Quick Getaway and First Week of Work

We seized the opportunity for a three-day weekend right before I started work and traveled along a very curvy mountainous road for four hours to the nearby tourist town of Pokhara.  It was fantastic!  I don’t think I realized how much I needed some time just to relax.  I didn’t expect to be so exhausted by days full of just language and culture learning, but it did tire me.  We didn’t visit any of the big tourist attractions; rather, we enjoyed eating in restaurants—a luxury now!—and playing with Jack in the pool.  His first time in a pool was at 4 months old, when he was a rather round blob that mostly just sat still.  This time he kicked and splashed non-stop!  Both days he fell asleep right after leaving the pool.

The day after returning, I started my official full-time work in the hospital.  It was a very long day.  For the most part, I think I will enjoy working here.  The staff and my colleagues are very nice.  I like the maternity ward.  I get to run home to nurse Jack once or twice a day, and I have lunch with Tim and Jack at home each day.

My first day! The number of patients given tickets each day in the Female OPD is typically 140.  Also notice the date: Nepal runs on a solar rather than lunar calendar, so we're now a few years ahead and in a different month.

The language, however, is much more challenging and overwhelming than I anticipated.  Although I have to relearn medicine to some extent since it is often practiced so differently here than in the United States, the language is vastly more stressful, frustrating, disappointing and embarrassing.  Around town, I’ve been able to communicate fairly well.  But as soon as I talk with a patient, I seem to be completely unable to understand what they’re saying to me!  Sure, I can use my memorized medical words and phrases, but their responses are off the charts of incomprehensibility for my ears and mind.

There may be a few reasons for this.  Nepali is hard: if I just had to memorize the new alphabet and words, it’d be much easier, but the grammar is the stickler.  Perhaps I am stressed in the new environment and not able to think as well.  But I also just learned that about 50% of the people who live in this district actually speak a completely different language.  We get people from far distances who also have their own dialects and languages.  Apparently Nepal has 125 documented languages, plus we get patients from India.  So even though our patients may speak Nepali in the hospital to us, they often throw in other non-Nepali words.  For those who are speaking true Nepali, there are different accents, as well as the many abbreviations—or slang—regularly used in the language.  I know, we have shortcuts in English too, but man, Nepali has a lot!  And I haven’t even learned them yet!  We’re still working on proper grammar.

To give you an idea of how different the grammar of Nepali is, let’s translate a simple sentence.  Keep in mind, however, that Nepali does not use commas or quotation marks (I’ll include commas here to help you out), and run-on sentences are totally allowed.  And when speaking, Nepalis speak fast.  One theory is that the words are much longer with many syllables, so one must speak faster in order to get across the same point that a language like English could make in less time while speaking more slowly.

English: If the man with the snake bite does not come quickly, he will die before getting to the hospital for medicine.

Nepali: Snake-bitten man quickly does not come if, medicine-for hospital-to arriving before, he will die

Right.

And then there were the two women who were joking with each other about the fact that I can’t speak their language and yet am here.  How weird and ridiculous!  Of course I couldn’t explain why I’m here or that I’m really trying to help or that their language is nearly impossible and wouldn’t they like to try to learn English and then continue to make fun of me?!  (That run-on sentence is allowed since we’re talking about the Nepali language.)  Instead, I almost cried right there in front of them as I completed their paperwork so I could run away to lunch.

There are no official translators, so I try to sit with a resident in clinic.  We each see patients in the same room at the same desk—there are no HIPAA laws here.  When I have trouble understanding the patient—umm, all the time—I ask the resident for help.  Ideally it’s a resident who still has a lot to learn so that they can also ask me medical questions to help balance out the needs ratio.

The result is that I feel like I am not providing quality care.  Although I feel confident that I will learn the medicine here, the language seems daunting after so much more difficulty than I expected.  If I can’t talk about tangible things of medicine, how can I address emotional and spiritual needs, the greater reason why I’m here?  I want to speak Nepali so I can reach people’s hearts.  It is yet another reminder from God that I will be unable to do anything of worth without complete reliance upon Him. 

Those who have gone before me have said it’s taken them a couple of months of working in the hospital before they could walk home without feeling frustrated about the language barrier.  Two months is a long time to tack on to the five we’ve already spent, but it’s encouraging to know that everyone else has gone through this and survived.  And surely God wouldn’t bring us all the way here just to leave me hanging, the first doctor in Tansen unable to overcome the Nepali language.  I must remember that He just recently taught me to measure my challenges against His abilities rather than my own.

So I’m praying for the Holy Spirit to fill me each day so that I may display the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, and faithfulness.  I need each of these traits every single day.  I pray that I can display them regardless of a patient’s response to me.  I pray that God will open my ears and loosen my tongue in Nepali.  I pray that, until I am able to discuss heart issues in Nepali, my attitude and love would demonstrate God to the patients regardless of my incorrect grammar and halting sentences.

Shrinigar, a popular hill to climb that overlooks the whole valley.  This is only about a third of the way up.  To the far left, the Himalayas are hidden.  The red brick building right behind Tim is where our flat is.  As on most days, this day started out a little cloudy, turned dark and rainy, then cleared up beautifully.