The day I was a rock star..

I know, I shall write about work tomorrow definitely.  Today though, I woke up, felt lazy so stayed in bed until 7:45 decided not to go to the opening of the new hospital wing which was at 8:30.  I figured I'd go when the new Psychiatric wing opens in a few months.  I got up and found my garbage turned over in my kitchen, no evidence of an animal still in the house but felt odd about the secret intruder.  As I pondered this, the door bell rang and Caru, my landlord asked if I was going to the hospital that day.  Apparently a bunch of monks or priests as they call them were going to be there and Charlotte was going.  I said I would go then and rushed to get my clothes washed (it was finally sunny out).  This by the way took a lot of effort because I had to figure out where to do it, how to change the water, if I needed to boil some water, how to rinse the clothes and so forth.  Anyway, Charlotte had previously told me that when you are going to the temple or an event with priests to wear white, which I did although as it turned out, most people weren't but Charlotte was happy.  So we walked to the hospital and Charlotte it turns out is the yenta of the neighborhood.  She had been a nurse at the hospital for about 30 years and knows everyone.  The other thing is that I did not realize that I was her prize.  She took me by the wrist, for most of the day and dragged me from one person to another introducing me as the psychiatric nurse from America who lives at her house.  I of course being the only westerner and only caucasian present among what seemed like thousands of staff and visitors was looked at and smiled at constantly.  Interestingly, I feel very happy with this and not self conscious.  I of course was thrilled to see some of the Ward 12 staff there, they were surprised and seemed overjoyed with my presence.  I had accidentally done the right thing, an important thing, by going.  I had previously met, then saw here and shook hands with the Director of the hospital who invited me to lunch, my boss the Consulting Psychiatrist, the Provincial Health Minister, the doctor running the show that day who also invited me to lunch and I was introduced to the Health Minister of Sri Lanka who was there to officiate.  Through all of this as I was being schlepped around by Charlotte, (she is the champ at getting through crowds by the way, she just pushes through, all 4'10" of her)  I was told that there would be 500 monks attending.  I thought they got their numbers wrong because at any given time there were around 20 monks sitting on a podium.  It is now about 2 hours after we arrived and I have no idea what is happening because no one tells me.  All of a sudden Charlotte and all her friends, they are a group of  80 year olds who worked at the hospital together, get up, pull me with them and stand by a new gate.  After trying to figure out what is happening I look down the street and there are some musicians and a long row of orange slowly moving in a line...it was true, 526 monks proceeded to march onto the grounds and into the first floor of the new hospital.  Charlotte and Caru later told me they had never seen so many monks in one place at one time.  Charlotte was now holding onto me but I wanted to follow the monks inside and thought I was missing lunch, I finally got her to start toward the door but there were dozens of people clamoring to get in the doors and they now had guards keeping them away, it looked like the evacuation of Saigon!  I being lacking in something, thought this was about people wanting to be fed.  I knew that if I could get to the door, I would be let in, Charlotte knew it too.  She shoved her way all the way to the door with me in tow.  When I was seen they signaled me to come forward and now with Charlotte in my clutches I was pushed thru the door like a star, Charlotte did not get in.  I was told to sit and sat down with hundreds of people, the highest ranking people who were listening to the prayer of the monk.  The clamoring was to be present for this.  As I looked around there were long tables, one after the other set up with a feast for the monks.  When the praying was over, Charlotte got in and again started schlepping me.  I took pictures (on Facebook) and waited.  The priests were served by anyone who could get a bowl to serve them as this is a great honor, I was going to do it and didn't but later I was given a book and told to bow and present it with 2 hands which I did and the monk and I smiled at each other. Then there was a ceremony where the Health Minister presented gifts to all the monks.   After all of this, after the monks started to leave and I had been told to join the Director on the 2nd floor, Charlotte wanted to go eat with people on the ground floor.  I kept saying no I was going to the 2nd floor and Caru kept asking why but didn't understand my explanation.  Finally I went to the 2nd floor and Charlotte followed.  No one was there, that I could see, so defeated, I started downstairs.  At that moment the Director was coming up the stairs and on seeing me said "come up".  Charlotte grabbed my wrist, was glowwwwwwing and off we went to lunch with the Health Minister of Sri Lanka.  It's not even necessary to say that we had a feast.  The other wonderful part of this was that just yesterday our Occupational Therapist had taught me how to properly eat with my hand, you use your fingers like a scoop and then your thumb to shovel the food into your mouth.  It works like a charm and I felt like a Sri Lanka.
 I can only imagine  what Charlotte said to her friends when we saw them downstairs later. They had been given lunch packets for lunch. 3000 people were fed lunch today at the ceremony.  Quite an accidental Saturday morning when I ended up feeling like a rock star (I know it is all politically incorrect but I loved it!).