Apologies for cross posting
http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1402&catID=25
Joseph Jacob, a doctor working for Medecins Sans Frontieres,
says during the festive season he will be helping communities caught up
in the ongoing conflict between the government and the Maoists rebels
in central India – and eating a Christmas curry
• NGOs and the festive season
Monday December 21st 2009
Joseph Jacob
I
am a doctor working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors
without Borders) in Chhattisgarh state in India. The project we run
here primarily targets communities caught up in the ongoing conflict
between the government and the Maoists rebels in central India, and
offers access to healthcare for the vulnerable, distressed populations.
Christmas Eve this year will be spent running one of our mobile
clinics. For these, we drive 75 minutes from our base in four-wheel
drive jeeps, get out and don our backpacks (which contain all our
clinic supplies such as drugs, weighing scales, patient registers and a
lot of water) and then walk for about 8km (90 minutes at a brisk pace)
through the forest.
We wade through rivers, pass by grand old trees, fields shocked with
wildflowers, skip over snakes, lizards, and salute members of the local
Adivasi tribes we meet on the way. These wizened, hardy people, dressed
in loin cloths and leaning on bows almost as long as themselves watch
on nonchalantly as we finally stop in a small glade and set up our
clinic under the shade of gnarled towering trees.
And then within minutes, slowly at first, but then from every
direction, where no-one seemed present just minutes ago, mothers emerge
cradling their children, or men step past carrying palanquins holding
infirm elderly relatives.
After returning home, plans are usually made for the mobile clinic
the following day, but it being Christmas Day, it will instead begin
with a ward round of the inpatients in our mother and child clinic in
Bijapur town, and then a morning outpatient clinic till midday.
Later on, I’ll return to our house and have a Christmas curry with
the team and take some time to reflect on how lucky I am to be able to
live this life and do this work in the raw heart of this subcontinent.
Adv Kamayani Bali Mahabal
Mobile-00919820749204
skype:lawyercumactivist
I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water in the other:
With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that voyagers to God can rip the veils
And see the real goal........................................By Rabia (Rabi'a
Al-'Adawiyya)
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