I'm over it!

    Okay, I am over it.  I got so much feedback basically reminding me that I am taking this PERSONALLY. It is totally true.  I fell into this subjective place where I made myself the center and got so disappointed and angry as if the future of this place is good or bad because of me!  I lost perspective.  One volunteer sent me this and I think it is so wonderful as a reminder to everyone:
  "There once was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore, as he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day and he began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man, and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something, and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

He called out, “Good morning, what are you doing?”

The young man paused, looked up and replied, “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I guess I should have asked: WHY are you throwing starfish in the ocean?”

“The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don’t throw them then they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. There must be thousands of them on this beach alone. You can’t possibly hope to make a difference!”

The young man listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves and said, “To THAT one, it made a difference.” "

     Actually, even hoping my presence made a difference to one starfish is still personalizing it but it is a wonderful story!  I can look back over this time, which I have done little of yet, but looking back over the times that I got a bit blue or angry or teary and I think it was when I got off center of what I was here to do.  I personalized.  Such a good lesson to hold onto. I asked 8 or 9 of the staff to evaluate me, VSO sent reference forms.  I asked some nurses, doctors, MSW, support staff to write them. 2 of the staff said my resilienceh was good rather then excellent because of my behavior around the bars being put up.  It was so unSri Lankan to have an emotional reaction and to talk about it for 2 days!  I have a list of things I still hoped to talk to the Consultant Psychiatrist and the new Master about.  I am not sure I shall talk to them now.  None of it is new, hasn't been said, it is stuff more to remind them..I am going to redo the posters that I had done in the beginning for  all the staff and hope they will put them up where they will see them but that is up to them.  The posters said:

TREAT PATIENTS WITH DIGNITY, RESPECT, EQUALITY AND AFFECTION AS YOU WOULD A LOVED ONE.  

     I am getting ready to go in the same organized way that I got ready to come.  I already shipped over 50 pounds of "stuff" so I really don't have that much to organize.  I have reports to write and things to complete and a bit of sorting so I am doing something each day to move forward.
     One of the nurses asked me if I had seen the lanterns one of the patients was making on his own.  She said as soon as he started making them he became normal.  Having an activity made such a difference!  Maybe one starfish?

      

Heartbroken

     Well a few days ago I said in my blog that I was ambivalent about leaving, now, a few days later, I am not. I am ready to go.  In the last 3 days, literally, the nurses have had constructed, essentially, a prison for the women patients and they had a patient who was due to go home tied to the bed because she was wandering (wanting to go home).  It feels like my work here was a waste if the basic lesson of kindness and empathy for patients has not penetrated.  I have failed in the one way I thought I was successful, and it couldn't be more blatant.    The new Master is a tyrant, half the staff is talking about leaving, our wonderful doctor S. is hoping to transfer to be able to do more community work, our new Community Psychiatric Nurse who was especially selected (basically by me) is not being able to do her work and has asked to leave; she is up at night, not eating, worrying, feels unsupported by the other nurses, she needs to leave. Even our Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr. P, was describing the childish behavior of the other consultants, really like squabbling children and of course that leaves patients without care as passively fight over who is responsible for seeing them.  Little discussion happens between anybody to try to come to a more neutral place, people don't talk about things here, they just act out.  Maybe it is this way everywhere and I am very naive, it is possible I suppose.  I thought I was a realist but maybe I am a hidden idealist so I get so disappointed or maybe I don't understand the culture still, enough, or resistance to change or....
     I can learn new things however.  I have always watched people brushing their teeth and been amazed that they can walk around and not get wet, foamy toothpaste all over the place.  I finally figured out what I do wrong; when I put the toothpaste on the brush, I run it under the water before moving it to my mouth..it's so automatic that now I have to be very conscious not to do it. I am now much neater at brushing and almost as a reward I get fewer ants in my sink if I forget to clean up the toothpaste because there is less of it!
     One of the staff, a guy who politically I am the most connected to, asked me if I wanted a party to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death.  I was horrified.  In my mind his death can lead to more death as a reaction to his death, I can't celebrate that.  I have recently read this wonderful article about Paul Chappell in my favorite magazine, THE SUN.  He wages peace.  When I get home, I am going to study more about this. This doesn't mean I am against killing when necessary or being strategic to get the bad guys.  It does seem that money, power and greed are behind most bad stuff, for the leaders I really doubt it is religious or political idealism underneath the underneath.
     I finally understand the behavior of one person I work with that for all this time didn't quite make sense to me.  I now understand that without really admitting it or even being conciously aware of it, this person, an Asian, is racist towards whites.  I really am naive.  My landlord this morning asked me about my camera and I was telling him about a shop in town that had cameras for sale, he said no, not there, you can't trust the moslems!  It never ends (the isms).

FUN AND GAMES

     Just heard Osama Bin Laden is dead.  I am glad about that but I am not jumping for joy.  The world feels, America feels, so dangerous to me now..anyway, not what this blog is about today.  I have been putting off writing, not sure why but maybe it has something to do with the fact that all of a sudden I have hardly any time left here.  I don't feel miserable but I don't feel happy.  It is happening too fast.  When I made the decision to leave after 1 1/2 years, I was feeling like it was enough, I had done what I could do and as time went on I must admit, I had done as much as I wanted to do.  Then, I don't know, there is so much to do, I have so many reports to write and meetings to have and things to do, I am running out of time.  I have my e ticket home, I have my final meetings set up at VSO and yesterday, Anne one of the volunteers I am friendly with, offered to have a goodbye party for me at her home in Colombo before I leave and I am thinking, I just had going away parties in the States, it feels like yesterday..Staff here are really sad and I know that it is highly unlikely that I shall ever see these people again and now I am sorry I am not staying until December but I suppose it would feel the same then as it feels now.  Ironically, in the last week I have met several new volunteers who came after January and  I just had an opportunity to spend time with them.  4 of them (2 volunteers and their spouses) are Canadian..finally I felt like I was with people who spoke the same language as me, we had a great time together and well, this is life I suppose..so to cope, I am dangling carrots in front of myself, I have several weeks booked to travel already when I go home as well as James Taylor tickets at Tanglewood.    Oh well, fiddle de de, I shall think about it all in November.
     What I wanted to describe to you is what happened here over the Sinhala and Tamil New Year a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. S. had described to me that in his family meaning parents, wife, siblings, cousins etc. they celebrated by having "fun and games".  He described essentially the kind of games we play with children at birthday parties:  pin the tail on the donkey, greasing poles and trying to climb, ring toss etc.  He was describing adults doing this..doctors..and I so wished I had been invited. (Actually I had been but was in the Maldives that day).  Anyway, that week on the ward I was informed that the Friday program for staff and patients was to celebrate New Years and we were going to have FUN AND GAMES!!!  It was amazing, we played 15 games:  pin the eye on the elephant, fill water bottles with water and drink it, run to balloons and blow them up until they burst, be blindfolded (staff member) and feed yogurt to a patient, potato sack races..you have to imagine staff and patients participating together in this activity in Badulla, Sri Lanka where staff stands when the psychiatrist comes into the room and patients sit and do nothing if the doctors want to suddenly call meetings..it was marvelous.  It reminded me of those old films of 1910 or so at county fairs where life wasn't so busy and complicated and people played games and had picnics.   The greatest part of it though was that even though only 4 staff members not from psychiatry were informed to come to the program, about 50 or more ended up coming because word got around the hospital; even the head Matrons of the hospital showed up.  Also stigma is always a problem in the field of psychiatry and especially at a place like ours and because of holding this activity outside, many families, patients, visitors from other departments could see us and watch how normal the patients were and how we all interacted without fear. Anyway, it was so much fun and we were all adults..how is it that in the west, these activities are only for kids' parties, we are so very sophisticated aren't we.  
     Well it is 10:30 am and I am not at work yet, getting texts asking if I am coming..I shall miss that a lot.