thoughts and reflections

Sociologically this is a very different place from the west.  Very little seems to be done individually here.  Much is done and expected in groups.  Patients think nothing of lining up and waiting for hours, they are obedient and don't get upset while waiting in huge groups at the clinic.  People are usually with family and on inpatient, sometimes, family sleeps there with them in their beds or come back with food several times a day.  Patients are in a huge room with 20 beds, no curtains, no privacy.  Baths are together in this outside bathing area that I have shown you and patients help each other to wash their hair if needed.  They are very helpful in general with each other, really taking care of each other on the ward and comforting each other.  Little seems expected of the staff.  It is as if the patients have now become a group, a patient group.  Patients here, and I think this is in general not just in psychiatry, are totally obedient unless they are a little manic.  The patients here who get admitted as acutely ill would barely have made it to a clinic or psychotherapy in the states.  It is a very, very polite non individualistic society.  The exception is that people do not step out of the way to let you pass, they just plow into you, it is so impolite and opposite everything else!!!!  Because of this, unusual behavior is really not tolerated, they label it.  Patients here I think get identified as schizophrenic and Bipolar who may not be so, who may be going thru something and could use some talking help.
 I took the train to Kandy last week to meet a friend and see the town.  The train ride is spectacular but extremely long.  I took the bus home, a very interesting experience because it was an old, very dirty, smelly bus.  They crowd as many people in as possible so there was standing room only by the time we left. The trip is 3 1/2 to four hours,  I was on a seat where my tocks where on the seat but my but was off the seat.  We were 3 in one longish seat.  People were very polite and respectful of the little space they could give.  Throughout the first half of the journey I kept thinking how grateful I was that I wasn't squished in the middle of the other two.  Half way thru the ride we stopped for a tea and pee break.  People get off and know to get back on 15 minutes later.  I was surprised when the woman by the window told the guy in the middle he could have the window, then she looked at me and said would I please get into the middle.  We all moved one place over!  No one was carrying on on this crowded bus, it was a very orderly group.
 People don't like to say no so thay will indicate yes or shake their head but the norm of society is to not say no.  This is normal here.  This can be a problem.  The other day a trishaw driver I know said yes to picking me up for the train.  He didn't show up, I called him, he said he was on the way, he didn't come while I was there.  He probably couldn't come at that time but wouldn't say no.  also people ask you what you want to buy, you tell them, they invite you into their shop and start offering everything else.  They don't have what you want.  I don't think they are trying to fool you they are hoping you will find something else in their shop.
Many people have commented (well many, maybe two) on how easily I seem to have adjusted to being here and I think that is true.  I am able to be where I am.  I think this is a blessing.  My head is here, not in the USA.  I am where I am.  That doesn't mean I don't miss people.  I miss talking.  I miss telling someone the things that excite me and the things that are hurting or upsetting me.  I love living in my home, it is ironically very similar to my NYC apartment, I love the orderliness of it, how clean it stays, I like the way I've set it up.  My life is simple and now I have discovered thanks to my cousin Lyn that I can get summaries of Jon Stewart on my computer!  What could complete my day more!  It's weird, until she sent me this link, I hadn't really thought much about TV or movies although I have some with me.  I read a lot .  Right now I am in Olive Kittridge land, it's a fascinating land in it's everydayness  and yet it's uniqueness.  Just like life, the life most of us live no matter where we are.
So I have done further research into the toilet and soap situation.  It is true that they do not use toilet paper here.  They rinse off in one fashion or another (either with a pitcher of water or a sprayer that comes out of the wall) and drip dry.  There should be soap at the sink in the toilets but in the hospital the government allocates very little soap, it get's used up before the next shipment comes or people take it.  There is supposed to be something to dry your hands with but usually there isn't.
My Belgian friend Lieve who is also a volunteer, and I had a long talk about about our experiences in this country, their huge bureaucracy which is very cumbersome and works poorly.   Sri Lanka was controlled  by the British and it continues doing things the way the Brits did .  The thing is that they don't seem to know why they do what they do.  It is a country that was controlled by others and when they took over their own control they continued what they had  seen.  Unfortunately they never learned why they did what they did, making a request to do something differently near impossible.  Lieve lived in Mozambique for a while and said it was a very similar dynamic.  I shall keep studying this.