money. They have to triage who could be cured from the treatment and medicines that they have, and thus the expensive tests and referrals to a local hospital can be maximized in their benefits. I understand that it sounds cruel, but otherwise the efficiency of the clinic will diminish, and so would its resources. I do feel bad for these driven medical students whose honest wishes are to save people's lives. They say they feel helpless, and that they are frustrated for not being able to use their pocket money to run diagnostic smears and x-rays and refer for treatments at the hospital. I think I would feel the same way if I was actually in the clinical units. Only because I see the overall outcome of the clinic and its progress over the course of its existence (as part of my job) am I able to see that its system does work, and that it has saved the lives of numerous individuals who would have otherwise been lost. I am very much at awe of how self-sustainable (which is typically the main problem many locally run non-government recognized non-profits face) the clinic is, and how well educated the medics and staff are (mind you, they are all taught at the clinic and its affiliates). Dr. Cynthia is truly my hero, and I am honored to be working with her on a daily basis.
So some fun things:
Yesterday was my 26th birthday, and my wonderful friends here (a diverse menagerie of Americans, Brits, Canadian and New Zealander) threw me a party. Annie and Ilana did a relay of cooking in the afternoon, frying tortilla chips and making grilled cheese sandwitches and tomato soup from scratch. Caroline made delicious fruit salad and brought the highlight of the drink selection we had; the "Mc Hammer" whiskey. The table was decorated with candles and flowers, and they got me a cake with two cats (signifying my Tiki and Tembo that I miss so incredibly) on it that actually said "Happy Birthday Yumi" and other cute decorated small cakes that were so tastey. Seriously, this was one of the bestest birthdays I have ever had. We played music on guitar, sang along, and hung out while it continued raining outside. It was a cozy night of good company and good food, laughs and discussions, and I am so lucky and fortunate to have these friends who love me and care for me in this tiny town of Mae Sot.
*******************************************************
Last weekend, a whole bunch of us (mostly the folks I mentioned in my birthday story) took a motorbike to Taksin Maharat National Park. Andy found a little cabin that we could stay, so we decided to give mortorbikes a try. The most of the drivers were new at this skill, so the passangers (including myself) was difinately skepitacle of actually making it to the park without dying, since we all knew that the road to the park is windy mountainous road that are often cruised by large overloaded trucks that ignored the trafic lanes(remember the government minivan trip I mentioned before...). But the weather held up (until right before we reached the park) and the ride was actually very nice and beautiful although yes, two folks had flat tires, and yes, we almost ran out of gas, and Ilana and I went passed the actual park and had to make our way back uphill, in the rain and the wind, through motorvehicle accidents, and nearly gotten run over by two cars and almost flipped ourselves over into the ditch. HA HA HA. No joke. Not funny.
We ended up renting a larger cottage shared with 12 (?) of us unlike the original plan of staying in the two smaller units. It overlooked the beautiful hills of the park, and the fog came rolling in and out like my beloved San Francisco. Anyway, after lunching on a plate of spicey pork rice, we went on a hike which I absolutely loved. It was very much an authentic jungle hike, some on the paved road but mostly in the wet trails that required some bush whacking and trail blazing. All through the hike you could hear the loud cries of cicadas, and exotic birds poked their heads out from time to time. Misty wind blew through the valley and it just felt really refreshing. We first went to the "Big Tree" that the park prides itself on, and to the water fall where some of us went wading. BUT this is where the nightmare (particularly for Ilana) officially began. The LEECHES. I mean, they were EVERYWHERE. If you stood still for even for 5 seconds, they were literally all over your feet, up your legs, sucking blood out of you. The survival of the fittest at its best, and we were not the fittest. Obviously none of us enjoyed this, but most of us pulled ourselves together and decided to hike out of the jungle as soon as possible. Ilana, bless her heart, was ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED. I kept hearing screams in the back (because I decided to lead the pack) time and again, and we took turns ripping the little creatures off of her feet because she could not touch them. Finally when we were few kilos from the trailhead, she says I can't take it anymore, and takes off, running full speed through steep uphill like a wind. Later I recommended her that she should join a cross-country team, and have her teammates place leeches on her feet.
Nonetheless, we all got back to the cabin safely, got washed up - Caroline's feet were completely covered in blood regardless of her socks and sneakers - and had a great evening of card playing and feasting in the stormy jungle weather. The planning of the trip home was rather stressful, because the weather was crappy when we got up, and one of the drivers test drove the bike and skidded and fell, scraping his arm. But we worked things out, and the one bike and myself along with three other girls were driven out of the park by the truck all the way to Mae Sot, and the rest actually drove the bike without any incidents, except for Andy's bike whose transmission blew just outside of Mae Sot, and had to flag down a nice trucker who brought him back to town.
We were all exhausted by the time we got back, but I trully enjoyed being out in the wild, taking a break from the daily life of Mae Sot.
We also started taking Burmese lessons! We will give you a report on that in the near future. I love it. My favorite phrase is:
"Twey yadda wanta ba deh" which means "I'm glad to meet you!" :D
No comments:
Post a Comment