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By Kara Saltz

Created: 29 June 2023

Our patients loved soaking up the rays with treatments on sunny days.

I cannot imagine having started my career as an acupuncturist in any way other than climbing on a plane and venturing to volunteer in Nepal. My time at the Bajrabarahi clinic was full of unexpected friends, learning a lot about myself, and deepening my relationship to my practice. It had been a difficult decision to leave my partner, pets, and friends, to put off my new job for 2 months, to do something so outside of my comfort zone. But I’d been dreaming of this for 4 years, it felt like something I had to experience, to do. I had traveled alone plenty, but never outside of North America. Now I was venturing into a culture so different from my own and practicing a medicine new to me, in a language I didn’t know. It was daunting. The responsibility of being a primary care physician felt heavy. When I left, I was giddy, unsure of myself, and just curious enough to do it anyways.

Arriving in Kathmandu was full of pure joy to explore a new place. I was driven to learn as much Nepali as possible so I could learn more about the people I met along the way! The trip to the clinic was gorgeous and full of anticipation. What was this clinic in rural Nepal going to be like? Was I going to be able to help in a meaningful way? Would I be able to keep up with the clinic flow? The short answer was yes. Everyone at ARP made this whole experience so smooth and comfortable. Sushila, Satya, Sanita, and Bex were so helpful and willing to discuss cases. They taught me a lot along the way, like how to take blood sugar. And they offered advice on things like where to refer out and what options were available for one of our patients who was at risk for DVT (deep vein thrombosis).

Read more: Beautiful Beginnings

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By Andrew Schlabach

Created: 03 January 2023

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.

Read more: The Ripple Becomes a Wave

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By Agni Larsen

Created: 18 July 2022

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.

Read more: Seeing Nepal in a New Light