Emergency Room

They came during the night.  We were two, but they were many – possibly eight or nine.  They couldn’t have been older than eighteen or younger than fourteen.  It was a Sunday night and, by the smell on their breath, they were drunk.

At the time, I was cycling with a Swiss friend, Sven, who I’d met in Almaty.  After a long day’s ride, we camped outside a village on the bank of a small creek.  It was full of green moss, which meant the water probably wasn’t safe to drink, but it was flowing clear and we could at least wash the salt and grime from our bodies after an 80km ride along a dusty and bumpy dirt track.  On one side of the creek a small cliff rose about ten meters high and, behind it, a flat expanse of dusty bare earth, sparse tufts of grass and a few small dry shrubs were all that stood between the road and our campsite.  On the other side of the creek we’d camped on a flat grassy ‘U’ shaped area bounded within the defined river bed, about thirty square meters in total.  Two immature trees provided some shade to cook under and somewhere to lock our bikes. Cattle were grazing in the nearby field and, beyond that, the banks became hills rising to a cemetery on top of the crest overlooking the village.

A small boy riding bareback on a horse came by in the afternoon.  His friend on a donkey joined him soon afterwards.  They seemed inquisitive at first, and I was amazed at the ease with which the boy mounted and dismounted a horse twice his size.  But, soon after hanging around our camp, they wanted a turn on the bicycle.  My Swiss friend asked for a ride on the donkey and it seemed like we’d made some friends.  But the boy on his horse began to get cocky, manoeuvring it close to us and our tents, clearly showing off the fact that he had a horse and his friend didn’t.  An old man came past mustering a few cattle presumably back to his barn.  We said hello and he waved back.  We took this as a gesture that he didn’t mind we camped there.  After he left the boys seemed to become bored.  We hoped they’d leave as we needed the rest, but they stayed.  The boy on the horse, manoeuvring himself and the beast ever closer to where we sat, suddenly grabbed the bandanna off my head and took flight through the river and up onto the nearby cliff.  The boys laughed and, rather than chase them, I just stood there shaking my head, not really knowing what they’d do.  Five minutes later they returned, dropped the bandanna near the river and left.

At 11pm, tucked into our tents, we were woken by flashing lights and voices approaching our camp.  At first I tried to ignore them by not getting out of the tent.  I hoped that, their curiosity satisfied, they would go away, but they didn’t.  Instead, they started making noises that I could only guess was supposed to be some kind of deranged wolf.  I lay inside the tent, tired and wanting to go back to sleep but when, from across the river, they started throwing rocks at the tent, it was time to get up and confront them.  I yelled at them for throwing the rocks at us, but they didn’t seem phased in the slightest.  They walked across the small creek and came to our camp site. We greeted them all individually which is the custom in Kazakhstan and told them where we were from.  They laughed a lot between them and, when we said that we wanted to go and rest, they all pretended to lie down in the grass and sleep themselves.  Dismayed and tired, I turned to Sven and we both knew this was going to be a long night.  They stayed for about half an hour then eventually probably got bored and decided to leave.

I stood dazed for a while after the rock struck the back of my head.  I sort of knelt on the ground so that I wouldn’t fall from my stagger.  It took a few minutes to gain my senses again.  The rocks kept falling in a shower around us as we continued packing up the camp. The first two rounds of shouting and rock throwing lasted almost two hours.  It came on so completely unprovoked.  I put my hand up to my head and felt a a gooey mess of tangled hair and moisture.  When I looked at my hand with the light of the head torch, it was covered in blood.  Becoming really angry by this stage, I picked up a stick and ran after them for a third time.  They took flight and I chased them away from camp.  Leaving all my valuables behind and running through the pitch black after half a dozen kids wasn’t something I was particularly keen to do.  What if I did catch them?  What would I do?  Beat a kid up only to land in jail? Hit him with a large stick and break an arm?  Or worse, for them to run home and explain a one-sided story to others who may have come seeking revenge?  We couldn’t speak the language.  No – it was enough that they were gone for the moment.

Twice the kids had returned previously before I was struck on the head.  From the cliff above our campsite they started throwing small rocks at first.  Sven initially chased them away.  There was lots of shouting and clearly we didn’t understand what the other wanted.  This was a time when I desperately wanted to be able to speak the native language.  I was only in Kazakhstan for two weeks and never bothered to learn Kazakh – only a few small phrases of Russian for ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Where’s the shop?’, ‘Yes’ and ‘No’; hardly enough to communicate with the kids how I really felt.  Returning a second time with bigger rocks, the kids began throwing sticks, lumps of metal, animal bones and anything they could lay their hands on.  The shower of objects struck our bicycles, the tent and peppered all around us.  When a vodka bottle landed within a meter and a smaller rock struck me on my arm, I became furious and chased them away a second time.  Sven went for his bicycle helmet (a very smart thing to do at the time) and hid behind his tent.  I’m not sure what happened in between our first meeting, but the kids clearly didn’t like us being there.  It wasn’t uncommon for young kids to throw rocks at us when we were cycling but, at their age, it wasn’t malicious.  These kids were older however and should have known better.  Sven and I decided the best thing for us to do was to pack up our gear and move on.

Now that the kids were gone, I turned to Sven and asked him to take a look at my wound. In the dark, he said it didn’t look good and all he could see was blood.  While streaming blood ran down my face and neck the worst case scenario dawned on me.  It could have cracked my skull, started bruising or swelling of my brain and I could be in real trouble.  I wasn’t a doctor; I’d never had a head injury like this before and, while I tried not to panic, I started to prepare for the worst. I sat down not wanting to discourage the blood circulation.  Sven and I decided it was best if he went and got help.  Bless him, Sven, at 2 am in the morning, sprinted through the dark, past the river, over the hills and, managing not to twist an ankle in all the potholes, arrived at the nearby village.  He began knocking on doors to get help and, finding one man awake, he told of our trouble.  Together, they went to wake the village nurse and a young woman who spoke English.  It took about half an hour before they returned with a Russian ambulance, complete with a single flashing red light on the roof.

While Sven was running around the village asking for help, the kids returned a fouth time.  Noticing that Sven was gone, they asked where he was.  I wished at that point Sven and I had decided to ambush them but, each time we chased them away, we didn’t expect them to return.  I shone the torch on my head to try and show them the blood all over my face and the wound.  I’d dug into my first aid kit while Sven was gone and wrapped a bandage with a simple dressing around my head.  I was sure I looked like someone who’d just had teeth removed by the local dentist.  The kids yelled some more, this time asking for money.  The rocks began to come yet again and I pleaded with them to stop.  My head started hurting and, thinking the worst, I wasn’t in any shape to chase them away again. I moved away from the campsite up the other side of the river bank.  I was outside of the range of their rocks.  I just wanted them gone and, for the first time in a long time, I felt completely helpless.  I worried for my tent as it was brand new and expensive, but the rocks didn’t stop.  Finally I succumbed.  “OK, OK”, I yelled, thinking, ‘Here’s your money – just be gone!’ I hadn’t the strength nor the patience to argue any longer. The rocks stopped and I crossed the river, placing some money in the grass where they could find it. I put 500 Somoni, (about $4) on the ground and showed them where it was.  By this stage, I was close to them and they could see I’d been badly hurt.  One of the older boys came down from the hill after I backed away, searching for the money.  It seemed that was what they were after all along. Four dollars was hardly worth the trouble.  Part of me wanted to kick them; part of me just wanted them to be gone; part of me realised they were just stupid kids – stupid kids full of vodka.  They got the money and something in them changed.  Was that guilt I felt in the air?  I heard a few of them yelling “sorry” over and over again as they moved away.  It brought absolutely no comfort.

It’s been a long time since I felt helpless and maybe only the second time on this two-year journey where I felt in danger. (The other time was when I was confronted by machete wielding villagers in Indonesia – but even they turned out to be friendly).  I was seriously worried about my situation. Frightened by the thoughts filling my mind, I raced to conclusions about what this meant.  Perhaps I would need surgery.  Perhaps I would need to return home.  It’s interesting how in such situations I often find myself preparing for the worst.  As I sat beside my tent, bandaged but still with blood over my hands and face, I let go of any animosity I felt for the kids or any anger about the situation.  I let go of trying to find conclusions. I thought about family and friends back home and of those I loved.  It bought great comfort knowing that there wasn’t anything I could tell them that they didn’t already know.  For a second there I felt no pain at all.  In that brief moment nothing in my current circumstance plagued my mind at all. I let this feeling, this quietness, reside – a quiet space filled not with joy, nor love, nor any light, not anger or hate but simply of a sense of presence.  Acceptance perhaps?  Resolve, maybe?  And it made me smile.  Leaving as quickly as it came, after this fleeting moment, I thought of personal things left unspoken and vowed to speak them honestly and openly when I had the chance.

In the distance I heard a car coming.  I climbed the bank to where the kids had been throwing rocks and signalled to the driver using my headlamp where we were camped. Sven later told me that he saw the kids running away in the peripheral headlight of the ambulance.  I wasn’t expecting much but, in that short time, Sven had managed to get an ambulance, a driver, a nurse and a translator!  I was quietly impressed.  The ambulance was just an empty van with a first aid kit in the back, but it felt good to get help.  A young, quite attractive, lady in her mid twenties spoke good English.  She had studied in England and translated what happened for the nurse. The nurse unwrapped the bloodstained bandages and took a quick look.  I saw the expression on her face and it didn’t look good, but she also seemed in no rush so I knew it wasn’t as life threatening as I’d imagined.  What brought me the most comfort was we had help, and they knew better than anyone what to do.  Sven and the man who drove the ambulance gathered our gear into the back and we drove to the local village.  After washing the wound and further inspection, they decided to drive us to the nearby emergency room, about an hour away.  I said thank you to the girl who spoke English and got her details.

In the emergency room of the local hospital, a group of middle aged nurses had me lie down on a table while they sewed six stitches in my head.  It was 4am and Sven and I decided it would be best to head back to Almaty to get it looked at by a specialist.  I was worried that there could still be damage to my skull or internal bruising.  With nowhere to go at such an hour, we slept an hour or two in the garden before daylight broke.  Finding an early morning bus back to Almaty, Sven and I were relieved to have an Aussie friend there where we could stay.  Two other Swiss friends were there who we’d only said goodbye to three days earlier.  It felt good to have a place to rest and people to fall back on.  I think that’s what I miss the most when I’m travelling – having people you can rely on in a time of need.

Fortunately the CT scans came back with a good result and I was relieved.  The specialist checked my eyesight and coordination and gave me a bottle of bright green soviet antiseptic that stained my hands. She explained that I needed to dress the wound daily until the stitches came out in ten days’ time.  I went back to my friend’s place at Almaty and rested.  I sent an email to the girl who spoke English and thanked her and her village profusely for the help they had given me.  She conveyed the apologies of her village and assured me that the incident had been raised by the village administration and the boys would be punished accordingly. I never informed the police, but this email gave me enough reason to reaffirm my belief (if this incident ever really put it in doubt) of the kindness of others and the beauty of the Kazakh people.

Only the day before the incident, a lady in a nearby village had invited Sven and I for a two-course lunch with her family, simply because we were hungry and asking where we could find food.  The week before I arrived in Almaty, a young man had invited me for tea and, subsequently, lunch at his farmhouse when I couldn’t find food.  Prior to that, a group of women selling fruits and vegetables by the side of the road had tried to pack dozens of tomatoes, apples, capsicums, cucumbers and grapes into my panniers to help me on my way after I took photos of them all beside the road.

A month later, while cycling through Kyrgyzstan, I received an email from the young lady who did the translating for us saying that the parents of the children involved offered to refund the $110 dollars it cost for the medical treatment I received in Almaty.  That was nearly a fifth of the annual wage of a Kazakh farmer!  I was completely taken aback by their remorse and offer of compensation.  Knowing how difficult it would be to get that money to me and wanting to repay one act of generosity with another, I asked that the village kindly donate the money to the local hospital and wrote a letter to them telling them about all the wonderfully kind people I’d met in Kazakhstan and, again, pointed out that it was me who should be grateful.

I breathed a great sigh of relief.