Every Sunday there is a group trip into town to go to the movies, the zoo or shopping. Still, with a thousand funerals at the temple last year, the specter of death is ever present. A body resting in a coffin at the entrance to the ward, and within a patient's line of vision, is barely noticed. Dying residents talk candidly to one another about the day when there will be no more suffering. For those with full-blown AIDS, contact with the staff is intimate.
Nurses provide massages and apply hot compresses and balms made with traditional herbs.
Those who can no longer eat with a spoon are fed with a syringe-like dropper. To patients, the healing that comes from the hands means more than anything medical science has to offer.