GUEST POST - Rev. Kelly's trip to Bissamcuttack

This is a momentous day in my life…I get to be the guest writer on Nate’s blog…big shoes to fill!

I’m here to tell the story of our trip to Bissamcuttack…yes, that is the correct spelling. We left Mungeli in mid-afternoon. The group was Anil, Gregg, Dave, Jan Campbell and me. Anil asked if we were hungry. We all said, “No, we just ate lunch.” We arrived in the town of Bilaspur and Anil picked up dinner anyway…carryout for 5, a dish called chicken biriyani. The train station was a mass of humanity. We got on our train and had nice compartments for two with bunk type beds. We boarded about 7. I was sound asleep by 8. All of us were asleep except Anil and Gregg. Anil came looking for someone to eat dinner with him. Gregg was game, so he and Anil ate the biriyani. Gregg told me later it rivals the “atomic wings” at Quaker Steak and Lube.

At 2 AM, Anil was waking us up. We were off the train and picked up at the town of Muniguda in the state of Orissa. We were picked up by a driver and a friend of Anil’s from the hospital. We were taken to Bissamcuttack on back roads. Evidently the main road is so bad that it’s absolutely undriveable. Hard to imagine worse roads than what we’ve already experienced! 45 bumpy minutes later, we arrived at the Bissamcuttack hospital guest house – a lovely building with a large common area. Jan and I had one bedroom with two twin beds. We all crashed for about 4-5 hours. At 6:45 I woke up and made coffee. We headed to chapel next door at 7:30 AM.

Chapel seemed much like it does here in Mungeli. All of the nurses sitting up front with their caps on, the nursing students with their light blue saris and dark blue cardigans. The service was mostly in Hindi. One of the songs they sang was “We Shall Overcome.” Then they sang one verse in English with all of us. After chapel, we met the hospital staff and took a tour of the hospital.

We went to the home of Johnny and Mercy Oommen for breakfast. Johnny is a fascinating, brilliant man. He and Anil met at the Christian College in Vellore. He and Mercy grew up in southern India; his parents were missionaries in Uganda. He’s a doctor, in charge of the community health program. He reads a lot of theology and is passionate about mission. We talked theology all day. We had a lovely breakfast of tea, fruit, some sort of pancake with cauliflower inside, and crepes with coconut and bananas.

Johnny showed us the rest of the Bissamcuttack campus. Everywhere we met, we were introduced as “the people from Nancy’s church.” Nancy and Viru are revered there; there are lots of pictures of them, a playground has just been dedicated in their name, and there is an afterschool program called “The Henry Club.” We were shown a lot of the equipment and materials that ALUCC has purchased for them over the years. Bissamcuttack is in a hilly area; the air felt much cleaner and fresher there.

The English Medium School is nice and neat. The students stood as we walked into each room. We saw the chemistry lab, the library and the computer lab – probably about 40 computers – the first ones were donated by ALUCC.

Lunch back at the Oommen’s. More interesting conversation and good food. I particularly liked something that looked like a tostada. They said it was made out of some sort of graham flour and ground sesame seeds and then deep fried. We also had a bowl of French fries and all of us ate some in Nate’s honor – he’s been missing his junk food!

After lunch we took a tour of the village area that is served by the hospital’s community health department, a program that Nancy started several decades ago. We were on dirt roads most of the time. First stop was a village school that Johnny started and built a few years ago, solely with private donations. Each room is named after someone – I took a few pictures of the plaques – I remember Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Lincoln, as well as Johnny’s mother. There is no furniture. All of the learning is done with students seated on the floor. It’s a K-5 school. The boarding area consists of empty rooms lined by metal cases in which the students keep their belongings. They sleep on the floor. I didn’t see a restroom of any kind. The cooks have built their own lean-to type structure for their housing. The kids were happy, running around the woods, delighted to have their pictures taken. Jan is like a Pied Piper; she takes pictures of kids everywhere she goes and they follow her around. Johnny said the idea is to create a good learning environment, but not one so fancy or different that the kids have trouble readjusting back in their villages. It was very impressive to see what he’s done.
Then it was to the villages themselves. I felt like an anthropologist or a writer for National Geographic. It’s hard to believe that such remote areas still exist. A village is basically one road with rows of housing on each side. The houses are all connected to one another (common walls) with each family occupying its own space. The nurses happened to be visiting the first village where we stopped. They were surveying people; I caught a picture of one nurse looking into one villager’s eyes. Johnny said the strategy is this. First, they are asked by a village for their services. Next, they hold meetings and they ask the villagers what services they want. They never presume to know what people want and they never “supply” more than people “demand.” The objective is to help the villagers take charge of their own health care.

Night was falling so we headed back to Bissamcuttack. We rested a bit in the guest house then headed to the home of the medical director – the house where Viru and Nancy lived for 29 years. A nice dinner with rice, tomato curry, delicious roasted cauliflower, spaghetti (yes, really), vegetable balls (looked like meatballs)…then we headed back to Muniguda and the train. The double compartments we had before were booked. This time we had what was essentially a tripledecker bunk bed situation. I had the top bunk – there was an aisleway light on the whole time so I didn’t sleep extremely well, but OK.

Bad news was that Jan became sick. She’s now the fifth woman from my apartment building to get sick…I’m a little worried!! We arrived in Bilaspur about 8:30 in the morning. Anil’s cousin picked us up and we went on a wild goose chase…Anil wanted to bring ice cream back for his mother. They stopped at three places where they thought they could buy wholesale ice cream. No luck. After an hour he gave up, dropped off his cousin, picked up a TV that was being repaired, and we were headed back to Mungeli.

I had my first shower in three days, and it was HOT! One becomes very grateful for small pleasures like that.

It’s about 2 PM now, almost lunch time. Has Nate told you the meal schedule? Breakfast is 10-10:30, lunch 1:30-2, dinner 8:30-9 or later.

We’re in charge of the school fair tomorrow, so we have a lot to do to get ready. I’ll close for now. I think Nate may try to post a few of my pictures from Bissamcuttack.