It has been three days since I have looked and posted here. I was away with two donors visiting the field. I have had so much new things to write these past three days but I can't seem to get down to it.
For instance, having past the 200 mark on my visitors since I started this blog 2 Saturdays ago.
Or I could write about the ironic beauty of Manipur in India - where there are majestic mountains bordering Myanmar - but houses terrors brought by the underground insurgency groups.
Or I could write about my work here.
Or the daily angst in an unequal society.
And then, just as I was wrapping things and closing my laptop, I saw a picture taken by my friend Tim (who is by the way, touring the world on his bike) - of me cleaning the wound of a boy from Bihar, India, when we did the medical explo some weeks ago.
The boy (D.P.'s the name), was staying in the roadside camp with his father. His mother drowned in the August 18 flood when the mighty Koshi River overflowed and destroyed most of the districts in Bihar.
So DP was living in this make shift tent by the road, living on day to day existence. One day, a truck passed by their tent throwing bags of 2-kilos rice. DP wanted to catch some of the "blessings" - along with hundreds of other people - and did not notice another car behind. He was hit and his right foot was ran over by the following vehicle.
He was given 500 rupees (11 USD) for his foot.
Three days later while we were passing on that road, our car was stopped by the father begging us to see his son. He said that something is wrong because the wound is still bleeding and has a very bad smell. This was, despite having brought the boy to a private clinic and the wound treated.
So despite our agenda, we went and saw the boy. The foot, although stitched/sutured was reeking of dead flesh. There were bone fragments sticking out of the wound and pus was everywhere. The toes and the ankle were necrotic. This is not a good sign.
I cleaned the wound and had the boy referred to the district hospital an hour and a half away.
I explained to the doctor on duty what transpired. We both opened the dressing and both agreed that DP's foot needed to be amputated.
This is just one of the many sob stories I gathered from the victims of the Bihari-Koshi flood. It seemed pointless to enumerate them all because all of the stories tell of desperation and human suffering.
A few months ago, I published an article about my experience in Ethiopia where we had the hunger gap/malnutrition intervention. I questioned about our priorities - us living in a decent, well-provided world against the world where people feel pain and hunger and suffering brought about by war, famine and calamities. And no matter how much I try to equate the situations that we have, we still stood out to be very lucky. That is the sad truth.
DP may have caught a bag of rice for the price of his foot. He may not go hungry for a day, but he can not run as he used to, or play like any child his age.
And so many times I have ask friends and families, the worth of the little caprices that we have.
Is it worth a foot?
Is it worth anything that we value?
For instance, having past the 200 mark on my visitors since I started this blog 2 Saturdays ago.
Or I could write about the ironic beauty of Manipur in India - where there are majestic mountains bordering Myanmar - but houses terrors brought by the underground insurgency groups.
Or I could write about my work here.
Or the daily angst in an unequal society.
And then, just as I was wrapping things and closing my laptop, I saw a picture taken by my friend Tim (who is by the way, touring the world on his bike) - of me cleaning the wound of a boy from Bihar, India, when we did the medical explo some weeks ago.
The boy (D.P.'s the name), was staying in the roadside camp with his father. His mother drowned in the August 18 flood when the mighty Koshi River overflowed and destroyed most of the districts in Bihar.
So DP was living in this make shift tent by the road, living on day to day existence. One day, a truck passed by their tent throwing bags of 2-kilos rice. DP wanted to catch some of the "blessings" - along with hundreds of other people - and did not notice another car behind. He was hit and his right foot was ran over by the following vehicle.
He was given 500 rupees (11 USD) for his foot.
Three days later while we were passing on that road, our car was stopped by the father begging us to see his son. He said that something is wrong because the wound is still bleeding and has a very bad smell. This was, despite having brought the boy to a private clinic and the wound treated.
So despite our agenda, we went and saw the boy. The foot, although stitched/sutured was reeking of dead flesh. There were bone fragments sticking out of the wound and pus was everywhere. The toes and the ankle were necrotic. This is not a good sign.
I cleaned the wound and had the boy referred to the district hospital an hour and a half away.
I explained to the doctor on duty what transpired. We both opened the dressing and both agreed that DP's foot needed to be amputated.
This is just one of the many sob stories I gathered from the victims of the Bihari-Koshi flood. It seemed pointless to enumerate them all because all of the stories tell of desperation and human suffering.
A few months ago, I published an article about my experience in Ethiopia where we had the hunger gap/malnutrition intervention. I questioned about our priorities - us living in a decent, well-provided world against the world where people feel pain and hunger and suffering brought about by war, famine and calamities. And no matter how much I try to equate the situations that we have, we still stood out to be very lucky. That is the sad truth.
DP may have caught a bag of rice for the price of his foot. He may not go hungry for a day, but he can not run as he used to, or play like any child his age.
And so many times I have ask friends and families, the worth of the little caprices that we have.
Is it worth a foot?
Is it worth anything that we value?
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