Juntara And Facing The World… Part II
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Juntara arrived at our home shortly after I came from the U.S. Facing the World of London had agreed to look into her case but first they needed a CT scan and an MRI. Juntara and I took the bus down to Nepal Ganj and spent a day making her MRI. For her CT scan, however, we would have to go to India. My mom needed to get to India for her return flight to the states so I decided to take Juntara along when I went to drop my mom. It was those few days in India where I first really started to get to know her. We talked about her life in her village. She missed the cool water and the walnuts that she knew would be plentiful in the trees that month. In just the last three months since I had seen her there, her vision had completely vanished. She had a hard time walking the mountain paths and spent her days sitting in her mud house singing songs. At night we stayed up and I listened to them, trying hard to understand her mountain village dialect. Her friends? “I don’t have any friends anymore,” she said.
We returned to Nepal after a few days. I immediately put the CT and MRI in the mail praying to God in our little Surkhet post office that they would reach London. I sent Juntara back to her village promising that I would contact her as soon as I heard word from the doctors at Facing the World. Over a month later I opened up my e-mail where I found a message from the executive coordinator. “It’s a go! The doctors have seen the x-rays and want to operate as soon as possible. It’s very serious. They need to save whatever vision she has left and stop any further damage. We’ll write letters to the embassy. Do you think you can make all the necessary papers in the next few weeks?” My heart started racing. I was overwhelmed. There was no phone in the village where Juntara was from and no way to contact them. I didn’t know of anyone heading that way either. I would have to make the trip again to the village myself to process her passport and birth papers.
It took one full day on a bus and two days trekking sunrise to sunset through some of the biggest mountains in western Nepal. It felt good to be in nature again- the fresh cool mountain air, the sight of the distant snow-capped Himalayas, drinking from fresh springs and stopping in villagers’ homes who prepared hot meals cooked from the land they harvested. When I finally reached Odanoku my body was so sore I had no idea how I would make the trip back. I sat down with Juntara’s family and had a long talk about how serious the surgery was, how much time it would take, where they would go and how. When I told them that Juntara could very easily die during the operation it didn’t seem to phase them much. I spent two days in the village and then headed a days walking to the district administration office with Juntara and her father to make their passports. It was really hard because we had no birth papers or record of Juntara’s existence. Her parents weren’t even sure of her birthday. Was she 9 or 10? She was born the wheat harvesting month, no no the rice month. The district office was a mess. They had never processed the passport of a child before. First, they told us that it was illegal for children to leave Nepal before the age of 16 because they couldn’t make a citizenship before then. The Chief District Officer said there was no way. We had to call head offices in Kathmandu. It was really frustrating- you get the point. Finally, everything worked out and we were able to return to Surkhet. We then left two days later for Kathmandu.
And I guess that leads me to where I’m sitting now, in a small hotel in Kathmandu, laying in bed with Juntara’s head resting on my shoulder, keyboard at my fingertips. It’s been a long few days here. We’ve been to 5 different hospitals to try to get a biopsy. All of which had long waiting lists and couldn’t fit us into their schedules anytime this week. On top of that, the biopsy results would take weeks to process and her visa, at least nine or ten days. Facing the World advised us to go to Delhi, India to speed up the process. So that’s where things stand now. Tomorrow we’re getting on a plane and heading to Delhi. As the doctors from England put it... “if she has her visa today, we want her to fly tomorrow.”
Juntara’s sight is gone save for a bit of light perception. The doctors say that most likely all of the pressure the tumor put on the optic nerves has damaged them permanently. They say she’s most likely not going to get her sight back and that the operation will simply be to save her life. I’ve found myself questioning a lot of things these past few days. Why did I meet her on the path that day in that village? What kind of life will Juntara have after this operation is complete? Will she have friends again? Will she see again? Should we really go through with this?
I gave Juntara a pack of cookies today to hold her over while we were sitting in one of the waiting rooms.
“These are the same cookies that Manisha gave me,” she said smiling when she tasted them.
“What? Who’s Manisha?” I asked.
“You don’t remember Maggie? Manisha’s the girl who sat next to us on the bus on the way back from India.
That was two months ago. I hadn’t even remembered the girl telling us her name. Actually, I hadn’t even remembered that there had been a girl sitting next to us. Juntara remembers the name of everyone we meet, every doctor, every nurse, every driver. She knows the name of every place we’ve been to, every hospital, every hotel. She often brings these names up in conversation with others. When someone asks me a question about my life she answers it before I can get the words out. Today for example in our hotel lobby...
Stranger: Do you have any brothers?
Juntara: No she has no brothers. She has one older sister, Kate. Kate’s a teacher but right now she’s working on a farm in Hawaii. Her younger sister Libby, hehe, (she giggles because she thinks Libby is a funny name.) Libby is in college. She’s studying in like 16th grade or something!! And the president of America called her a few weeks ago.
Me: When did I tell you all that?!?
Juntara is ready and willing to go through with the surgery and seemingly unattached to the fact that she may never see again. She’s most excited about getting to go to Kathmandu, and Delhi and England, all places that people from her village could only dream about. She’s excited about the people she’ll meet, the names she’ll remember, the newness of it all. She’s excited about showing her new face to her village. As she put it, “they’ll all say ‘before your eye was so big, and now it’s small.’ They’ll think I’m nice again.”
“The doctor said that maybe I’ll live and maybe I’ll die, right?” she asked me yesterday.
“Well yes, but you have a much much much greater chance of living. And me, I know you’ll live because I know how strong you are.”
“Yes, I am strong,” she said smiling.
And so now we’re off to Delhi.