Birisiri to Srimongol (the short version)

I am safe and sound having gone from Birisiri to Dhaka and now to Srimongol, Bangladesh.  I have written and written emails and blogs but I cannot upload from my netbook so for now it's just a progress note!  In the morning (or maybe later tonight) I'll try transferring everything to my zip drive (well, the writing at least) and see if I can send it. 

Short version... Bangladesh (especially once you LEAVE Dhaka city!) is incredible.  While the first couple of days on my own had me a liiiiiiittle freaked out I am now mostly settled in nicely and have adjusted to the country.

I spent (remember, this is the short version) 3 days in Birisiri, and I have to say, that place absolutely stole my heart.  I arrived around 930pm after my 7 hour bus ride turned into a 10 1/2 one (apparently I did not catch the express bus, lol, it was INSANE).  I found my way to the YWCA by rikshaw (my first real rikshaw ride at night down dark delapidated village roads, yay!) and made an incredible friend in Animesh who is running the guesthouse.  He is a member of the Garo tribe.  While I visited he absolutely treated me like his little sister.  He showed me around the Garo village, brought me to people's homes, took me for tea and snacks at the local shop, and toured and introduced me around for a couple of days.  I had originally planned 2 days there but couldn't leave, I loved it there so much.  I am still thinking of going back again before it's time to leave Bangladesh.

When it did come time to leave Luis from the guesthouse walked me to the main street to help me figure out the buses.  When he asked around what we eventually got (Animesh showed up again to help me) "I'm sorry, the bridge is accidentally down" - I couldn't catch a bus out because one (or 2, I later saw) of the bridges on the way to the villages collapsed!  Animesh hired me a motorbike that took me to Mymensingh (yay for motorcycles!) and I found the bus there (got the last seat too because they were so nice to me!) to Dhaka.  Birisiri so touched my heart, especially my new big brother, and I cried on leaving and halfway down the highway to Mymensingh (which I blamed on the wind in my eyes). 

When I got to Dhaka I checked into a hotel there for the night, and first thing this morning took a rikshaw (let me just say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to find either of those things in Dhaka before 7am, I walked for 20 minutes!!) and then CNG to the train station to catch the train to Srimongol.  In Birisiri Animesh's uncle Anthony (another amazing guy, he's the social worker over at the Compassion Project (I might have the name wrong, I'll check later)) phoned his friend Phila in Srimongol (the next stop on my agenda) and asked him to show me around when I arrived in town (which was today!).

Phila (pronounced Fee-La) is the Chief of the nearby Kassi tribe and the director of the local Compassion Project, they neglected to mention those things to me, lol... He met me at the train station once I found my way to a phone, and he has been absolutely fabulous, without a doubt.  He found me a guesthouse strightaway (run by a friend of his), and spent his whole day showing me around (more on that later).  I met his daughter and his wife and took the tour of his village, it was fantastic.  Tomorrow morning he's going to pick me up at 10 (or "sometime before 11", Bangladesh-time) and take me over to his project, I can't wait!!

For now I'm going to go back to my room and get cleaned up (I'm covered in a fairly thick layer of grime from riding around on a motorcycle all day!), walk up the street and get some dinner (I'm quite over-the-top with peckishness), and then come back here to see if I can get gmail to open (so far no luck, which is how I ended up here!).  I'll also come back armed with a possible update on the other things if I can use my zip drive, but NO promises at this point!!

(OOoooh, there is some TERRIBLE yowling (maybe singing?) going on on a mic outside, it is baaaaaaad!)

Talk to you soon, don't worry about me I'm excellent: happy, peaceful and content (if thinking a liiiiitle bit about how I might be able to live in Bangladesh for a bit, knowing full well that this is the danger of me travelling to new countries, lol), and if you think I'm thinking about you, you're right.

Are You Listening, God? It's Me, Shauna...

A few of weeks ago a friend of mine from the States who also lives in my building called me late one night for help getting to a doctor. She was having stomach pains that were really severe and hadn't abated all weekend and needed to get somewhere.

Over the course of the past few weeks, and due to the incredible level of care and assessment she's gotten at the Seoul National University (Bundang) Hospital she has received some stressful drastic news...

She has cancer in her small intestine, it's NOT a little mass, and it has metastisized to her liver. Apparently it was visible 2 years ago in previous visits to doctors in another smaller city in Korea when she went in about digestion trouble... since the doctors she saw were not specialists they missed it, handing her 3 days worth of pills because she wasn't digesting her food and sending her on her way.

From our neighbourhood the closest medical facility happens to be a very famous hospital in Korea, and as a result her care and assessment have been very thorough, and she has the top doctors at this hospital working with her and helping her deal with everything. She also has an English liaison person at the hospital who translates everything for her.

The doctors seem optomistic about treating her (surgery) but tell her she is "in a very dangerous place" with the cancer. I am sure that she is terrified, but she refuses to cry or "feel sorry for" herself.

Korea's medical system is fantastic, and even without insurance (which she actually does have) it's reasonably priced for medical care when compared to what we charge foreigners at home (and compared to what uninsured people have to pay in the US).

A person might ask "why doesn't she just go home? why is she staying in Korea instead of getting treated at home??" but it's just not that easy, especially for many Americans. My friend can't just return home for treatment, because in the US if you don't have insurance through an employer everything you need from the medical community is fee for service, and how is she going to pay for cancer treatment and surgery with no job and no insurance??

Things here are still a bit up in the air as to what the plan of action is (more appointments with the cancer clinic next week), but so far she is receiving good treatment, and I hope things will continue on that path until she is cancer-free.

She is understandably very upset, but in dealing with most of it all on her own, she doesn't want to talk about it much for fear that she will fall apart and not be able to pull herself back together. Her mom and sister know, but she hasn't told her dad or her 23 year old son yet... I think she wants to wait until things are dealt with rather than 'up in the air' before she says anything because she worries their stress will just add to her own rather than providing any level of comfort or support to her or to them.

My heart aches for her, and I just really needed someone else to be here, to hold this knowledge with me as I send my prayers out for strength of heart, love and peace of mind to her and the people who love her... and for a quick and full progression to life and cancer-free state of health as she knew it...