APR-C-5
DHARAMSALA
APRIL 20--21, 2002
Hi, Y’all! I have arrived in Dharamsala, and am trying to send you this message from MacLeod Gung hill station in the Dhauldihar Range of the Himalaya, over looking the Monastery of His Holiness, the XIVth Dali Lama, where the clanging and clashing of cymbals and the blaring of what I irreverently refer to as flugelhorns punctuates the monotony of the droned chants I can still hear in the background as I leave the Hotel Bagsu in search of a cybercafe to try to send you this arrival note.
It was not easy!
Every step that should be taken for granted---like programs held on the dates and at the times when they were confirmed, like the Super Shuttle arriving within an hour of its reservation, like not getting lost with a professional driver, like tickets being honored within members of the Star Alliance to get us here, and like the pounding drive up the first of the Himalayan ranges in the dry hot dusty end of the pre-monsoon harvest season after escaping the teeming masses of Delhi-----all should be on “autopilot after my having done each many times before.
But, each wheel needed to be re-invented before I could ride it. Just as in the constant surveillance and supervision of each medical interaction for “quality control” as the only licensed practitioner overseeing a varied group of first-time clinicians, it requires attention to every detail every time to be sure that a chain reaction series of glitches does not unhinge this rolling wagon---and this is just the first of a long series of even bigger and more complex Himalayan undertakings in the next few months!
But, I am here, and have even gathered up a clutch of students who will be joining in this medical mission, of varied background, and, yet-to-be-determined capabilities. You can see the adventures of the picaresque voyage so far and the introductions to the dramatis personae in the attachments that accompany this arrival note, as I now turn to setting up the first of the clinics in the Sherboling Monastery. At least now, against all odds, I am here, even accompanied by my supplies checked in along with me and surviving the several attempts to strip them from me, and the students have gathered from a half dozen origins to get started also in this undertaking. I had looked at an essay I had written while in Southern Africa during the Fulbright year entitled:
“Well Begun Is Half Way Done.”
It might be rephrased:
“That I am Even Here At All, Is A Wonder Never to Be Taken For Granted—So, After This Mini-Miracle, Let’s Push Our Luck Still Further
and Try to Accomplish Something With This Remarkable Coincidence!”