Wined and dined in Mungeli

After yesterday's Mela, I was flat out whooped. Too much sun, too much sand, too much sweating, too much walking, too much everything......we all decided to put the brakes on and take Saturday as it came, nice and slow.

We all gathered for Chapel at 7:30am and Gregg delivered a great message on Philippians chapter 2. I have truly enjoyed our morning chapels. They are such a great way to start your day off and to keep things in perspective. On a chalkboard in the front of the room, they have hand-wrote their mission statement which reads: The whole community of Christian Hospital, Mungeli is committed to providing holistic health care through excellent service, quality care and respectful treatment in which the spirituality of each person is honored. It also goes on to say that their core values are: respect, humanity, punctuality, honesty, service, care and cooperation.

After each chapel service Dr. Henry addresses everyone with the plans for the day and makes any announcements for the good of the order. The other day while he was gone with our group is Bissamtuckett, there was a patient who came to the hospital that was HIV positive and going into labor. She was initially refused treatment at the hospital. The family attempted to go the State Hospital in Bilaspur and they were refused there as well. They contacted Dr. Henry and spoke with him about their situation. He informed them that WOULD be treated at Christian Hospital, Mungeli - no questions asked. So there were some tense moments and stern phone calls during the overnight regarding this situation and hospital staff. A large part of the reason is the fear that so many people have of HIV (rightfully so), the lack of quality sterilization equipment and a general misunderstanding of protocol for dealing with any bodily fluids. When I first heard the story, you could see the stark contrast in two worlds colliding. You have a doctor like Dr. Henry is a man of great integrity, compassion and justice who was taught in western modern medicine and you have an entire staff of nurses and doctors who were born here, raised here and even though they have been trained, there is still a great deal of fear surrounding things like AIDS. I admired his willingness to stick to his guns on this issue and the way he addressed the issue following chapel. What does God ask of each of us? God says we are to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and care for the sick. There is no disclaimer following Jesus' message here. There is no fine print. It's straight forward. Man or women, poor or rich, Indian or American, HIV positive or HIV negative....it doesn't matter. Dr. Henry isn't perfect, but neither are any of us. The fact is though he has given of himself in order to serve others. He has sacrificed to bring hope and healing to so many. Here is a man and certainly his wife, Teri, as well who are living out the Gospel on a daily basis. If nothing else, this trip was worth every bit seeing these two work and serve the people of Mungeli, India day in and day out.

As I mentioned earlier, Saturday was about some R&R. About mid-morning...I finally got my turn at the bug we have all been dealing with for the past few days. No real pain or discomfort, just some lack of fiber in the diet I guess you could say. We had a good time joking about it for most of the day. Let's just put it this way - I have changed Forrest Gump's saying from chocolates to farts - Life is like a like a fart...you never know what you are going to get. And that, is all I have to say about that.

We decided to take a little shopping trip into town. The group got off on a start a few minutes before me. I set off into Mungeli by myself. I will say this too, I have never once felt uncomfortable or in danger walking the streets of Mungeli. We have not gone into town at night, but that was something we were told to avoid. Apparently the men tend to do their share of boozing after the sun goes down and it can become quite the scene. During the day though, it is fine. There is so much happening in each and every direction that most people don't pay much attention this crazy looking American rocking the aviator shades. Not every person has a warm smile or a boisterous "Namaste!" for you, but in general I found that a polite smile and a wave can really break the ice with most of these people. About 10 minutes into my walk, a motorcycle pulled up right beside me with one guy on it. This is not terribly uncommon as this has happened several times during our stay here. Most of the time the ask "What country are you from?", you exchange hellos and they drive off. Some even ask to take your picture or take a picture with you. Being a H-List star in Mungeli is enough for me. I have no desire to be a star, none whatsoever. Back to the bike - the guy indicates that he would like to give me a ride. I have about 10 seconds to really assess the situation and make a decision. It was hot, I did have a ways to go to catch up with the group and if things started to look bad I could always pull some sort of Jack Bauer type of move and bail off the bike. I finally said "Ok....why not?" So I hopped on, we exchanged name and tried my best to tell him where I was going. My thoughts were this is either going to be really good or really bad and before I knew it we were off. Now I don't recommend to anyone reading this that you can trust every single ride offered to you in a place like Mungeli, but it was one of those gut feelings. The guy seemed like a genuine nice guy and it was in the middle of the day and we were not far from the police station, so the math was in my favor. We pulled up to the street where the group was shopping, he pulled over, I disembarked and reached for my wallet to offer the kind man a tip. He refused and refused, we said our good-byes and we went our separate ways. Bravo to nice people 7,000 miles from home. It was definitely a simple favor that provided me with a true taste of international hospitality that we had already experienced so much of in our short time here.

I met up with the group at Maggie's Clothing Store, our popular hang out for scarves and everything else since we have been here. These guys wrote the book on hospitality. They immediately offered us chai tea, but I mentioned something about ice cream. Shane had actually ran next door and was grabbing us both a small thing of ice cream. Before I knew it Maggie's father had one of the workers arrive with ice creams for all of us. It was great. Ice cream has never ever, ever tasted as good as it did today. We spent some time there shopping and looking and chatting and enjoying the company of Maggie and his father.

Eventually Kelly and Dave headed back to the hospital to hang some posters in the hospital. Shane headed back to the catch the bus to the huge area Christian Mela about an hour away. Knowing that my stomach was in charge for right now, Gregg had some writing and interviewing to do and the rest of were just exhausted - we decided to pass. The Christian Mela is a huge festival celebrating non other than Jesus himself. Tons of people, tons of sunshine and dusty air, lots of music, an out of control Ferris wheel that Jan lost her lunch on and much more. The plan was to leave to come back to Mungeli at 5:30pm. They weren't back until after 9:30pm, we were sort of thankful that we didn't go. I am bummed that I did miss tents upon tents of really great Jesus gear. Next time. For sure.

It ended up being just LIsa, Jan and myself at Maggie's and after some time he asked if we would like to join him for his breakfast break. We politely informed him that we had already had breakfast, but he said it was really lunch and that he would like us to be guests in his home. So we were led through a door to the back room and into his home. He lives there with his parents and his grandmother. Their home is all-together about 4 stories tall. They have a large open-air grate that is in the middle of the room on every single floor and goes all the way up to the roof. My immediate question was, what do you do when it rains. He said that they have a large cover that they put on the roof to cover the grate. As we thought about it and discussed it later this system provides their entire home with great ventilation and natural light. We were escorted up to the second floor where we all gathered around a small tables in his father's room. Almost instantly two trays filled with food were before us. It was wild. I didn't each much, given the number two situation, but Jan and Lisa raved about everything. We sat there and chatted with his mother and his grandmother about everything. They asked about what houses in America look like and we asked them different things in their home. Maggie was proud to show us his collection of over probably 150 types of deodorant. That is not a typo. I have concerns as well - could there be a market for Hoarders: India? I need to get in touch with A&E as soon as I get back. He took us up on the roof and we were really able to see the entire town laid out before us. It was a great view to be able to look down on the street from four stories up and see the daily grind for some many people. A town and a culture that constantly seems to be in motion. We were there for over an hour before we decided to head on our way. It was such a nice time to see the home of a family in Mungeli and to be able to share a meal with them. Certainly something I will not soon forget.

We left Maggie's and were hoping to do some more roaming around the shopping district. Dr. Henry sent someone out to find Jan on a motor bike to take her to the Mela so it was down to just me and Lisa. It was nice to have some time to just spend with here and take in more of the city. We had talked about possibly looking for rings for the wedding here. Not to replace our regular bands, but just another ring. We spent some time in three or four different shops and seeing what they had for sale. It was a becoming much warmer as the afternoon continued on and we were both getting tired from several hours in town. We eventually made our way back to the hospital. I wasn't feeling my finest, so I crashed for a solid 4 hour nap and started my prescription strength number two medication. I felt so much better when I woke up.

The evening was rather uneventful. We began consolidating our bags for our departure really early Monday morning, some went to watch surgery on an ulcer patient, others read and checked email and in general it was a relaxing evening in Mungeli. Before I knew it, I was ready for a good night's sleep and looking ahead to our final full day in Mungeli. What would lie in store? Only time would tell.....

Until next time......all the best,
Nate