Karsog Multi purpose building
Me extracting teeth
assisting ashish
On my birthday November 14th I had to work half a day in the eye department and than Ashish and I left for simla to go for a multi medical camp to Karsog. Now we were suppose to leave a t 1 but this is india and nothing starts or leave at the time that is stated. We left at 3 and it’s a 7 hr drive so I was not looking forward to this drive in the dark because the roads are very curvy and narrow. We reached simla at 11 PM and than left for Karsog at 5 AM so I did not get very much sleep. Maranatha built this multi purpose building for the congregation of Karsog as a church on Saturday and than during the week to use it as a community center/medical center. Asian Aid funded the project Mr. Gareth from Nebraska was the representative from America and Mr. Ravi was the Indian representative of Asian Aid. Mr. Gareth and I got along very well he gave me all the food remaining that he brought with him from America one thing being delicious fudge. I don’t think anything has tasted so good to me before.
The inauguration of the new building was the 15th so the whole simla church and the medical team went for the inauguration and the first church service. The singing was in Hindi but thankfully there was a translator for the sermon so I was not completely lost. Now let me paint you a picture. The building is on the tippy top of a mountain and the road up is so rocky and bumpy that vehicles really cant be driven up so we have to walk. Now there are two ways up the short cut or the long long way up. The long way is a “Z” pattern all the way up twisting back and forth to make it less steep but it takes a long time its like going up the mt twice. The short cut is this little foot path almost straight up with big rocks and trees all around you. You pass a few houses along the way with cows outside, and the natives there just walk right passed you like the mt is no big deal. I took the short cut because I did not want to take any extra steps than I had to. It would take us around and hour to an hour and half to walk from our guest house to the community center, I just kept telling myself with very step I take im losing weight that is the only thing that kept me going. When everyone gets to the top we were all panting and my face was red but we made it.
The following day after the inauguration we started our free medical camp. In one corner was the eye department scanning for cataract, the opposite corner was the surgeon and anesthesiologist giving free check ups and scanning for any surgery, the dental was set up on one wall with the portable machine that Dr. John left with ashish on my first dental camp 2 months ago. And an ultrasound machine was set up in the adjoining room. When we finally reached the top of the mt everyday it was looking bigger we saw the huge crowd of people waiting. We were not expecting this huge turnout that we got because this was the first camp at this location as well as the long hike to make it up. We worked all day for two days straight seeing as many people as we could. I was assisting dr. ashish with the dental and since I have done it once before I got the hang of it much faster. He even let me extract 3 teeth to two very unexpecting pts. I had a blast on this camp and really got to help a lot of people. One girl we restored her three front teeth she was 10 yrs old and never smiled because of this, but Dr. ashish reconstructed them and now she can smile and make a great match in life. Now the accommodations were not the best part of the trip. I shared a room with another lady that did not speak English, we had to share a community bathroom that did not flush very well, there was no geizer so we had no hot water when ever we wanted to take a bath we had to go outside and ask the owner to bring us some, and than we had to walk 1 ½ hours twice a day. But it was all worth it because we got to help so many people. We brought back around 50 people to be operated on and they were all so thankful.
Dr. Ashish and I traveled back to simla with everyone on Tuesday once we reached we were there for 3 hrs and than back on the road to Jalandhar because we had work on Wednesday. I feel asleep because we left at 8:30 PM and was woken up around 1:30 by ashish saying that we had run out of gas. I could not believe it we were on the side of the road in Punjab its well known for its drinking. Thankfully we were in the city so the driver left and said it would take him about 30 min and be back with gas. 2 hours went by and he finally came back with gas. The whole time ashish was paranoid saying “don’t sit up, so people wont see you and come over here”, when I turned the light on he told me to shut it off not to bring attention to us, and one time he told me he saw a drunk driver swerving on the road thankfully driving away from us on the other side of the road. We finally made it back to Jalandhar at 4:30 AM safe and sound but after many adventures. Praise God for taking care of us and for bring the people to get free medical treatment.
The inauguration of the new building was the 15th so the whole simla church and the medical team went for the inauguration and the first church service. The singing was in Hindi but thankfully there was a translator for the sermon so I was not completely lost. Now let me paint you a picture. The building is on the tippy top of a mountain and the road up is so rocky and bumpy that vehicles really cant be driven up so we have to walk. Now there are two ways up the short cut or the long long way up. The long way is a “Z” pattern all the way up twisting back and forth to make it less steep but it takes a long time its like going up the mt twice. The short cut is this little foot path almost straight up with big rocks and trees all around you. You pass a few houses along the way with cows outside, and the natives there just walk right passed you like the mt is no big deal. I took the short cut because I did not want to take any extra steps than I had to. It would take us around and hour to an hour and half to walk from our guest house to the community center, I just kept telling myself with very step I take im losing weight that is the only thing that kept me going. When everyone gets to the top we were all panting and my face was red but we made it.
The following day after the inauguration we started our free medical camp. In one corner was the eye department scanning for cataract, the opposite corner was the surgeon and anesthesiologist giving free check ups and scanning for any surgery, the dental was set up on one wall with the portable machine that Dr. John left with ashish on my first dental camp 2 months ago. And an ultrasound machine was set up in the adjoining room. When we finally reached the top of the mt everyday it was looking bigger we saw the huge crowd of people waiting. We were not expecting this huge turnout that we got because this was the first camp at this location as well as the long hike to make it up. We worked all day for two days straight seeing as many people as we could. I was assisting dr. ashish with the dental and since I have done it once before I got the hang of it much faster. He even let me extract 3 teeth to two very unexpecting pts. I had a blast on this camp and really got to help a lot of people. One girl we restored her three front teeth she was 10 yrs old and never smiled because of this, but Dr. ashish reconstructed them and now she can smile and make a great match in life. Now the accommodations were not the best part of the trip. I shared a room with another lady that did not speak English, we had to share a community bathroom that did not flush very well, there was no geizer so we had no hot water when ever we wanted to take a bath we had to go outside and ask the owner to bring us some, and than we had to walk 1 ½ hours twice a day. But it was all worth it because we got to help so many people. We brought back around 50 people to be operated on and they were all so thankful.
Dr. Ashish and I traveled back to simla with everyone on Tuesday once we reached we were there for 3 hrs and than back on the road to Jalandhar because we had work on Wednesday. I feel asleep because we left at 8:30 PM and was woken up around 1:30 by ashish saying that we had run out of gas. I could not believe it we were on the side of the road in Punjab its well known for its drinking. Thankfully we were in the city so the driver left and said it would take him about 30 min and be back with gas. 2 hours went by and he finally came back with gas. The whole time ashish was paranoid saying “don’t sit up, so people wont see you and come over here”, when I turned the light on he told me to shut it off not to bring attention to us, and one time he told me he saw a drunk driver swerving on the road thankfully driving away from us on the other side of the road. We finally made it back to Jalandhar at 4:30 AM safe and sound but after many adventures. Praise God for taking care of us and for bring the people to get free medical treatment.
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