So since I last posted, I have mainly been at the centre. I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing in a rooftop coffee shop, not wanting to go too far afield with my toe still being sore. After I had been there for about an hour, the heavens opened, and a torrential downpour began. As the café was terraced, most of the tables around the outside got drenched, and everyone huddled into the few tables in the centre of the café. The rain carried on for hours, and was so heavy that parts of the roof started falling in to the exit, so we couldn't get out! After being trapped there for most of the afternoon, the rains slowed, the exit was cleared, and I headed back to the guest house for a well needed early night.
The next morning, I went to the bakery café near the micro stop that Laura and James had recommended. I went in, and when the waiter came over, ordered a fruit salad. He touched his ear and gave me a pen, which confused me at first, but then I realized the he was deaf. In fact all the staff are hearing or speech impaired - it was only when I realized that that I noticed the complete silence in the café! The food was great though, and a really lovely little place. I turned up to the clinic hoping, possibly a little naively, to be able to get into surgery. I was told by the vets that they had had a discussion with the board of directors, and decided that to eliminate any talk of sexism, no one apart from the Nepali vets were allowed into surgery. This obviously didn't help me very much, but when I mentioned it in passing, to Jan, who I, (again, naively!) assumed had been involved in the discussion, it turned out that the vets and some of the clinic staff had gone behind her back, and she was fuming. I decided to just accept whatever was decided, and just hope that once I had my Nepali registration things might change; it's just not worth getting involved in the politics of it all!
I went off to get my registration sorted out at the Nepali Veterinary Council in the afternoon - which involved riding across town on the back of Suraj's motorbike. Not my idea of fun in the Nepali traffic, and with insane amounts of smog and dust in my face. The journey lasted about an hour, but felt like a lot longer, especially as I couldn't see or feel my hands by the end of it, from clinging on for dear life! It wasn't a smooth journey, to say the least! When we arrived, we had to wait for the vets, who were meeting us there, and while we waited, I had a hilarious conversation with Suraj:
Suraj: how old are you?
Me: guess
Suraj: well you must be older than Laura (who is 27, and by the way, extremely slim!)
Me: No, I'm 26
Suraj: oh, well she must just look younger then cos she's not fat like you!
I actually had to bite my lip not to burst out laughing - it is very much just the Nepali way, to be so direct with comments like that-he wasn't meaning to be rude, in fact it is considered healthy to be 'rounder' here! Did amuse me though!
Eventually the vets arrived, and we went to get my certificate. I was amazed looking at the Nepali Veterinary Council building (their version of our RCVS). It was a small, run down, yellow building in the middle of a huge overgrown, filthy back street area. The registration itself involved signing lots of documents, answering strange and obscure questions, and waiting for long periods whilst everyone obviously spoke about me in Nepali! I met Dr. Gamiri, one of the government vets who also runs a private clinic down the road from KAT. We chatted for a while about the veterinary profession in the UK, and how impressed they are with the RCVS, and he then asked if I would lecture a group of his vets about legislation in the UK...not sure that's quite my forte, so hopefully he won't ask again! I think they get very confused between the RVC and the RCVS despite my attempting to explain the difference! After completing the registration and them telling me they would send my certificate the next day, the vets took me to a lecture by a Nepali vet who has just spent a year in Canada. According to the Powerpoint, he was talking about disease reporting in Canada, but the majority of the lecture was in Nepali, with a sprinkling of English here and there. I have never been so bored, but everyone was watching me, as I was the only English vet there, so I think I might have been fairly conspicuous every time my eyes closed! Eventually, Prabin, one of the KAT vets passed a note to me from the back of the room saying 'lets go?'! Clearly they were as bored as I was, and they understood it!
That night, I went back to the New Orleans bar in Thamel to get something to eat quickly before planning to head back to my hostel early. But an English guy who was also travelling alone came up to me, and we ate together, had a few drinks and talked the night away! It is well known amongst solo travelers that the worst part of it is eating alone - so it's always nice when someone approaches you! He showed me a couple of bars in Thamel, and we went to one called Reggae, where they had a great live band interspersed with reggae music. It had a great atmosphere, and some very strange characters, including a girl with a cat on a lead and a drunk dressed in full cycling lycra.
The next day at the clinic, after my usual breakfast at the deaf café, I was tasked with treating all the inpatients, whilst Bidur did the surgery. The operating theatre is a complete no go zone for me now, to the point that I stand at the door and call if I want to ask any questions. It really is quite ridiculous! Anyway, the rescue cases basically consist of kennel after kennel of wounds, in varying stages of healing, plus a few new, infected maggoty wounds. But I managed to get them all done before lunch without too much difficulty. After lunch there wasn't much to do on the ground, so I spent the afternoon helping James draw up a volunteer policy for vet students and vets, so that no one else has to come in to a similar situation as I have. After work, Laura, James and I went into Thamel for a Chinese - although actually ended up having a chicken wrap and a few gin slings! It was a good night though, and we decided to all go to Chitwan National Park the weekend before I leave which is quite exciting!
On Wednesday, I had to go and pick up my certificate - apparently they couldn't find my RCVS membership number on the certificate, so I had to trek across town, just to point it out to them. When I got there, there was just one man in the office who didn't speak a word of English. He appeared to be looking for my certificate...he poured out a drawer of about ten different keys, and then proceeded to try them each in turn in all of the many filing cabinets, drawers and cupboards around the room. It was clear than many of them had not been opened in a very long time, and that my 2 day old certificate was unlikely to be in there, but I just watched with a combination of frustration and amusement! An hour or so later, a woman walked in, picked up my certificate from his desk (!!) and sent me on my way!
Now fully certified, I am hoping that I will be able to talk my way into surgery, but I have also been down to the private clinic down the road, and they have said I can go there too if things don't improve at KAT. It's all a bit of a pain, but I'm having a great time, just unfortunately won't get the experience I came for.
Hopefully by the next time I post, I will be much happier with things at KAT! Oh, and my toe by the way, is healing...slowly, but it's getting there!
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