Happy 1430
Written by Antje on May 22nd 2023 19:26
It's been a long time since I've written anything on this site. Finally another blog.
First of all, I want to wish you a Happy New Year. It is the year 1430 on the Bengali calendar. A procession started the New Year, dancing to loud music and then a traditional meal was eaten. Normally it is celebrated with even more grandeur, but because the New Year fell during Ramadan this year, the party was kept a bit sober.
A ‘gardening’ event is being run on our hospital grounds. Young adults with a disability are given the opportunity to work. They maintain the gardens, run a nursery and since last year they also have cows for biogas production, as well as goats. They also take care of the sheep that are kept for the laboratory. Sheep's blood is used to make the media on which we can culture pus and other fluids to see which antibiotic works best in each situation.
Last fall, rice was planted on a piece of our ‘new land’. Now it was time to harvest. The foreigners were invited to help. It is literally back-breaking work. After helping for an hour, I could hardly move.
You can already see it in my posture in this photo:
Movie of Antje harvesting:
And this is how it really should be done…
After the foreigners were exhausted, the ‘professionals’ moved on. This includes 2 of the disabled people, the rest are auxiliaries hired for the day and the supervisor of the gardening group. They've been busy all day.
A machine was hired for threshing:
We were satisfied with the yield (see bags in the background):
The rice now still needs to be cooked and then dried so that it can be peeled. The gardening group hopes to be able to use part of the rice itself, the workers receive lunch. The rest is sold.
Finally, a photo of some of our senior doctors. We are currently blessed with a fairly stable group of senior doctors in all departments, although the balance is still shaky.
