Sneaky Sneaky

I snuck past the Bhundh early in the morning on Wednesday in Chitwan and made it to Kathmandu without incident about noon the same day! It was kind of a gutsy thing to do but several of the staff sat the Cancer Hospital were very specific about how it could be done and if you get up really early before the tribal people manning the bhund show up to guard their road block of burning tires or big rocks you can sometimes sneak past and get through!
For those of you not really clear about all these Bhundhs I've been writing about Sorry... a bhundh is a road block where all motorized traffic is prohibited from moving past a given point. They block traffic and sometimes shut down the bazzar too. Sometimes bicycles and those on foot are permitted to pass. These are often political strikes or just a group protesting a cause or even the death of someone in an accident in the past! It is a way for the common people to obtain a voice and exhert some control over the government as there is only one road out of K-du going west and it is this East - West Highway. All economic trade comes and goes through India and Nepal on this road so it is pretty effective to dominate it. It cripples Kathmandu after about a week as they run out of fuel and food past that!

There remains 5 -6 locations across this highway where the Tharu people ( a tribal group) are making the bhundhs so even if I flew out to Dhangadi ( the last airstrip west) and tried to get trough there they have blocked the road going up the mountain and i'd get stuck in blistering hot Dhangadi so I've called Dave and strategized and we have agreed I'd do best to sit tight here in K-du tilll they reopen the roads. At least it is not so hot here! I do have the downside of paying about $25/day for hotel and food though so pray it will get resolved soon! Also we have the compounded challenge of 12- 16 hours without power here so I'd betted dash this off not knowing just when the "load shedding" starts today!

I do so appreciate all your prayers and hope to see many of you in about a month as Dave and I return to Seattle!
He is still working on the well... they are going deeper but still no water.. the manager of the project himself fell in to the well ( 20 feet) and got banged up really good but no broken bones! so that has delayed progress! If it is not one thing it is another!

Infestation

I thought since I'm all but confined to the city of Kathmandu I'd catch you up on a few loose details from the last few weeks.

I tried to get to Jawlekhel, the other end of city I normally stay at today, but got part way down the road and the taxi ran into a "jamm" which means a traffic block. ( to be differentiated by a bhundh by the fact that it is expected to clear in due time as it is just traffic or a vehicular cause versus an intentional blocking of the road for an indefinite period!) We found a back alley after inching along a few blocks and he took it, only to find another jamm just ahead! After about an hour of being stuck in the jam and only inching a few blocks he discovered by climbing out of the taxi and up on the roof, that indeed it was a Bhundh and we were going no where fast! Up ahead there were clouds of black smoke and evidently several roads were obstructed with burning tires as protesters were/are rallying against the Moaistgovernment decision to sack the current chief of army staff against the wishes of many other political parties. So we retreated and returned to my hotel in Thamel! It is never ending frustration.

I had a lemon soda and decided to make "lemonade" out of my afternoon!

I had chowmein for lunch with chicken momos ( Tibetan dumplings) which put me in a much better mood! I then took a bunch of the muffler /hat sets my students have crocheted and took them store to store till I got 2 stores to agree to buy them and market them here! (not bad for 6 contacts and an an hours work!) One store bought 10 sets out right and the other agreed to take 10 of my remaining 15 in 2 days after things settle here politically... all shop keepers are afraid things may get nasty and they all close their stores and wait it out till tempers die down and things are quiet and they can freely do business without worrying about protesters throwing rocks at their shops or vandalizing them! So looks like we could have to really lay low here in addition to dealing with the Bhundhs all over the nation!

So that is the climate here at present... I'm in no immediate danger as long as I stay away from main roads and if all the shops close down we will hibernate indoors and I'll read a book or something!

I want to update you on the Chitwan experience... I was there at the Cancer Hospital for 8 days waiting for Daya Madam, the head honcho, to come from K-du and receive me, show me around and interview me for her idea of combining Natural Therapies with current Cancer protocols and offering Alternatives to the many with Cancer that cannot afford Surgery, Chemo and Radiation all of which they do at this center. However with the Bhundh starting the day I arrived, she never did! So after 8 days ( by which point I was getting very bored and terribly wilted from the heat!) I decided to move on. A good move it turns out! I was able to connect with Daya Madam here in K-du and invite her for pizza ( not bad considering the Nepali take on the dish!). We had a lovely evening and found we are very compatible on many issues with a similar heart for poor Nepali people and she promised to go back to Chitwan and "talk me up" to her board and chief of staff there and really wants me to not only come and teach them Natural Healing there, but help them develop a rural prevention program where we would do educational programs village to village and offer free pap smears and follow up to women. (Cervical Cancer is the #1 cancer here followed by colo-rectal then breast and lung Ca.)
So we will see if she follows through!

While in Chitwan I met Ganga, the 13 year old girl with the huge facial and temporal tumor... I made her Neem/ Garlic oil after much trouble finding olive oil there ( primarily cause we couldn't get to the big bazaar till the 7th day!) and I delivered it to her the night before I left and taught Manju(the nurse and my hostess) how to make it... indeed we made a huge batch together that last night. I hope to call Manju tonight and see what kind of success Ganga is having with the oil. I also gave half of our first batch to another woman with spinal cancer that had not had good post op care and has a host of deep bed sores so she is trying the remedy too! I'm eager to hear of their progress!

I wrote about the bedbugs not minding all the garlic I ate while the mosquitoes responded well to the preventive approach. The roaches were a whole 'nother story!!!!! I teased Manju that they were her "friends"! She was working night shift one night, and I was watching American Idol followed by Lost ( believe it or not!) when a 3 inch roach scurried under my feet and another flew across the room. I could hear a few more scuttling in the kitchen and I just lost it! I got up from the couch and whooped and holler'd a little and found a box of "medicine" for roaches I had purchased for NRS 25 (about 30 cents) that day ... it was some kind of chalk... you draw 2 -3 parallel lines around the base of the cabinets, drains or walls and "watch what happens" read the box... in 3-4 hours you will see evidence of success! holy cow... they weren't kidding! I drew chalk lines every where in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, dining room and went back to watching "Lost" trying to ignore the sound effects!

An hour later one scurried to within 4 inches of my feet and flipped over... I whacked it with my slipper x5 thinking for sure this 4 inch creature must be dead... an hour later it was gone!!!! and I didn't know where!
Some time later I dared to get up and discovered the first casualty being carried by an army of tiny ( almost microscopic) ants clear across the dining room! There were up to 6 of its comrades doing the backstroke between the parallel lines I had drawn! Amazing! I tiptoed around them all not sure which were totally dead you know! ( if you watch Princess Bride you know there are degrees of being almost dead and other kinds of dead!) Besides I wanted Manju to see her friends one last time and have the opportunity to grieve appropriately!
She came home the next morning and could barely contain herself... there is a primal squeal that self emits from females in the presence of extra large roaches and she was not exempt! She promptly got a broom and swept them all up... I shared I once knew how to make cockroach stew... she declined and decided all the ants were then my friends! So it went !

Well the power just went here in the cybercafe so I have 3 minutes of battery power to get this sent so ....sionara!!!!! more later eh?
Wishing you all an infestation free day!