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IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore visits art factories in China
• Dalton Deedrick concludes his story about volunteering in Africa
• Jean Sterling writes about anaesthesia
• Marilyn Magid forwards a story about a hospital visit
• Gerrit deLeeuw sends some thoughts for the weekend
• Bruce Galway and Pat suggest interesting websites

Pat Moore describes more of her extracurricular activities in China:

VISITING JADE AND CLOISONNE FACTORIES

After meeting the medical group from Sweden and the UK, and Chin had finished with her work as interpreter at the international conference, I decided to take any time off to visit several factories still on my list. The medical group was just a few short blocks from the hotel so it was easy to make arrangements, and they were able to arrange cars for all of us.

The factory visits are not in any particular order but just as my memory comes back. I had always admired the beautiful fifteen hundred year old artwork in cloisonne items so I was thrilled when Chin arranged a visit. Previously I had no idea of how many items could be enhanced with the intricate artwork, and after the tour I was able to buy several items in the jewellery, vase, and desk accessory sections.

The jade factory was fascinating, with hundreds of men and women working on pieces of all sizes. Jade is a favourite good luck symbol of Chinese culture, with different colours of jade representing different wishes. One medium-sized pendant caught my eye as it was white with many poems inscribed on it in minute detail so that it had to be sold with a powerful magnifying glass, encased in a cloisonne case, so the poems could be read. It was too expensive but I really wanted it, and when Chin volunteered to translate the poems into English and send them to me, I weakened and purchased it. Sure enough, eight months later Chin sent the translation of all the poems. Sometimes it is good to give in to temptation as it has been a conversation piece ever since.

When Chin realized that I really liked jewellery that had some history or meaning, she told me about a special shop she thought I would like, and one day we started off to find it. Needless to say, I found many items but one group caught my eye - it was a group of antique poker chips. The Chinese are noted for their love of gambling and hundreds of years ago they used mother of pearl cut into different shapes to represent the money. I found three round ones about 1-1/2 inch in diameter that I thought would look nice encased in gold circles, and could be used as interesting pendants. I chose the one that had a beautiful flower on the front and a rice paddy scene on the back for myself and got the other two for my daughters. It is one of my favourite pieces and I wear it almost every day on a gold chain. The receipt stated that it was over 100 years old so there was no customs tax to pay. Apparently I should have bought many more of the antique poker chips as they are almost impossible to find now as tourists discovered them and now the price is about 1000% more for each piece.

The factory training school for cutwork and embroidery art pieces was the most intriguing as it consisted of about 12 floors, with each floor concentrating on a type of handwork. We had lots of time that day and since Chin was with us, we took the opportunity to chat with many of the workers. On the lower floors they were mainly girls from about 12 years old up who had been chosen for their excellent handwork, and as their skills improved, they would work their way up to the higher floors. When we visited the higher floors, we were thrilled to see handwork of museum quality that was unbelievable and of every size. The upper floors that concentrated on the silk and wool embroidery also had equal numbers of both male and female students.

Again, it was the same system as mentioned previously. If a child was recognized as gifted in handwork, she would be sent to work with a master nearby, and if talented enough, would finally be offered training in the factory we were visiting - which was a great honour for both the family and the child. We asked Chin to inquire what happened to the ones who did not have the talent to move up to the museum quality and she told us that everyone who graduated from this training centre would immediately be offered many jobs - perhaps for dining and bedroom linens or household accessories, and of course the top students would work for the art galleries, or perhaps the government to work on special historical or commissioned pieces.

Somewhere about the 5th or 6th floors we passed the common floors and we asked Chin if we could get permission to visit. It was a combination of dormitory and eating area, and designed so that the younger ones could mingle and see the honours bestowed on the talented ones from the upper floors. Chin said the competition was fierce and graduates would be assured of a future good life for themselves and their families at home.

Just before the medical group left for home, Chin and I took them to a bookstore and we all had a delightful day picking up books, and a farewell lunch. There is no customs tax in Canada on books, so on the way back to the hotel I asked Chin to find a store that carried trunks so that I could put all my purchases into one and ship it home, rather than carry many large bags. The Chinese are great entrepreneurs and the rule was one or two pieces of luggage into China - many pieces out. This resulted in many factories being built near the major airports so that people could buy the necessary extra luggage to take all their purchases home. I found exactly what I was looking for - a long, narrow trunk that would fit on the baggage flat trolley and the conveyor belts into the plane. I was happy to pay the enormous amount of $20 Canadian for the handsome trunk fitted out with six strong carrying handles and many brass fittings.

The trunk required four men to carry it into the airport (books are heavy! plus all the other items I had bought) and since I had all the required receipts, customs did not need to open it at the airport or in Vancouver. However, when I reached Calgary, they informed me that the trunk had been damaged before arriving in Calgary, and they offered me several plastic bags and boxes for my items, or they would send them by bus to Red Deer. Since we had a car waiting, I elected to take everything with me to avoid further accidents, and they assured me they would be in touch and replace the trunk. About nine weeks went by during which there were several messages left saying they were still trying to replace the trunk. Finally, since they could not find anything like it with all the brass fittings and the special carrying handles, they suggested they would send me a cheque for $200 and I could find one myself. I really thought it would be an interesting trunk to have in the house with a lot of great memories, but it was a nice profit, nevertheless!

To be continued.

Jade bracelets Cloisonne bracelets Carved jade pendant

Dalton Deedrick concludes his story of

AN AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

Jack, meanwhile, was sent upcountry about 50 miles to work in a government hospital, administered by the diocese. It was a 90-bed hospital with an average occupancy of about 120. It was a nursing- training school, but had no electricity in the wards, just kerosene lamps. The operating room had a large window close to the operating table, so all surgery was booked for daylight hours. There was a generator and a night light for surgery if it was urgently needed. A fully modern sterilizer and x-ray machine, donated by some organization, stood idle - not enough generator capacity, and the wrong voltage! With this kind of facility, the resident doctor, with Jack assisting, was doing amputations, caesarian sections, and abdominal surgery.

Less dramatic but often lethal were the cases of malaria, with its late complications, snake bite, machete cuts, and the usual accidents and fractures. One poor fellow I remember was being treated after losing half his face and one eye. He had loaded up an very ancient muzzle-loading gun with extra powder with the intent of shooting an elephant which was trampling his garden. The gun blew up instead. The staff though he would survive if the infection didn´t get out of control.

The back yard of the hospital, a large clear area, was dotted with people cooking food over tiny charcoal or wood fires. The food would be millet or maize "ugale," a thick porridge, with a few greens added. This would be taken into the hospital to feed their related patients. At night they would sleep in the wards beside the patients´ beds. Our Canadian health care system may have some flaws, but when I hear complaints, I can´t help but think back to Africa.

At about the mid-point of our assignment, the bishop suggested we have a holiday, and gave us one of the church vehicles to take for a circle tour of the country. School was out, and as three women teachers wanted to go up to Nairobi, we made a party of five and headed up the "Great North Road" toward Arusha. The road was long and totally without toilet facilities. After a few hours, someone in the party rather timorously announced that we really had to make a convenience stop. "Okay," said Jack, "girls to the left, boys to the right," and everyone scurried to the mearest patch of bushes. These little off-road excursions were not without hazard; we were in dangerous game country, and snakes were common in the region. The stops were short, and no one was bitten by anything more deadly than mosquitoes.

Arusha was the spot where the journalist, Henry Stanley, after months of trailing, finally caught up with a party led by a bearded white man, and offered the much-quoted greeting, "Doctor Livingston, I presume?" A big old tree just outside our hotel was pointed out as being the very spot where the meeting occurred. Who knows? Maybe it was.

I had enjoyed hunting from my teen years, and as we drove into Arusha I dug out a scrap of paper with a name and phone number on it. The name had been given to me by someone who said, "This fellow is a first-rate big game guide and outfitter." A phone call put us in touch, and by good fortune, the man was not off in the bush, and yes, he could work us in for a short hunting trip, starting the next afternoon. What a break! Every hunter dreams of one day hunting in Africa.

Next morning was spent getting the required permits and loading the guide´s big Toyota Land Cruiser with supplies for the trip, plus a tracker, skinner, camp boy, Jack and me, the guide, and his young son. Some load! We drove southward until the road faded into a faint trail, then across miles of savannah grass to a treed campsite, probably about 50 miles from Arusha. Over the next day and a half we saw hundreds of animals and collected five trophies to send home for mounting.

We did not see any of the three major trophy animals, lions, elephants or rhinos, but we walked in rhino tracks while trying to get a clear view of a cape buffalo. We didn´t quite catch up to the buffalo either, and maybe it was just as well. The ponderous double- barrelled .450 the guide gave me to use was, he cheerfully assured me, "designed to kill at one end, and cripple at the other." I never had a chance to use it, so I can´t verify the statistics. For smaller game, a .375 H&H was used, more than adequate for antelope and zebra. We could have taken several more of different species, but just a small sampling was all I wanted.

The part of the hunt that stays clearest in my memory was that of sitting around the campfire after sundown, a good supper finished, a velvet-black starlit sky overhead, and the night sounds of the chuckling hyenas, the chattering baboons, and the chirps and murmurs of unknown birds and insects all around the camp. When I read of the desecration of Africa in the years that followed, the overpopulation, the land mismanagement, the poaching, I could weep.

While we were on our hunting safari, the teachers had gone by bus to Nairobi. We drove up to collect them and to start the second half of our circle tour towards home. The end of our first day found us at a nice lodging well up on the flank of Mount Kilimanjaro. By good luck, the usual clouds around the peak had parted and we had a great view of its snow-cap, topping at over 19,000 feet. Except for the altitude, Kilimanjaro is not a difficult climb, and at 4 a.m., two parties left the lodge to make the ascent. We wished them well and went back to sleep.

Once more in Dodoma, it was back to work. Really, we hadn´t deserved a holiday, but the offer was too good to pass up. Jack was promoted from the bush hospital to a better facility much closer to Dodoma. He became an instant celebrity at his new posting when he stepped outside one morning to find a large puff adder beside the walkway. He grabbed a big garden hoe, or "jembe," and neatly sliced off its head. Snakes were not generally much of a problem except in the rainy season. Then they would seek higher and dryer ground, and that´s where people had their houses. Cobras and pythons were common. On one drive we nearly ran over a cobra on the road, and within minutes spotted a big - probably ten feet long - python sunning itself on a rock sticking up out of a small pond.

Big creatures like lions, buffalo, snakes and so on, were really no problem. The bad things were the bugs. Malaria and its complications kill hundreds every year. Trachoma and river blindness, yaws, guinea worms and elephantiasis were endemic, and these diseases were contracted from mosquitoes, flies, and snails. The "Europeans," as all white people were classed, were not often affected. Simple precautions like sleeping under mosquito netting, taking our chloroquine tablets, avoiding wading in puddles, and of course, promptly treating any suspicious symptoms, kept all of us healthy. Actually, the highlands of all East Africa has a wonderful climate, and is a healthy place to live.

Too quickly our term came to its end. It was truly hard to say goodbye to those wonderful, dedicated people who were giving up so much in the way of home and family life in far-away lands, to bring some health and enlightenment to the darker corners of this truly beautiful country. Certainly those weeks spent on the Dark Continent gave us memories that will never fade.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling writes about anesthetics: I had a recent "procedure" done. Somehow "procedure" seems like a mild word for orthopedic surgery, which always seems to me like something one would do in a garage or workshop The anesthesia of choice in my case was propofol, which is the same drug that did in Michael Jackson. It worked like a charm. One minute I was talking to the doctor and his assistant and the next thing I knew, it was over.

In my situation I don´t know if acupuncture would have sufficed as the procedure involved the assistant applying traction while the doctor put my upper arm bone back into the shoulder joint from whence it came. Just before the propofol took effect, the doctor said that he had asked my husband to leave the room (we were in the ER) as some people become upset by the loud POP when the bone goes back in place. I´m glad I didn´t have to hear it either. The downside of propofol is that it has more risks than acupuncture, for sure!

Speaking of anesthesia, those singing anesthetists were very good.

Marilyn Magid forwards this story about the

RESULTS OF ANAESTHESIA

A male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, still heavily sedated from a difficult four-hour surgical procedure. A young student nurse appears to give him a partial sponge bath.

"Nurse," he mumbles from behind the mask, "are my testicles black?"

Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don´t know, sir. I´m only here to wash your upper body and feet."

He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"

Concerned that he may elevate his vitals from worry about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and sheepishly pulls back the covers. She raises his gown, holds his penis in one hand and his testicles in the other, lifting and moving them around. Then, she takes a closer look and says, "There´s nothing wrong with them, sir."

The man pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her and says very slowly and clearly:

"A r e - m y - t e s t - r e s u l t s - b a c k?"

Gerrit deLeeuw forwards these

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKEND:

Wouldn´t it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press "Ctr-Alt-Delete" and start all over?

If raising children was going to be easy, it never would have started with something called "labour"!

Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

Garden Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

In the ´60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I´ll squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out?"

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there? I´m gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if he´s going to look up there anyway?

A good friend Is like a good bra: Hard to find, supportive, comfortable, and always close to your heart!

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway!

THIS WEEK´S SUGGESTED SITES

Bruce Galway writes: If you have ever thought about travel to the Antarctic, this series of photos will help you make your decision:

http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/antarctica/

Pat Moore suggests this site for a video of Chinese acrobats on bicycles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerSsjmUcf4

And for a time-lapse view of Toronto´s CN Tower, Pat sends this URL:

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/flash/cntower_timelapse.swf

Remember Monty Python´s skit of the dead parrot? Here it is again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE&feature=channel