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| Happy 14th Anniversary SIRC!! |
Party No. 2 in last week’s back-to-back
party sequence was the 14th Anniversary Celebration of the hospital
I work at, The Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center (SIRC). After the Table
Tennis Center opening, I spent the night in my second home at the Green Building.
Deepak the architect and I stayed up a little too late lauding our success, so
it was a rougher morning than I anticipated.
But I was up at 7 a.m. and packed up my
gear which had grown considerably for this trip to Jorpati. Normally I just
bring a tooth brush and a change of clothes, but for this adventure I had to
haul my camera gear, a guitar and two changes of good clothes. Along with my
normal backpack, I left my room hauling three bulky bags and a guitar.
The SIRC owns a bus that starts and ends its’
90-minute rounds every day in Jorpati. It’s got a very steep ramp and room
inside to seat three wheelchairs comfortably. But for the anniversary they had
invited anyone who had been a patient. By the time the bus would eventually get
to the SIRC on the eastern foothills of the Kathmandu Valley, the bus would be
hauling 20 wheelers and their gear.
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| The SIRC bus on a normal day. |
Those of us who boarded at the starting
point were required to transfer into a regular seat while our chairs were being
staged to be loaded on the luggage rack on top of the bus. I bounced into one
of the first seats, while the lighter women were being carried to seats towards
the back.
With most of us loaded in the bus, the
driver inexplicably decided it was time to turn the bus around so it would go
head first out of the compound gate. There were chairs and wheels all around
him, but he thought nothing of it as he backed around and rolled right over my
left wheel. I heard a clank and thought to myself, “Damn, somebody just got
their chair mushed.”
The driver didn’t stop, he just kept
maneuvering his gigantic Y-turn until I got full view of my maimed,
irreplaceable (on this continent) wheel. One of my friends was still on the
ground and I shrieked at him, “Dude – is that my wheel!!! What the f*ck!!! Let me
see that thing!!”
He brought it over and although the basic
wheel remained somewhat intact, the push-rim had been bent beyond recognition
and the screws that held it to the wheel were mostly destroyed. By now the
driver realized that he hit the one chair he didn’t want to mess with as all
the other chairs have fully replaceable parts. He saw me through the rear view
mirror and it wasn’t a pleasant face. He sheepishly got up and came back to
take a look at the wheel.
This driver speaks no English at all, but
I’m pretty sure he understood when I yelled, “What the F*ck were you
thinking!!”
At this point I’m really freaking out
wondering what has become of the rest of my stay in Nepal. This terrain is the
toughest I’ve ever had to negotiate and having a solid push
rim is essential to holding wheelies and climbing steep
grades. Had the driver expressed any kind of remorse, I would have been upset,
but understanding. But when my friend translated what he was saying, it made me
10-times angrier. He wasn’t saying, “I’m so sorry; I can’t believe I did this;
we’ll get this fixed; can I pay for it.” He was saying, “It’s not my fault;
that wheel must have just slipped; I can’t see out of the side view mirror.”
He saw my incredulous chin drop to
the floor and realized that he might be in jeopardy of losing his job. At
this point he said, “Let’s get It to the shop and work and see what we can
do.” I was in a state of shock and panic, but there was nothing I
could do. I sunk my face into my hands and said, “Let’s get the hell out
of here.”
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| The repaired wheel - believe me it looked a lot worse. |
Two hours after we took off from
Jorpati, we arrived at the gates of the SIRC. Normally there are only a few
wheelers on the bus and we store extra chairs near the cab. But this
bus was overflowing with wheelers. The rack on the top
of the bus was a hodgepodge of wheels, chairs and all sorts of mobility
devices.
When they pulled my rig off the top and
assembled it, I discovered that although the push-rim was trashed, the wheel
rolled fairly true. I rolled down the ramp and right into the repair shop,
where I transferred over to an Indian long-wheel chair for the day. The
long-wheel chairs are super-heavy and instead of two small front wheels, they
have a long bar attached to one fat wheel. While they’re really nice going over rough
terrain, they are absolutely annoying in any kind of urban setting. Half
the paras here ride one, so I figured I’d give it a test run for the day while
my wheel was being operated on.
The festivities started with a time-trial
race around the SIRC inside court yard. Even though I had been in my chair
less than ten minutes, I decided I had to give it a whirl. While I couldn’t
bust around the course like I would in my regular chair, I made decent time.
And as opposed to the 5K I entered the previous week, I did not take last
place!
New wheels - new finishing place (not last!).
As much as I was participating, I was also
documenting the anniversary for the SIRC website and Facebook page. Every time
a new activity started up, I raced to the front with my tripod wedged under my
chin then planted it close to the action. I’ve gotten pretty good at this over
the past few weeks, but with the new chair sticking out two feet in front of me
I had to be really careful with positioning the tripod. I couldn’t do a quick
turn-around or I’d dump the camera. The week before, I’d hijacked Rownika, one
of the patient’s daughters, as my crack assistant. Most patients come with a
family member who stays with them the duration of their rehab which can last
many months.
Rownika is a super smart, super fun, super cute recent university
graduate who speaks great English. I could see she was bored to tears with her
stay at the SIRC, so I took her under my wing and she’s been a great asset ever
since. Whenever I got in trouble, she grabbed the camera and filmed.
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| Ace production assistant Rownika reading a poem about pollution in Nepal. |
After a morning full of games and a huge
lunch for all the guests, everyone moved to the basement where there is a large 200-seat classroom. They use the classroom to teach staff
and care givers, but today it was a performance stage. The finale of the day was a
talent show where anyone who had an act could hop up on stage and show what they had. I knew of a few musicians, but I had no idea of the depth of talent.
Meanwhile back in the repair shop, the
mechanics had taken off my push rim and unsuccessfully tried to bend it back to
shape. Most of the screws that held it to the wheel were bent beyond repair. I
always carry a tube of “Water Weld” (same as “JB Weld”) with me and it came to
the rescue here. Water Weld is a combination of two kinds of putty that when
rubbed together will form a chemical bond that is as strong as steel. We
tightened what screws we could back to the chair, then fastened the rest with
Water Weld. I transferred into my regular chair and made it back down to the
stage just before the program started. Thank god too, because I never could
have gotten that big wheel underneath my piano!
After a brief presentation of the history
of the SIRC, the founder and president of the hospital gave a quick talk and
had a friend of mine from Jorpati, who lives on a prone cart, cut the 14th
Anniversary cake.
It’s at this point where it’s best to just
run the video as the images speak much louder than my words will. But by the
end of the day, my anger had completely dissipated. My chair was a bit of a
noisy wreck, but now it’s officially a Nepalese chair. And being angry just
takes too much damn work!
And for those of you who are brave, here's my full performance:
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