| From Beijing we headed west to XiAn, braved the public bus to see the terracotta warriors (well worth the effort),stayed in a youth hostel just inside the historic South Gate, and found some tasty delights in the Muslim district. Most of our time was spent wrastling for a train ticket to XiNing, capital of QingHai province, which never materialized and so we flew to XiNing instead. People in XiNing were a mix of Muslims, Han Chinese, and Tibetans, all different in terms of their dress and language. The market near our hotel was bustling with people and lined with colorful stalls full of spices, breads,fruits, veggies and meats. A nearby monastery, Tera Si, was our first introduction to prayer wheels, tonka paintings, and resident buddhist monks (one even on a cell-phone). We met up with our Surmang volunteer group, stocked up for a 2-day high-altitude drive, and crossed hours of 3000-meter high grasslands through vast mountainous scenery toward Yushu. Tibetan towns are often compared to towns of the "old west" in the states and Yushu would definitely fit this description. People on the dusty streets wore cowboy hats, traditional tibetan heavy coats, and carried ornate knives on their belts. Their faces are darker than those of Han Chinese with distinctive rosey cheeks probably from the high-altitude sun exposure. The language turned from mandarin to tibetan and we had our first introduction to salty tea and dried yak meat. We hit the market to stock up for the upcoming month that we would spend at the Dutsi T'il clinic 120km south of Yushu-potatoes, eggplant, turnips, onions, dried tofu, honey, tea, noodles, rice, and more. A 10-hour rigorous 4WD ride over the 5000m Galah mountain pass on muddy, deeply-rutted "road" brought us to the clinic set in a grassy valley at 3600m. Greeting us were the 2 tibetan doctors, the project manager, a tibetan-chinese-english translator, a social science researcher, and the 3 tibetan women caretakers, all of whom would become our good friends over the next month. Our common language was mainly Chinese, but everyone got a kick out of trying out each other's native tongue. The clinic building was two stories with the clinic on the ground floor and 4 bedrooms and the kitchen with both a yak-dung fueled stove and a gas stove upstairs. We were also graced with an indoor biffy. Bonzi, Lobzong, and Ajeh, our tibetan caretakers carried water up from the river (no easy feat in the altitude) and made a fried bread called "Balo" every day in addition to keeping the place tidy and running "triage" as patients wandered in at all times of day. They were particularly enamored with Bill, a man who likes to cook and help out, and has blond hair, including that on his legs. From our huge bedroom window we could see the tiny local village called Jhereke set down the valley above a raging tributary of the Meikong river. Officially the village has a population around 200, but more than half of the inhabitants were, "zai shan shang" i.e. living on the mountain tops herding yak for the season. Not until late September would they return to the valley, yaks et all, to harvest barley and live with their families for the harsh winter months. A typical day meant waking up at 8am, staring out the window in awe perhaps catching a monk making his way up the hill on a motorcycle or a group of people riding horses up the valley dressed in traditional dress, their horses outfitted with bells, ornate saddles, braided tails, and colorful blankets. Breakfast was often Tsampa (barley flour, yak butter, water, and sugar mushed together in a bowl to form a paste) or oatmeal, sometimes fresh yak yogurt (a gift from a villager), or fried rice. Clinic started around 9am with patients coming from as close as Jhereke and as far as 2-3 days away by horseback. We'd break for lunch between 12 and 2:30, enough time for a nice walk or huff up the hill to the monastery ruins. Bill was busy with maintenance projects, computer teaching, and chinese cooking most of the time. One day he had the opportunity to go out with Jiang BoNi, the social science researcher, to do some interviewing of local villagers. By 6 or 7pm clinic would end and we would all get together for dinners ranging from the elaborate eggplant/tofu to the ever-satisfying albeit basic "mian pian" or hand-made noodle soup. And, we would chat, read, hear about people's projects or climb onto the roof to watch the stars before going to bed. On several occasions we were invited to eat dinner with our local friends. There we mastered the important tibetan phrase, "Nga Po Njiati," which means I'm full, but does not in itself ensure that you will not receive another bowl-full. We were invited in for tea, "Jiatong!," once when we took a long walk down the valley and we even had the chance to meet a 14 year-old Rimpoche, a reincarnate lama, with whom Bill and Jiang BoNi played frisbee. We took 2 rigorous hikes up each side of the valley reaching more than 4200m and revealing amazing views over the mountains and down the valley. Surmang was my first remote medicine experience. Patients came to the clinic for reasons such as common aches and pains, for high blood pressure management, for wound care, for arthritis and for stomach problems. With limited supplies and medicines, our best tool was simple health education. I was surprised to learn how even basic heatlh care knowledge was lacking and learned a lot from seeing first-hand how lack of running water and simple transportation can affect the health of a population. I had the chance to go on several house-calls which took me to even further remote areas, across rivers and through tiny villages, on the back of Phuntsok's (one of the tibetan docs) "moto-che." These patients were often elderly and immobile, suffering from heart failure or pneumonia; the care that we could offer them was limited due to their remote location and the inability to monitor their course. Each patient visit introduced me to the harsh living conditions of the average tibetan family in that area; and each visit introduced me to the richness of those families, despite their intense poverty. For a month we were treated to the serenity of high-altitude grasslands set in the remote mountains of QingHai. We saw yaks and horses randomly grazing on the hillsides and kids getting a thrill from throwing the frisbee or kicking a soccer ball. People opened their homes to welcome us and offered us anything from their homes we thought we might need on our departure. By the time we left, yak dung no longer seemed outlandish and living a remote life without some of life's comforts seemed appealing. We felt lucky to have met such a fun group of people and it was hard to leave. |
| Qinghai Volunteering for Surmang |