JUN-B-16
MIDNIGHT IN MANALI
June 23-25, 2002
I have arrived after an interminable drive over the “roads” of the Himalayan Mountains in a complete circuit of Himachal Pradesh, the northern Indian state adjacent to J and K, the source of the tensions and world concerns about nuclear confrontation.
I have done this in the light tropical dress in which I left two weeks ago from hot summery Washington, since I had never connected with the two bags I left here last month precisely so that I would be well equipped for this and subsequent trips, and 100% of my checked luggage were the MAP medicine boxes. [: “What? You wanted the luggage you had left here? I thought you wanted that for Ladakh?” “Yes, that, too!”]
I have had to improvise and make do with what I can stretch from my small carry on bag, into which I had fortunately thrown some slides at the last minute from which to give a very formal Grand Rounds and Visiting Professorship in Indira Gandhi Medical Center’s medical faculty in Simla.
I also tossed in a couple of rolls of film, and my running gear, from which I have been able to do a few high altitude runs and take a few pictures before the Nikon pocket camera froze up, and even then, I had a small cheap back-up camera with which to take a few pictures of the fascinating backdrop of glaciers, staggering mountains. Arid high desert valleys, and a number of very sick patients I have been caring for along with a mostly freshman group of medical students from all over.
There have been some quite definite strains in my leading this group, that have little or nothing to do with the major conflict that has the world’s concern, but a local one of authority and authorship. AS recorded in the notes, a major confrontation seems, for now, to have resolved this, but it has left a distrust, added to the inconvenience I am under in dealing with a group of freshmen clinicians in a remote place with none of the stuff I had so carefully set aside here to use in the next trips. I may reconsider the amount of effort I am putting into these medical missions since that also seems to be a fundamental difference in motivation, with one antithetical to my primary reason for being here. But, enough of this has been written already with the limited time and electrical charge I can get into the computer at those times when it is still capable of typing full lines without missing a section of its keyboard—a repeat phenomenon that, as it also happened in Nepal—seems to have just now corrected itself, and now I am able to not only type, with a hotwire connection to the Hotel Kunzum in Manali, but also seek out an internet connection for the first time in two weeks in which I have been detached from even so ordinary a presumption as postal service. Through that means you will also read additional items about this trip and its peculiar features.
But, I have survived without international hostilities disrupting anything here, and even came through a fourteen hour bus ride through glaciers and snowmelt and up and over the avalanched passes of the Spiti and Lahaul Valleys, and through two mountain passes: the Kunzum-la at 4,551 meters (15,950 feet) and the Rohtang Pass (3,978 meters) or, 14,500 feet. I also led a visit to the world’s highest year-round occupied village, Kibber at 4,205 meters (14,583 feet) and the Monasteries at Tabo, Dhankar, Ki, Dharamsala---and will have to sneak into the Lady Willingdon Hospital to visit my friend Dr. Laji Varghese, since he is off limits according to the prejudices of some of our group since he is an evangelical Christian medical missionary. Just how it is possible to be in this highest region on earth steeped in religion for all of its activities and culture, and deny one’s own as a “meddlesome imposition” is a bit perplexing, particularly since a number of our volunteer personnel and 100% of our donated medicine come from volunteer Christina missions connections.
But, that is the source of another chapter in a book I have written, which is usurped by another who alleges that he is the leader of this team, going to an area where no one has ever been (except for twice last month by me) and is allegedly planning to be writing the first ever book on such an expedition! This may come as a surprise to those of you who have read any of these pages at all, but I have stated flatly in a very major confrontation that TWO leaders were not needed, and if I am in charge of this expedition, and it s is no democracy, I will determine what is to be authorized and have denied any noncontributor to the cause both authority and authorship on the condition of my staying here with them or sending the usurper home. I am still here, but the further commitments will have to be considered if I am to be the leader of further efforts.
So, yes, it has been an eventful undertaking, stretching my tolerance for repeated full-time unpaid jobs in efforts that are subverted from the primary process of helping the destitute remote peoples here and teaching primary care to clinicians who have never experienced it in ANY settings, let alone such a constrained one. For now, I am on the job: but now, I must walk into the shower for the first time in ten days, fully clothed in my only outfit to accomplish both a shower for personal cleansing and a much needed laundry!
Cheers!
GWG