ReSurge International
Nepal: Lori Bush
Eight Days of Hanukkah … Eight Days of Tikkun Olam
Lori Bush, ReSurge International Board Member
This year I am celebrating Hanukkah in a different way. I have no menorah. I will not be eating latkes and apple sauce. But I am witnessing the most generous giving of gifts ever. I am in Nepal with a group of talented professionals who are restoring lives, giving the gift of renewal and hope, and inspiring others to do the same.
My travel companions are Sara Anderson, chief communications and advocacy officer for ReSurge International and Darcy Padilla, a brilliant award-winning documentary photographer and recent recipient of the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography. We are being hosted by: Dr. Kiran Narkami, director of the ReSurge Nepal Surgical Outreach Program, an accomplished (and quite handsome) plastic and hand surgeon; Hemanta Dhoj Joshi, the program’s chief coordinator; and Dr. Shankar Man Rai, the visionary founder of what has become ReSurge International’s flagship outreach program.
Our first days of Hanukkah have been spent at the Kathmandu hospital clinic and visiting the surgical suite and post-op wards. The patients are benefactors of ReSurge’s program of free reconstructive surgery to those who could not otherwise afford it to repair congenital anomalies and restore mobility and form to victims of disfiguring, catastrophic burns.
Sara arrived bearing gifts for the staff: a dermatome, the instrument for use in procuring thin slices of skin from a donor area to produce skin grafts in a burn or other reconstructive surgical procedure, Flip video cameras for the team to use in tracking patient progress, and perhaps the most poignant gift of all, a Blue Tooth for Hemanta.
Hemanta is responsible for communicating with the patients’ families and organizing the logistics of bringing people to their surgical destinations. This might involve contacting local postal workers to connect to the postal workers in the remote villages of Nepal so that the postal workers can contact the patients and their families. This is often accomplished on his mobile phone while transporting passengers (such as us) through the crowded, unpaved streets of Kathmandu. The Blue Tooth will surely help reduce the risk of accidently hitting one of the many sacred cows that are free-roaming the streets of Nepal (a crime punishable by life imprisonment).
For me, this Hanukkah is about Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world.” So I’m appealing to all of my Jewish friends and colleagues, or anybody who knows anybody who is Jewish, to give consideration to the many gifts you have to offer to repair the world. The gift of compassion is one that returns so much in so many ways; especially to the person who gives.
Photo: Dr. Kiran Narkami, Lori Bush and Usha (a former burn patient) and her father in Nepal's surgical outreach center office in Kathmandu Model Hospital. Photo by Darcy Padilla.
Nepal: Lori Bush
Eight Days of Hanukkah … Eight Days of Tikkun Olam
Lori Bush, ReSurge International Board Member
This year I am celebrating Hanukkah in a different way. I have no menorah. I will not be eating latkes and apple sauce. But I am witnessing the most generous giving of gifts ever. I am in Nepal with a group of talented professionals who are restoring lives, giving the gift of renewal and hope, and inspiring others to do the same.
My travel companions are Sara Anderson, chief communications and advocacy officer for ReSurge International and Darcy Padilla, a brilliant award-winning documentary photographer and recent recipient of the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography. We are being hosted by: Dr. Kiran Narkami, director of the ReSurge Nepal Surgical Outreach Program, an accomplished (and quite handsome) plastic and hand surgeon; Hemanta Dhoj Joshi, the program’s chief coordinator; and Dr. Shankar Man Rai, the visionary founder of what has become ReSurge International’s flagship outreach program.
Our first days of Hanukkah have been spent at the Kathmandu hospital clinic and visiting the surgical suite and post-op wards. The patients are benefactors of ReSurge’s program of free reconstructive surgery to those who could not otherwise afford it to repair congenital anomalies and restore mobility and form to victims of disfiguring, catastrophic burns.
Sara arrived bearing gifts for the staff: a dermatome, the instrument for use in procuring thin slices of skin from a donor area to produce skin grafts in a burn or other reconstructive surgical procedure, Flip video cameras for the team to use in tracking patient progress, and perhaps the most poignant gift of all, a Blue Tooth for Hemanta.
Hemanta is responsible for communicating with the patients’ families and organizing the logistics of bringing people to their surgical destinations. This might involve contacting local postal workers to connect to the postal workers in the remote villages of Nepal so that the postal workers can contact the patients and their families. This is often accomplished on his mobile phone while transporting passengers (such as us) through the crowded, unpaved streets of Kathmandu. The Blue Tooth will surely help reduce the risk of accidently hitting one of the many sacred cows that are free-roaming the streets of Nepal (a crime punishable by life imprisonment).
For me, this Hanukkah is about Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world.” So I’m appealing to all of my Jewish friends and colleagues, or anybody who knows anybody who is Jewish, to give consideration to the many gifts you have to offer to repair the world. The gift of compassion is one that returns so much in so many ways; especially to the person who gives.
Photo: Dr. Kiran Narkami, Lori Bush and Usha (a former burn patient) and her father in Nepal's surgical outreach center office in Kathmandu Model Hospital. Photo by Darcy Padilla.