I'm trying to remember if there were any cases that really stuck out. I had a ton of women with "womenly" problems but Dr.Becky didn't bring over enough medication for that kind of thing. Thus we handed out a ton of vitamins and some antifungal cream to try to help a little. There were a ton of children with coughs. One woman had a huge goiter on her neck. Lots of arthritis and general pain from working so hard. There was one little girl whose pinky finger would swell up so much with some kind of food allergy that her nail was being pushed off by the stretching skin. That was really weird, not going to lie.
There was a lot of cases that could have been treated by one of two simple remedies: drink more water and/or stop eating beetlenut! These people are only drinking a glass or two of water each day so there are so many cases of bladder infections, aching joints, fever, and rashes below most likely caused by such highly concentrated urine. As for beetlenut, that stuff is just plain awful. I don't know if I've told about beetlenut yet, but if I haven't, it's a highly addictive substance that most adults use. You put some white pastey stuff on a leaf and chew it--but there is like lye or something in it that slowly eats away at your mouth. It's so bad for you! It's the stuff that causes so many people to have bright red mouths with a ton of teeth missing or straight up rotting.
We saw over 200patients today! After awhile, Polymul stopped counting because we were trying to pack up and go but people were still crowding around us trying to explain their problems. How can you say no to a baby with a fever or an old wrinkly Baba with joint pain? Dr.Becky thought we saw upwards of 300people by the end but we don't know what the official count was.
On the way back to the truck, we saw two men thrashing rice by hand. At the orphanage, the men used a spinning cylinder to pull the rice off the stalk but these men were doing it the old-fashioned way--smacking it against a board. We took some pictures and then Mary asked me to get a picture of her thrashing the rice.
I have to tell you about Mary. There is just something about Mary (lol yes I just made a movie reference :) ). She is 78yrs old and lost her husband of 29yrs about two years ago. She was left money through a accidental death clause with their bank and has been planning mission trips with the money left over from the hospital and funeral expenses. She is going to Africa, Peru, and Indonesia all before August! She is so full of life.. I'm just in awe of her. Following the cues of her and Mr.Waid (he, at 81yrs old, still beats me at badminton most nights), I plan to live my life to the fullest right until they put me in the ground. Just wait though, I have another story about her coming up....
We got back to the orphanage right at dinner time and I settled into my seat to eat some yummy pasta and bora that Shati had made. Even though we were all full, we decided to take a walk after dinner. Elliot, Dr.Becky, and Tammy started hoofing it down the road but me, Rosemary, Yvonne, and Mary took it easy and strolled down the road. Usually the road to the orphanage is a quiet country road and you hardly see anyone for miles outside the village. This time though, the road was congested at points with crowds of people. We heard drumming in the distance and Rosemary found out there was a wedding about to happen. We kept walking in our normal direction when we came upon a second crowd of people around a minibus. Rosemary told us the groom was inside the bus, waiting to go into the bride's family's home. I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA WITH ME. ugh. The one time... Yvonne and Mary took pictures though.
Rosemary asked us if we wanted to go inside and see the bride. Okay. We crashed a Hindu wedding. No joke. The house was decorated with colourful flags and the inner courtyard had a makeshift ceiling of vines and leaves over a center pole. This pole will come into play later... They brought out the young bride, probably not much older than 15 or 16, who was wearing her first outfit: a bright yellow seloar kameese. Then we watched some men make a headdress for the bride to wear at some point during the ceremony. The drums got loud again and we headed back to the outer courtyard. Some people had started to do some sort of a circular line dance, almost similar to something you'd see at a Greek wedding, with the drummers in the middle. A man came up to us, drunk off his keester from homemade rice whiskey and wanted to dance. I hung back because I was the only young one there but Mary stepped up and started mimicking this guy's dance. She was my hero! She is such a sweet, white-haired but full of life, woman. Everyone around laughed and was so happy she joined in the festivities.
At that time, we saw Banni pushing her way through the crowd. How she found us I don't know, but she took us back into the inner court and then into the house. The bride was now in a bright orange shari and getting all dolled up for the coming events. I think that was her second outfit out of three. She changes into a red shari when she is officially married. By the way, it's customary in the culture for the bride to look pretty morose throughout the day because she is leaving her family to join her husband's family. No smiling. That is definitely not how my wedding day is going to go down! lol
On the way out, we stopped to watch another part of the wedding customs. Just as we were sitting, we saw Dr.Becky, Elliot, and Tammy come into the inner court. Someone from the orphanage had seen us go to the wedding and had directed the others to where we were. Then they pulled out the chicken. Oh my goodness. We all knew immediately that things were not going to end well for this chicken.
After Banni had confirmed that they were going to kill the rooster, some people from our group decided they didn't need to see it go down and headed back to the orphanage. Elle and I stayed though to watch this wedding ritual. Someone held the rooster while the father of the bride knelt in front of a palm frond fence that had been put up around the center pole. He drew three short lines using thick red powder on the ground. Then he sprinkled rice over the lines and added rosemary twigs on top of the piles. He repeated the general process by putting the items onto the rooster, each time standing up and holding the rooster up over his head. I don't know if he was praying or offering the rooster as a sacrifice..? Something...
Before the moment of truth, the father of the bride held the rooster near the ground where the rice piles were. If the rooster eats the rice, the newlywed couple is supposed to have good luck. I hope this couple has good luck because the poor rooster snarked down a couple grains for his last meal. Then someone brought out a sharp carved knife and... well.. poor chicken. I didn't watch most of it but I heard it all go down. Afterwards, water was poured over the rooster's head and blood from the body was sprinkled in front of the fence. Ugh. I still get a little queasy just thinking about the rooster's beak still moving even after it had been detached from the body and a headless body flapping wings and kicking feet.. A rope was brought out and the head was tucked between the legs, which were then bound with the rope and tied to the top of the center pole. And it dripped. And dripped.
*full body shiver* yuck. I'm so glad I'm a Christian!
We didn't stay long after that because it was getting dark and the next events wouldn't be until later. Just when I thought I'd seen it all in these last three months, Bangladesh threw me a curveball. Only in Bangladesh... I'm sad though that I didn't have my camera though! Not to document the chicken murder, but just to take pictures of the bride and groom and the rest of the festivities.
anyways, that was my day :) It was a good one--eventful and mildly traumatizing, but good!
ami tomake bhalobashi
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