Tuesday
Joseph drove us to clinic this
morning. Henry came with us, on a trip
to town. We’re still not sure if he can
actually drive, but he says he can. I’ll
let you know if we ever find out.
We spent the morning in the
dispensary. Sometimes I feel like an
idiot when we’re there. I can’t figure
out what medication they’re asking for.
[the dispensary]
I’m not fluent in chicken scratch.
Also, sometimes they use generic names,
which are on all the pill bottles and sometimes they use the brand name. And sometimes they use a brand name, and you
have to figure out what brand name is equivalent to that. It’s not that hard if they write panadol when
the brand we have is paracetamol. (both are acetaminophen) But when you write Septra and we have to
figure out that co-trimoxazole is the brand we have, then we start having
problems.
I did learn a new skill today. I learned how to break tiney pills in
half. And I got pretty good at it.
[my new skill sitting next to the chicken
scratch]
But by far, the most painful part of the
morning came when we had to dispense “coated gauze.” A little girl had a baseball size burn on
her elbow. One of the nurses showed us how
to clean a burn wound and dress it with coated gauze that wouldn’t stick to
it.
I had a really hard time.
Watching the nurse scrub the burn while
the little girl struggled to hold back huge tears made my heart hurt. I wish I could have given her a teddy bear to
hold. Why did I not keep a teddy bear in
my pocket for this? There’s a bag with a
teddy bear in it sitting next to my bed at home, donated for the trip. It didn’t fit in my bag, instead I brought
medical supplies thinking they were what was needed most.
I wish we could have given her a dose of
pain medicine first.
I wish the nurse had showed a little more
compassion, at least appearing like she was being gentle instead of grabbing
and yanking the arm.
For the second time since we arrived, I
felt nauseous at the clinic.
The nurse put on dressing and asked me to
help hold it. The only relief I felt was
being able to hold it on gently and holding the girl’s hand at the same
time. She was doing such a great job at
being brave.
And I wish I could have told her that.
Told her something.
I hope she could read my eyes, full of
compassion and concern.
Sweet, baby girl.
Frances and I were so concerned for the
little girl that we didn’t even notice that the nurse was insulting us. Talking down to us, mumbling under her breath
in Lamba, not sure why we didn’t know how to wrap a burn.
Mr. Musonda yelled at her to stop
treating us like idiots, that we’re doctors in America, things are just very
different here and in America the nurses typically wrap burns.
Good thing he was looking out for us,
because we weren’t able to.
…………………………………………………………………………………
We ate peanut butter and banana
sandwiches for lunch. I barely ever eat
peanut butter in America. I have a half
a jar of peanut butter that’s still in my cupboard because I hate PB & J. I would much rather make a salad for lunch,
bring leftovers, eat cheese and veggies on bread, eat snack food, than eat PB
& J.
I think we got made fun of during
lunch. It wasn’t in English but people
were definitely laughing.
So we moved up to the porch of the clinic
to escape the heckleing.
But I’m pretty sure we got made fun of
worse on the porch by our favorite nurse.
She asked “how was lunch.” Frances and I both said “lunch was good”
followed by laughter and some Lamba.
Then the Lamba broke and we heard “lunch was good” out of her mouth,
followed by more laughter and Lamba.
If you’re going to make fun of us in
earshot, it would probably be best to translate ALL of it into Lamba so we don’t
know.
After that, we were approached by a guy
who stopped just to watch us play a game of cards. He was mildly fascinated, and when we
finished speed, he told us so. Then he
moved on. I guess that’s what you get
when you’re a musungu.
After he left, we moved on to a new
game. Old maid.
I remember playing this a million times
as a child with just a deck of cards, but it’s not the easiest game to make up
the rules for. We started playing with
just pairs of numbers or faces, any color.
We had too many matches. Then we decided
our pairs had to match: red and red, black and black. But again, too many matches. The game was over to fast. So we decided to try getting 4 of a kind.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold
that many cards in your hand??
The game got pretty intense. We were way into it. We still had problems with cards left
over. We gave up and went back to work
in the dispensary for the afternoon.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Here’s a summary of the rest of our
day. Nothing too exciting:
Walked to Joseph’s shop.
Got a lollipop.
I had to pee but couldn’t, because a bug
crawled across my shoe.
I think Mufutu (whose name means trouble)
thinks he’s funny when he calls us weak in sign language: saying we walk too
much and won’t be able to make it.
We
don’t agree.
The well where everyone gets water from was
busy. So we weren’t able to get pictures
with it.
No internet again. Bummer
I worked on my project.
Then played solitaire till I won. (Only 5 times) I picked up some skills to help us play
solitaire at lunch tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment