Indian Antics III

Greetings friends! With another week in Malkangiri drawing to a close it's been a busy and very eventful week. Today I'll be sharing with you the misery of malaria as well as the joy of village work. I thank those of you who have been encouraging me and keeping me up to date with news at home. Feel free to email, I'll always reply, even if briefly. If you prefer snail mail, my address is at the end of this letter.

Recent News
I'm amazed at the amount of wildlife in this house. Last night I cleared a shrew nest out of my pack. The only attractive characteristic of these dirty rat-like creatures is their cute like 'squeak' as they run around. This morning, I got up and chased two mangy cats out of the storage room, where they’d taken up accommodation in a pile of blankets. Then, as I walked towards the office with a steaming cup of Milo, across my path hopped a big fat toad. It slowly made its way into the room where Remo has one of his three fish tanks. As I sit at the computer now, I look up and see a pale yellow tail protruding from under the fluorescent light. It's a gecko, and these harmless yellow lizards are to be found throughout the house. Now you’ve toured the zoo in which I live, let me take you through the events of my week.

Church experiences
Last Sunday I attended a church service just down the road here in Malkangiri. A few of the RHS staff attend there also. It was due to start at 10:30 but due to 'Indian Time' it started at about 11:15. I was amazed at how many people they can fit into one room. The church was about 5 by 10 metres. At the back I sat on benches together with the other men. In front of us, on the floor all the women and children sat cross-legged. I counted over 130 people in the room during the service. That's over two per square metre!! It was quite a boring service, since I couldn't understand a thing, but we did get to sing a song in English.

Orissa far-south
Dr Iris had to do some government survey work on polio vaccination on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, so the medical team wouldn't be doing much work. However, on Monday I accompanied Iris down to Motu, at the southern tip of Orissa state. Justin, a NZ freelance photographer for World Vision, also came along, bringing his camera (or 'teloscope' as Iris called it). Along the way the police presence was very high. This is due to terrorist activity by a group called the Naxolites. A mixed ethnic group, they live in the hill country and are distinguished by their black and green camouflage gear. They have communist beliefs and by using spies in villages have been targeting police outposts. We passed one police headquarters that had been recently bombed, fortunately no one was killed. Walking to the very tip of Orissa we could watch the sun set in the west. Here at the border of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh the Sileru and Sabari rivers converge. With darkness falling we started the six-hour drive back to Malkangiri.

Clinic
Tuesday, Malkangiri market day, is always the big day at the clinic. But since Iris had more polio survey work to do we had to do it all in the morning. After a late lunch I came back for an afternoon nap. I woke with a fever and my body was aching all over. It proceeded to get worse and worse, I'd be freezing for an hour, then boiling hot. Yes, this was malaria! For the next two days I struggled with the roaring fever and constant aches. Finally by Thursday afternoon it was settling down. If this is what malaria is like with the prophylaxis, what would it be like without it?

Thursday afternoon I took a short walk west of the town. Looking out across some paddocks, a chain of mountains rose sharply. They were covered in an array of green vegetation, grey boulders jutting out at intervals. I determined to climb them sometime in the next month. Going to bed early, to be ready for an early Friday start, I slept well until about midnight when I was awoken by a commotion outside my window. Stumbling out of bed I found a small wooden hut, used as a shrine, as in flames about fifteen metres from the house. It was soon extinguished and I trotted back to bed. The sound of voices faded as people left the excitement.

Village visits
By Friday I was fit to be back getting into things. We set off at soon after 6:00am. Our first stop was to visit Tula, the 13yo with the grossly distended abdomen. After completing the fifteen-minute trek from the road to her village, her family informed us that her uncle had taken her to his village to see another doctor. Setting out on foot we trudged for about twenty more minutes along the dirt track, until we found Tula with some of her extended family. Greeting us with her big smile, she was still in very good spirits. Thankfully her oedema in her legs had subsided and her weight had decreased a little. Leaving her with medication and some fresh fruit we set out on the track back to the medical van. It was so peaceful walking through the green forests, passing clumps of mud-brick houses off to the edge of the track. Yet in this tranquillity, the tribespeople work extremely hard, physical labour tending to the fields and the livestock. With no social security, their very close family ties means the family supports the elders in their old age.

Leaving the villages of Tula and her family we continued through the land of the Koya tribespeople. Before long another mountain range rose up in the east. It is behind these that the Bondo tribespeople live. They are the most primitive people group in India, and also have the reputation as a violent, murderous crowd. We stopped at Mundiguda, the town where the Bondos come to barter their goods at the Sunday market. I’ve been told that after a particular trip to the market, the Bondos realized they were being severely ripped off by certain sellers. The next Sunday a large group of their young men arrived at the market dressed in battle gear, their large bows and poison-tipped arrows pointed menacingly. Needless to say, they never got ripped off like that again.

Here in Mundiguda the Reaching Hand Society has one of its largest centres. From here they run education and literacy programs as well as venture into the small villages doing evangelistic work. There is also land here for the building of the bible college. Purchased in 1989, Dr Iris still has faith that one day God will provide the people and the finance to begin the work. It is in that manner that she waited patiently for twenty years to begin the work of building the hospital in Malkangiri. Now it is well on its way but needs the medical staff present before it can open. Stopping once at Govindapali for a nice omelette we arrived back in Malkangiri in the late afternoon.

Balimela clinic
Yesterday, Saturday, I accompanied Dr Iris to the Saturday clinic at Balimela. Seeing only six patients all day, this clinic may not continue for much longer. It is a difficult situation since populations are spread out so much and it is difficult to know where the places of most need really are. Watching the children playing in the dirt playground I was introduced to a game called "Seven Days". There are two teams. To start the game seven flat rocks are piled up. One team then pelts a ball at them to knock them all over. That team must then restack the rocks before the other team can tag them with the ball. It was a typically high-energy game and I just about got tired just watching it.

We returned to Malkangiri via Mundiguda bumping along the dirt road in the early night. Lying down and looking out the window of the medical van I marvelled at the stars in the clear black sky. Also, in the trees, were mini-stars - fireflies. I could see their bright glow as the trees whooshed past the van. Just as I was thinking how I’d like to see one close-up, a 'star' shot straight in through the open window. Landing on my pillow it sat, its light steadily pulsating. After watching it for a while I turned on the light to see it properly. A very ordinary bug when seen in the light, it is truly remarkable in the darkness. The bright fluorescent yellow-green light, radiating from under its wings, lit up an amazing amount of its environment on each pulsation. I couldn't help but relate it to Christians, called to reflect the light of God. Although we look very ordinary on the outside, it is the light within us that makes something special.
Today I've got a pretty relaxing day planned. The church service begins at 9:30am today (which probably means 10:15), and then I'll have a free afternoon. Maybe I’ll go walking up into the hills, or maybe I'll go and mingle with the kids in the neighbourhood. Of one thing I'm sure, I'll need to be well rested before diving into a new week in Malkangiri. Here is my address again below, during my time with malaria I realised how precious news is from loved ones at home - hint, hint (-;