ICU - Sri Lankan style!

At the weekend I got to experience Sri Lankan hospitals first hand. I was woken at 1am by my phone ringing, it was another volunteer who was distraught. She had developed food poisoning, was feeling like death and was needing accompanying down to the hospital. Ironically she got ill from the 5 star hotel she'd decided to treat herself to for one night of luxury - sod's law. So five minutes later I found myself flying down the pothole riddled road wedged on the back of a motorbike. Now people here seem to effortlessly manage to fit a family of five onto a bike but when it comes to us westerners we struggled with three. In the hurry I'd shoved a skirt on which proceeded to billow up round my ears Marilyn Monroe style, so I was all knickers and white legs - it's certainly an effective way of stopping traffic when you don't have a siren. The hospital was a government one and it was pretty dire. I did my best to reassure my friend as she was wheeled past a washing line of gloves which were drying and awaiting being reused (some on the line, some on the floor). We went to the "intensive care unit" which was complete with cats going through the bins and home-made air con in the form of walls that only went half way to the roof - so it was open air. When we got to her bed (which incidentally had a horse hair mattress - I know this by the foot wide hole in it) the nurse told me patients had to provide our own sheets and pillows so the host dad had to go back to fetch some. Finally we got her into bed and the nurses put a drip up...this was as far as Sri Lankan nursing went. For the rest of the night it was just me and her (the host "dad" had to go as it was females only). "Both ends" were simultaneously emptying every half hour. I tried to get her through to the toilet on a few occasions but this was a nightmare as I had to stop her drip, carry the bottle with one hand, push the wheelchair with the other and perch the vomit bucket on her knees (there was no loo roll, obviously, so my friend had a grim introduction to "the left-handed way"). The nurses didn't once help and never checked that I restarted the drip or set it at the correct rate. There was a sweet little lady in the next door bed who had the night time munchies and kept feeding me bananas and crackers (I tried hard not to think about what might have been on them - thankfully the light was dim!). The lights on the ward were turned off at 2am and put back on at 4.45am, and there was a constant drone coming from a radio - it really wasn't a restful place. By the morning I realised the hospital mosquitoes had had a fantastic feed on my legs over night. At 5.30am I was given two minuscule glass jars for stool and urine specimens (brings a whole new meaning to the expression "taking the piss"). Bearing in mind that my mate was struggling to even sit up I thought this was a little ridiculous but no they wanted them. Somehow, through a joint effort we managed to get them. The nurse I handed them to even had the cheek to remind me to wash my hands which were of course covered in..... ! At visiting time we managed to load her into a car and get her to a private hospital which of course was world's apart from the one we'd been in. I'm pleased to say she's now fine and it's strange what good comes out of negative experiences. For me, I spent the whole night thinking how much I'd missed nursing and despite all the shit and vomit it's definitely the job for me. For my friend, well it's not a night she'd care to repeat - I think her experience came second only to giving birth when it comes to losing your dignity!

Thailand

I arrived back in Colombo yesterday after two weeks holiday on Thailand. Whilst I was away a bomb exploded on a train very near to where I live (my host family "brother" regularly takes the same train into Colombo). It's really very scary and where as before I managed to not really think about it, I now get pretty nervous going on public transport (which unfortunately is every day). It feels like Russian roulette - there's no way of knowing what is going to be targeted next. On the bus home from the airport I saw soldiers on every street corner and even on the bus, all brandishing large guns. Far from finding this reassuring it just panics me more. Then the bus conductor tried to overcharge me four times the actual price (I felt like shouting at him "look, I'm working for free in your god-damn country, risking getting blown up on a daily basis and I have to pay extra for the privilege!!!". What a tosser.). This morning I got thrown off the bus to work as I refused to pay the conductor forty rupees instead of the usual eight. The weather is wet, wet, wet at the moment and there is bad flooding nearby. My host family are currently stranded in the hill country after going away for the weekend and I've been sent home early from work as the kids don't turn up in the rain! The mossies are loving it and are eating me alive. Moan, moan, moan!

Thailand was amazing and spending two weeks just relaxing was heaven. I went with another volunteer, Julie who is a midwife. We flew into Bangkok where I looked around wide-eyed at the enormous roads, flyovers, sky-scrapers and girls strutting about in next to nothing. An overnight bus took us down to Surat Thani where we caught a ferry to Ko Pha ngan. This is an island off the East coast where the huge full moon parties are held. The party was all a bit of a blur although I do remember spending a lot of time doing glow in the dark body painting! Before we knew it, it was dawn and we watched the sun rise from the beach which was still teeming with weary people. Unfortunately a girl I was with had her bag stolen so I spent several hours at the police station trying to help her sort it out. I felt so sorry for her as she had lost everything, even her passport.

Next stop was Ko Tao - a small island an hour North. We stayed in a very remote spot called Hin Wong on the east side. There was no beach but the water was crystal clear and the snorkeling was out of this world. I almost felt as though I was flying being able to propel myself forward with my arms, watching the fish dart around me. They were vivid colours - electric blue, yellow, football teams in black and white stripes and my favourite a large fish that had swum straight from the 80s with shimmering fluorescent yellows, greens and pinks. The coral formed amazing shapes, some looking like large brains and there were small multicoloured "Christmas trees", only a couple of centimetres high which shrank back if you ventured too close. There were also some "Nemo" fish which lived amongst the sea anemones, weaving in and out of their tentacles. One day we hired a canoe and paddled north around the coast. At one point we heard mysterious splashing all around us and joked that we were surrounded by sharks. It wasn't until we got back and mentioned this to the hotel owner that we discovered that sharks are regularly sighted around that particular headland....eek!

We got the overnight ferry back to Surat Thani, and interesting experience where I got to share my bed with fifty other people! Mattresses the width of my bum were laid side by side covering every square inch of the floor. One person looked familiar and turned out to be James, a volunteer I had met in Nepal....it's a small old world! We then headed over land to the west coast to a place called Raillay (in the Krabi province). This has to be one of the most stunning places I've seen in my nine months travelling. A short longboat ride transported us to a world of powdery white sand, warm turquoise water and surreal rock formations. The beach was completely enclosed by towering honey-coloured cliffs which had been sculpted into amazing stalactites. At night these were lit up and I floated on my back gazing up at it all. By day climbers spidermanned there way up impossibly sheer rock faces whilst I did a bit of body toasting! The sunsets were psychedelic, the sea turning to molten gold and pink clouds streaming across the sky .... a little piece of heaven on earth, one day I'll return - I have to!