couth than the usual street kitchen venue. A galley kitchen run on a single gas cooker, a traditional mud
stove powered by fire. It is housed in the original Emergency and Inquiry department before the foreign
lords of earth transformed this rural post into a modern center of medical excellence. Where the injured
and sick used to throng, now sit doctors, assistants, visitors, and patients causally sipping tea and eating
their meals.
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| Kitchen |
here since he was such a trouble maker. We call him “matzik” – a Yiddish term that roughly translates to rouge, a troublemaker. His eyes are always on the lookout for mischief and adventure; he’s continually roving the compound chasing dogs and other children, shooting rocks at monkeys with his sling shot and has a cheeky forward smirk always on his lips and a glint in his eye. He is most likely the bane of his village, the lovable black sheep…
These boys cause us no end of amusement and trouble for only one speaks enough English for us to communicate with, and the rest all have a glint in their eye that makes you question how much they
understand. Whenever we order, they repeat it as if it is the strangest request they’ve ever heard – dhal bhat! Heavens me, they’re ordering Dhal roti! We usually have to order twice and are never sure what
will arrive until it is actually placed in front of us. A sort of truce has been declared at least for dinner
for they have decided that whatever we order, they’ll bring rice and roti. We have started a vocabulary
exchange of sorts; however as the menu varies so little we will soon run out of things to point out to
each other.
In actuality the canteen serves about 4 different things. Dhal is virtually always available for breakfast or
dinner. Sometimes breakfast will consist of dhal with a mashed up samosa, sometimes there are pigeon
peas in a spicy sauce to go with your roti. Most folks tend to take tea and maybe a roll or dhal bhat.
They have become accustomed to our standard order of one coffee, one black tea, and chapatti and
vegetables or eggs. Lunch is a simpler meal and woe be to those who try to order something nutritious!
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| Matzik and Chef... |
fried with some seasoning and vegetables. The brightly colored imported packages line the canteen
shelves cheerfully announcing that they contain “No added MSG!”. Chowmain is a street food classic –
egg noodles stir fried with cabbage, eggs and other vegetables and oil. They serve it on a small metal
plate heaped high, often with a samosa. Asking for dhal causes all sorts of problems – first you are
looked at as if this food was never heard of before in the country. Then whoever is taking your order
yells to the old man in the kitchen to see if there is any left. Than if you’re lucky, they’ll shrug their
shoulders and do the enigmatic head bob that Nepalis and Indians have perfected, and eventually they’ll
bring you dhal bhat. The food comes on a quartered metal plate with one large section and three small
sections. In the large section your rice or roti is placed, usually with a bitter gourd and potato dish. The
bitter gourd is too harsh for our American palates; we pick around it for the potatoes. One small section
contains “Achar” – a red spicy/sour tomato sauce to season your dhal. Sometimes pieces of onion and
chili are also included. Another section has your small bowl of dhal (mung dhal here – good with a
squeeze of lemon) and the last your vegetables – usually a potato curry. All this is yours for 45 Nepali
rupees. Dinner rarely changes – dhal bhat, dhal roti or in our case, in order to be sure they covered all
their bases, dhal bhat and roti. The food is good, tasty, and filling, they will refill your plate until you say
otherwise. This can be a bit awkward if eating in the “doctor’s room” which is further from the kitchen.
One of the boys will run across the road with the special bowl consisting of three bowls welded together
only to be told that the trip was unnecessary.
We usually eat with the other doctors or visitors – sometimes in the “doctor’s room” sometimes under
the sloping eves of the main cafeteria. At night the power cuts in and out often forming a weird staccato
with the television. The coveted table at the main canteen is the blue Pepsi Cola table right next to the
fan. Benches and chairs ring it and it is usually the providence of doctors or assistants to sit there in the
evening. Patients and their families who are not cooking their own food elsewhere sit at the long table
with its backless benches. This table has a clear view of the television and a short trip from the kitchen.
When the rain comes, it comes suddenly and it pounds on the corrugated tin roof. Huge lakes form
under the eaves and mosquitoes dance about in heaven. The rain comes on suddenly and fiercely
here. Often we must remain under the eves until it subsides to a gentle roar. The unfortunate who
are caught out in it scramble for shelter, though they are drenched in minutes. The canteen boys sent
on errands take a small umbrella and come back partially soaked. The hospital is quickly laying down a
stones around the hospital and canteen to alleviate the mud. Laundry sits on the line for days as wave
after wave of rain falls; it’s not worth the trouble to keep collecting it off the line.
One night we sat at the Pepsi table, the doctors playing chess, all of us drinking tea. At the long table sat
two old Nepali men dressed traditionally with Nepali topi hats and the long tunic shirts and linen pants.
They each wore a vest as if chilled in the 90 degree humid night. They could have been brothers, both
grizzled and thin, a day or week’s worth of stubble on their chins. One had an eye patched with white
cotton – a surgical patient, most likely cataract. He still had a piece of cotton wedged in his ear from
surgery to catch any fluid that may drip. It’s a bit unusual to see older men like them at the canteen –
most people come with their whole families and cook for themselves. Perhaps the two came together,
alone without their wives. Perhaps they were widowers – they looked close to 90 but easily could have
been 60. They sat side by side eating their chapatti and dhal. Every time the boys came offering more
chapatti, they took one or two more. Across from them sat a younger man, a patient or a patient’s
relative. He sat eating rice and dhal. All were silent, only grunts and snorts and other bodily noises of
eating and belching that are not suppressed here. They ate quickly; nearly shoveling food into their
mouths as if afraid the plate would somehow disappear in the time their hand migrated to and from
the mouth. Later the canteen boys sat at the same place and also ate, ravenously as young boys do,
in a hurried snatching way, having their fill until the plates were all wiped clean. The television blared
its usual yelps and bangra. In the distance the generator whirled and the compound fell to its muted
reverie…only to begin again early the next day with the first cup of tea at the G. Eye Hospital Canteen.
