Manali Missives 2/2014

Manali Missives 2/2014

Developing Everyday Routines and the Shape of our Project

Dear friends,

We’ve now been in India for more than 5 months. During that time we have developed our personal daily and weekly routines and seen our respective parts of “Project Reichardt” taking shape. While we have received appreciative feedback for several Manali Missives that have reflected in detail on issues of life in India, some have also suggested that we tell our audience both about what everyday life for us looks like, and what we are actually here to do! So…ladies first!

Lena is Lady Willingdon Hospital’s Paediatric Consultant. Her primary responsibility is for children from the time of birth, but her duties are much more diverse than that. Her week looks like the following:

From Monday to Saturday except Wednesdays which she takes off work, she attends morning devotions, rounds and Outpatients Department (OPD). On Mondays she attends Ante-natal Clinic (ANC). Last Monday she saw 50 patients. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she attends OPD, on Wednesdays she is, as mentioned, off work unless (and this happens not infrequently) she is needed in ANC. On Fridays she attends baby health clinic where she is involved immunising children. On Saturdays she and other staff work until lunch time.

From early February until late March Lena will be the Hospital’s Acting Chief Medical Officer while Drs Philip and Anna Alexander are on long leave in the US. 

Of many cases the following have gripped her during these 5 months:

A baby born one morning at home was brought to the hospital that afternoon, cyanosed (blue due to lack of oxygen) and in severe respiratory distress. Although she improved on nasal CPAP (she was given oxygen under pressure through her nose) she deteriorated and died in intensive care (ICU). 

A man came to the hospital suffering from bowel obstruction caused by tuberculosis. Stoma bags donated by a company in Australia thanks to the nurses in the Pennant Hills MC Family Medical Practice were attached to his skin and used to aid his treatment.

A baby with tuberculous lymphadenitis has now been on treatment for 6 months. 

Tuberculosis in its varied manifestations is one of the most common and severe infections, but even rabies, reputedly unknown in Australia, occurs here.

Though David’s working week looks very different from Lena’s it starts in the same place, at the hospital’s morning devotions, clustered around a combustion stove called a tandoor in the OPD. He plays his flute to the choruses and both of us take our turns to lead once a week. After that, during this initial phase of developing his Project, his day looks comparatively simple. He works either at home or in one of several local coffee shops preparing for his daily Hindi class, planning the Eco-Care Project and, vitally, communicating with “folks back home” and around the world. We use a variety of media. Both of us post on Facebook extensively. This blog takes some time each month to write, as does a monthly prayer bulletin. There are frequent emails and the occasional card and letter. Additionally, David has taken advantage of this relatively simple period to have several months of daily physiotherapy on his chronically injured and weak left ankle. If you think that is irrelevant in the Himalayas, then think again!

Working on Saturday mornings makes a surprising amount of difference to the weekend. On Friday evenings we are involved in one of a number of bible study groups affiliated with the local Church of North India congregation. We have continued with our weekly “date night” after the bible study (Bear in mind that Indians tend to eat their evening meal at 8 or 9pm!) but we’re beginning to change that to another evening. Sunday morning worship, at which David sometimes preaches, can last 2 hours. That, Friday evenings and occasional attendance at another mid-week bible study constitute our weekly church involvement.

On the home front, we live in a 2 bedroom flat on the second floor of a 4 storey block on the hospital campus. Having made it feel like home the major challenge this winter has been to keep it warm: it has not been above 12°C in the flat for several months. We have an oil-filled column heater which works well unless there is a power blackout, and two bar radiators, one of which is in combination with a gas heater which doesn’t work properly. We are avoiding having a tandoor installed because the smoke can be toxic and the maintenance department knocks a hole in the wall or window through which the chimney passes. We insulate our bodies with plenty of clothes and plan to improve the flat’s insulation before buying further heating.

Bathing involves turning on one of the two electric water heaters, waiting until the water is heated, then filling a bucket from which we ladle warm water over ourselves. Washing up involves turning on the other water heater. Preparing to get into bed involves first warming it with hot water bottles. Unlike most Indians in our choice of heating, we also differ from them in using a vacuum cleaner and a front loading washing machine rather than hired help for the cleaning and the washing. These and the fridge and microwave oven are still signs of middle class wealth here. Many people use gas stove tops, although gas cylinders, too, have become expensive. Some heat or boil water on their tandoors or drop electric coils into saucepans filled with water. Because the electricity supply fluctuates greatly we protect the washing machine with a surge protector. Lena generally loads the machine and turns it on early in the morning, but it may be close to midday before demand reduces sufficiently for the surge protector to allow the washing machine to start!

The most noticeable difference between shopping in Manali and Sydney is the dominance of small stores here. Instead of doing the weekly shopping on Saturdays at a local shopping centre, where we got most of what we wanted at one supermarket, perhaps passing the time of day with the sales assistant who entered our purchases into a computer, here we make small purchases most days of the week from several tiny, jam-packed specialist shops, with whose owners we are forming good, friendly relationships as they calculate the bill with pencil and paper. Once again, our purchases are somewhat unusual. We eat our daily main meal, rice and dhall with vegetables and a weekly treat of chicken, at lunchtime in the staff canteen, from where we also obtain much-needed filtered water. For breakfast we eat very un-Indian muesli with cashew nuts, raisins  and yoghurt. Dinner is based on German multigrain or rye breadbread and crisp bread, with cheese and vegetable toppings. We buy quite a lot of fruit and vegetables, but soak them in a solution of Condy’s Crystals (Good heavens! I last used them in high school science!) obtained from the hospital to kill germs. We drink tea and Horlicks, a drink made from malted barley. Instead of buying clothes off the rack Lena has her punjabi dresses made by one of several tailors in the town. Both David and the locals call them pajamas.

David wrote on travel in a blog before winter set in! During the winter months travel is restricted in, from and to the Himalayas, and the Mahindra Scorpio SUV, bought by the CNI’s Amritsar Diocese for David’s use with money donated by the Uniting Church’s UnitingWorld agency, has been sitting idly in the hospital compound. Because the Eco-Care Project will cover the whole of Amritsar Diocese, however, that state of affairs has begun to change. A few days ago he did his first major project-related trip, to Amritsar, Chandigarh and Delhi, all of them on the north Indian plain. In Amritsar he was wonderfully hosted by the superintendent and staff of the Church of North India's Dit Memorial Resource Centre. He preached at a combined service on India’s Republic Day, which was also Australia Day, and conducted 3 climate change presentations in 2 CNI-affiliated schools, the Alexandra School, in central Amritsar, and the Baring Union Christian College at Batala, 50 km north-east. The principals and staff of both schools were also great. Both institutions are wrestling in their own ways with the English legacy of huge buildings and grounds needing maintenance, and both are doing impressive work, not least in the IT/audiovisual area. 

It was good to plan the Eco-Care Project with Bishop “Bunu” Samantaroy, and to be assured that their thinking is similar. There is good ecological work already happening in the Diocese; David attended a tree-planting ceremony in Tarn Taran, and learnt over one of several excellent lunches about Dalhousie's Earth Centre, recently vandalised and in need of re-establishment. It was also great to get to know more people of CNI’s Amritsar Diocese - the administrative secretary, several ministers I’d barely met before, two young probationers - and to agree upon visits to two other centres, in Palampur and Shimla respectively. 

From Amritsar David travelled by the Shatabdi Express to Delhi where once again he stayed with wonderfully hospitable friends from The Leprosy Mission. The Climate Reality Project India's function launching environmental educational material for schools was the purpose of this trip. It was well worth attending for the networking value alone, but before that he was invited home to the principal of a CNI School in Simla and her family. We'll be back in Delhi for a conference next week, and for David to meet TCRP India's Country Director to learn how to use this material in "his" state of Himachal Pradesh. The link with TCRPI feels like an excellent "fit" with Amritsar Diocese's Eco-Care Project, particularly with its emphasis on communicating ecological concern in schools. 

We also look forward next week to catching up, again in Chandigarh, with an Indian friend from Australia and his wife. Several of their friends and family have helped David to find outlets for several building products to make life more comfortable in Manali; that was the last thing he did on the trip just concluded. As we write there has been heavy snowfall, the power has failed and won’t be restored for several days, and it is 10°C in our flat. Better insulation and heating feels important.

So, that was a little on our everyday lives in Manali, and on how our respective projects are developing.

Lena & David Reichardt