I got a call from Dr. Arjyal around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday to come to his office and meet with members of his team. I was over near Patan Square at the time, so my walk was only about 10 minutes to the hospital.
Once I arrived, I noticed the hallways were nearly empty whereas the day before at around 2:30 p.m. the place was practically packed. In some ways this brought me back to my hospital days where it seemed everyting was on overload during the day hours and everyone working day shift rotation seemed to be on a never-ending patient care treadmill, but that's another story...
I made my way back to Dr. Arjyal's office where I met with Dr. Sarbagya Pandit and another associate to discuss our future endeavors. As it turns out, Dr. Arjyal was hard at work organizing a mission for myself and two others to head out to Gorkha District and gather information and assess the feasibility of implementing a public health surveillance system. This team would be led by Dr. Pandit since he is working for Oxford University here in Nepal at the research center with Dr. Arjyal. Myself, Dr. Pandit, and Sudikshya Acharya, who studies infectious disease, will be heading out on our mission in Gorkha District at 5:30 in the morning. (Ugh! I am much more productive in the mornings, but this was a tad ambitious for my taste. Oh well.)
Now, keep in mind that to this point there really is not a very well-supported communications infrastructure here besides cellular service. Nor is there any one way to coordinate a message of the overall condition of the District, uness it comes from the three political officials in that area. Many of the Nepalese who do not reside in the Gorkha District are under the impression that most of the area is a crumbled mess with very primitive living conditions. Dr. Arjyal was kind enough to provide us with a large box of bottled water, sleeping bags, tent, a driver, and an armored vehicle (I kept calling it "the tank"). It was a situation where we all were thinking worst-case scenario, but hoping for the best. We all knew what we saw in the media coverage of that particular Nepal area and we were hoping it was a bit sensationalized.
This picture was taken during one of the stops on our journey from Kathmandu to
Gorkha District, which was the epicenter of the last two major earthquakes in Nepal.
I quickly left the meeting excited to get back to Serita's and pack in preparation for the next day's journey. It would be a four hour ride over to the City of Gorkha, which is within the Gorkha District and I was hoping to get a little sleep along the way.
I called my husband to let him know what the plans were for the next three days and that I would be back Saturday. In that time I did not know if I would have any access to WiFi at all, but I could at least text him from my Nepal number and let him know I was okay. Whew! I passed out early so that I could be sure and get up at 4:00 a.m.
This is a picture of me taken at one of the stops we made during our journey in Gorkha District.
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