Of Hens and Cocks

A few days before, my friend got his left shoulder burned by the hot water. And immediately I remembered hens and cocks.  Funny! What on earth could hens and cocks do to the burn? After all they are not Doctors, nurses and healers. But I was thinking of it! Perhaps I was not in my room (in Thimphu) but living somewhere where my heart resides. And I was in my village, Shingkhar Lauri.

This is what happens in my village. Should anyone get burned, a hen or a cock must receive its death certificate. How sad! This is done with the belief that the fat of the chicken cures the burn (medically proved?). Soon after, the burns get the share of a hot curry soup with plenty of salt and this has been practiced in my village for years, even to these days.

People never think of taking the patient to the hospital or BHU. What they think of immediately is to resort to the local healing even if the burn is big and dangerous. This is because they hardly believe that modern healing and medication can be helpful to them as they haven’t been the beneficiary of it (most of the time).  

It is not that there are no BHUs and ORCs in Shingkhar Lauri. An ORC center was established sometimes ago in my village. But now it is under the school’s authority. The village health worker, Drongsep Menpa, who is an illiterate, keeps the medicines (a few) in his smoke-stained house.

And to go to the BHU, it is located in Lauri Gewog, almost a day’s walk from my village. People prefer to bear the pain and be at home rather than walking for a long distance, crossing rivers and mountains, and getting additional pain. So long as they are not bed-ridden, they do not go to hospital. And as a result, people do not reap the benefit of modern medication  in the community.

I grew up in such a culture where modern medication is secondary: Where lives of animals (such as fowls) become life-saving medicines for the human being; where salt is not only a spice in the curry but a medicine too.

Having lived in such cultures of medication, I also bear, to some extent, my pain. I do not easily go to hospitals like any other city dwellers who run to it even at the prick of a pin.

But, accompanying my friend to the hospital and seeing how well he was treated by the nurses, I understand the value of people running to the hospital. I see it as a wise step, to consult a doctor, before any presumptions are made. I see modern medicine more beneficial and clean than what we have been doing for years.

Here is what I (a small man) wish for my people in the village too.