...about his experiences at the Health Post in Nepal

Hi my name is Kasper Stokbro Nielsen, I am 20 years old and I come from Denmark where I study medicine. I would love to help whoever decides to go to Nepal to do volunteer work, so if you have any questions about work or anything else please send me a mail and I will try to answer as well as I can.

When I signed up for the training program I thought that it was going to be 5 easy days like back in school - I was wrong. The 5 days was really intensive and sometimes my head was spinning after a couple of hours of Nepali language. Because it was so intense I really felt like I learned a lot, but still when I went to Chitwan I found out that it was not nearly enough - I should have spend 2 weeks training before going, but I was in a hurry to get out working. I would like to recommend others to have at least 2 weeks of training. The training was good because I was still the one in charge and could decide when I had enough, and I could decide what to focus on in the language, like pronunciation and communication in general.

I found my stay in Chitwan extremely interesting and I really got to help people with my hands, and I got to do all that the doctor did. I even got to examine and write out a receipt for one older lady with back problems (under the supervision of the Dr of course). At the health post, I also learned about giving injections (which I was very excited about), dressing wounds and sterilizing the instruments. Although I did a lot, I still spent a lot of time just sitting around, sometimes I would actually wish for a bus accident so I would have something to do (I am a horrible person -I know).

Sometimes you just have to be patient and be ready to assist whenever there is an injured person, or a pregnant woman or a child with bad teeth. One day when the doctor already left a man came in with his thumb almost cut of, so I had to hold the thumb together while the nurse found the needles and the thread. You have to be ready for anything. Mostly I learned from the doctors and nurses by watching what they did and then asking if I could try. Some people would not have me touching them with a needle, but then you just have to smile and respect their wishes, but mostly people seemed to cooperate when you where standing in front of them with a huge syringe in your hand. I really loved working there.

My family were great, and they made some very tasty Daal-bhat. Since I come from a small family I was used to having a lot of space around me, but in my family I shared a room with two children, that made me learn a lot about myself and my need for space. Also the biggest annoyance was that I am 6 foot 1 (which really is not my own fault) and all the Nepalese people are 5 foot something, so they have made all the doors 5 foot 9 at the most, so I spend a large part of my day giving myself a headache. All the children laughed at me whenever I banged my head against the wall, but I just casually told them "It's a European thing", they did not believe me. Another annoyance was whenever I walked to the health post a lot of kids would come up to me and say "Hello, What is your name?" (or sometimes just "name" depending on how good their English was), which was fine in the beginning, but then when I walked back the same kids would come up to me and ask me for my name again, and after a week it started getting on my nerves. But after 6 weeks most of the kids knew my name, which made it all worth it.

Kasper Stokbro Nielsen
Denmark