| | Sorry no pictures... takes too long to upload.
The Kunming to FuGong bus ride was the ULTIMATE man. ULTIMATE. Its CRAMPED..its a sleeper overnite bus, so there are beds, but its super tight man, and so many pple squeezed in, cos kids share a bed with their parents. They smoke, and spit in the bus. The TV blasts cheesy MTV cheena music. THE WORST = THE STINKY SMELL! they dun bathe, they take off their shoes...i felt nauseus throughout the nite, couldnt even sleep. Fortunately had a window bed, so i had a teeny weeny gap for me to get some fresh air. Even still, it was the grossest experience. ULTIMATE.
Upon reaching FuGong, I had DIARRHOEA! shat like tonnes of times, backside pain. pumped myself with lomotil and charcoal. ha. So the purpose of the trip (and for enduring the horrid bus ride) was to see the patients (the cleft kids) in their home environments. So happened their homes happened to be some ulu village 4h trek up the hill! Its 4h of vertical ascend can! No descend, no plateaus, up up up 4h. When u think u are there, U aren't! there's just more UP to go.
But its really rewarding when u meet the kids and their families. Went to the house of this 12 year old gal (she looks more like 10 actually.) She had to go for the op alone cos her family was too poor even to haf 1 person come along with her. So when we saw the whole family, and saw how grateful they were, its just really rewarding. (Ok, so i din do the surgery, but hey, i prepped the patients, clerked them, comforted them, held their hands when the plug was being set, made balloons, etc, haha, counts for something i suppose) The families slaughtered lambs and chicken for us. Which is a real big deal, so had to eat, but of cos dat nite i spent entirely in the toilet.
Sunday went up to another village to visit. We were tired of climbing mountains, so we decided to rent a van up, which was a bad idea. The van had no power to go up, rolled back a couple of times, which was very scary, and the guys had to push it at some parts. Finally, when our hearts could take it no more, we decided to climb the rest of the way. Wah climb mountain to attend service man. U thiink going to church on sundays is hard, esp to go early for practice? Saw some teenage guys carrying bass guitars and acoustics, trekking to go to church too. Wah, impressive. Of cos I din understand anything that was being said in service, heh. Took holy communion. Interesting experience.
Had a divine encounter. When we finally got down that hill, we were waiting to hail a cab (which is actually just a motorbike with a trishaw like seating attached), the driver that came along was the dad of this other patient! This boy that we din intend to visit. Anyway, so since we were already on his cab, and his home was on the way, we stopped boy. GOsh, the boy is soooo cute man. And the parents like wanted to give us a LIVE chicken. eh, yeah, but we wouldnt know wat to do with it, so we turned it down. But next day, b4 we left the "not-so-God-forsaken" place (cos thought they are tribal, they are christians), the dad came to wait for us at the bus station and passed me a handmade tribal bag made by his wife!
Well, took another full day of buses to Dali, which was pure holidaying, but not very nice place lah, bit waste time, and finally landed up here in Lijiang. Staying in fren's apartment now. Get a few days rest b4 going to village. Thank God, they decided not to push us too hard. haha.Was supposed to give a talk on Stress, to the students here. BUt the idea of it just stressed us out too much. So fortunately, datz cancelled. heh. HEAR THAT ASHLEY? (we initially arrowed the task to her. haha.which stressed her too)
We'll hang around LJ, wait for ashley to come on sat, do some work early part of next week. Then from LJ go to ZhongDian (our LAST destination), where we'll go see 1 patient, then relax from then on. Go Spa, then FLY back to kunming, no more overnite sleeper buses man. NO MORE! FLYING'S the way to go. Can't wait to go Europe with Mumzy when i get back from China.
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