Truly affordable healthcare

I took my first of the "precious pills" from the Tibetan Men-Tsee-Khang this morning. I even woke up, took it with warm water, and went back to sleep under some blankets, just like the instructions said! As luck would have it, I also managed to avoid eating putrid food, getting into an accident, and having sex. So far so good!

After some thought I decided that I'd be missing out if I spent four months here, in the center of the Tibetan nation-in-exile, and didn't actually go check out the Tibetan medical facilities. Everyone keeps telling me about how you go in there and they diagnose you based on what your pulse feels like.

I'm intrigued. The 40 rupee price tag makes it even more appealing.

So today after class I went to check it out. I was told to take a number and have a seat by room C3.

After a wait of maybe fifteen minutes (and a line-jumping old Tibetan man), it was my turn. I went in to see doctor, a youngish Tibetan man of maybe 40, who was very kind and soft-spoken. He asked me a few questions, took my pulse in both wrists, and told me he'd write me a script for a couple of different medicines. I have some that I am supposed to take before breakfast, after lunch, and before bed, and then a different one that I take once a week. He also instructed me to "not take too many sweets" and to keep warm, especially on my lower back, and especially in the evenings. 

That sounds easy enough, right? 

After I paid (a whopping 550 rupees for a month's supply of these 4 different medicines, plus the office visit... I might have to move here just for the healthcare) I went over to the "medicine counter" where the women behind the glass read the doctor's order and filled little bags from jars of what looked like malted milk balls.

It's worth a shot, I suppose.

Yesterday in class the book had us practicing the form "What do you think of                 ?" "I like (him/her/it)." In order to do this, we were asked to make lists of famous people. It wanted four each of famous actors, famous actresses, pop groups, and TV "programmes." I had a feeling this was an exercise in futility, so I told my students to change it to famous men, famous women, musicians, and we did leave the TV programs as it was.

Here's the list we came up with:

Gotta love that Tibetan worldview.

Oh, and I also just discovered Memrise. It's like DuoLingo but with about a zillion more lessons. The only potential drawback I can see so far is that the lessons are submitted by users, so I'm not sure how accurate or regulated they are -- it's kind of like a cross between DuoLingo and Coursera. Regardless, DuoLingo does not yet have a Hindi program, so I'm taking my chances here. I also installed the Hindi keyboard so I can accurately type all the new words; it's taking some getting used to.