Sept 9th 2008,  Bowanipur, Bihar

The morning started with lots of activities.

A team of doctors and paramedics had gone to a pharmaceutical company storehouse for getting a large supply of medicines as we were running out of medicines.

Shri Avdesh Narayan Singh, the Minister in Charge for Purnia and also Labour Minister for Bihar Govt. arrived to consult the doctors about his diabetes and Blood Pressure. Dr Ram Mohan gave him an excellent diagnosis and prognosis, with which made the Minister very happy. He left promising all kinds of assistance for our activities here and was given a parting gift of Glucometer by our doctors.

Today we split into three teams as another Brhmachari had arrived with a team of workers to help with the construction of the temporary shelters.

One was the medical team which went towards a bigger relief camp at a place called as Janaki Nagar, Banwanki. The other was the construction team which left in the direction of Bowanipur, the site selected for the construction of the temporary shelters, and the third was Nijamrita, me and Saswath, to make some hardware purchases and some utensils which would enable them to start their own cooking at the site.

While we were busy with our work, the construction Brahmacharis called us repeatedly, telling that they had not been able to procure a single bamboo from any of the places, promised by the local people.

After completing the purchases, we rushed to Bowanipur, and reached there around 16.30 hrs. The locals started assuring me that the bamboos would reach tomorrow and we could start our work by noon tomorrow. Hearing this – the same thing which they had been assuring repeatedly, that everything would be ready today to start our work in time, – irritated me to no end. I put my foot down saying that the bamboos had to be procured now and the work had to start today. They looked at me incredulously and when I kept on repeating the same thing they sent a few workers to cut bamboos form the grove, and asked me to sit down and relax. I had a feeling that things would not move unless we went with them to the grove and was not surprised to find the workers returning back empty handed.We again convinced the workers to return to the grove and Nijamrita and me entered the forest and started pulling out 30’ long freshly cut bamboo trees and loading them onto the bullock carts. By the time we had enough to start work with; we were covered with sweat and grime. After offering prayers to Amma, we planted the first pole for the first temporary shelter at 19:00 hrs. Only after that did we have our cup of tea.

We didn’t know yesterday, what a challenging task it will be when we made a promise to Amma.

But despite the tiredness there was a deep contentment within, as somehow we had fulfilled the promise made to Amma.

While we were leaving for our accommodation center at 21:00 hrs, the work was still going on at the site. We had missed our lunch today also.

The doctors had treated 530 patients today. GREAT  isn’t it?

Shri. Uday Singh, the local MP who helped us a lot in starting our relief efforts, congratulated us on the progress we had made in just 4 days.

— Sadasiva Chaitanya