Delhi Days

We have been in our new apartment now for about 2 weeks now and are enjoying the relative luxury. We are based in North Delhi in an area called Kingsway Camp and our gated community is called Hudson Lane... not very Indian sounding. Our place is great... right opposite a park on the 1st floor of a 2 story block.

So what have we been up to.?. Well the kids and I have been spending a lot less time at the ashram due to my work and their school work. It's a bit of a shame not to be at the ashram as much, but we are so much more productive in the apartment. After three days we get a bit stir crazy though and need to get out.

One day last week we went to the ashram and were sitting outside the clinic doing our work when we heard a bit of a commotion and Sharlene came out really upset. We had a surgeon visiting that day to see if we could drum a relationship and have simple procedures done in-house rather than carting the patients all over Delhi in pain and in the heat. Sharlene showed him Jonny... a relatively new patient to the surgeon. Jonny presented with a crushed foot. His foot was literally split in two separating his toes. It was a nasty wound with lots of jagged flesh and visible bone. Jonny's other issue is uncontrolled diabetes, so a foot injury of this severity is not likely to heal well. Our visiting surgeon decided he needed to perform 'emergency surgery' on the spot. He asked the nurses for a few bits and pieces , got some guys to hold Jonny down and the proceeded to hack two of Jonny's toes off without any anesthetic. Of course he was in agony and screaming hysterically. Sharlene saw the whole thing as inhumane and yelled at the doctor to stop and give Jonny some anesthesia, but he continued as though it was completely normal. Sam and I of course went in to see what all the fuss was about and there was Jonny lying on the table white as a sheet with his leg off the side of a table over a bin with blood and flesh pouring into it. (Sam had a look in the bin later to see if he could see the toes but they were not visible for all the blood.) Below is a nice photo of Jonny's foot post 'surgery' (read brutalisation). There are so many patients here at the moment with missing Limbs. Who knows if he really needed to lose them or not.

They breed people tough here. in fact on of the doctors said to Shar "don’t give these guys any pain relief, it’s good for them to be reminded of the bad choices they’ve made”. I think these guys have probably learnt any lessons they need to learn and just need a bit of compassion.

If the photo of the toes make your stomach turn... my apologies... I have some more shocking photos of the worst bedsores you have ever seen... Another new patient Vinod was taken into the ashram after he had being laying in hospital rotting away for months without an attendant. Vinod's parents died when he was very young and he grew up on the streets fending for himself. He would now be in his mid to 20's. One night about 4 months ago he was sleeping on a roof and while asleep he fell off and broke his spine. Since then has spent months in and out of hospitals being treated very badly. He is paralysed from the waist down and has enormous bedsores. In hospital he was made to sleep on a stretcher, given none or very little food and then kicked out. Each time he was kicked out of one hospital he would make his way to another hospital, hoping that “this time” things could be better. When he first arrived at the ashram he was so dirty and wads of skin would come off his legs in chunks. After a few weeks he looks so much better and his wounds have improved. Hopefully soon he will be able to get into a wheel chair and get outside in the sun.

We have been so busy lately that we have not had much time for language learning. Hunter is way out in front in terms of vocabulary and practices with some of the patients. The other night she was chatting to Amachand; one of the long-term patients who speaks about 10 words of English. Hunter managed to explain what she would be doing between that afternoon until the next time we would be at the ashram in simple words and sign language.

Our most helpful Hindi teacher has gone to Agra for a month to work in an orphanage. Hopefully by the time he is back we will have a better routine and will be able to put a bit more time into language learning.

Ok... so much more news but I will leave it for that today. Until next time

namaste

Hunter's Blog

Hi Everyone,

Hunter has started her own blog... you can read it at www.lifeandlentilsjunior.blogspot.com

Louise

Too long...

Quick Update

Well, we have been back from Varanasi for a week now and time has flown by. This week the kids started 'school' as there are no english speaking schools nearby they are eligible for the NSW Department of Educations Distance Education Program. So Sam is enrolled in Queanbeyane High and Hunter is enrolled in Sydney Distance Eductaion Primary School. SEDPS has an amazing setup. Unlike Sam's school it is purely distance ed. All the teachers are together in one room creating individualised lessons for each of their students. Hunter's lessons are mailed to us on a USB with all the associated paperwork and books. She can even request library books... we have placed an order as she is devouring books at the moment and although books are cheap here its costing a small fortune.

Sam's programme is a mix between textbook work and online lessons. It seems a little more complicated than Hunter's but hopefully we will have it all worked out soon. I think it is suiting him though... not having other people around for him to distract, I imagine he will be far more productive.

So news of the ashram... patients are always coming and going and everyday we get to know them a little better. This week we have got to know Shzoon-Shzoon (Sunhil). Sunhil arrived at the ashram about 2 weeks ago. He came from one of the big Delhi hospitals. One night about 2 months ago Sunhil was out with his mates and had too much to drink. He was on a train with his friends and they where being silly by the open doors. While the train was stopped Sunhil leaned out the doorway and fell, his friend tried to catch him but he fell too. Unfortunately as they fell a train was approaching on the parallel track. Sunhil lost both his legs half way between the knees and ankles. His friend was less fortunate he was literaly sliced in half from head to toe. Sunhil was taken to hospital and had an opperation to close off the wounds of his severed legs. While in hospital patients are expected to have an attendant with them at all times... effectively acting as their nurse. Sunhil's uncle was sent to be his attendant but soon left, so the hospital asked if the ashram could take him to care for him until his wounds healed. He has been here now for 2 weeks and he is the most remarkable person. You would never guess he has only been without his legs for 2 months, he throws his stumps around as though he never had legs and he is always so happy and social. He seems to have taken this life changing incident so easily as though it was nothing more than a scratch on his knee.

As for his nick-name... Szhoon-szhoon that is the word used to describe the phantom pains he feels and it has kind of stuck as his nick-name. Szhhon-szhoon literally means ouch-ouch.

He is a very social guy, always chatting and interacting with patients and non-hindi speaking volunteers alike. He was sitting in the mandeer with Sam the other day and started gining Sam a massage... Sam said it was amazing. We have sinced discovered he is a hairdresser and massage therapist. Being such a social guy he is fairly keen to return to his old life, if he misses anything it is not his legs but his social life. His wounds are almost healed now so he is nearly ready to leave... but he does have the option of being fitted for prosthetic legs, which means he will have to stay for a few more months.

One quick note on amputations....we have quite a few amputees passing through the ashram... In fact just the other week we took one of our patients to the small hospital in the local village and he came back the same day with half his leg gone. I am thinking amputations are not outpatient/day surgery in Australia

A few days latter...

We have had all sorts of drama with the internet lately, thats why all my posts are merging into one. Seriously, if you ever have been frustrated with Optus or Telstra you have never been as frustrated as we have been with India's Reliance. Hopefully now we have ironed out all the problems... though I doubt it.

So what has been happening... well has been ridiculously hot again. It has been too long between monsoon rains. Thankfully there is quite a good breeze blowing today. For a while there I was having trouble sleeping I would literally be wake up 20 times a night having to rollover or find a dry patch on my pillow. I would make myself drink nearly a litre of water before bed but I would still wake up so dehydrated. Hunter and I are now sleeping without mosquito nets as it is so much cooler and we don't seem to be getting eaten.

Yesterday was Hunter's 10th birthday. She had a really nice day. She got the electronic version of the Game of Life which we were lucky enough to find at Khan market and season 1 of Hannah Montana. For her birthday we went to Splash, a kind of wet 'n' wild fun park. She had a really nice time... Though really not my thing with the crowds, loud music the crowds... I could go on it was quite an eye opener.

Back at the ashram we bought 30 kilos of Papaya to cut up and Hunter handed them out to the patients... Cake really wasn't an option.

Last night we started the move to our new apartment. We are housesitting/renting a place in North Delhi for the next 3 and a half months while the tenants are in Korea. It is the perfect option for us. It is only half an hour from the ashram and gives us the opportunity to try out the area before we commit to a long term lease. It is fully furnished which allows us time to slowly collect some furniture. Our address is Hudson Lane, Kingsway Camp.... not very Indian sounding.

So what's news with you?

Varanasi... Part 2

As I sit here and write this post several days after returing from Varanasi there is a torrential downpour going on outside. The sky is dark and is frequently lit by bright flashes of lightening. The little area outside our guest house is ankle deep in water and slowly rising; thankfully our room is two steps up off the ground. It has been raining for an hour or so now and frankly I am surprised there is still power.

It is Monday night which is pasta night (we skip bitter gourd night) and we had a cosy dinner in the staff kitchen grateful not to have to wander the 70 or so metres through the rain to the dinner area... not that the kids would mind, they spent half an hour or so playing in the rain when the storm first started.

Ok... Varanasi. Our second full day in Varanasi was spent in full tourist mode. We started the day in Sarnath the place Buddha gave his first sermon to his five key followers. Apparently, it is one of the four most important sites on the buddhist circuit. It was quite interesting and I learnt a lot... but really... not my thing. After Sarnath we headed back to the Ganges and wandered through the little lane-ways browsing in some of the little shops before we had lunch on the rooftop terrace of the Sita Guesthouse. I would highly recommend it as a cheap and cheerful place to stay. You can eat a meal for $3 and enjoy the most amazing view of life on the Ganges. We saw people bathing and washing their buffalos and others resting by the river in the heat of the day. It was so quiet and peaceful compared to the busy chaos of the mornings and evenings.

Afterwards we wandered through the alleyways perusing the all the little shops with their oh so cheap clothes... no need to negotiate here. I picked up some much needed cool clothes to wear back at the ashram. 2 skirts, 2 pairs of pants, 3 tops and a dress... all for less than $30! ...love it.

Later in the afternoon we hoped back on the tourist path. First stop was to see the hand woven silk fabrics which Varanasi is famous for. We were taken into a dark house where several looms where set up in a dark room. Apparently much of the silk in Varanasi is woven by hand due to the unreliable power supply... I would suggest worse than Gurgaon. I definitely would not call Varanasi silk a fair trade item. Young boys as young as 11 are recruited to learn the skill while there hands are still young and nimble. It takes 7-8 years to become a master and by that time there eyes are fading from working long days in dark rooms. After seeing the work being done we were taken into a showroom and the pressure was on to purchase. First item was a silk bedspread... as lovely as they were they are just not my style and they were insisting that several hundred dollars was a wholesale price...I don't think so. So rather, we looked at simple silk scarves... though there was hundreds of designs... so overwhelming. We settled on a simple scarf and Ray negotiated the price down but in my opinion we still paid through the nose... I would not have bought anything at all after seeing the work conditions but I felt obliged after they unfolded about 50 quilts and even more scarves which they were going to have to refold once we left.

After seeing the silks we headed back to the Ganges for an evening row boat ride up to the cremation ghats. It was a lovely evening and such a scenic journey as there where several ceremonies being conducted on the banks on the Ganges. With the kids in tow it was probably best that we viewed the cremation ghats in partial darkness as it can be quite graphic. At the main cremation area several fires were burning and a few bodies were being brought into the river for their last wash and last drink from the mother Ganges before the bodies are cremated and the pelvis of the woman and breast bone of the man are thrown into the river.

Our guide explained in detail about the ceremony and why it is how it is.

Apparently there are five people who are not cremated: the holy man, the pregnant woman, the child, the leper and the cobra bitten man. The first three are not cremated because they are already holy, the leper is not cremated as his burning body will disperse the disease into the air... and I cannot remember the rational for not cremating the cobra bitten man... I will have to google it.

So what happens to their bodies I here you ask..?.. Well they are taken out into the middle of the Ganges thrown overboard and weighted down. The middle the Ganges is surprisingly deep and I can't imagine how many thousands of skeletons there are down there.

Afterwards we headed back up river taking in the ceremonies with hundreds of other people watching from their row boats.

The rowboats are larger than your average rowboat and hold 10 or more people yet one small man manages to row them up river against the current. Ray had a turn at rowing our boat and managed to make a nice circle, before handing the helm back to out oarsman :)

The next day we had planned to head out and experience the last of the Varanasi sites including the temples and the university museum, but instead we decided to absorb the creature comforts of the hotel before we headed back to Delhi. Ah well... just left something for us to see next time.

One other thing I have to say about Varanasi is that I have never seen so many backpackers with dreadlocks in all my life... I reckon in Varanasi there is more dreadlocks per capita than any other city in the world!

I have some amazing photos and footage from our time in Varanasi... I will try and upload it all soon.

Please email us a note if you have a chance... we love contact form home...

Until next time

namaste

Varanasi...Part 1

On Tuesday morning we headed from Sewa Ashram to the airport, we had a lovely taxi driver from Narela. He was quite chatty and explained to us such things that all leaves including tea leaves contain tobacco? thus we should only eat seeds... He also helped Ray put his seat belt on in a rather odd manner; he put it on the seat and then pulled the top sash over Ray's head so there was nothing around his waist... not sure of the logic there. Then he texted his son, who called him back to have a chat with Ray and wants to meet up with him next week.

I think the highlight of the trip though was when the boot of the little hatch back flew open and I literally grabbed Sam's backpack by a seam before it fell out onto the road.

We arrived at the domestic airport in one piece. Our flight left from the new terminal.... v nice compared to the old one. We flew spice-jet (low cost airline similar to jetstar) all the planes are named after spices... we flew on Fenugreek, one of my favorite spices. The plane next to ours was Mustard... I love it.

The flight was delayed but otherwise uneventful until the landing which was hard and unusually fast... I am thinking rookie pilot who came in too low too quick and only just caught the beginning of the runway. I thought we were going to hit the terminal it took so long to brake.

Varanasi airport is not what I expected, for such a busy tourist city the terminal is a tin shed which seams to have a black out every five minutes which stops the one rickety old and too short baggage carousel.

Varanasi itself is quite rural with lots of agriculture; mainly rice and sugarcane. Once again it is like no other city in India and it is odd that the city itself sits only on one side of the Ganges. The western bank is very crowded and very built up while the east bank is completely clear. Varanasi is said to be one of the oldest cities in the world dating back over 2000 years but very few of the buildings are more than a couple of hundred years old.

On Wednesday morning we got up at 4:30 am to get a taxi at 5 am to the Ganges. You cannot drive to the banks of the Ganges itself, rather the roads end about 200 metres from the banks with a maze of little narrow galis (lane ways) leading through the old city to the Ghats (flight of steps leading down to the river). It was already very busy when we arrived at the ghat at 5.30 am hundreds of people where bathing in the Ganges and others meditating whilst many a tourist was boarding the little wooden boats for a sunrise cruise... I think we will have another early morning tomorrow.

We found a place to sit on the Ghat close down to the bank of the Ganges and waited for the moon to cover the sun. There were a few pair of eclipse glasses floating around which we had a look through. With the odd smattering of cloud covering the sun we were able to take a few quick glances and photos without glasses.

We were very fortunate with the weather as cloud cover was predicted due to the light monsoon. There were a few clouds about but not enough to obscure the event. A few minutes before the eclipse is total the light and the colour of the sky turns an odd and eerie shade. It is not like sunrise or sunset but a light that is unique to a solar eclipse. 10 seconds before totality a cheer went up as the last of the suns light disappeared like a light being switched out. Sam and Hunter where both in awe of the black ball that hung in the sky with a hint of the suns corona radiating out and a few planets lit up in the night sky. We were able to soak up the experience for three and a half minutes. This was the longest solar eclipse the earth will see until 2132 and what an amazing place and atmosphere to experience it, honestly there are no words.

We have taken some great photos and footage but it cannot convey what it is like to see a black sun. Further west of us the sun actually rose totally eclipsed I wonder what that was like...

After the diamond ring appeared in the sky when the sun first reappears the experience is all but over. Even though the sun is still partially eclipsed for another hour the magic is gone.

After the eclipse we went for a stroll along the Ganges walking from ghat to ghat the further we walked the busier it got more and more people were bathing, washing their laundry and praying. At one point we passed a place which must be the public toilet. It was a paved area between ghats by which we walked which was dotted with hundreds of human poohs. Needless to say it stunk; but what I wan to know is whose job is it to clean that up.

Once we got to the main ghat the number of people was oppressive. If a traffic jam is bad a human jam is worse. We pushed out way up the stairs and out of the ghat into a market the led to the galis. The market was also human traffic jam, stepping over people changing into their dry clothes after there morning dip, people selling their fruits and vegetables, people begging for rice and others selling it to people to give to the poor. At one point as we pushed past the market stalls I grabbed Sam who was in front of me as he was about to step right in the path of a man with his cobra slithering in front of him. Needless to say Sam got the shock of his life and we tried out best to give it a wide berth. Only a month or two ago someone who lives by the ashram was bitten by a cobra and died.

We finally made it back into the less crowded galis and weaved our way parallel to the Ganges back from where we came. The galis are so interesting... so much to see and so much cow pooh to avoid. Ray the pooh magnet stepped in some slushy stuff and our guide said not to worry it is holy. When we got back to the ghat where we watched the eclipse Ray ducked down to the water to wash his feet but he could not wash his thongs... shoes are not allowed in the Ganges.

We then headed back through a crowded galis to the car and back to our hotel. We had planned to eat breakfast at a guest house overlooking the Ganges but on such a day it was too crowded. Maybe tomorrow.

(I have just added two posts so make sure you don't miss the one below this)

Ashram days...

Ok...well my last post was a little shorter than I had planned as things got so busy leading up to this impromptu jaunt to Varanasi. So... what's been happening over the past few days? Well for us the daily ashram life has been particularly busy... it seems to take longer than normal just to do simple daily tasks... such as the washing. Sam and I managed to dye a bunch of clothes pink yesterday after a new pair of red pants was mixed into the load... Ray now had a bunch of mottled pink t-shirts... koi bhat nahi (doesn't matter), I will take them to the dying wallah and have them fixed.

Last night was Kaye and Christa's last night at the ashram so we has a special pizza and pasta night with the colourful ashram lanterns decorating the area outside the guest houses. Making pasta and pizza takes longer than usual here as we have one stove we can use and we have to make the pasta fresh and last night the fire wood was damp and it took longer than usual to heat up mud pizza oven. With some foresight I bought a few packs of long-life parmesan cheese with me which was a good thing as parmesan is $45 per kilo here.

On a sadder note, Rikah (the woman I wrote about in one of my first posts) died on Sunday. Last week Sharlene went to visit her again and convinced her to get treatment in hospital. Shar said that even in the few days since we last saw her she had deteriorated and her hair had literally gone grey overnight.

The hospital called us on Sunday afternoon to inform us that she had died. That night after dinner Ray,Sam, Hunter and I along with one of the ashram staff went to her slum to inform her husband. He was not there so we spoke to some residents and asked then to get him to contact us. I have to say I was a little uncomfortable with the crowd we drew. Not long after we returned to the ashram the husband showed up looking a little forlorn, even so I struggled to feel sympathy for him remembering the bruises around Rikah's neck.

I was reading in a past newsletter that there seems to be on average of one death per week and I doubt it is much less than that now. One thing that I have been contemplating is... when do you let nature take its course and when do you intervene. For example if Kalu (the patient that died last week) was in Australia he would have been rushed to hospital and resuscitated....but not here. In India he was considered too far gone, and frankly if he had lived he would have had a very poor quality of life. I wonder... do we try too hard to save lives in Australia sometimes, striving to maintain life even if there will be no quality to it and perhaps no dignity either?

quick update

Hi,

Well everyone has recovered and life is back to normal.

We (well Louise anyway) are very excited about our impromptu trip to Varanasi. We are leaving on Tuesaday morning in order to get there before the total solar eclipse on Wednesday. This is meant to be one of the best eclipses the world will ever see for the next 100 years. It will last for 3.5 minutes in Varanasi and as long as 6 minutes in some athols off the coast. The last eclipse I saw in desert Australia only lasted 25 seconds. It is such a treat to be in the the right country at the right time... I know what you are thinking solar eclipse big deal... but until you experience one you cannot understand just how awesome and eerie they are. I will no doubt describe the experience in graphic detail on my next post. I plan to photograph/video the moon crossing the rising sun over the Ganges.

Yesterday afternoon I went into Narela to pick up some clothes I had dyed. I found a really nice top that had bleach marks on it so I had it dyed black for 80cents... While I was waiting for the guy in the shop to find my order an Indian family inquisitively asked if I lived in Narela... to which I replied yes...It must be odd to see someone like me going about life in such a remote little village.

When Sharlene heard I was going into Narela she asked if I could drop some blood off to pathology... Blood testing is nothing like Australia. She drew the blood with a syringe, capped the needle, stuck a bit of tape on it with the patients first name on it and on a scrap piece of paper listed the tests. Sam had a blood test the other day... his results came back with his name "Sam" (no date of birth and contact details). His FBC (full blood count) results and negative for Malaria.

Sorry its brief... so busy... lots of news for next time