I See Hope Everywhere in this Picture: Walk With Me and I Know You’ll See It, too.
I can imagine that the hope in this picture isn’t obvious at first glance, or maybe even after several. It’s the kind of picture that needs a guide to tell the story, to peel away the many layers of hope here and let you see them all. I have great pictures during my trip to Nepal with Above and Beyond Cancer, and this is one of my favorites.
On our second day in Nepal we went to the Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital and met staff, cancer survivors and patients, and toured the hospital and grounds. We broke up into groups and Mark Ponto, a radiation therapist, and I went on a comprehensive tour with Dr. Neupane, the medical director of the hospital. He is a surgeon who has an astonishing skill set for the types of oncology surgery that he does, knew all of the staff by name and seemed to know every patient. We were outside with him when I took the picture of the children on the ramp.
Hope point # 1: Happy Children . Lots of them, everywhere. I smiled and thought about how cute these little boys were and how they might be in training to be the first Nepali Ninja Warriors, as I watched them navigate their way down this not very stable ramp under construction, still tied together with rope in places, welded in others. I’m a blacksmith’s daughter, and couldn’t help myself….went over to inspect the ramp construction.My Dad would have approved.
Hope point #2: Necessity is the mother of invention, and creativity abounds. Dr. Neupane explained that this ramp was necessary because that part of the hospital had 4 floors and no elevator and post –op patients had to be carried up and down the stairs, a painful and difficult process. The staff and families are very excited about the addition of this ramp.
Hope point #3: A free place to stay. These children were part of a family staying at the building next door, where up to 30 people could stay for free while they visited and took care of their loved ones with cancer in the hospital. There is no hospital food service. The families get food and bring it in to the hospital and feed their loved ones. Many of these families come from far away villages and would have no other place to stay if it weren’t for the benevelance of the hospital.
Hope point #4: Beauty, literally out of nothing. As we stood by the ramp, Dr. Neupane showed us where the garden we would be planting the next day was and explained that there was nothing there, literally. Just a cliff, until they back filled it with dirt to make a space for the garden. He said there is no land available to expand the hospital grounds, so they back fill when they need more space . The area that Mark is standing on is a road that they made last year.
The next day we worked together all day on the garden. I really enjoyed working with my friends from Above and Beyond and creating something permanent that the hospital would use, full of marigolds and zinnias, whose pigments are used to make tikkas.
Hope point #5: Our Above and Beyond team inspired hope. I was fascinated to watch so many people take pictures of us as we walked through the hospital, planted the garden, and later in the week, toured the Kanti children’s cancer hospital. Everywhere…..with smiles on their faces and kindness in their eyes, there were families of Nepali cancer patients, a woman mopping the floor, nursing staff, physicians, gardeners, women hanging the laundry outside to dry, taking our pictures. Even the welders working on the ramp came down a couple of times to pick up a camera and snap our picture as we worked on the garden, and then climbed back up the ramp to weld some more, but kept their eyes on us. That’s the picture I really wanted to have…the welders taking pictures of us. I thought it would be awkward and change the moment, so I decided to live in the moment instead. I watched my Above +Beyond colleagues throughout the week and was so proud of them, wearing the t-shirts, showing soldiarity and compassion, working together. And the welders and the gardeners and the woman hanging out the laundry saw the same things that I did. We showed up, we saw, we listened, we cared… and we could see the hope that recognition and being seen and being heard inspires. Hope and human connection are where all great things start. The tour is over. Take another look at that first picture, imagine the welders coming down from the ramp, and feel the hope.:)
