A guest blog by Jesta

Urumuqi airport – where coffee costs more than wine

I write this sitting in the departure lounge of Urumuqi airport. We left the hotel at 6 am (well, the local equivalent which is 6.30am, or “Whenever the coach turns up”). We arrived at the airport to discover that despite being booked on our early flight Air China (official motto: “We don’t care”) had decided in all its wisdom to move us to a later flight. This was also delayed so it looks like we will miss out connecting flight to Singapore…

The check-in was… interesting… The previous day quite a few of our group had bought wine from the places that we had visited. Unfortunately, Air China had decided that wine was obviously incredibly dangerous in the check-in luggage so wouldn’t let anyone check it in. This meant that we all ended up at the Air China counter with a corkscrew and 6 bottles of wine. So, there was a good deal of raising bottles and drinking as much as possible before we had to go through security.

The second security screening also made some odd decisions. Apparently, if you were male then you could get by with lip balm and other cream products, but women couldn’t. Conspiracy theorists decided that it was because the security staff were all female and so were going to get the products that they confiscated.

The body search was also slightly more than intimate. Fortunately for me I had a female security running her hands all over my body, which was the best thing about the whole process. Other people were ticklish, which made for some amusing scenes of a security guard trying to thoroughly check a woman who was laughing and wriggling…

Once we got through I went to look for coffee. They promised us cappuccino, but then said that they couldn’t steam the milk – so would we like just milk coffee… It cost 120 Yuan for two coffees – S$12 per cup. The day before we had bought a bottle of wine for 55 Yuan. So coffee costs more than wine.

Crazy!

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The end of the road, ’til next time, anyway

We made it onto our connecting flight, by running through Beijing airport so we have finished the mission – the team screened 110 patients of all ages from 3 day’s old to 51. In the end the surgical team performed 140 procedures on 88 patients. The last ones were discharged on the day that we left.

We had hoped for more, but it appears that the security situation had meant that we didn’t get to see all those who we were told were on their way. Some had come from as much as 1700km, but they had to have special papers from their local party officials and were repeatedly stopped along the way. It’s possible that some either gave up or decided that it was too dangerous to travel, we just don’t know.

Sanati and her grandfather have started their long return journey, but when I said goodbye to her she was starting to smile again and was more playful.

As a parent of a child with a cleft lip and palate joining an Operation Smile mission was a no-brainer. When my daughter was born my whole life became focused on repairing the damage and giving her a normal face again. When there are parents who do not have access to the same level of medical care that I do, parents who have to watch their children grow up without the chance to help them, then there is no way that I could stand aside from that.

I also asked some of the team why they do missions like this. They do this work for free. They are all highly skilled medical professionals: plastic surgeons, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel, none of whom have any financial reason and most have no personal reason to be here either. Here’s what they said:
Dr Y: “Because there are people who need us. We bring top quality international plastic surgeons into areas that would ordinarily never have the opportunity to access this level of care.”

Nurse J: “We have the chance to help people who can’t afford it. It’s tremendously fulfilling work.”

“Because it’s meaningful.” Dr YC

Can’t say it any better than that.

Operation Smile is a wonderful charity. They don’t treat the patients as second-class simply because they are third-world. The charity screens all its volunteers – even top-class plastic surgeons like Dr Y and Dr YC have to apply for their places – they ship in the best medical equipment and take the time to train local medical staff, they make space for a Child Life Specialist (essentially a person who plays with the children to make them more comfortable in the hospital environment) and they change the lives of the people they work with.

There are many, many deserving causes around the world, and all of our pockets are constantly being asked for donations to help. Please don’t feel that Operation Smile is the only deserving cause, but if you want to make an immediate, tangible difference to a family, then Operation Smile is one of the best ways to do it.

Stupid JayWalk complained that I “every time same look one“.

I don’t know how different he expects me to look every day lah. Does he want me to look like Elvis Presley tomorrow and then a potato chip the next day?

Siaoness. I’m Sheylara aka Qiaoyun, and of course I look like Sheylara aka Qiaoyun.

But never let it be said that I do not embrace challenges. So, here are some “different” looks for his viewing pleasure.

This is my “see what see” look:

This is my “I’m yearning for mooncakes” look:

And this is my “Still yearning for mooncakes but decide to pose nicely for the camera” look:

Besides all those creative stares, you will seldom see me with my hair up. Or rather, attempting to have it up, since, as you can see, my hair is very hard to pin up and will insist on look dishevelled.

Can?

Recently, the Goonfather came to me and said, “Hey! How come you have a guest blogger on your blog?!”

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“I also want to be a guest blogger!” he said.

“You don’t even like to blog!!” I said.

(He actually started a blog last year and lost steam after three posts.)

“But I want to guest blog for you!” he insisted.

“Fine, write me some posts and I’ll publish them,” I told him.

“Okay!” he said happily.

Today, he MSN’ed me.

“I’m writing a guest blog for you!”

“Great!”

“It’s called ‘The Effects of Globalisation: India’.”

“???”

Ten minutes later, he sent me a word document. I opened it and there was a very academic 700-word essay staring at me.

I MSN’ed him back.

“You send me GP essay for my blog for what?!?”

“Haha… no lah. It’s for you to read during your spare time.”

“Why would I want to read an essay about globalising India?”

“Because it’s my work of art.”

“Stupid lah. Don’t send me your homework and pretend pretend. You just want free editing and proofreading services right?”

Needless to say, The Goonfather isn’t going to be a guest blogger here any time soon.

A guest blog by Jesta

Firstly, sorry that nothing has been posted for a couple of days. Day 4 and Day 5 (Saturday and Sunday) were very long hauls with each surgeon seeing at least 7 patients – the OR was running up to 7 tables at a time, with 6 being more normal.

Each room had two tables, each table had two surgeons and a scrub nurse, and there were usually three or four medical students hanging around, so things were quite busy.

In fact Saturday was pretty crazy. We had a local radio station come in and set up a whole bunch of equipment and other stuff (including a speaker system) and they started broadcasting live from inside the OR. If you have never seen a DJ trying to do his stuff in a surgical gown and hat then you should try to do so.

At the same time I think that we had two separate camera crews from local news stations recording inside the OR, as well as our own two camera crews. All of the Chinese speaking surgeons became immediate media stars – the only problem being that Singapore Mandarin was not always up to the task…

This is what it looked like at a quieter moment in the OR. The main surgeon is Dan from the USA:

Yesterday was really the last major day, and we wrapped up the last surgeries today. I will do a wrap up post and some more pictures when I get back and I have had time to send them to OS for approval.

In the meantime here are some more faces. I have most of their pictures after the surgery too, so I will post them when I have had time to get them to OS:

The last time I talked about paying $120 for four durians at the Four Seasons Durians Cafe with my friends, the Goonfather called us carrot heads (which is a Chinese slang for people who easily get conned out of their money).

“The durians there are the best I’ve eaten, seriously,” I argued.

Then I challenged him to find me a place (in Singapore) with the same standard of durians but cheaper.

By the way, I said I won’t talk about food until Jesta is back in Singapore, but durians are fruits and he doesn’t like durians, anyway. Haha.

So, anyway, the Goonfather found a popular durian eatery beside Highland Centre which offers Cat Mountain King durians at $15 per kg (compared to Four Season’s $20 per kg).

The eating area is in a carpark!

When we arrived, we discovered that the price had gone up to $18 per kg for Cat Mountain King because of demand.

What’s more, we were too late that night and they had already sold out of CMK, so we had to settle for D24. (We went there around midnight.)

The D24 was $10 a kg, $5 cheaper than at Four Seasons.

Some of them look really good, too.

But I think they must have been lower grade D24s because they were generally smaller and not as tasty. Less creamy, less fragrant and less solid than the Four Seasons ones.

The Goonfather claimed that I was just imagining that to avoid being a carrot head, but then Unker Kell agreed with me that the cheaper durians were, in fact, lacking.

I felt a little queasy after a while.

(My palate for durians kinda grew atas a few years back. I would feel physically sick after eating low grade durians.)

((Atas means high class in a snobbish way.))

(((I can’t help that! It just developed mysteriously!!)))

So I will still go back to Four Seasons despite the cost!! Not that it cost a lot more, anyway!

But I don’t mind trying out more places. Heheh.

Gotta eat more durians before the season ends with the month!