The road to the hospital was on higher grounds, wet but far from flooded.
As it sloped downward, the water rose again to my ankles.
I peered in the darkness and saw the staff in their home clothes rushing to and fro.
With many torches shining about, I found F standing outside the pharmacy.
Popping our head into the window through which we usually counsel our patients at, we flashed a light in and saw something bobbing up and down.
"It's the drug fridge!" F exclaimed.
Everything was in a mess, chairs were floating about. The medical records and letters strewn across the dark water surface...we didn't know what to do we just smiled at the desparation of the situation.
In time admist the chaos, F would have explained, that she had came in time to move some medicines in the bottom shelf upwards. But the water is only rising quicker than expected.
Without wanting to open the door and risk more things floating out into the open, we climbed through the small window onto the tables of the pharmacy and jumped in to the flood.
The small room laid lower than other parts of the hospital and the water was deeper inside.
As we waded in the dim light we hit unseen chairs and baskets under the surface. Hurriedly we scrambled to move the drugs higher up another shelf.
Through the course of the night, we would have repeated this regime thrice.
Until there was absolutely no more space further we could stack things up.
We unplugged the fridge and carried it to higher grounds.
When all could be done was done, we went around looking at other rooms, figuring out if we could help.
And when we couldn't, some went home to get the cameras and we clicked away.
As we struggled to get the best lighting in the worst flood the hospital has seen in the last 30 years, X-ray films and medical records, brown envelops and river fish floated by our naked thighs.
Dinner was packed phad thai, squatting on a bench outside the emergency room.
The water rose steadily then halted its virtical advance for the night. The bench rose just above the water surface.
As we gave thanks for the dinner, a 16 year-old tribal girl screams while giving birth to her first child on the other side of the wall behind us.
As it sloped downward, the water rose again to my ankles.
I peered in the darkness and saw the staff in their home clothes rushing to and fro.
With many torches shining about, I found F standing outside the pharmacy.
Popping our head into the window through which we usually counsel our patients at, we flashed a light in and saw something bobbing up and down.
"It's the drug fridge!" F exclaimed.
Everything was in a mess, chairs were floating about. The medical records and letters strewn across the dark water surface...we didn't know what to do we just smiled at the desparation of the situation.
In time admist the chaos, F would have explained, that she had came in time to move some medicines in the bottom shelf upwards. But the water is only rising quicker than expected.
Without wanting to open the door and risk more things floating out into the open, we climbed through the small window onto the tables of the pharmacy and jumped in to the flood.
The small room laid lower than other parts of the hospital and the water was deeper inside.
As we waded in the dim light we hit unseen chairs and baskets under the surface. Hurriedly we scrambled to move the drugs higher up another shelf.
Through the course of the night, we would have repeated this regime thrice.
Until there was absolutely no more space further we could stack things up.
We unplugged the fridge and carried it to higher grounds.
When all could be done was done, we went around looking at other rooms, figuring out if we could help.
And when we couldn't, some went home to get the cameras and we clicked away.
As we struggled to get the best lighting in the worst flood the hospital has seen in the last 30 years, X-ray films and medical records, brown envelops and river fish floated by our naked thighs.
Dinner was packed phad thai, squatting on a bench outside the emergency room.
The water rose steadily then halted its virtical advance for the night. The bench rose just above the water surface.
As we gave thanks for the dinner, a 16 year-old tribal girl screams while giving birth to her first child on the other side of the wall behind us.
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