THE CLINIC

The next day we found we had exam supervision for three hours. After the exams we did a stocktake on the clinic. Its a small room with a bed, a desk and a cupboard used to store medicine. It did have a reasonable stock of medicines, though the girls did throw out a lot that was out of date. A nurse comes in every afternoon for an hour to teat any ailments.

In the afternoon we went into the town and bought material to make curtains for the clinic (the young monk who took us in was the fussiest about the colour and pattern), some plastic containers for storage and two thermometers. As it turned out we made the curtains too long – we told the monks that this was on purpose so we could cut some material off each curtain to make a curtain for the cupboard to keep the dust out of it.

The girls discovered an outbreak of scabies amongst the younger monks and set to work treating them with a hair wash, but we fear this will spread further. One of the young monks showed considerable interest in the clinic, and has already been helping the nurse. He wants to study to be a doctor, so we are looking at the costs involved in sponsoring him to do this study.