Health Concerns

Ever since Delhi, I’ve been fighting a cold/horrible air quality illness. It’s not bad at all; I’m just a little sniffly and congested most of the time. While I figure that it will go away after a while, Timila and her mother are very concerned with my health and my “common cold,” as it is always referred to as in Nepal. After a few days of hearing me sniffle through dinner and on the way to and from school, they insisted that I undergo the treatment that they usually use to treat the “common cold.” I was tired of the stuffy nose and sore throat in the morning, so I certainly had no objections.

Me receiving the 'common cold' treatment at Timila's house in Nepal.
Definitely an interesting experience.

The first stage of the treatment is to boil water with cloves. The water is then poured into a metal vase/pot sort of thing and a few drops of a minty herbal oil are added. Then I sit on my bed, hold the pot to my face, and Timila covers my entire body with the large, dense comforter that keeps me warm every night. I then remained covered with the steam in my face for about 15 minutes. I underwent this treatment three nights in a row, and I believe that it actually did help me to feel better. If nothing else it temporarily cleared out my system so that I could actually breathe through my nose, which hasn’t happened for quite awhile.

There are also many little health warnings or suggestions that Timila gives me on a daily basis. One is that before I eat anything in the morning, I must drink black tea and then milk tea, or else my stomach will be upset. One day while we were doing laundry (in a large, pan-like bucket), I of course, managed to get water all over my pants, and Timila insisted as soon as we were through that I needed to change my pants, or else I would catch a sickness that would give me diarrhea. While I wasn’t used to it at first, I definitely came to like having someone that could inform me of any impending health risks as I more or less blindly fumbled my way through the foreign land. Maybe if Timila had been giving me health advice through the end of the trip, I could have avoided my grim fate involving food poisoning in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which I am still getting over (as of 4/6).