Excellencies, Ladies and Gentleman

Wow, it has been a busy week. Last night I went to a concert celebrating the 15th anniversary of the re-establishment of friendship between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Laos. In the introduction and concluding speeches, they addressed us as “Excellencies, Ladies and Gentleman.” I’m pretty sure that the excellencies were only the diplomats in attendance, but it was still funny. The concert was pretty cool. It was sponsored by a “Beautiful Mind” organization of South Korea which aims to promote friendship and peace through music, and to support disabled or underprivileged children in learning music. They played some classical music in the first half, then they had a pianist with cerebral palsy play after an inspirational video about his struggle to gain dexterity in his fingers. The second half was traditional Korean instruments, which was really cool. My favorite was the Haeguem, an upright stringed instrument played with a bow, because the woman playing it moved her shoulders and back when she moved the bow, so it almost looked like the instrument was playing her. They also had traditional drums, a long stringed instrument played with the fingers, and korean flute. For the finale, they played Edelweiss, a russian folk song, a korean folk song, and then a much loved Lao song about the Dok Champa (Frangipani flower) with the korean traditional instruments and piano, violin, and cello. Supposedly, there are only a few classical concerts each year in Vientiane, so I’m glad I made it to this one. Plus, it was inside the Lao cultural hall, which I hadn’t been inside yet, so that was an interesting bonus. Concert etiquette is very different here - people were arriving, leaving, and stepping out for phone calls throughout the concert, and they had the performers use microphones (which I don’t think they would have needed to do for a space that size) but it was free, so I really can’t complain. Afterward, we had dinner at as small Japanese restaurant, and then drinks at the Jazzy room, a bar up a small wooden staircase that had posters of famous American jazz musicians hanging.

On Thursday, my first visitor arrived. Dr. S is an internist doing primary care in America, who has come to volunteer and teach for 3.5 weeks. He originally trained in Hong Kong, but has been practicing in the resource-rich setting of American medicine for the past 10+ years, and I think this is his first trip to the developing world, so he had quite a culture shock on rounds yesterday. For example, on Thursday I saw a patient with likely periodic hypokalemic paralysis (A very rare disorder of suddenly low potassium, often overnight, leading to muscle weakness.) On Thursday we had gotten his potassium lab back and it was 1.54, (ridiculously low, for my non-medical readers) so the residents planned to give oral and IV potassium and recheck the level. Friday morning. In America, this would be completely unacceptable, but here even if there is a lab tech who would run the lab at 4 or 5 PM after replacement, there is no doc to follow up on the result, as there is no formal cross-cover sign out. And his weakness was improved, so hopefully his potassium level was improved as well. Our visitor was shocked that the residents had not checked the level again, whereas having spent 2 months in Africa, once daily labs (at the most) are what I expected when I arrived here. (Bonus: I got to see real live U waves on EKG with this case, for the first time. Not small ones either. I have a copy of the EKG.)

Thursday I finally visited the temple with the little Buddhas. A monk who spoke a little english explained to me that the Stupa collapsed and they found all the little Buddhas. Since Stupas are filled with Buddhist relics or symbolic objects, I guess that finding the little Buddhas was not surprising. It is still pretty cool, though, because they are old. The little Buddhas had been placed on a table and baskets in the main temple which had been closed off, and a small altar set up in front of the table, where people are coming to make offerings of marigolds, incense, candles, and money. I will try to post pictures on Facebook. Thursday evening, at english class I was presented with a coconut pastry and a pineapple pastry for national teacher’s day. At my IM lecture (“GI anatomy”) I was presented with red wine and informed that not only was it national teachers day, but they wanted to keep my cholesterol low. I guess residents come up with the same excuses for drinking red wine worldwide. . . having used this to justify more than one glass of red wine over the past 3 years, I had to chuckle. Though I don’t think I ever combined red wine and a lecture in my day.

Now I am off the market to buy a couple more sin’s (Lao skirts) as I have been told that the residents will get bored of my first 4 soon. I have two medium blue, a purple, and a light blue now, all with horizontal stripes, so I think I’ll look for something pink or purple with vertical stripes.