Travelling for friendship sake

There are some events and experiences, which stay in our minds as seminal events or turning points. Let me share one of them.

I met Rev. Graham Nichols in Adelaide when I went to attend the Friends of Vellore meeting on behalf of the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 2002. Graham began his professional journey as a porter in  a hospital at the age of thirty years after a successful innings as a foot baller representing his state and an actor in a popular theatre group. It was during his time in the hospital he felt called for theological training and moved on to become an effective pastor. While being a vicar at Adelaide, he came across faculty from CMC Vellore, who were on sabbatical leave in Australia working at the local hospitals. He developed a special friendship with some of them and felt drawn by the story of CMC.

When he retired from his pastorate, he came to CMC Vellore on the invitation of the Director, who was his former parish member, to help in the Chaplaincy services, particularly in mentoring  the faculty. He came successively for four summers spending each time about six months. During his time, he brought much encouragement to the Chaplains and the faculty. The students and post graduates were fond of him for his friendly approach in difficult situations.

One of the special contributions he made was to pastor patients coming to the haematology department. He became friendly with some of them and parents who lost their children due to chronic illnesses. Having developed a net work of friends in different parts of India, he decided to return to india one more time to visit these friends.

This visit to our home at PIMS, Pondicherry was on that  occasion. Graham mentioned that, ' coming back to meet with a few friends was his missionary vocation'.

Anna and I had  benefited from the friendship of another family,  Frank and Val Garlick , who returned from Australia to visit some of his friends in India, after their departure in 1976. They continued coming to India almost every two years till 2002 to keep in touch with some of us. Later at the occasion of the marriages of Arpit and Anandit, some friends made exclusive trips to be with us from three continents.

Anna and I feel humbled at the thoughtfulness, we have witnessed in such acts of kindness.

We currently wonder whether, travelling to meet with friends to present them the gift of our presence, is a 'missionary vocation' we are called to consider!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

                 

Lesson in honesty

This tea stop in a tourist city is unusual in many ways. 

It is a self help tea stall where people serve themselves and leave the payment in a box. The owner does not supervise this. The stall provides one home made snack each day as a package. 

The owner lives behind the shop and and cleans the place,  replenishes tea and the snack periodically.

There is option of using paper cups or regular ones. If the visitor used crockery, he or she is expected to wash and dry them.

There is a calendar and a board adjacent to it where regular visitors can leave an order of extra tea or snacks for the next day, with their telephone number. The owner would confirm the availability on phone.

The owner being a Gandhian thinker has been on this experiment for twenty years. He does not want to give up this experiment. His intention is to cultivate honesty as a virtue. There are occasional instances when people used his services without payment. As most people are regular visitors from the neighbourhood, this experiment has survived. 

During my student days, when news papers used to cost only fifty paisa, there were booths in public places, where news papers were sold without an attendant. People were expected to drop the cost in  a box. But this experiment failed in a short time.

It is an ever more greater challenge now-a-days, as I realise that people tend to be more self indulgent and selfish.

However the owner, who is a senior citizen now, believes in continuing this experiment to invite people to be honest. He has a pension from the government and as this experiment does not incur a loss, he is determined to show the way for others. He told me there are few others who have recently started this unsupervised tea stall practice.

I remember seeing open shops without the owners supervising the sale in Meghalaya. There are many such shops on the road side. Obviously people are honest for this to be common. 

I wish, truth and honesty would become inherent to our social fabric! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

One or two good enough

The first week in January 2013 is over and we move on to the second week.

As I walk past the bougainvillaea plant collection at the porch of the Medical college, where Anna and I work now, every morning after parking the car, I am struck by its radiant colours. Of all the colours, it is the white ones that often draw my attention. It stands apart. There are only two of them among the twenty or more of different attractive colours. But they get noticed  in the garden.

Although white is an inconspicuous colour, and may escape unnoticed it still has a place of significance.

I had a group of students who dropped in to talk about the violent death of a college student who was sexually and physically assaulted in Delhi. I sensed their anguish and fear about the declining moral consciousness among people. They wondered how it can be addressed. We discussed about some of the ways of honouring women and helping men to esteem and respect them.

One student returned two days later to say that since that conversation, each of them was able to show more courtesies and respect towards the girl class mates. He shared,  how there was already a difference in the clinical batch. The relationship that had turned sour was recovering.

It is necessary to believe that one act of goodness or kindness will beget another. It has a ripple effect. Just as an inconspicuous white bougainvillaea changes the landscape of a garden, a good deed which looks insignificant would bear fruit.

The state transport buses in Kerala have designated seats for senior citizens, people with special needs, ladies and people needing assistance. Normally, all these are occupied by regular passengers. Only once out of several travels undertaken in three months, I noticed a young man offer his seat to a woman carrying a child in his hand. He told me that he would show such courtesies no matter whether others  followed this way or not. That is the seed for change.

Let us enter into the second week of 2013, with a choice to be fully present to make a difference.

M.C.Mathew(text an photo)

Schooling for children in a hospital

Anna and I had an opportunity to talk to this family, waiting in the lawn of a rural hospital, during one of our visits in 2011.

It is the conversation with the child that challenged me. His father was admitted in the hospital for cerebral Malaria and he was recovering after a prolonged illness and few complications. 

It was the fourth week that this boy was missing his school. He asked me, 'why there is no school in the hospital'? He had to accompany his mother and stay in the hospital, as there was none to take care of him at home, which was thirty five kilometres away from the hospital.

At one of the hospitals, Anna and I worked, there was a day care centre for children who needed long term stay in the hospital. This was most appreciated by children and parents. Since then we tried persuading other hospitals to consider doing this. I owe this insight to late Prof. Malathi Jadhav, who had an occupational therapist fully involved in the children's ward to keep children occupied with learning activities during their hospital stay.

A child, whether a patient or living in the hospital accompanying parents, has a right to education during the hospital stay. To have a facility to welcome children for some learning activities would not need much resources or investment for a hospital. Any hospital having an active children's services ought to include day care facility for children admitted in the hospital. The Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Volunteers with some teaching inclination or spouses of the staff, who have spare time can take a lead in offering this most needed facility.

A child staying or visiting the hospital is still a learner, whose learning instincts and aspirations need attention. It is good to have a small area dedicated for this purpose, away from the acute care facility, where a children's garden can be created. It is possible even to have pets in fenced areas for providing them a variety of experiences.

A hospital ought to become  a school for children. It is one of the useful ways to help them adjust to their illness emotionally and feel the normalcy of the routine, in spite of an illness. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)       

Light a lantern

This single migrating bird, was seen perched on a tall tree. (I wish I knew its species) I noticed it for most part of the day on the same tree and  and subsequently on an adjacent tree with more foliage for couple of days more. 

The villagers who notice the migrating birds who fly in formation during this season, mentioned to me that they spot occasionally single birds.  They thought that it happens when the bird is hurt. Sometimes it will be few birds, staying back from their flight till one of them which is hurt recovers or dies.  

I noticed this bird on an evening, after I have had  two families who shared with me their hurts and grief over what they suffered. One family shared their distress of financial crisis as both husband and wife lost their job, while they have had to take care of their two years old son who needed hospital admission for intractable convulsions. They were exhausted financially and emotionally. The other family was coping with the multiple fracture the husband suffered after a road traffic accident.

Both families felt isolated with little help forthcoming from neighbours or their own extended families. It is when one is hurt or suffering, one's resilience is tested. However, even with the best of efforts, it is too much of an endurance test.

I heard that in a neighbourhood meeting of families in a village, they decided that  few volunteers would drop in every day to visit the senior citizens, single parent families, those known to be sick or alcohol dependent. This is a most salutary way living mindful of others.

Mother Teresa, once while walking along a suburban street in Sydney with her colleagues of Sisters of Charity, noticed that one house looked dark amidst row of houses which were well lit. Her colleagues visited this home next day and found a man looking malnourished and exhausted sitting alone in the drawing room, which looked unkept. Since his wife died three months back he had not left the house or replenished his refrigerator with food. The sisters lit a lantern which was kept covered, that his late wife used to light every evening at prayer time and arranged for him. This brought some cheer to him. The sisters returned every evening to do this for several days, till he was ready to return to his work and journey through his grief and loss. He later became an ardent supporter of the Sisters of Charity.

There is a life beyond any difficulty we may go through. Often this door of opportunity needs ot be opened  through an act of kindness shown by someone who cares.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)  

Holding on to the One who holds

This is not the best season to look for butterflies due to dew on the flowers in the evening and night. There are still some stray ones fluttering in the garden. I noticed one, when Daphne was running to and fro on the grass. The butter fly was similar to the one in this photo, which, I photographed in the garden in front of the Scudder auditorium several years back, during our stay in the college campus at Vellore.

What fascinated me was the stillness of this butter fly even after all the noise and turbulence Daphney created. It stayed glued to the flower as long as it decided.

For me,  inner stillness has been a growing longing.

I have been disturbed by many events, happenings, experiences,  and demands. Although I am used to attribute my unsettlement  to our recent cross cultural relocation, I  am realising during this season of advent and new year, that there is yet another dimension that I need to consider.

We internalize what takes place around us. There is an inner movement of disturbance corresponding to the intensity of the outer events. When that is a natural process, this butterfly conveyed something different. It was aware of the outer disturbance, because I noticed it moving its wings differently when Daphney was dashing around. But it was absorbed in gathering honey.

It is absorption in what is nourishing and sustaining, that can diffuse the impact of the external pressures. 

The boy Samuel 'grew before the Lord' about which we read I Samuel 2:21. This growing experience comes by 'holding' on to the 'One who holds'. 

I find this best illustrated in the performance of Trapez artists in Circus. (Anna reminded me yesterday that a circus is now camped in the town close by to us). The artists swinging from their swings perform two different functions. One 'catches' the flying trapeze artist who lets go his hold on the awing. It is the certainty of being held, which helps the flying artist to leave his swing. 

The catcher holds the flying artist with his hands to which the flying artist holds on.

This dual reality is at the heart of the Trapeze performance. I feel drawn by this reality, thanks to Daphne, who through her flighty run, made me notice the butterfly, and awakened my consciousness to hold on to the source of my being and well being. We hold on to God who holds us, through times of Bible mediation, interior silence and prayer of the heart. I felt visited by God's love at the end of a walk with Daphne.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo) 

Building a sense of belonging

One of the pleasant experiences of living and working in a rural hospital is its community life. 

Anna and I visited a few mission hospitals in the last five years. The hospitals we visited more than once, were the hospitals where our children were working to fulfill their sponsorship obligations. During such times, we got a feel of the quality of friendships, relationships and fellowship times the staff and families shared during normal times and festive occasions.

In one hospital it started with a chapel service, which was special as it was well attended and participatory.  There was joy shared and celebrated.

After this the doctors on duty the previous night, met with the senior doctors outside the chapel to discuss the patients welcomed, during the night and the state of their well being. We found this to be friendly and a valuable debriefing time. It was obvious that the senior doctors were concerned about how the junior doctors coped and managed different situations. 

Often the junior doctors have meals together in a common area, which gives them  opportunities to share news, views, and their learning experiences. We found such occasions relaxing and encouraging.

We liked the way they shared work, helped each other and stepped in to take responsibilities when needed even without being asked to do so. It was natural to volunteer to help whenever there was a need.

We enjoyed watching them relax in the evenings having indoor games or outdoor games. The pressure of the day and stress of work was least palpable, because they had learned to end each day with exercises and detachment.

It is most common that the seniors find or invent some reason or other to have get togethers at their homes for junior doctors. It is a good way of promoting bonding and communication. We too were invited for such gatherings and were pleased to watch the senior doctors reaching out to care and affirm.

In one hospital, the Medical Superintendent took the junior doctors to a restaurant for breakfast after the rounds on Sunday. This was the social highlight of the week.

It was the senior surgeon who sat through the night to pack the household items for a junior doctor couple who were expecting the truck to arrive for transporting the goods next morning. We have heard many such moving stories of the hospitals reaching our to the junior doctors.

Not that these hospitals did not have tensions or disputes at work place, but they were contained and attended to during such occasions when sense of belonging and collective vision were recaptured. 

There is a lot that junior doctors learn clinically, socially, culturally and beahviourally, when they go to work cross-culturally in hospitals located in rural areas. Some junior doctors have left lasting impressions and legacies during their times in rural hospitals. 

And yet, many young doctors have denied themselves this opportunity because of the lure of post-  graduate entrance test coaching, for which they enrol themselves during the internship. This to me is a pre-occupation of the young doctors than a need, as most junior doctors would have a chance to do post-graduate training sooner than later. 

It is when we are younger, we can learn some lessons or skills which we cannot learn, when we are older. A young doctor returned after two years from a hospital located near mountain range, as an outstanding mountaineer.   

The insights Anna and I gathered during our four years in rural areas continue to inspire and guide our choices.

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)