The Burn Unit- Round 2

After the first day or two of lunch, I realized we had alot of left-overs. I couldn't bear the thought of all of it going in the trash and so a sign was made.  Food was saved and I decided to take it around the hospital to share to those that were hungry. We didn't have enough for a large group and in the male ward of the burn unit there were only 3 patients. One was a small boy that had spilled something hot in his lap, resulting in a burned penis. One was an older man that had been electrocuted. His wounds were almost healed, you could track the path of the current. His palms and feet had large wounds and a wound on his abdomen looked like an exit of sorts. He was going home soon and would hold his palms up to me when I arrived and asked how he was. The third is a man that is seared into my mind and heart. He was in his mid to late twenties. His entire body was burned.  Even his face and neck.  He had an infection and a mosquito net hanging over him to keep the flies from landing in his open, draining wounds. At his side was what I think was his wife and Mother.  On maybe the third or fourth day, his family wanted to speak with me. With the translator,  they told me that they needed money. His doctors had said that he would die if he didn't go to a better, more equipped hospital in the city. One that could possible help him.  They looked at me and I knew at that moment if I could, I would have done anything to save him. However, the cost was tens of thousands. And I knew, that even with the money, he possibly wouldn't have even lived long enough to make the trip.  The man looked at me, really looked at me. With his pleading, desperate bright eyes holding mine, he said in perfect English with a hoarse, quiet voice, "Please help me. I will die." I will never forget that. How it feels to know that kind of raw truth. To see what it looks like in someones face to know that they are out of options. To look at his family, scared and helpless.  To feel so frustrated.  To feel like sometimes, things are just effffing unfair.  I touched to crook of his arm, perhaps to not only comfort him but myself, and said "I will be praying for you." I did and I do.  I felt my heart breaking when I had to leave the room that day.  I felt defeated but grateful that I had been granted the chance to meet them.  I was changed. The translator, walking down the long hall of death back to post-op said to me, "I cant do this.  It is too hard.  Ive never seen things like this before."  I stopped and put my arm on a shoulder and said, "Just because it isn't seen doesn't mean that it is not real.  You live here, you can change this and you must."  And so we both continued on.  Offering what we could give...words of encouragement, hugs, smiles, tears, nail polish, prayers, and love.
  

India May 19th-20th

We arrived late that night at our hotel in New Delhi. We checked in at the front lobby, they held our passports at the front desk and didn’t have computerized check in. I had to sign by my room number in a really large notebook. Our room was huge, actually 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms with a small kitchen area, living room, and a balcony overlooking the street. You had to have the key in this box on the wall to have electricity on in the room.
In the bathroom, I soon discovered a smell that came home with me in my suitcase. A moth ball is placed in all the drains to prevent odors from sewage with a plastic pitcher near the drain for cleaning oneself. With the heat, the bathroom was not cooled, the moth ball smell becomes intense. This occurred in both places we stayed!
We had 4 ladies rooming together for the night in Delhi, 3 to start and then one that got in from Brazil during the night. We crashed and then had to get up fairly early to get our luggage downstairs and eat breakfast because we had to catch a flight from New Delhi to Guwahati. 2 of my roomies got up early for a run and by the time I was up, they were all chatting on the couch! Even in India, I had a hard time with early mornings! I ate my first taste of fresh naan for breakfast, with toast and fruit jam, fried looking doughnut type things, and ½ of an omelet. The hotel reminded me of something from an Indian Jones movie with all of the decorations, textures, and colors. We all met in the lobby after breakfast, where many people who had been on a mission with Op Smile started trying to remember the names of all the team members. This is where I first heard rumors of the top secret, so called “Name Game”. (More elaboration to follow on this anxiety causing but super funny and fun game that had us all laughing out loud). We hopped on the buses that took us to the airport.
The airport had all kinds of cool food, lots of vegetarian snacks and sandwiches! When we went through security, all of us women had a separate, covered stall that looked like a shower with a female to search us. The airplanes were parked in rows with names that amused me….IndiGo & SpiceJet. The plane we boarded was out on a runway and just like in the movies, we had to walk across the concrete and go up a little covered staircase to board! The King Fisher plane was only air conditioned when it was running so it was fairly hot while we waited to leave. The flight attendants were beautiful and it reminded me of what the chubby Indian man told me on the plane from the US. He had said Indian airlines only hire single, young, beautiful people to work and that they have really clean, new airplanes and great service. All of which seemed to be true! We had another full, Indian meal on the plane ride and landed at around 5pm in Guwahati where once again I noticed all of the military presence.
Once we landed, we all gathered our luggage and headed to bus/van type vehicles. We took an approximately one hour drive to our final destination. We had to dodge many a people, cars, bikes, cows, goats and even tiny baby goats on a main road going at fairly high speeds without traffic lights or many signs. There was a lot of honking, a lot of stop and go and alot of poverty that could be seen as we made our way deeper into Guwahati.
We arrived at the hotel, got settled in and then headed to our first team dinner and meeting. At the team dinner there was more whispered mention of “The Name Game“. Our food options were amazing, we had a huge, fresh, Indian buffet. I had the pleasure of listening to the founder of Operation Smile, Bill Magee. Both he and his wife Kathy had come on this mission! He gave a very inspiring message that brought tears to my eyes. It was such an honor to listen to him as he talked to us about Operation Smile and said that when you have a dream, even when people say it isn’t possible, that there is a way that just hasn’t been thought of yet. It is so true! We all got to introduce ourselves and heard from each of our team leaders about the schedule and how things would run. Then we headed back to our rooms to get some sleep.
My roommate was a hysterically funny gal named Sharon who had been on 17 missions. We soon realized that the electricity was going to be intermittently off and on. It lasted only a few seconds and did make for some super exciting elevators rides during the rest of the mission. Our beds had small, flat mattresses that turned out to be very comfortable. I placed some drops of eucalyptus citriodora around our mattress to keep any bugs away, rubbed in some DEET and we hit the hay with breakfast starting a 630 am the next morning. Game On!

Full album can be seen here!
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