The Diet is over and ...

So, I completed the seven days' GM diet that I spoke about in my previous entry on this blog. The experience can be summed up as follows:

It was a unique diet, for sure. It was unlike any of my previous meals, diets, or weight-losing experiments. I have eaten all the things that I had to eat during the week I was on the diet, but never in this way, and in such combinations! I ate only fruit on day 1, only vegetables on day 2, only tomatoes and beef on day 5, and only milk and bananas on day 4! In this manner, the diet took me on a journey where I learned to discover how to control my urges to eat junk food, how not to crave for milk-tea, how to avoid eating any form of rice/wheat or other cereals (the diet only permitted brown rice on day 7) and how to avoid carbonated beverages altogether. Imposition of rules can cure even a person like me who can never resist all the above things in his daily diet!

In the end, I lost just 2.5 kg in 7 days, against a standard of 5 kg or even more reported all over the internet where GM diets are described, debated and discussed. I lost nothing from my waist or hip measurements; on day 6, in the evening, I experienced an episode of a low blood sugar, which led me to run and get myself some much-needed carbs; in that spell, I swallowed a tablespoonful of sugar, as well as about 4 medium-sweet cookies. This extra load of food rich in carbs must have blunted my diet-effects, for, on the next day, I had not lost, but actually gained a few hundred grams!

Where else did I cheat? One of my favourite foods is munching on dry fruit; my kitchen has a large tin with mixed, unsalted, plain dry fruit (cashew nuts, pistachio nuts and almonds); from this, I drew about a dozen or two of the nuts and ate them slowly on the 4th, 5th, 6th and the 7th days. In addition, I had one can of zero-cal Pepsi on day 5, a few extra helpings of sweet foods on the evening of day 6 when I went to the local garden to meet all the other Al Muwayh doctors to give a farewell party to our medical director Dr. Shehabeldin and a little excess of an allowed food on some of the days. 

Thus ended my fad diet of a week. I am inspired by some of the internet commentators who have been repeating the same schedule for a week each month. And, Allah willing, I plan to do the same as well. Thus, I will once again follow the GM diet in the last week of November, the last week of December and so on. 

Today was the eighth day. I am back to eating my normal food, but I continue to drink tea sans milk. And I haven't felt the difference.

  

Are patients always nice to doctors in practice?

The title of today's post came to me as a sort of reflection in reaction to obnoxious behaviour by one of the patients who I saw yesterday night. The specifics of the case were as follows: I was called by the ER resident to the hospital at about mid-night on Saturday/Sunday. The indication was to see a 4-year old spastic child who had come with cough, had a feeding tube in his nose, and was found to have slightly low oxygen levels in the blood (as detected by an instrument applied to the thumb). 

The child was brought by his parents from a village that is over 65 km from Al Muwayh. They wanted the feeding tube changed and needed medication for the cough. The father was an overprotective person who was vigilant about what was being done to his son, and kept reminding me of the various steps in the management of the child. And, mind you, he had no politeness about him. He grew increasingly impatient while I tried to clear the child's throat and nose with a suction machine. The oxygenation levels immediately jumped from the mid-80's to about 97%, which is a very healthy level. Next, I proceeded to remove the old feeding tube and began to insert a new one through the same nostril. The father gruffly indicated that he wanted me to pass the tube through the other nostril, thank you.

However, there was some bone or cartilage that prevented the easy passage of the tube through the other nostril - and this happened, not once, but twice. Whereupon, the father, incensed at my "inefficiency", abused me and raised his hand to hit me, but his wife stopped him. He then refused to allow me to continue the management, and I had no option but to leave the child and complain about his bad behaviour to the ER Manager. The latter, I am sorry to say, did not intervene on my behalf, and almost apologised to the patient's father, who deserved no apology. He (the manager) then asked me to suggest someone else in my place to come and pass the feeding tube. I spoke to the anesthetist on duty, and the latter then came and passed a new tube through the SAME NOSTRIL  the old one had been removed from.

The incident had an adverse effect on me, naturally, as no patient had ever abused me in the Kingdom. I am sharing this incident only to highlight this one incident; no reader should think that this is the NORMAL way patients' relatives behave with the doctors. In fact, the indigent population of Al Muwayh has the greatest respect for the hospital and its staff, doctors and nurses both. 

I have had many patients actually prefer me over my colleague, just as some patients have preferred my colleague over me ... which is an acceptable thing, really, as such preferences exist all over the world. Patients, after having known me for over 18 months now, are friendly, invite me to their homes for breaking the fast, appreciate my diagnostic skills, and speak out their problems candidly before me. Hence, no, I have not normally been a victim of abuse from crude patients, and it has been a privilege to know my usual patients and their families.

If there are doctors, or if the readers have experiences of their own to relate to me, please do comment in the section below, and share the experiences with me and the other readers of this blog. Thank you so much.

Nearly half done ... Ramadan goes on ... as does life.

Life has a way of creating events that we generally do not foresee. I have often desired one thing, and planned for it, and been diverted into a completely different direction. Belief by the devout Muslim is that Allah is with you all the way, and when you appear to be thwarted, He is actually protecting you against harm that you did not foresee, or is diverting you to better action that you may get benefit from. I have come to believe this, although I cannot really claim to be a devout Muslim by any stretch of imagination. I just try to be a good human being.

In my conversations with Muslim friends both here and in India, I have been told that once one says that one is a good Muslim, the statement that one is a good human being is implied. I am not sure that this is the case. For example, if you read or see the news events of revolutions happening in the largely Muslim world of the Middle East, you will find that the actions of some very devout Muslims translates to deaths for other, also devout, Muslims. Would you then call being a good Muslim also an act of good humanity? Whether one is talking of Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, the UAE or any other ME country, innumerable such examples can be provided where an act by a "good" Muslim has led to pain, misery, poverty, death and destruction. 

Those who claim that terrorists aren't really Muslims will probably rubbish my observation; the truth is, however, that these perpetrators ARE recognised as "Good" Muslims by their own supporters, who may number in their millions. Supporters of Mr. Mohammad Morsi, for example, belong to the "Muslim Brotherhood" or the "Ikhwanul Muslemeen". Mr. Morsi has been overthrown by his own countrymen, who, too, are Muslims. Both sides claim that they are in the right. Both sides comprise huge swathes of the Egyptian population. How can this be explained as an act of the benevolent religion that is called Islam?

I had planned to go for Umrah this week, but my plan was thwarted by an act of the Ministry of Health. Suddenly, they wanted a Pediatrician to go for substitutional duty in Al Khorma, a town that is about 170 km away from Al Muwayh. This time, it was my colleague Dr. Yasser's turn to go, and this effectively put paid to my plans and I am therefore right here in Al Muwayh, doing my duty as the lone pediatrician. It means that unless I wrangle a day from Dr. Yasser when he comes back on Thursday, I won't be able to perform the Umrah during Ramadan at all, as he proceeds on his annual vacation on Friday night. This also means that for nearly two months from then on, I won't be able to leave Al Muwayh until the fourth week of September, when he is due to return.

This is the chain of events that led to the substance of this post. Do let me know your experiences when you wanted to do something, and something unexpected came up and "spoiled" the fun for you. Thank you.

Staying in Missan - Days 2 to 7 (June 2 to June 7, 2013)

Readers of my blog must have already read the last post before this, where I described the circumstances surrounding my going to Missan as well as my arrival and the first evening spent in the room inside the Male Ward. In this post, I am going to describe how my next six days went ... and at the end of week, how I returned to Al Muwayh.

Each day was like any previous (or following) day. What changed were the faces I saw, the people I met, and the experiences I accumulated. On the second day evening, I encountered a child who had accidentally ingested an unknown but potentially dangerous quantity of a skin lotion; we gave him the goods, and he emerged unscathed. On the third morning, I discovered that unlike other locations I have worked at (including Al Muwayh), Missan hospital has established an unique and very robust morning conference, where the Medical Director convenes a meeting of all the specialists in a specially designated "conference room" and turn by turn, the specialists present the cases seen by them the previous day. I also met many new doctors and nurses, both in the ER and in the OPDs. Some of them I have stored in my brain as casual contacts, and a few, I grew slightly more close to, so that I can perhaps be good friends with them, should I need to go to Missan again in the future.

One of these was Sister Aimee, who was on night duty in the male ward on my second night. She and I hit it off rather well, and I learned something of what she calls the "Law of Attraction". Don't get me wrong ... it has nothing to do with attraction between people in the way you think; rather, it has to do with an unique policy everyone should adopt ... believe in your own self, and think positively, because, if you do so, the universe conspires to bring that which you truly desire, to you. I was reminded of Paulo Coelho's book which deals with some of the same things (The Alchemist). The next night, she prompted me to watch a 90 minute documentary on the very same topic, and I was almost convinced that the philosophy seemed workable. I resolved to start acting more positively from then on.

I tried for the first few days to liven my stay by connecting the room TV set (which only showed one channel - the Kaaba channel) to my set-top box, but in spite of numerous efforts to get the thing going, I was unable to fix the problem. I resigned myself to shutting off the TV altogether.

The lack of a good internet signal was extremely frustrating, and the search for a site with a better signal ultimately took me outside on the road, where they have made a pedestrian bridge to cross the road. It is not in use, and I climbed up this till I was fairly above the road. To my utter surprise, when I tried to link my laptop from there, the connection was established rather easily, and I completed all my "internet based work" here before returning to my room. Over the next few days, I would return to this location repeatedly, but always after Maghrib prayers, to surf the net. However, it became increasingly more cold out in the dark, and I was therefore forced to look for alternative solutions. It was then that I discovered that many of the nurses had WiFi in their rooms in the hostel within, and it would be possible to sit in the hospital grounds and access this WiFi, provided I knew the password. It was on the penultimate day that I received the password from one of the nurses (Sister Nursia from the D.R. or the "delivery room"), and I was able to do some amount of surfing as a result of that. 

To tell you the truth, I also went twice in the week to Dr. Bala's house, and we had dinner together. Those two evenings, I used his internet connection to surf the net and do my work. On the first occasion, we ate leftovers of food from his refrigerator, and on the second occasion (Thursday 6th June), Dr. Bala prepared sada dosa with chutney and sambar, and this was delightful to eat. In fact, we had a third outing together to a local Sudani/Yemeni restaurant, where we ordered chicken and rice. While one of the chickens was a simple tandoori preparation, the other was cooked over a row of hot stones kept astride the fire that burned from below. We rounded off the meal with a cold drink.

The flow of patients was very, very poor, and this made the passage of time very slow indeed. However, it was my good fortune to meet four very nice ER doctors ... they kept up the conversation with me and helped me pass the time. These doctors were Drs. Akil (the ER head, a Pakistani), Shafi (a M.D. Gen. Med. from Bihar, India, who is working here in the Kingdom as a ER doctor), Eftikhar (a Sudani young woman who is here since the past eight months) and Erama (also a young, Sudani woman who is here since a year). Over the four or five days that we interacted, I think I gelled well with all of them, and also a few more doctors such as Dr. Shadi (a Syrian ER doc who is a friend of Dr. Measser from Al Muwayh), Dr. Shahaar ( who works across the road in Missan's Dialysis center) and Dr. Lubna (ALSO a Sudani ER doc). 

From among the specialists, I began to get acquainted with most of them, but I guess I was relatively closest to Dr. Bala. His colleague Dr. Ummu-Salma also seemed to be a happy-go-lucky individual, as also Dr. Ghulam Reshi (Kashmiri Indian) from Medicine and Dr. Ghulam (Radiologist and sonologist from Pakistan). 

Among the nurses, it was my observation that as this hospital is an old set-up, many of the nurses here are relatively senior in age and experience, but there is young blood too. There is a system here where the pediatric nurse is the one solely responsible for the pediatric work. She not only works in the OPD, she also attends the pediatric rounds with the consultant, helps stabilise and if needed, resuscitate the newborn in the delivery room, helps vaccinate the babies and also maintains records of all kinds - not just for local storage, but also for submission to the Ministry. My peds nurse was Sister Eleonor. She was with me all the six days. With over 18 years under her belt in Missan, you can see she was good at her work. 

During my stay here, I also went out and up a road that ascended behind the hospital. I think that was on my last day, a Friday. I took photos of the scenery around me and of the hospital below, and I am taking the liberty to post some of the pictures right here: do feel free to comment on the photos if needed.

A hill in the distance

The hospital seen from behind and above it

A close-up of the view above

Cactuses on the hill's ledges

A nice flowering plant

Nice inflorescence, isn't it?

A beautiful compostion of rocks and grass

On Saturday morning, my replacement arrived by nine, a benign, sixty year old Egyptian pediatrician from a place called Qariyah, and it was almost another hour and a half before a driver arrived to take me back to Ta'if. I was taken to the MOH car garage, where my driver coordinated with the director to put me on a SUV to take me to Al Muwayh, but this took another hour, so that it was 2:30 p.m. when I started on the return journey, armed with all my luggage, and about 9-10 water bottles, collected over the past seven days. I arrived at my house at half past six. 

It was the culmination of an extra-ordinary week.

Trip to Missan: a new place, and what an experience! Day 1

A day after my return to Al Muwayh after my five day stint in Ta'if, my medical director informed me that I was being sent to a place called MISSAN. This small village, located 100-120 km south of Ta'if, is one of the southernmost places administered by the Ta'if Health directorate. I was going there because the pediatrician over there was either away or not available. My duty would be for the WHOLE week, from Saturday, 1st June to Friday, 7th June 2013.

I was understandably peeved, as I had just unpacked my bag just a day before, and here I was being asked to get ready once again to leave my house. However, I had already been intimated about this duty a month ago. so I had to agree. I went back home to pack my bag. This time, I decided to take with me my water boiler (for tea), some packets of biscuits, a box of cereal (Kellogg's Special), tea bags etc. and also my cable TV receiver. I wasn't sure what facilities would be available there, and what would not, hence the overkill!

Missan, with a population less than half of Al Muwayh, promised to be an utterly boring place, and I was not very hopeful that I would be able to access the net either. Also, it is almost 350 km away from Al Muwayh, and I wasn't going to offer to take my car there. I told my medical director to send a hospital vehicle to my place within an hour, when I would be ready to leave. Thus it was that the driver came over to my place at half past eleven. He informed me that he would only leave me till Ta'if, where he would co-ordinate with a person from Missan, who was waiting at Ta'if to take me to his village in the south. Well, that was a sensible arrangement, wasn't it? Who was I to complain?

Accordingly, we completed the first leg of the journey in under 2 hours, and then, we were met by one Mr. Abdul Aziz, who is the Head of Nutrition services in Missan General Hospital. An employee of the MOH, Abdul Aziz lives in Ta'if and goes to Missan periodically to meet his job requirements. He turned out to be a young, dynamic person. When I suggested that we have a meal before proceeding further, he readily agreed, and we had a typical Arabian meal of rice and dry chicken with a side order of cooked okra in a nearby Bukhari restaurant. He footed the entire bill in spite of my protestations not to do so.

The second leg of the journey is about 130 km if you access the eastern approach, and about 100 km if you take the western, alternate route to Missan. Abdul Aziz took the first option. The road starts winding up the mountain sides and narrows down to just one lane on both sides. However, the road quality remains excellent as you drive up and down the curves and the narrows. What does enthrall you, however, is the complete change from a barren desert environment into a cooler, greener one with rows of trees, farms and grass ... did you just ask if I really wrote that? Yes, well, I did. And here are some pictures to prove it.

My glum demeanour had already transformed into that of an eager, excited person, who is seeing something for the first time! And it was like that. I have never before seen that much greenery in the kingdom. So, here I was, being driven past green farms, trees, herds of sheep feeding on the grass and such other sights.

I reached the portals of the Hospital at a little after 2:30 p.m. I was acquainted with the Hospital director, the Medical Director and one of the senior nurses. The nurse took me around the place, showing me the wards, the OPD, the delivery room, the ER and the OR. I realised that this hospital is an old one. because it resembles the hospital I had been posted to earlier this year - the one at Khurma. However, I rather liked this set up because the hospital is built like a square block rather than the long structure that we have in Al Muwayh.

The rest of the day passed without any active incident. I met the various doctors in the OPD as well as the ER, met many of the nurses here, some of whom are Indians. In particular, I would like to mention Dr. Bala and Dr, Ummu-Salma, both anaesthetists from India, Drs. Eftikhar, Akil and Sahar, all ER doctors, all from Sudan, Sisters Jocey, Aimee, Virginia, George, Mercita ... from the Philippines and India (Jocey) and others. The M.D. Dr. Qaiser, is a Kashmiri doctor. Over the coming days, I would meet many more doctors as I went about my work, but the first impression I had was rather nice. The subordinate staff helped me set up my "room" ... one of the in-patient rooms in the Male Ward that has been given up permanently for doctors who come to Missan as substitutes for the Pediatrician. It is then that I discovered that their Egyptian pediatrician actually passed away a few months ago, and different doctors from various places have been substituting for him since then. 

The room was a patient room, yes, but it had all the facilities one would look for, including a hot water geyser, a TV, working A/C, 2 beds, a small but adequate almirah, and so on. There was no ventilation, and this was causing some stuffiness, so I "borrowed" a table fan from the Nurses counter in the Female ward. The bath drainage was choked and I had a tough time with this, as, by the end of the bath, I was standing in ankle deep water.

My first hospital meal was today's dinner. It was the typical hospital meal with rice, khubz and a big piece of chicken and a side dish of some overcooked vegetable. There was a sugar-free china grass dessert (the only dessert they seem to make, since I had it over 10 times over the next 13 meals), a fruit and a chopped salad. 

After dinner, I spent time chatting with Sr. Jocey, who was in the \male ward. Thereafter, I returned to my room and discovered to my horror that the Mobily internet signal was NON-EXISTENT in the room. I went out with the laptop, but the signal never improved, no matter in which part of the hospital I went, and I was forced to gnash my teeth and retire hurt to my room, where I glumly saw a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy Season 8 before going to sleep.

Days 225 and 226, Tuesday and Wednesday, 26th and 27th June, 2012

I went to T'aif on Tuesday to try and get my driving licence. My travel to T'aif was accomplished by taking a lift in a truck driven by a Kannadiga. He was about 50, very affable, and has been in this country for over 6 years. His family lives in Riyadh, and his driving takes him almost three to five times a week from Riyadh to Jeddah and back. I took care to check that I hadn't dropped anything in his truck when I got off on the bridge where he took a right turn to proceed to Jeddah, while I had to go to the Traffic Dept , T'aif police, to subject myself for the licensing exam. 

A Saudi taxi ferried me to "Dallah", the relevant place that is about 25 km away from the city's center. He even accompanied me inside the enclosure, and helped me submit my documents etc. to the correct counter. He was, however, very business-like about this and extracted extra fare from me for his unsolicited services. 

Armed with a properly constructed file, I went inside and across the square to the test area, where I met a Sudanese driving instructor who made me sit in a car (with him sitting next to me) and asked me to drive the car in reverse. He did not me allow any time to get comfortable with the car, and summarily asked me to get off when I was unable to do his bidding in a smooth way. He told me I had failed the initial evaluation, period.

Dejected, I decided to meet the police major in charge; he allowed me to pay the cash for a test, whereupon, I went to the cashier and tendered SR 100 for the test. I was told to then go home and return at 4.00 p.m. for a signals/indicators class and a driving demonstration.

I returned to T'aif and took up a room in Hotel Noof near Gazzaz - the usual place for me. The care-taker gave me a discount of SR 10, and offered a small room for SR 140. I settled in for the day, with one handicap. I had not prepared to stay overnight, and hadn't brought my laptop charger, or change of clothes or toiletry. I went down to eat my breakfast at the Thara Restaurant, made calls to home and told them the news, and then went back to the room to relax and watch cable T.V. Zee Aflam was showing "Badshah" (the SRK movie). Later, I went down to T'aif's Heart Mall/Panda, and went around the mall, browsing through the shops that were open. I had a lunch of Chicken Pasta at Pasta Bella, one of the shops in the Food Court (SR 20, including a free Pepsi and a free salad). It was very filling. Adding cheese to it would have cost an additional SR 2/= and I skipped it.

After this, I went back down to catch a cab to go back to Dallah. The class assembled at about half past four. The teacher was an Egyptian man who kept talking in Arabic, to the utter incomprehension of me and a few other Indian students. He showed us all the signals and road signs, walked us through the format of the computer test on road signs, and also spoke a lot on what was expected of new drivers when they went on the road in their cars. I told him to explain what he had already said in English, but he did not oblige. After an hour long session, he took us all to the test driving area (which he referred to as the "maidan"), and there, he showed us what was expected of us when we appeared for the driving test at half past seven the next morning. We were to take one round of the circle, and demonstrate reverse parking and so on. 

I made friends with a young Saudi called Abdul Majid. He offered to take me back to my hotel when we finished our class at 6.30 p.m. I saw him drive a SUV with such grace and ease that I was surprised when he told me he had no licence as yet and was simply winging it in his father's car. He spoke a fair amount of English, something that helped make the acquaintance without much difficulty. I requested him to pick me up the next morning as well, and he agreed to co-ordinate it with me the coming morning. I then went up to my room, saw a little more of TV, etc. I went down to the nearby Asian Restaurant for dinner (chi. masala and roti). 

By and by, I returned to my room and went to sleep at a little after 11.00 p.m. 

I left the room at 6.20 and walked down Shubra street to arrive at the mall a little after 7.00 a.m. Abdul Majid came at about 7.15. He picked me up opposite the mall and just outside the local branch of Al Rajhi Bank. We reached Dallah at a half past seven. We gathered outside the test driving area, but it was only at 8.20 or so that we were called in and handed our test cards one by one. We were then led to a waiting room where we would be occupying chairs and await our turn to be taken to a car for the exam.

In a nutshell, I bombed my test. Although I accomplished the circle of the area with just a few minor hiccups, I could not reverse into the designated area. In fact, the vertical post that marked the rear limit of the area toppled when I drove back into it. The policeman who was evaluating me gently asked me to leave the car and showed me what I had done. I smiled sheepishly then. He marked me a zero, and asked me to return on Saturday when the school re-opened after the weekend. 

Abdul Majid did very well, and emerged with a new licence within 45 minutes of his test. He empathised with me, and took me back to my hotel where we parted. I was in no mood for hanging around, which I could have done as my room was booked till the afternoon, so I checked out before noon, took a dabbab to the SAPTCO bus stand, and was in a bus that left at noon.

I returned to Al Muwayh at a little after 2.40 p.m., and walked all the way to the Hospital where I met Dr. Yasser and the others. I told them about my performance, and also thanked Yasser and Dr. Shehab for covering me in my absence for a second day. After that, I went back to my room.

Nothing eventful happened after that. I went to the local Pakistani restaurant for dinner. I returned to my room to do a bit of internet surfing, saw an episode of "Lie To Me" (Season 1, episode 1) and did some other stuff before going to bed at mid-night.

Day 213, Friday, 15th June 2012: An excursion to Al Wabah, a volcanic crater

Today, I went in a private taxi, to see a natural geographic formation that is located near my place of work in Al Muwayh. This place is called the Al Wabah (Maqla Tamia in Arabic). It is a volcanic crater located on the western edge of the Hafer Kishb basaltic plateau that contains many volcanic cones. To reach there, one has to leave Al Muwayh and follow the highway that goes on to T'aif. About 35 km from Al Muwayh, one approaches a bridge that points to a village called Umm-Adoom. One climbs the ramp, then follows the right path, reaching Umm-Adoom after about 31 km. Ahead, this road would finally terminate at Medina, about 400 km away. However, about 60 km ahead of the village, one reaches a brown-coloured board that points to a right turn that ends at the Al Wabah.


We left Al Muwayh at half past eight, and reached the location at about half past ten. Al Wabah is, as Wikipedia puts it (see this link), a maar crater, a formation caused by what is called a "phreatic eruption". This means that, some time in the past, the ground caved in when there occurred a massive steam explosion generated by molten basaltic magma coming in contact with subterranean water. We approached the rim of the crater from its southern side, though the northern side was also visible across the chasm. 

The Al Wabah crater; the northern rim is visible across the chasm, with some visitors.

The crater is 500 m deep, and most of its walls are steep, some sheer rock, and others, gravelly and very difficult to climb down/up without expertise. The rim has a diameter of 2 km. There is evidence of vegetation all around the rim, but especially at the northern end. The sides have stumps of date trees that failed to propagate. The floor of the crater is a smooth patina of white that is formed of sodium phosphate crystals. The appearance is of dried up water, which is what it actually is. 

My taxi driver Khalid and I stayed there, taking photographs and generally absorbing in the desolate nature and the immense beauty of this place for about half an hour or so. Thereafter, we left, and returned to Al Muwayh just around noon.

Below are some more of the pictures we took of this other-worldly location.

The northern rim with vegetation

A close-up of the far rim

First view of the floor of the crater with the sodium phosphate surface that looks like a water body

The sheer vertical wall

Nature's Art

The cracked surface of the floor of the crater in more detail

Yours truly posed against the white background of the crater floor

One of the rocky promontories that form part of the rim of the crater, on the westward side.

To see the complete album, go to THIS page on Facebook.

A Visit to the Mahazat As-Said Wildlife Reserve

I promised my readers yesterday of an unusual excursion. This materialised yesterday (15/03/2012) as I went with one of the local employees of the National Wildlife Research Centre (NWRC) (click here to see the website) a Pakistani man Mr. Moayyed, in his car, to the Mahazat As-said Wildlife Reserve located in the Al Muwayh Region of the Kingdom. 


Mahazat is the name of the area. This is the second biggest pan-circumferenced protected reserve in the whole world (the first is the Kruger Park in South Africa). Spread over an area of 2250 sq. km., the desert terrain is home to over 250 varieties of birds, hundreds of invertebrates and 12 species of mammals. Many of the mammals here were indigenous to Saudi Arabia, but were decimated in the past, thanks to the widespread hobby of hunting. These have been re-introduced to the kingdom (they never got extinct, but were run down to extremely small numbers). 


To reach the reserve, one can go from the Al Muwayh side, where one just needs to cross over to the South end of Al Muwayh. A padlocked door leads to the reserve located within. The main office of the Game Ranger is located at this end, and Mr. Moayyed and his fellow-employees are required to log in their arrival every day. We, however, entered the park from its other side, which is about 50 km away to the south. One goes by road towards Ta'if, and climbs the relevant overpass to cross over to the Southern side, where one drives about 5 km inside to reach the padlocked gate of the reserve. Moayyed took with him rations to make breakfast for us - that is, his friend, the restaurant owner from Muwayh, me, and himself, along with one of the park employees whom we would meet inside. 


To be honest, I was looking forward to this visit for the last 2 1/2 months. Mr. Moayyed and I met through the good offices of my friend Dr. Niyaz, an ob-gy doctor working in our hospital. I had expressed my desire to be taken to some such excursion the same day when I learned that he worked for the government in the NWRC. As on that time he was proceeding for a vacation to his homeland in Swat, Pakistan, he had told me that he would organise something after his return. Today's trip was the culmination of his untiring effort and my determined but gentle persecution of him. 


After a 2-minute drive, we saw, in the near distance, a herd of Red-necked Ostriches crossing the road to get to the other side. The sight was simply wonderful. These graceful birds, not native to Saudi Arabia, were introduced many years ago, and theirs is a story of conservation success. As my pictures will tell you, these birds have adapted readily to this terrain, and are, in a sense, domesticated, so that they will approach their care-taker and eat food pellets served by him out of a bowl (see photos below).
We saw a huge group of these birds in a
protected enclosure as well, plus several  of them in the open; their movements and behaviour were extremely enjoyable to observe; in particular, the graceful movements of the female of the species, which I have recorded in the few photographs reproduced below for your 
enjoyment. The next two pictures show the female ostrich with her graceful neck movements. 

            




Time to tell you about the mammals that we saw They include the famous Arabian Oryx, the Reem Gazelle and the Ibni Gazelle. The Oryx is a long-horned animal that is feared for its ability to kill with its horns. However, within the reserve, it is remarkably docile as it has been trained to expect food and water at appointed times. At the time of writing this, there are more than 650 of these animals in the As-said reserve. According to Mr. Moayyed, the reserve is already full to above its capacity to hold these animals, and it only because of the controlled conditions that the animals are able to survive, thrive and breed over here. For example, last year, they had to destroy the eggs of the red-necked ostriches to keep their population in check!

I was able to watch these graceful mammals from extremely close quarters, and Mr. Moayyed was kind to take the accompanying picture of self with the Oryx in the background. It was a delight to see the animal feeding from a custom-made trough and also to drink water from it. 

 The photos, in fact, do not even do proper justice to their beauty, or show the reader the immense harming potential of those huge, 24-inch horns!

The next several pictures are of the two varieties of gazelles I saw here; the first one is of the Reem Gazelle, a hardy, medium-bodied animal, while the rest are of the Ibni Gazelle, a more slender-bodied species also referred to as the Mountain Gazelle in these parts. These animals, too, are being nurtured here under the guidance of the expert staff; as one can see in the pictures, the Ibni gazelles have been collared so that they can be radio-tracked all over the reserve. 


We were told that there are Arabian leopard, Desert Cat and some other mammals too in the reserve, but it is not possible to keep them under the monitor as they are felines, and unlikely to be domesticable to the same degree as the bovine and ungulate mammals that I have just described above. 


As Saudi Arabia is a desert country with fickle rains (the As-Said has rains only for a few weeks in April, but the grass that grows thereafter is able to sustain the herbivores for up to seven years, as per Mr. Moayyed's explanation), protection and provision of special food and water is the most important job     for the conservation organisation that used to be an indepe-ndent NGO earlier, but is funded generously and taken over by the Government some months ago (earlier, the website was called nwrc.org, but now it is a fully loaded governmental site with the suffix .gov.sa). The first two pictures are of the Reem gazelle while the remaining three are of the Ibni gazelle.

 Our trip then took us past a site where they store the dead animal's skulls, skeletons and so on and take a census of the same; there is a strict rule that one cannot take pictures there, so I cannot share the image with you, but there were skulls and remains of animals that have died over 5 years ago, and even more, as the locals are not allowed to take away carcasses of dead animals, or dying animals either for halal and eating.


We saw a Grey shrike on one of the trees, and I was able to capture some images into my Canon camera, and I reproduce a few of those for your consumption. 


Finally, for the finale, I share pictures of the endangered Leopard-faced Vulture. We saw one of these earlier in the morning roosting on the top of a tree as we drove into the reserve. It flew away at that time, but it went over the same hill we rounded later on. We saw perhaps the same bird later, and were able to take pictures of the same as it stood, and as it took off to wherever it wished to fly to.


After this, Mr. Moayyed took us to his onsite center where his men served us breakfast and tea. The trip ended with us moving out towards the Al Muwayh exit of the Reserve. We finally left the grounds at half past ten with happy memories and a promise by Mr. Moayyed to bring us back after the rains had fallen - perhaps after some months.

Which brings me, in fact, to the end of this narrative. I hope that you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing about this unique experience. If you like this, do comment in the space below. You are free to download the pictures and share them but please do not use them for commercial purposes.

Day 14, Tuesday, 29th November, 2011

I slept fairly well in the night, and was up at about 7:00 a.m. in the morning. The working hours for specialist doctors are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the out-patient department, after which we are free to return home, except that the on-call specialist has to be available on the phone to go back to the hospital in the event of an emergency. I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Shehab again today. I discussed a few issues relating to my appointment with him and then I went to the OPD to meet and join my senior pediatric colleague, an Egyptian named Dr. Yasser. I also met several other specialists at the counter where the papers are kept for daily signature. I signed myself in at about half past seven. Following this, I went about meeting Mr. Nawaf, who is supposed to take some documents from me for the purpose of generating a "mubashshera". I guess this is official acknowledgement of my arrival at my allocated place of work, and smoothens the way for my salary count to begin from the day of my arrival in Riyadh (i.e., the 16th of November).


Thereafter, I went with Dr. Shehab on a round of the hospital. They have a separate male and female ward, and a delivery area with a waiting ward of four beds. There is a nursery with several incubators, but it is not being used, and most problem babies are immediately shifted to Ta'if. I also saw (on my own) the admin offices on the first floor, the kitchen, the cafeteria, the infection control room, the pharmacy, the OPD areas, the isolation rooms in each of the wards, the OR's, the autoclave room, etc. 

Although the entire hospital area is on one floor (the ground floor), the shape of this is a perfect square, and the corridors link one area with the next, and the next, with the third, and so on, so effectively, that after a few days of this, one can readily surf from one place to the other without effort. I say this in retrospect, as on my first day of orientation, I was actually totally disoriented, and kept going to sealed doors and locked rooms instead of where I wanted to be.

Dr. Shehab submitted 2 forms to the in-charge of the cafeteria to allow me to eat free of cost for the last 2 days of November (one form) and the first day of December (one form), thereby giving me a 3-day free meals gift that is as per the law prevailing in the Ministry of Health’s hospitals all over the country for newly arrived doctors. I admired his professionalism, as he had to make 2 forms instead of one, because of the change of month.

I gradually settled into the routine of the day, and by evening, I made a trip on foot towards the city down the one and only main road. About a kilometre down the road I saw a petrol pump with a supermarket attached to it, and I stepped in to buy a few things, including a 900 gram can of Nido powdered milk (SR 35). At a local general goods shop that sold things from kitchen utensils to colour TVs, I bought an electric water-heater to make tea/coffee in my room (SR 85) and a tea cup (SR 4). Later in the evening, I had dinner in the cafeteria of the hospital, and retired to bed by 10:00 p.m.

A note here to tell my readers that the STC net connect device is proving to be worthless in this city due to lack of coverage.

Rains in Mumbai this year

It has been an eye-opener. This year, it poured torrentially in Mumbai. It took just a month for half of the entire season's average rainfall to fall upon the city. By now, we have had more rainfall than what we have had in the last over 35 years! By the end of August, all the seven lakes that supply water to this metropolis were full to the brim, or at least over the levels reached in the past several years. The water cuts imposed on the city last year were removed by the civic committees that look at the problem officially. Everyone seemed to be happy at this decision.

However, there is a flip side to this situation too. The heavy rains caused several accidents: tree branches that fell on unsuspecting citizens and either killing or maiming them, walls that fell on to sleeping dwellers and killing them there and then, landslides at construction sites, flooding, and above all, a very high incidence of malaria, typhoid, jaundice and other tropical diseases that filled up all the  beds in the various public as well as private hospitals. 

As I write this, I am filled with sadness at the various tragic occurrences, but, also, I am happy, for the busy season brought me a lot of professional satisfaction, and money too. I am happier, even, for the fact that no one in my own family - nuclear, joint, or extended, had any of the problems I listed above. For this, I can only thank the merciful and bountiful Allah, who continues to bless us.

It would be interesting to learn from you, dear reader, about your experiences with extremes of climate - whether rains, or heat, or cold. I know from Anna that she had to face extremes of cold where she lives. A comment by you would be welcome if you are reading this, my friend.