citta ... a travel log as i visit the projects.

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Michael
Nov 30, 2008

A wonderful person named Marta Miquel from Barcelona was waiting for William and I when we arrived to Puri, Orissa. Marta is a friend of Albert Rigat, a young man from Barcelona who had visited the Hospital by chance on a visit to Orissa last year. She is a Doctor that works from an Ambulance for the Govt. of Catalan. For her work, she faces amazing challenges at random times of the day and night. On the suggestion of Albert, Marta wanted to see the Citta project in Orissa for a possible collaboration for around 5 months in 2009. She was hoping to take some time off of work and contribute to a place she felt could really benefit from her skills and help push her to new challenges as well. She was very happy to see that the hospital and surrounding area are definitely places she feels comfortable collaborating with. After some contemplation and consideration on the rooftop of the hospital as the sun rose, she had an Epiphany! The best use of her skills would be to do outreach while in Orissa to villages. Teaching them first aid and how to deal with patients prior to reaching the hospital in Juanga. The first or “golden hour” of care to a patient is crucial to their survival. Patients now arrive to the hospital with dangling limbs or on their back where the tongue can easily asphyxiate them prior to their arrival to the hospital. Marta wants to be able to provide small First Aid kits to the villages and William suggested he gets the Boy Scouts he is affiliated with in NJ to fundraise for such First Aid kits.

Michael
Nov 19, 2008

Ok, this has to stop being a tradition when leaving Nepal. William and I woke up with our schedule set. We woke at 7am to make some important communications to the U.S. (A.K.A. the Todoturkeyfestorama video, link below)

Then we were catching a quick breakfast, checking out of the hotel and heading to the women’s center in Bhaktipur to meet a candidate for the new production manager position and have a farewell lunch with the women before running to the Airport to head of to India. Well, that was the plan…..

We packed up at the hotel and asked Bikash, our Nepali friend at the Hotel to get us a Taxi since his price would be about equal to me bargaining for half an hour. He came back a little confused and said “No Taxi’s”. I figured we had to walk down to the central taxi stand to get one, so off we went. When we arrived at the taxi stand we saw all the shop fronts rapidly slamming shut. There was a wild mob of students heading our way throwing rocks into all the store windows that hadn’t complied with the strike demand. After witnessing a few good windows shatter, we decided to duck into FIRE AND ICE, a famous old pizza house owned by an Italian women that had married a Nepali man. The restaurant had become a staple for both expats and the previous Prince who suffered the harsh death and blame for the murder of his family (and his own death), under the present King’s slaughtering tactics to take the throne. I have to say, if you were ducking out of a riot, it’s was the best place to be near…..they had free WiFi.

We had to cancel our trip to Bhaktipur and I’ll try to interview candidates for the Production Job by phone from India. We barely made it to the Airport in time and off we went to India!