After a long list of precautions, I arrived at the hospital outpatients department. Thankfully Dr Noel Somasundaram- was able to text me ( I receive my first phone yesterday :D God's provision is great, which means I have a local number which is also very cheap for me to do international calls on :D) So anyways, I at least had an idea of where and when to get there.
The outpatient department was funnily enough like I expected exactly. I was very busy and CROWDED! Goodness, patient walking on patient (or near to) in certain areas. The signposts were all over the place, and I eventually found an English speaking doctor who kindly drew me a map- in the maze of numbers and corridors to get to the Endocrine clinic.
I arrived at Dr Somasundaram's office and we spent the majority of the morning just sorting out what I wanted to do during my trip and also arranged for me to contact the right people.
I then went to introduce myself to Dr Ragunathan in the medical ward- where I would be spending the Wednesday mornings. He was about to start a teaching session with the medical students (lucky for me :)!) So I was able to do this, unfortunately it overran and I was not able to attend the guest lecture (would not have had a clue how to get there)
This would be a good place to point out, the hospital is very much spread out- people at UHNS (City General for the non-medics) have nothing to complain about. Walking around here is certainly not fun when you cannot get decent directions(caus apparently my English is confusing- lol) and did I mention the heat(not too bad, but certainly makes you thirsty) and everything is far and not labelled properly- including on my road map.
I finished early thankfully. My uncle works at the Red Cross office- which is near the public library. After a delay, he got me there (I missed it on the way and no one knew where it was (how can they not know????)) Getting into the library was difficult, as I find in Sri Lanka- big backpacks like the ones I am used to carrying around with everything are not popular. In fact big bags are not popular at all. By this I mean, everything always need to be left at the reception downstairs and/or sometimes exchanged with a key and number. The former is obviously not very safe- thankfully I had my little satchel bag, otherwise I'd been carrying my purse, passport and others in my hands everywhere!
I could not get in the library because I was a foreigner and had no card- which surprised me a bit, because here we can just get into a library without a problem. Anyways, we left the nicely air conditioned building to the study hall located nearby. It was up a couple of stairs and the receptionist(think strict headmistress) did not let me take my books, so up I went with A LOT of books upstairs. The rooms had fans(like everywhere pretty much in Sri Lanka) but they are useless compared to AC, especially during a heat wave. So despite my best intentions, I fell asleep for an inordinate amount of time.
Sleeping a lot seem to be a permanent problem- possibly this 'jet-lag' everyone goes on about.
Other random notes to finish off for today:
Never realised the luxury of being able to drink tap water- all water here has to be pre-boiled first, which is an enormous pain- and unfortunately necessary due to the heat and resulting dehydration. Water can be bought- however my travel guide informs me that some of the bottle are 'fake'- in that people have resealed all bottles with tap water and sold them on. Thankfully not been a problem and it will not be.
Either way, everyone here uses notes for everything- which means you take out tons of notes every times you want to buy something ( I still cannot recognize them). Its very embarrassing. Think about being in a poor country buying water only, and having £200 in your hands. Most people can only speak very basic English which is also frustrating.
I'm getting by so far without any Sinhalese- wonder how long that's going to last?
Did I mention that people's driving here is absolutely I-N-S-A-N-E! + No one wears car belts- except the driver in the middle of seriously insane driving. For all the road rage people in England- seriously have nothing to complain about until you come here. I find myself often praying at some point in every car trip.
Despite all the craziness, I'm absolutely love it here so far. It's pretty and I definitely can imagine myself living here one day- the heat doesn't bother me. This is the only thing that bothers me a bit- as I have had thyroid problems before, and now would not be( or perhaps God's playing yet another joke on me) it is the best place in the middle of an Endocrinology placement. Certainly would be easier to get your thyroid levels checked here- and I suspect cheaper too.
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