Pissed Happy Children

“These children know nothing about PHCs!”
“You are right, they think it stands for Personal Holding Company.”
“Deplorable!”
“Let’s show them!”

And thus it came to be, that the Pancreas and her friends were released from the torture chamber at the Department of Community Medicine, and sent to live in a village.

The Pancreas, having experienced rustic village life previously, knew exactly what to do. She packed her whole room into a bag, and added the kitchen sink too, for good measure. There wasn’t much space left for clothes, but this did not worry her. She had been informed that the most she would be able to do at the end of the day would be to crawl into bed with a prayer of thanks.
“3 days, 2 dresses, and the one I’m wearing. This will be more than adequate.”
In retrospect, that was an extremely stupid notion.

The Pancreas could not lift her bag. But her friends could, and did. (She loves them all very much, and will be eternally grateful to Skoda, the A and Scarhead.)

The Pancreas was bewildered. Was this the village? The rural village on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere that they were posted in? But it had a shop that actually sold shampoo. Real shampoo, with Sunsilk written on the bottle in big, bold letters.

The Pancreas went to the PHC. She was surprised to see actual, honest-to-goodness patients there, and her eyeballs popped out and did a tango when she saw in-patients.

The Pancreas met some of the villagers. She went into their homes, and saw old ladies watching Ente Manasa Puthri [My Insane Daughter] on Asianet.
“Shampoo and mega serials on cable, this must be a city.”

The Pancreas made her way back to the convent they were going to stay in. This time, the tiles on the floor did not raise her eyebrows, but the toilet did. She nearly wept with joy when she saw that the toilet was better equipped than her own toilet back home.

The Pancreas flourished under the excellent food provided by the nuns. She was very happy, and decided to stay there forever.

The Pancreas had a teacher, known as Dr. Wick. Dr. Wick wanted the Pancreas and all her friends to become experts in SPM. Dr. Wick was loads of fun, and they all loved him, and so they decided to work. And how they worked! They conducted surveys among the people of the ‘village’, they interviewed patients in the PHC, they talked to doctors and nurses and pharmacists and drivers, they formulated health programmes and held discussions about the merits and demerits of immunisation programmes; they ate, slept and thought SPM. And it was fun. For the first time in their lives, they realised how SPM worked, and they were happy.

We had joy, we had fun
We held surveys in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
Were so steep I had a fall*.

The Pancreas and her friends worked hard, and Dr. Wick was pleased with them.
“I shall take you to a lion safari park on our way back,” he said, and there was much rejoicing.

The Pancreas saw a lion, and four lionesses. The lion saw the Pancreas, and he smiled at her. The lionesses growled, and the lion returned to his den. She told her friends waiting in line about it, and they laughed at her.
“You checked the sex too?” and there was much guffawing. They returned subdued, because they hadn’t realised that lions had manes, and lionesses did not.

The Pancreas returned home, tired, but happy, and kissed her cat, and got scratched on her nose.

P.S: Some people think PHC stands for Primary Health Centre.
P.P.S: I hate Medical Entomology. I don't know, or care about, the species of mosquito feeding on my blood. I will zap them all with my AllOut mosquito repellent, and that's it. Gah.

*Almost.