To say that it has been quite a week would merely be stating a cliche without really doing justice to reality. I said to Lena as I was falling asleep last night, “You know, honey, when we first talked about coming here years ago, I had this image that we’d end up on the top of the mountain in your old cave. Living an extremely simple life. Meditation. Going for firewood and water. Watching the sun rise and set. Occasionally somebody would come to you for medical help and you’d get a leech out of their nose or give them a dose of penicillin. Maybe we’d have a visitor every few months. Quiet. Simple.” I looked at her lying in bed with the lump on her head turning purple and thinking about the week just past and shook my head. “I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
Our big “do” was on Sunday, the 23rd and we had half the village turn up. Word got around and it was rumoured to be “the” event of the season which we, who’d thought of a simple little party for a few friends, found hysterical and somewhat alarming!!! So for days beforehand I was baking and cooking since what we had promised was a “Western” (North American/European) type of party.
We put up a Christmas tree:
and we had little gifts for the kids and made all kinds of food and drink. Once word got around and people had all heard and were obviously angling for an invitation, it became impossible to hurt anyone’s feelings by not including them. This meant that, in the course of the last 2 or 3 days, we invited pretty much everyone in our little town we know well enough to want in our house from every single religious and ethnic group in the region (which is mostly Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh) making it very clear that it was a mixed-caste party.
Although the Indian caste system is technically defunct from a legal standpoint, caste awareness and caste prejudicial behavior is deeply ingrained in the culture. Up here in such a very traditional and relatively isolated place, caste affects social interactions enormously. I’ve been mentally working on a blog post about caste, colour and race issues here for a long time and hopefully will put it down in words soon.
As Westerners, we’re considered outside of the caste hierarchy, but, in throwing a party for all our friends and neighbors it could not be ignored or wished away. We invited everyone and stated clearly and distinctly that it would be mixed-caste and no amount of proselytizing would change our mind. To reinforce this, we have on our wall a lovely picture of Mahatma Gandhi and his charkha
placed only slightly secondard to the obligatory picture of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
Our choice meant that a few of the prouder Brahmins (highest caste) stayed away, unable to overcome their lifelong conditioning to not socialize share food with other castes. As my mother would have said, it was their loss, not mine as everyone who did come seemed to be having a great time!
It was an enthusiastic party! The kids had a blast decorating the tree with shiny wrapped candies, some of which they got to eat.
The guests were almost all locals who knew each other by sight if not by name, and the mix of folks included everyone from the town mayor to elderly Tibetan ladies who beg alms to buy rice, from tulkus and heads off the monasteries to the lowest caste handyman. We even had a well-behaved stray dog wander in and settle itself on the veranda. Since it had such good manners, it was allowed to stay and I have to say that it appreciated Lena’s chopped liver much more than most of the other guests.
Much to our surprise and delight, most of the Buddhist nuns (there are 40-50 living there) from the cave community at the top of the mountain came to the party. They arrived like a giant red ocean of smiles and hugs, buried us in white scarves, oranges, biscuits and… Christmas cards! Every single one had found and saved a genuine Christmas card and proudly presented them to us wrapped in kataks (the white scarves.)
They had a ball daring each other to try the weird new foods, tasting hot mulled cider, helping the kids hang gold wrapped candies on the tree and seeing who else walked through the door. Once they’d arrived, I noticed myself relaxing for, in a way that nobody else is, THEY are our people, the cave nuns and yoginis. They are our friends and our sisters and the people among whom I feel most at home.
Our main concession to local customs was that we had a pure vegetarian and non-vegetarian food table and each was very clearly marked and the foods carefully prepared to avoid cross-contamination. People take that very seriously and we respected that while also trying to offer them American-type foods to sample. We had a total mix of Tibetans, Indians, mountain villagers, Kinouris, Ladakhis (plus two Danes, an Israeli and an Englishman to represent everywhere else!) and the various food requirements, aversions and restrictions are complex. It’s extremely important, especially to the Brahmins, that what is referred to as “pure vegetarian” food is not contaminated by contact with non-veg food. Pure veg CAN include milk, cream, cheese and butter, but not eggs and absolutely no meat. It’s as strict in its way as keeping a kosher kitchen. Even though we aren’t strictly vegetarian, we have enough friends who are that we only use certain pots to cook meat and have a specific “contaminated” spot designated for cracking eggs and cutting meat.
On the other hand, many immigrant Tibetans eat only red meat plus grains and dairy, and many are suspicious of non-Tibetan cheese and the celibate monks are not supposed to eat eggs (except that an egg as a binder in bread or something is okay.) First generation refugees rarely eat much vegetable and most don’t do pork or seafood at all. Chicken is one of those “some do, some don’t” items where for some it’s the only meat they’ll touch and for others it’s absolutely gross.
Tibetans drink fermented red or golden tea laced with salt and butter. Indians drink vats of chai with milk and spices. Some of each group drink alcohol any chance they get but many don’t drink at all and the majority are like our family where a glass of something with dinner or around the first is fine, but don’t want to get blotto. Everyone likes fruit juice. We solved this by making a hot spiced apple cider that simmered on the little fireplace on the veranda.
On the side was a flask of the same mix to which local rum had been added in sufficient quantity to cause a glow, but not so much that anyone was likely to get blotto and fall off the balcony. This was only a mild danger and really only to the small group of what we refer to as the “Young Turks” of Rewalsar - most of whom are young entrepreneurs with style, ambition and brains. At least the ones we consider our friends. And, as the younger folks are wont to do, they stayed closer to the rum punch than most others.
We handled the food thing by having two separate tables, one at either end of the main room. The one everyone had to pass to get in was the pure veg food and the table with meat was on the other side where no one had to look at any of it unless they wanted to. Worked perfectly, right down to the sweets. I had to come up with some western baked goodies and sweets that didn’t require eggs for the vegetarians.
Lena and I used to throw and/or cater large parties as a sideline 10-15 years ago, so we’re pretty good at organizing and planning events. I’ve never tried to do it in an Indian kitchen, with very limited ingredients and a two burner propane stove and a kitchen fireplace before. Or a tiny Indian fridge. Quite a challenge so we spent 3 days cooking, prepping, etc.
The Vegetarian menu consisted of:
3 kinds of grilled polenta
Hummus and flatbreads
Babaganoush without egg
Spicy Mexican style bean dip
Sliced cheese and crackers with olives
Yoghurt cream cheese dip with chips
2 loaves of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into triangles which were a hit with the under 12 set.
2 batches of shortbread, one plain, one with local hazelnuts
Fudge
For the Non-vegetarians:
3 quiches with different vegetables
Chopped liver
Spam and cheese cubes
A cheese, onion and mayo concoction: Cousin Diana’s Cheese Dip on crackers
Pound cakes
Fudge brownies
and we ordered, from the best place in town, 100 momos (steamed meat dumplings)
The challenge was to work with the limited sorts of ingredients that are available locally and to have to make everything from scratch: pie crusts, cream cheese for dip, grinding cornmeal for polenta, cleaning, stemming and chopping spinach for quiche, shelling walnuts and hazelnuts, soaking and cooking chickpeas and beans and so on.) No running to Safeway for anything. The only things we weren’t able to get locally were a few herbs and spices I brought from the U.S. and the can of Spam a friend brought with her when visiting.
Loads of fun, with people remarking how neat it was that all the different groups of people from so many different places were partying together (usually the Indians and Tibetans stay separate except for a few of the youngest generation.) We learned what new “exotic” foods worked really well (polenta was by far the biggest hit, followed by hummus, yoghurt dip and PB&J - hit desserts were shortbread with nuts and fudge, none of which was left by about 3 pm) and what we won’t bother with next year because it was just too strange for anyone to get into (quiche, span and chopped liver.) We’ll probably just go for all veg except double the order of momos. Our friends who run a restaurant in town are now after me for the recipes for fudge, polenta and hummus. Good choices as they are all with local ingredients and none of them require an oven (which is a rare thing here - mine is juryrigged.)
I couldn’t manage to download actual Christmas music on my slow connection so, out of the many many MP3s on my computer, I created a playlist of international music as appropriate for this group. There was African Orisha call and response chants and Tibetan folk songs, Hebrew invocations, Indian ragas, Spanish ballads, Native American chants and rousing Irish dance music. Somehow it all suited. We finished the party with Ma-Yum, the Danish mother of the current incarnation of the Venerable Kunu Rimpoche (and an old friend from hippie days in Dharamsala) dancing to Jim Morrison and the Doors while we watched the full moon rising dramatically over the Himalayas.
I slept most of the day Monday - it wasn’t a choice, my brain and body kept just turning off where I sat. Tuesday we thought was going to be mellow. We kept saying for weeks that Tuesday was to be our day well-earned rest. We’d have already done Christmas and, in India, one Christmas party is about what you can expect, so we thought the afternoon was likely to proceed quietly with naps, snacks and knitting. Hah! There is a reason why Lena, Nyondo and I got nicknamed “The Mommywizards” by our friends a bunch of years ago. Maybe it’s karma. Or personality. Or an odd sort of blessing or curse. In any case, we tend to attract occurances, particularly occurances in which some combination of practical nurturing and pulling off miracles is required. So… Tuesday morning arrived…
Lena gets a call that Lama Wangdor, our closest friend and the head of the cave community at the top of the mountain is extremely sick with what sounds like a nasty version of the same staph infection that knocked me down a few weeks ago. So off she goes up the mountain with her medical kit and, yes, his face is swollen and he is a really sick person. Sick, but fixable with the right medicines. She starts him on the correct dosage of the antibiotics that we know work on the particular local staphylococcus bacteria that cause these symptoms . Now, around here, you usually give them by injection, which means she’s now running up to the top of the mountain twice a day for the rest of the week as no one else up there is either able or willing to give the great guru a shot in the… um… hip. And he probably wouldn’t let them anyway. Certainly not any of the nuns. Fine practitioners, many of them, but I don’t think I’d feel very good about seeing them with a 5cc syringe in their hands!
Then, while Lena’s there, having been kidnapped by those very nuns for tea and biscuits and gossip, she calls me and tells me that Rimpoche’s auntie’s two pet dogs are extremely ill, that nobody in the retrul has a clue about caring for sick animals (they are terrified of rabies so any sick animal gets tied to a tree far from people and it either lives or dies.) “Bring ‘em home with you,” I agree. We’re not vets, nor do we play them on tv, but we’ve managed to nurse all sorts of critters over the years from a 3 oz baby possum that we raised to a fine, huge adult who was able to return to the wild and propagate more fine, fit possums, to a young squirrel who’d fallen out of his tree and concussed himself, to various injured birds, snakes and an infinitude of cats. The only patients we’ve ever lost have been fish. Fish are hard to doctor. I am also fortunate to count among my friends Dr. Mel Vassey who is a terrific emergency vet in New England and my daughter has worked in shelters, shops and kennels and has a wealth of knowledge. And there is always my secret weapon: the Internet.
So home she comes with a pair of monks helping her carry two dogs who are, indeed, extremely sick. Eyes and noses crusted shut with nasty goop, they haven’t eaten, drunk or peed in 48 hours, after a week of lethargy and depressive behavior. The smaller one was barely conscious, dragging his rear half, unable to use his legs and twitching. Both were breathing with difficulty and coughing weakly, They both had had diarrhea. I did not need to be a vet to be pretty sure that what I was seeing was Canine Distemper. In generally healthy adult dogs, this means they have a 50/50 chance of survival. They’d already been left out in the rain, sun and cold without adequate care for a week so I’m not real optimistic. Which is too bad because I know these dogs and they are sweeties, smart and affectionate and well-behaved. They are also very, very attached to one of my favourite of the cave nuns - 93 year old Asi Dolma who is just frantic about them, but too old to do any significant care, which is how they got to this state.
We lost a litter of kittens to feline distemper in the spring. Baby things only have a 20% chance of survival. It sucks and it can move really fast. Okay. So we make them an enclosed area in the back hall, padded with a source of heat, water, blankets. They just sort of lay there; it’s hard to tell if they’re asleep or unconscious. What I know most about is homeopathy and alternative medicine, but I don’t have the parvo-virus homeopathic remedy here in India nor any way to get it. I do have a few things in my medical kit that work on all creatures. So the first thing I try is Rescue Remedy. To my surprise and delight, they actually perk up a bit within a few minutes after spraying it into their mouths. Still no interest in water or food. Nyondo runs down to town for a chicken and a jug of mutton broth while I do a bunch of distemper research online. What I’m reading is NOT very optimistic. Lena is the doc, she checks eyes, nose, breathing, other orifices and membranes. Nyondo brings back the broth. We offer it to first one then the other. Again, they haven’t really eaten or drunk in 2 days. However this gets their attention. What I do have that I thought might work is some colloidal silver solution so I put about 10 cc in the liquid which Whitey . Spot drinks half of his and goes back to sleep. We wrap ‘em up warm and let them be while we phone various people and try to get the history of the illness and the dogs. I start doing research on what sorts of meds might be needed (antibiotics for pneumonia, anti-seizure meds if there are neurological problems, etc.) and appropriate dosages. Fortunately, pharmacies around here stock veterinary medicines as well as people drugs. Lena goes back up to the caves to give Rimpoche his second shot. We pressure cook the chicken. I strain out some really good broth, water it down, add electrolytes and put a bit by a sleeping dog. Oh yeah! Both of them come alert and slurp up about 8 oz each the first real nourishment in days. Then they go back to sleep. By the time Lena returns, we have supper, give the dogs a bit of water, it’s after midnight. We fall deeply asleep.
In the morning the dogs are more alert. They drink diluted broth and then Whitey lets us know he wants to go out. Nyondo takes him out and he actually pees! Then he begins to explore the neighborhood with interest but not too much energy. He still needs to be carried up the stairs and, by the time he’s back, he’s breathing hard and shallow and coughing, but still seems much more alert. We let them rest and we feed both dogs. Spot is still quiet but likes being petted and cuddled and is awake and aware. They appear to go back to sleep until, as we’re doing our morning routines, Whitey appears. He’s figured out how to get out of the enclosure. He wants to lay on the sun in the balcony. Spot joins him, walking somewhat better than before, moving more easily the farther he walks. They eat a bit of broth and rice and take naps in the sun. Eventually they begin exploring the house!!! We get the impression Spot needs to go out and so he does and does his thing. I’m in my office nibbling these whole wheat digestive biscuits when dogs come in and ask to share. Whitey isn’t so enthused, but he’s eaten a goodly bit of rice broth already. Spot happily downs two biscuits. They continue to explore the house. Lena and Nyondo go out and Whitey makes it clear another outside visit is necessary. This time he is able to go downstairs by himself instead of being carried! We take a nice little walk and come home and then Spot wants out. Nyondo comes back and takes him out. I remember a homeopathic gel I have for respiratory problems, including pneumonia and we apply that to Whitey’s chest and back. At this point they come back in and each downs a small but enthusiastically enjoyed meal of chicken broth and rice. They ignore their enclosure and pile up with Lena on the couch in my office. Whitey’s breathing is still a little fast but no longer laboured and he’s stopped coughing. It has been just about 24 hours since they came into the house.
So, from two dead-looking dogs who couldn’t stand, couldn’t groom themselves, refused to eat or drink for at least 2 days, had crusted eyes and noses and were both wheezing and coughing continually, they have made good progress in the right direction. They are asleep in a place of their own chosing near us, still pretty worn out. But… they have drunk a reasonable amount of fluid for dogs their size, eaten a couple of simple, small meals and filched crackers when my back was turned, are actually walking (mostly Whitey who drags us), investigating the house, asking to be petted and snuggling, self-grooming a bit and have both needed and had the control to go outside to both pee and poop. They are breathing better. Whitey had me worried but has now got the wind to bark when he’s excited or wants attention. Spot is still limping but is definitely walking better than yesterday. Neither of them are twitching and there have been no convulsions. Their eyes are still goopy, but not crusted shut and they seem happy to have warm compresses put on the eyes to clean them gently. They wag their tails when we call their names and tell them (in Tibetan) that they are good dogs. The difference in 24 hours is staggering! At this rate, I have hopes that we might even pull both of them through this! The first night I was extremely doubtful. I fully expected to wake up and find one of them (most likely Spot) hadn’t made it through the night. I do have the proper antibiotics to treat for pneumonia if that seems to go worse as well as veterinary NSAID, both injectible. We also have anti-convulsives and steroids but hope not to have to use any of them. They seemed to be doing fine with alternative medicine, good food, lots of love and warmth and encouragement. The Emergency Fund has now moved into the area of Veterinary Medicine. I fully expect that, by this time next year, I’ll have lame horses and motherless mongooses living on my roof and a goat with tonsillitis in the back bedroom.
So I wrote that yesterday evening. Then last night Lena went up to give Rimpoche his injection and, in the dark, was looking at the gorgeous sky full of stars instead of the path and fell, spraining her ankle badly, banged it up and hitting her head on a rock. She arrives home bleeding and limping. We clean her up (more rescue remedy, arnica and antibiotic ointment) ice her, feed her supper and walk and give more broth to the dogs. Whitey’s breathing is really laboured, his lungs are sounding more and more like pneumonia. So I make the decision that it’s time for antibiotics and we give him an injection. Now we’ve got two sick dogs and a broken doctor. Nyondo and I are running back and forth being nurses. Eventually we get them all settled in their beds. I cannot imagine how we could possibly manage this life without 3 of us working together. We’ve been a team for 14 years now. Lots of people get dogs for Christmas. Mommywizards get dogs in need of rescue. It’s gotta be some kind of karma.
This morning Whitey woke me up barking because he had to pee. Nyondo was already gone to town, Lena couldn’t walk, so I jump out of bed, freezing, throw on clothes and take him down for a walk. He went downstairs himself and most of the way back up himself. His breathing is much better (though he’ll get more antibiotics until we’re sure.) We no longer have to try to tempt them to eat. Spot came over and mugged Lena for her lunch (noodles with cheese sauce) and then Whitey mugged Spot for it. They have good appetites.
They’ve moved into my office which now appears to be the preferred sick room for all the patients to nap.
The cat has decided that they are a team and the primary game is musical food dishes which everyone is participating in tonight.
No hostility at all between cat and dogs, which is really interesting – in fact Leopard seems to be keeping an eye on them the way cats do when someone is sick. We’re not out of the woods yet of course. Distemper is a nasty virus and there’s often a second round of symptoms just as they seem to be doing better, but at least they’re doing all of the activities necessary for sustaining life and seem to have some enthusiasm for it all. For the moment, at least, their suffering is less than it was and I’m cautiously optimistic.
I’ve been trying to write this blog since about 11 a.m. I’ve been trying to do rather a lot of important stuff for about 72 hours. So far, the needs of sentient beings are winning out every time. I’ll do paperwork… later… tomorrow… sometime. It’s 8:30 PM here. I think I’m tired now…
