Getting Over the Language Hurdle

At Kopila's home on Valentine's Day.

The women in Nepal continually amaze me by their strength of character.

The strangest Valentines Day pretty much ever. Kopila, on the right, is one of my favorite Nepalis. She us to come visit her home in a village about an hour's walk from Chapagaon and then insisted that we wear saris while drinking tea with her. I don't think I've laughed that much in a long time.

My new haircut. I look about 17 years old now. Awesome. It must definitely reaffirm my patients' faith in my clinical abilities.

With some of my students. I look tired.

Eternal Shalom School: My Health Education Class for Nursery Students

Dinner at the Hyatt with Lynn and Ellie.

Pretty much the essentials to an amazing day.

Kicking it at the Hyatt's pool. 70 degrees and February.

I don't get a day off this week--working a full 50 hours. Awesome. So this is going to be short and sweet until I get a real day off.

And Nepal is getting ready to switch to 12-hour black outs for electricity. I guess it's time to buy a whole lot more candles.

And just a warning that you're going to be seeing lots of pictures of adorable Nepali children on my blog from here on. I adore them. Outpatient Pediatrics has been my absolute favorite department at the clinic.

I believe Granny (if you missed her cackling, asthmatic debut appearance in my chronicles of Chapagaon, check out my blogpost entitled: "The SevenFold Path to Enlightenment...or Perhaps Amoebic Dyssentery") has truly lost her mind from the crazy strong drugs that she's taking for her musculoskeletal pain and COPD. The latest development this week was that every time I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, Granny would wake up and decide to use the bathroom as well. I don't get it. This lady goes to bed at 8 pm, and then she would still get up at 1 am. So last night I went to the the bathroom and locked the door, and sure enough I heard Granny's door creak open and her shuffle over to the bathroom door where she proceeded to try yanking it open with all of her frail strength, wheezing with the effort. When she finally realized that I was in there after I said "I am in here" in Nepali repeatedly, she decided to flip the lights off on me and went to a fit of wheezing hysterical laughter. I wasn't too thrilled, because the last place that I want to take a chance in the dark, is a squat toilet. She thought it was hilarious. I kept saying, "Ma yahaa chha" in case she hadn't heard me the first dozen times, but no, she was in asthmatic hysterics over her little joke. Finally, she flipped the light back on, talked to herself in the hallway for a good couple of minutes and then shuffled back to her room, quite pleased with herself. Just another night at the silo.