After a few months, I planned for trekking in Kalikot for orientation about vaccine preventable diseases. We started out our trekking early in the morning from Manma to Sukatiya VDC. EPI supervisor from DHO Kalikot joined me for trekking. We tried to find out shortcut way to reach our destination but we were lost at the very beginning of our journey. With some difficulty, we found the sparse impression of goreto (passerby road). We followed that road and reached the field where wheat buds were just emerging from the ground. On the way, we passed by an old temple in the middle of field and found a pandhero (water place). We gulped some water that was very cold that sensitize my teeth but it was delicious and natural. On the way, we found a ditch made for irrigation.
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| Me, on the way |
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| EPI Supervisor, Kalikot DHO |
We got a chautaro (sitting place at the base of tree) after one hour of our journey. I took a long sigh and put off all the warm clothes and enjoyed the cool breeze there. I watched back to Manma hill,' When will I return there?' After sometime, we walked out from there though I wanted to stay there. From there, we followed the goreto in the middle of hill where if stumbled by a slight mistake, we would have fallen far down to Tila River where you cannot even imagine getting the relics of body. When I tried to look down, I felt that I was going to get vertigo and suddenly I released my eyes from there.
We crossed that killer road and stepped down and caught a cottage. We were attacked by hunger by then since we walked on empty stomach from Manma. We took noodles from there to kill the hunger. We again stepped down from there to catch hanging bridge over the Tila River.
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| Tila River from Sukatiya |
Crossing the bridge we took rest there to accumulate the energy to climb the hill of Sukatiya. While ascending up the Sukatiya hill, I asked myself, 'What the hell is here to live for?' Big and large rocks were engaged there in the body of this hill but growing fields were soaked with water. Farmers were engaged in the fields and bullocks were pulling the plough. Some villagers were coming back home from jungle bringing grasses and firewood. I got the answer to my question while I was ascending.
I was really tired at middle of hill. Lots of salt was coming out along with sweats. This became synergistic for my tiredness. I was wondering about ORS but we did not have ORS to replace the salts lost from the body. In one house, we asked for some water but only five small children were there. One of them brought water. I took some gulp of water and asked for mahi (remains after churning yoghurt) but they said they did not have. The eldest girl of 11 years said, 'Wait, I will bring it from my neighbor.' She brought the mahi. I took mahi full of one lohota (jug). Looking at my somber face, she asked me, 'roti khanchhau?'(wanna have some breads?) I smiled back to her, 'No, thank you little dear; mahi is a lot to me.' She just smiled. We left them thanking a lot. Every fifteen to thirty minutes we walked up taking some gulp of water from tap water found on the way. We asked some of the villager how much time they would take from Sukatiya to Manma. Most of them mentioned 2 to 3 hours. We were quite surprised with that time. Taking water from the tap and walking up for a while was the regular part of ascending up the hill. Going down and coming up and walking easy road are just the parts of life. They come one after another.
We finally reached the Sukatiya Health post in Rarakatiya tole of Sukatiya village. When I saw my watch, pointers showed 14:15 hour. When I recalled the time we started our journey, it took almost 6 hours and asked the HP in-charge, 'How much time do you take to reach Manma?' He said,' Five hours almost.' I was relieved by his answer. People were waiting for us. After having meal we started meeting about surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases.
