UPDATE JANUARY 2007

[ See also recent photos - January 2007 ]

Dear friends, namaskar.

Apart from our regular clinic work last month, some work still went on for the renovation of our rooms and surroundings, such as painting some walls and an outside fence. This was also in preparation for the visits of some friends and supporters who were touring India and came to see our project shortly before and after New Year’s Day. Further outstanding work to improve the facilities will continue, as we’ve been happy to get news of some more visitors and volunteers from overseas in the coming months.

Another job has been in preparation for other regular, though less welcome visitors: monkeys! A pack of large monkeys passes through our compound every few days, jumping loudly across the rooftops, looking for food and enjoying knocking things around. To protect our new solar panels on the roof, we’ve surrounded the panels with a fence of barbed wire against these mischievous visitors.

Our last major job for the completion of the first section of the new clinic building is the installation of sinks and pipes for running water. This has again been delayed because although we’ve gotten the neighbour’s permission to temporarily draw water from his tube well until our own has been installed, we’ve been waiting for pipes to be delivered by a supporter from Bokaro city, who some time ago pledged to provide them to us free of cost. Several days ago we finally received them, and now the digging of the pipe ditches from the tube well to our clinic is going on. This will be followed by the plumbing installation work for the whole building. The running water will be a long awaited relief not only for our personal convenience, but also for our herbal and vegetable gardens, which have been partly drying up over the past weeks, as we cannot irrigate them sufficiently with hand-carried water. Once the plumbing is done and the water is flowing, we can resume with planting more plant varieties for the expansion of both gardens.

As the villagers have still been busy until this month with their harvesting work in the fields, we’ve continued our regular weekly well cleaning programs in the
surrounding villages, before we resume our nutritional education programs. In December 2006 we disinfected a total of 69 drinking water wells in 6 villages, as well as cleaned and disinfected the well surroundings and other stagnant water areas in the villages, to help reduce malaria and other water borne diseases.

Despite the villagers’ harvesting work last month, we saw a total of 799 patients in December 2006, i.e. an average of 31 patients every clinic day, which is slightly more than the previous month. This is also due to the cold winter months, which bring us more coughs and colds, as well as more arthritic patients. Amongst the latter we also see cases of juvenile arthritis: young children also suffer from joint pain and walking problems, due to their malnourished state. Approx. 5% of the village children in our area have juvenile arthritis. Fortunately acupuncture treatment can help them effectively.

During the winter months here the temperature at night can go down to below 10 degrees Celsius. This makes the poorest villagers suffer more, as they have neither heating nor sufficient warm clothes and blankets. Last month we organized a blanket distribution program for a selected group of the 15 poorest nearby villagers, in cooperation with a local NGO which sponsored the blankets.

The basic training of our assistant staff is continuing with classes on a weekly basis. We’ve been happy to welcome a new volunteer, a 16-year old boy from the neighbouring village who’s a hard working and eager helper. After some further training, he may become a permanent paid staff person, acting as a gardener or in other areas of maintenance.

That’s all for this month’s update. Thank you for all your support, and best wishes for your work and personal well-being in the New Year!

Yours,

Dada Devashuddhananda

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