The Gifting Zephyr!

The Gifting Zephyr

Playa bound ... 2016 edition

We have an art car ya'll!!

Here are some before (when we acquired it, it was all green)

Captain's Chair

Back of the chair, horn view

We decided to add some color!

First step...picked out some dope rainbow fur!

2nd step: cover with foam lining and fur! 

3rd step: sparkly rainbow table cloth

ADDED LEDs :)

MORE LEDs!!!!!!!!!!

Our trust Unicorn Mascot!!

Next up...

- rainbow glow in the dark steering wheel cover

- speaker with mic...for karaoke 

- replacing the styrofoam cooler with something less MOOPy and more systainable

Kind of a downer.

Death is such a regular occurrence here.  It's hard to really compare it, because people back home make it such a private affair. When people die in the hospital it's usually a subtle event, people are upset but in a more controlled way.  Here, there's an outburst of grief, people throwing their hands up to the skies, repeating certain phrases over and over, collapsing to the ground, screaming so loud that you can tell when there's been a death at the hospital even when you're at home in your living room.

Usually other parents crowd around the dead child, curiously, but most of the time the family members mourn alone, without other families trying to comfort them, like they all know its part of the process and not to interrupt it.  

This goes on for 30 minutes or so, then the family members - usually the mom - comes back inside the ward and dresses the child, which is a really intense process to watch. You can imagine her getting this child dressed every day, and now it's for the last time.  They usually softly mumble the same phrase they were yelling outside, almost like they're comforting their child.

It's just all so different.  At home, a team of doctors and nurses mobilizes at the bedside, CPR is usually started, the kid would maybe get intubated, they'd get a lot of IV medications to help restart their heart, possibly get shocked.  But here, we don't even have oxygen to give, let alone all the rescue meds, defibrillator, and ventilator.  So death is a much more natural process here, something you just have to accept, as terrible as it is.  And it's better not to dwell on whether they would have survived at a hospital in the 'western' world, because it's not the reality here.  Everyone tries to do the best with the limited resources that we have here, and hope that one day things will improve.

Elisa's not-so-excellent adventure

Yay!

I was able to download the blogger all from my iPhone!  It took 40 minutes :)

So...it took me 6 days to arrive at Shirati instead of 3.  

I was about 4 hours in to an 9 hour bus ride from Nairobi to the Tanzanian border town of Sirare/Isabanya, and was all excited and sleep deprived, writing down a ton of stuff for the blog on my laptop, taking photos of the awesome landscapes that we passed on the bus, only to have my bag stolen...and be left without a passport, all money, laptop, camera, and lots of other things...

After getting essentially no help from the local security, I sat on the bus for another 5 hours wondering what the hell I was going to do...when I got to the border I met Dr Chirangi who helped me find a place to sleep, since I didn't have a passport and wasn't allowed to cross in to Tanzania...  I had to file a police report, for which I got a 'receipt' on a torn of piece of paper the size of a passport photo.  

Long long long story short, I got a new passport at the embassy, filed another police report at the Diplomatic Police Station in Nairobi, and wasted 2 full extra days on the bus.

Some people on the bus told me that had they caught the guy then and there, he might have been killed by the locals.  It's another story I came across when I heard 2 Dutch med students had been robbed and they actually managed to catch the robber in their house - people asked them why they hadn't killed the guy.

Anyways, Tanzania has been great to me since I finally made it.  Next blog will be about the hospital!

Here's my police report:

My new passport!

My buddy Dan, a neurosurgery resident in Nairobi:

Emmanuel and Lucy, who let me stay at their home at the border and gave me a warm dinner!

Beirut Street Art

One of the many things I love about Beirut is that the arts seem to be really supported.  There's always flyers posted around town for some dance festival, or a music festival, or art shows here and there.  And then there's the street art.  It ranges from political to sexual to religious to totally random...

31 and you're not married?!? And without kids?!?

I turned 31 a few days ago, my second birthday in Beirut, and i can't imagine a better place i could have spent it. After wandering amongst the roman ruins in Baalbek all day (still working on that post/photos), followed by a much needed nap (I'm old), I met up with my friend Fahad (who i know from my Sacramento salsa days, now living in Kuwait), Nizar, and Nikki (Nizar's friend who is also visiting from Kuwait, and happens to know Fahad thru the small world of salsa) and headed out for some dancing. Wow, that was a long sentence with lots of parentheses.

I was warned that there'd be a surprise at the salsa club, and around midnight out came a cake with a giant candle :) The candle was impossible to blow out, or maybe my lungs are so damaged from the second hand smoke here, but i just let it burn out after 5 tries. This photo is of me in disbelief at how hard it is to blow out the candle...

There's a tradition here that involves the first cut of the cake. Apparently you have to cut the cake with the dull side, and do it in one continuous motion - no sawing back and forth. Anyways this wasn't explained to me ahead of time so it was like a 3 stooges moment with my friend handing me the knife dull-side down, I'd flip it over, he'd grab it and flip it over and hand it back to me, I'd flip it over, etc, etc, until he held my hand with the knife in it up to the cake.

The other birthday tradition...more of a salsa birthday tradition...is the birthday circle, where the birthday girl (or boy) is surrounded by all the guys (or girls) and everyone takes turns dancing with them for a few seconds during a song.

After working up an appetite we had some cake, called Lazy Cake, because it has thin biscuit cookies inside (I guess implying that whoever made it was lazy and threw in some cookies). It was soooooo good, so chocolatey with a little crunch. I had some of the leftovers for breakfast the next day.

Finally after the club closed around 2 we went to get some late night snacks at a restaurant nearby, and after eating and ending down the evening it was suddenly almost sunrise...good times with great people. Thank you Nizar, wassim, Henry, hagop, Nikki, Jihane, Fahad, and Benoit, for such an amazing night! It was all topped off with Henry's response to me saying how old I was, "you're 31 and never married?!? No children?!?" He said it while laughing, so I didn't punch him.

Sunburns and speedos

I drove a car in Beirut!! For those who don't know what kind of an accomplishment that is, picture a world where lane lines might as well be invisible, traffic lights exist for mere decoration, and one-way streets are only used as one way if it's convenient. Oh yeah, speed limits are not exactly adhered to either. But I survived, and it felt a bit like a real-life video game where you have to be super vigilant of all the other death machines around you. It was fun but not something I plan to do again, it was just out of necessity.

It's weird to be back after almost exactly a year. Some of my favorite restaurants are gone, but there are plenty of new pubs, all tiny and crowded and hot-boxed with tobacco smoke. But the food never disappoints. I can't believe I never put fresh mint in my hummus before, I feel like i had a revelation...

I really missed all the little markets, with bags of lentils and unlabeled spices piled on shelves in the doorways, hummus, hanging carcasses, flower shops all around, men parked on the corners with espresso machines in the back of their vans ready to dole out caffeine whenever you need it, and trying to not get hit while you race across the street. I love where I live in long beach, but it feels so much more alive here.

And where else will you see a group of shirtless sunburned men playing soccer on a concrete slab literally right next to the sea, with one wearing nothing but a bright blue speedo and matching sneakers, and another with running shorts short enough to expose his prosthetic leg.

Pictures to come later :)

Back to Beirut

My travel plans have changed a bit recently.  I decided to postpone my visit to India when I have a bigger chunk of time to really devote to that country, and when the weather is a little less intense.  The place that was calling back to me was Beirut, so I re-routed my ticket home and am back in my new favorite city!  This photo is from my first Arabic lesson when we first arrived back in February, on a napkin, just to get the basics down... Mark my words... I'm going to try to learn some Arabic during residency and hopefully come back to the region sometime in the next few years.

I don't feel like I ever gave the people I worked with at Bourj el-Barajneh their due attention and thought I'd write a little more about the experience at the camp in Beirut.

(photo is a side view of the ambulance outside the extrance to the Emergency Room at Haifa Hospital)

Our timing to go work in a Palestinian camp coincided with several events in the news that made our visit a little more suspect to some people.  One of the stories involved six Israeli spies who had just been arrested here, and the other one involved the assassination of the top commander of Hamas in his hotel room in Dubai by Israel's Mossad, who had used fake European passports to get in to the country.  So the hoops we had gotten so accustomed to jumping through in Kenya were all the more relevant here.  Each morning and afternoon when we'd walk through the camp from the main road, toward the hospital, we passed by a makeshift checkpoint that was housed by the PLO, so it was important that everyone knew who we were and what we were doing in the camp everyday - especially since we had video and camera equipment for our interviews!

(us with Mo who helped with lots of logistical stuff at Haifa Hospital)

The Palestinian camps have been in existence for about 60 years here in Lebanon, originally starting out as tents, and everyone (Lebanese and Palestinians) assuming it was going to be a temporary situation.  Fast forwards several decades and the Palestinians in Lebanon are not allowed to work in over 70 professions (doctors, lawyers, etc), they can't own land, they can't vote, they are ineligible for state social services, including health cara, and they have immense travel restrictions and trouble getting visas.  Not owning land is frustrating for people who have historically lived off the land, but imagine working hard enough to educate yourself and get a professional degree, and not even be able to legally get a job where you use that education.  On our daily walks in and out of the camp to the Haifa Hospital, you see tons of men in their teens/twenties/thirties who are just sitting around all day with nothing productive to get involved in.  Many young boys drop out of school early and learn a trade like auto mechanics, and open small shops in the camp (or start working in their family's shop).  Many of the young women are married and pregnant.

In talking to the docs that work at the hospital, they all want nothing more than to return to their homeland.  What complicates it, is that there are different borders now than when they left, and people living in their land that aren't keen on having them return.  It's hard to really grasp how it must feel to not be welcome where you are, to really want nothing more than to go back home, but not be able to because someone else has moved in.

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I found this interesting commentary from a pediatrician working in Texas who has done quite a bit of international health work in the middle east:
The Palestinian refugee issue is often pushed to the bottom of the political agenda. In fact, a large sector of the Lebanese population still blames Palestinians for perpetuating the bloody Lebanese civil war that claimed more than 100,000 lives, left another 100,000 handicapped, and displaced about 900,000 from their homes, according to U.N. statistics. In addition, integration of Palestinian refugees, who comprise 10 percent of the Lebanese population, would disrupt the finely tuned Muslim-Christian balance in Lebanese society by adding a large Sunni Muslim demographic to the country’s already complex societal tapestry.

Furthermore, if Lebanon did indeed grant Palestinian refugees ample civil rights, it would lay the foundation for their permanent residency in Lebanon. Political analysts say that would absolve the Israeli government of its responsibility to adhere to the Palestinian right to return to their homeland or to offer refugees compensation, as stipulated by U.N. resolution 194. This then paves the path for further Israeli settlements, with the understanding that Lebanon, or another Arab country, would be able to sustain the absorption of the refugees created by Israeli settlement expansion. Clearly, the expansion of Israeli settlements is not without far-reaching ramifications and infinite ripples throughout the Middle East.
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 (photos from one of the Emergency Room beds in Haifa Hospital; and view from the balcony at Haifa)

On one afternoon we met with a family living in the Shatila camp, who kindly invited us in for a cup of the traditional thick black Lebanese coffee.  For background (very simplified), the Shatila camp was set up by the UNRWA in 1949, and is home to mostly Palestinians but also some Lebanese Shiites from the south.  In mid-September 1982,the Christian president-elect of Lebanon (Bashir Gemayel) was assassinated.  This prompted the Lebanese (Christian) Forces to want revenge, after being told (by Ariel Sharon) that the PLO was involved (although a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party with no Palestinian connection later confessed).  With the aid of the Israeli Defense Forces who surrounded the Shatila and nearby Sabra camps, kept watch from key observation points, and used flares to illuminate the camps over several nights, the Lebanese Forces massacred somewhere between 500-2000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the camps over about 48 hours, depending on which source you trust.  See the movie Waltz With Bashir for one perspective on what happened.

Over coffee we heard stories about life during the massacre, life in the camps now, and hopes for the future.   We visited a memorial in the camp where several hundred bodies were buried, where they have an annual remembrance.  There are little-to-no mental health services available to the people in the camps, making the healing process for those who survived the massacre even more challenging, even nearly 30 years later.


The family told us about a Palestinian event at the UNESCO Palace later in the week so we all decided to go.   The show was a group of musicians and dancers who had traveled from Gaza to perform traditional song and dance, in traditional costume.  The spirit and energy in the hall was palpable and contagious.  It was amazing to see an even where people of all ages were all equally engaged, from toddlers sitting on their father's shoulders and clapping along, teenagers waving Palestinian flags of all sizes and singing their hearts out, young adults swaying their hips to the arabic music with their hands up in the air, and many of the older people holding up posters of Arafat. Everyone was so full of pride for their culture, it was beautiful to see.  I took video of the performance so if anyone ever wants to see it, let me know, I don't think i can post video on the blog.

Mountains, part six (Dhampus to Phedi to Pokhara, and Kathmandu...thank god.

I say thank god because of our plane ride, which I'll get to.

The owner of the hotel got a phone call at 4am letting him know that there was no strike on for that day, so luckily we would not have to walk the 8 or so miles back to Pokhara and could just catch a ride on a local bus.  That also meant that we only had about an hour to the bottom, which was exciting.  It doesn't sound like much, but when it's a super steep descent along a rocky path, with two black-and-blue toes, it's a lonnnnnng hour down.

We came across a grassy knoll that screamed "Sound of Music," so we instinctively broke in to song and dance.

 

On the way down we saw some local kids, one of whom ran up to me with his(?) cell phone and asked if he could take a photo, and since i'm used to that happening all the time in the U.S., i politely agreed.

The one part that wasn't that exciting as we climbed down the last set of steep stone steps was the honking of buses that we could hear.  It was so nice to get away from that for a few days!

Once we made it back to Pokhara we relaxed over some delicious veggie curry, mango lassi, and fresh mangos.

The plane ride home.  Wow.
Guna Airlines is supposedly a new company, but the planes are about 40 years old.  They hold about 14 people at a time, so you know you're going to feel every gust of wind.  There was a missing bolt on the wing, which thankfully Max pointed out to me after we landed.  It didn't help when everyone on the plane was visibly terrified as the plane took a nose dive toward the Kathmandu airport, including a French guy next to me who does paragliding for a living, he said he feels safer in his paraglide than on these airplanes.  Then there was the typical Nepali landing where you fishtail on the runway and everyone looks to one another with a desperately scared look in their eyes.  It almost makes the roads seem like a better option, until you talk to people who have done overland travel and would prefer to put themselves in the planes.