News Blog | Acupuncture Relief Project | Volunteer Community Health Clinic

The Ripple Becomes a Wave

Details: Created: 03 January 2023; By Andrew Schlabach

Our patient sits on a mat that is hand-woven with rice stalks, separating her from the cold stone floor. It’s early and our clinic hasn’t opened yet but this woman’s family called us to come have a look at her. It’s brisk and my fingertips sting and yet the morning sun is doing its best to cut through the frost. The house is made of concrete and clay bricks. It’s unpainted and is adorned with a simple corrugated metal roof. By the looks of it, 8-10 family members live here and they are all gathered around the small outdoor courtyard where the family does its daily chores. A couple of goats, staked in a pen, happily munching on some dried grasses are apparently oblivious to the small crowd of people. Chakkhu Maya Gopali, our patient, appears to be in her seventies. She is barefoot but dressed in a winter-weight kurta made of a bright red, black, and yellow fabric. Around her head and shoulders, she is wrapped in a thick wool shawl. Even before she says “jhumjhum”, meaning tingling, I can see by the way she is sitting that she is having a stroke. I’ve seen this same scene many times.

Seeing Nepal in a New Light

Details: Created: 18 July 2022; By Agni Larsen

The morning sun glitters through the windows and my rhododendron plant stretches its leaves up to reach the light. I put on the kettle and sit down to eat my oatmeal with banana and soymilk, a breakfast poles apart compared to the roti with potato and chickpea curry I'd become accustomed to in Nepal. My city here in Victoria, Canada is famous for its rhododendrons, but the 100-year old plants look like babies in comparison to the rhododendron forests I have just witnessed while trekking through the Annapurna region; truth be told the plants are so bountiful that the local Nepalese verily use them for firewood to supply their wood-burning stoves.

I ended my volunteering experience in the village of Bajrabarahi, Nepal with the Acupuncture Relief Project only four weeks ago now, yet the atmosphere, pace and the patients' faces are still etched in my memory. I have been reflecting on my time in Bajra since returning to Canada and the difference in practitioner-patient dynamics compared to what I typically encounter here in the West. I was fortunate to travel to Nepal and volunteer alongside my husband Gavin, who is also a Registered Acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner. It was his first visit to Nepal and sharing the work-day with him and the exceptional Nepali practitioners Satyamohan Dangol and Sushila Gurung, intern Sanita Gopali and interpreters and clinic staff Amrita Gopali and Sushila Waiba, was truly a dream-team manifest. Returning to Nepal, for me, after eleven years away from a country where I spent four years of my creative years from age twenty-four to twenty-seven immersed in a BA program in Tibetan Buddhism at Kathmandu University was strangely familiar, yet this time entirely new.

Volunteers Back in Nepal

Details: Created: 05 May 2022; By Michelle May

When I arrived in Nepal I was an anxious graduate student fresh out of acupuncture school during the Covid-19 pandemic. Having spent two years practicing medicine over zoom, I was nervous and doubtful about my skills as an acupuncturist. From the moment I arrived, everyone greeted and welcomed me with open arms. Satyamohan, Sushila, and the interpreters made me feel right at home and a part of every conversion. After just a few days with my new ARP family, all my worries melted away and I quickly found my new routine. The clinic is cleverly designed and well stocked, everything I could have needed to treat patients was provided and I was learning at a light years pace. The integration of the lifestyle clinic and neighboring health post is the perfect blend of Eastern and Western medicine. Together they are able to provide the patients with excellent primary care that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. One of the greatest advantages of working with the ARP was the ability to see a patient for 20-30+ visits. Seeing improvement with each treatment and trying different modalities was invaluable and rewarding. During my stay I’ve been able to regulate high blood pressure/sugars, reduce or eliminate complex pain syndromes, and support tremor/stroke rehab just with acupuncture. It blows my mind what few needles and Traditional Chinese Medicine can do.