I am a retired nurse, who over my career worked in a general hospital setting, as a corporate nurse for the DuPont Company, and for the last ten years as the director and coordinator of volunteers for two different hospices.
Last fall, at age 74, I joined an international medical organization that coordinates volunteer medical missions to needy communities worldwide.
Our destination was the Drepung Loseling Monastery and surrounding Tibetan refugee settlements in Mundgod, south India. We provided health care to hundreds of sick and needy monks, nuns, and Tibetan lay people. The clinic provides free examinations, consultations and discount medications to people who fled from Tibet to escape Chinese repression. Our medical team, four doctors and four nurses, worked from dawn to dusk, in 95 degree weather, with just ceiling fans. We brought bandages, Band-aides, nebulizers, antibiotics, non-prescription pain medications, lotions, salves and over 500 pairs of used eyeglasses. Those patients diagnosed with more serious conditions, such as appendicitis, kidney stones, bone fractures and acute angina could not be treated at the clinic and had to be transported by van to a large general teaching hospital 2 hours away from the clinic.
In 1949 when China invaded Tibet, India’s Prime Minister Nehru allowed the Dali Lama, his court of advisors, and thousands of Tibetan citizens to set up a temporary government in India. Now 62 years later, Tibetans still living in India with very little hope of returning to Tibet, which remains under Chinese rule.
In Tibetan Buddhist monastic society, monks and nuns live separately from each other in simple communities, studying, meditating, and debating points from Buddhist texts. The Dali Lama has been a constant source of inspiration for the Tibetan communities in India.
Some of the ethics teachings from the Dali Lama are as follows:
- Non-violence is essential for solving man-made conflicts of war, destruction, and repression
- Gentleness should be chosen over violence, no matter how bad the oppression is
- Kindness is a must for keeping the world livable
- Courage is required to struggle
- Compassion is required to struggle for other people
I worked very hard during my time at the clinic, but the two weeks in India gave me a broad approach towards living, and I will always be thankful for that time. [Leave a comment here.]
By Chiqui Somers
ElderChicks 
Dear Chiqui:
I enjoyed reading about your trip to the monastery and surrounding community. I’ve shared your story with a fried who lives in India, another friend who’s visited India twice, and a friend who’s been a nurse.
It reminded me of my experience in 1992 when I joined a medical group (although I wasn’t in that field), the First International Congress on Women’s Health or some such title (they gave themselves a very lofty title) on a trip to China. I had had breast cancer in 1990, subsequently went on the board of the DC chapter of the American Cancer Society, and I went on this trip to look into the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer in China. I reported on that thereafter to the American Cancer Society and in speeches I gave. (China was decades behind the US in its diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. As a feminist, I really felt for the women of China.)
If you’d like to read the article I wrote about that experience, it’s at http://www.haruth.com/seder_china.htm
That article focuses on a seder I participated in while in Shanghai.
Best regards,
Sonia
Chiqui – Thanks for reminding us of the Dalai Lama’s teachings. We can’t read them too many times. I have no nursing skills or experience, and am awed by what you were able to contribute to the lives of the people who needed your team. On a much smaller scale, I have found that travel that has included work projects, such as those I did with Earthwatch, has always been infinitely more satisfying than my experiences as a tourist, much as I have enjoyed them.
Namaste Chiqui,
I enjoyed your account of your time well spent in south India. A very good friend of ours is from India and always shares stories with us.
The world would be such a better place if we all adhered to the principles of peace and nonviolence.
I know you came home with even more love in your heart. Good for you. Elderchicks rock!!
Chiqui! What an inspiration!
So many older women believe the world looks on them as too old to contribute and doesn’t want what they have to give. You have shown that you can give much and I’m sure you also got much in return in terms of satisfaction, excitement, and self-renewal.
You are the true embodiment of an ElderChick.