Goodbye Africa

Is it possible to have culture shock in your own home culture? Because this all feels really weird.  Roads, electricity, showers, western food, plumbing, a mattress… last night I tried to tuck my mosquito net in before going to bed, only to feel really dumb when I realized there wasn’t one.  It’s hard to revert back to normal life after living such a surreal one for two months.  Waking up to an alarm clock (snooze, snooze, snooze…), going to school, having organized classes with homework, hearing people speak fluent English, cafeteria lunches, working at Weiss markets instead of the clinic, everything just seems… weird.  Not that I’m complaining- I’m ecstatic to be home.  Everything is just so different.      

This summer I attended the national Episcopal Youth Event (EYE) in Minnesota.  One of our main speakers was Cameron Vivanco, a long-term missionary in Ecuador, who was a really inspiring speaker.  She said that there are five stages to post mission, or really to any journey to a third-world country, mission or no.  (For a clarification of the whole “missionary” thing, see my dad’s post Candy for Converts)  I can’t quite remember what she said word for word so forgive me if I mess something up.  Feast, fight, flee, fit, and fruit-the five Fs of post mission.  Step 1: Feast.  When first returning from a trip, you tend to really, really happy- it’s awesome to sleep in a real bed and take showers and eat good food and everything else.  Trust me- it’s awesome.  Step 2: fight.  You get angry.  People ask, Oh how was your trip?  And you try to tell them about all the wonderful things you saw and learned, and all the wonderful people you met, but they just space out and smile and nod.  They don’t really want to hear about it, they just want to hear Oh it was great! Then move on with their day, having fulfilled their social obligations by asking.  Honestly, I’ve stopped trying to tell people.  You get angry that no one seems to give a *darn* about the problems of the world.  Step 3: Flee.  You flee your home culture.  People have done things like refuse to take hot showers, eat fancy foods, or buy new clothes.  Eventually we all realize that this helps no one, and just puts us in a bad mood (cold showers-enough said). 

Then come the really important steps.  Step 4: Fit.  In step 4, you give up.  You accept that it’s just the way of the world and you stop worrying about it.  You shove the memories away; try not to feel the guilt and shame.  Many people are successful with this.  They forget the bad stuff, pat themselves on the back for going at all, and settle in.  This is bad- you do NOT want to stop at step 4, but sadly so many people do.  Step 5 is Fruit.  In an ideal world, everyone would reach this step.  Fruit is what you get out of the trip, how it changes you and inspires you make a change.  Some people start their own non-profit organizations, some decide to be long term missionaries, some just resolve to be nicer to people in everyday life.  I think I know what my fruit is- this trip has made an everlasting impression on me.  After receiving my bachelors in biology, I’ll study for an MD PhD in tropical medicine.  I have every intention to change the world, and that is partly because of this trip. 

I don’t know how long it will be until I come back to South Sudan.  College looms large in my future (finally), and after that I don’t know where life will take me.  Maybe I’ll be back next year, maybe after college, maybe never.  I don’t know.  One thing I do know- I will always remember these months under African skies.    

You Might Be In Africa If...

·         Airport security means one guy sitting on a plastic chair by the exit with an AK-47.

·         Random people walk up to you, inform you that they are police officers or wildlife conversationalists and expect you to give them money.

·         You spend breakfast one morning debating with your friends how much your respective dowries should be in cows and shillings. 

·         You see an entire family, 20 liters of water, a pig, and a crate of chickens loaded onto a motorcycle, none of them wearing helmets (not even the chickens!) and aren’t surprised.

·         Father daughter bonding is setting up the family mosquito nets.

·         You charge your phone from a car battery-that’s still attached to the car. 

·         Backpack on the front and baby on the back is normal.

·         A small child goes missing and is picked up a police man.  Before returning the child, the police officer expects a $100 bribe.

·         I’ll be there at noon means expect me at 2 in the afternoon or later.

·         People carry more things on their head than they do in their hands.

·         Your popcorn comes in a can and your eggs have never been refrigerated.

·         You drink a cup of tea in the morning instead of coffee.

·         The milk at the grocery store isn’t refrigerated and doesn’t need to be-because it’s been so heavily pasteurized it won’t expire for another 4 months.   

·         If you have a fever, there’s a 95% chance you have malaria- but Hakuna Matata, because Malaria is like the common cold, you get it, you treat it, you move on.

·         You walk into the shower and find a goat eating your bar of soap.  

What's Up Doc?

I’ve always been fascinated by biology, and my recent diabetes diagnoses has just renewed my interest in medicine.  I honestly had no plan to pursue anything medical while in Africa this year, because I didn’t think it was possible.  However, my program with the leper colony ended about a month earlier than I expected, and I was bored out of my mind.  I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before- I do NOT do well with inactivity.  At all.  So I started to look for something to occupy my time with- and discovered St. Morgan’s Maternal and Child Health Care Center.

St. Morgan’s is the best private clinic in Kajo-Keji County, and people travel for hours to receive treatment there.  The government hospital refers people there on a daily basis.  They have the only ultrasound machine and technician and the only x-ray machine, which will soon be operational when they get a big enough generator to run it.  I didn’t think it would be possible to work there but it turns out they are happy to have me! I started with the internship about three weeks ago, and have learned more than I thought possible. 

I have a huge amount of respect for my mentor.  He is the only certified medical personnel there, so he works from around 7 in the morning to around 11 at night every day, and he is on call all night.  He literally sleeps at the clinic.  He is also one of the only African men I have ever met who treats me like an equal.  Most treat me as if I am inferior simply because I’m a girl.  He likes to teach and I like to learn- I would have been content to listen and watch as he interacted with patients, but he decided that wasn’t enough of a challenge. 

On my second day at the clinic he turned to me and said OK you can check his blood pressure.  I was dumbfounded and it took me a few seconds to realize that he actually meant ME.  After the first time I was more prepared for this… when he told me to give injections and perform ultrasounds I was somewhat ready.  Since then I’ve learned how to check blood pressure, give injections, both IM and IV, use the ultrasound machine, take medical histories, and perform basic examinations like palpations and checking for cyanosis, and much more. 

Every day we go into the exam room with patients, he sits in the wood chair, and both the patients and I sit in plastic chairs.  He takes the history while I watch, then consults me as to what I think it is.  Once I’ve correctly identified the disease he asked me what treatment… I’ve memorized the dosages for many common drugs.   Yesterday, we walked into the exam room and he sat in my plastic chair and looked at me expectantly.  Well thanks for the warning…  I sat in the wood chair and took the lead in talking to the patient, doing investigations (i.e. blood smear for malaria), diagnosing, and prescribing treatment.  Talk about trial by fire! If I made a mistake, he corrected me, but thanks to his merciless grilling in previous weeks I have the basics pretty well memorized. 

I have them memorized because for the most part we only get a few types of cases: malaria, typhoid, respiratory tract infections, ulcers, etc.  All are very easy to identify and treat.  I absolutely love working there.  The people are friendly, the days are busy, and the work is absolutely fascinating.  I usually stay for about eight hours a day, sometimes more sometimes less, and the time flies by.  I don’t know if I’ll end up being a pediatrician, a surgeon, a diagnostician, etc… But one thing is clear: I need to start working on my elaborately illegible doctor’s signature.      

THE Mzungus

There’s one thing I don’t understand about Kajo-Keji County:  it’s the southernmost district of South Sudan, comparatively accessible by road and air from Uganda, so why aren’t there more aid agencies? The need is here, the projects are obvious and easy and it’s easily accessible.  I’m confused.  What this amounts to is that people here don’t see a lot of Mzungus.  So when they see us it’s not “Hey look it’s a mzungu!” it’s “Hey look it’s THE mzungus, those ones that come back every year.” They especially always remember Liam.  Gee, I wonder why-he’s the social butterfly of our otherwise introverted family.

OH the joys of being a mzungu in rural Africa.  NOT.  There are a lot of bad things about that.  Number 1: The staring.  Excuse me, didn’t your mother teach you not to stare? Oh no, sorry, I can see her behind you, and she’s staring, too.  Peachy.  On the bright side, nothing we do here is weird because we’re those crazy mzungus and God knows why we do what we do.  I could walk around in a chicken suit and get the same looks I do now.  I feel like an exhibit in a zoo.  Hey you, don’t tap the glass!  We don’t like it. 

Number 2:  Mzungus are drunk magnets.  When a man walks up to you, smelling strongly of alcohol and informs you that he is a police officer-trust me, he’s not.  Do not give him money; you’re going to need it when the real police officer demands a bribe.  Number 3: Mzungu girls are drunken marriage demand magnets.  Note: not proposals, demands.  You, you, how are you?  You will marry me; you will come and be my wife.  UM excuse me?! No.  First of all, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.  Second of all, you really need to work on your technique because your  drunk “you will marry me” isn’t going to get a lot of takers.  The usual arguments don’t work either… I’m still in primary school, I’m already married, and NO you crazy @#$%^&* get away from me!! are all met with cheerful assurance that it’s ok it’s ok.   For those of you familiar with the JennaMarbles videos on youtube… I should have used The Face.  Although honestly I doubt it would have worked. 

Number 4:  Mzungu tax.  What? No it does not cost 50,000 shillings for a boda-boda ride to Mogiri -- you just sold it to the Africans for 10,000.  Enough with the bull crap here people, just tell me the real price.  I’ve been coming here for years - I know what it should be. Side note: boda-bodas, African motorbike taxis, are a singularly terrifying experience and will probably have a post dedicated to their insanity.   

Of course there are also a lot of really wonderful things about coming to Africa, but this post just happens to be me venting about several of my least favorite things.  Such is life; you take the good with bad and roll with the punches.                  

The Prom Nail Discrepancy

             This is going to be a very short post because I want people to read it and then spend time thinking about it.  Please feel free to comment with your thoughts on the subject.  OK? Good.  Ready, set, change the world!

Today as I was eating breakfast I looked down at my feet-and I noticed something.  My nails still had a sparse, chipped coating of silver and teal nail polish-from prom.  Yeah, yeah, I know prom was three months ago.  Somehow I just never got around to finding the nail polish remover.  I looked a few times but couldn’t find it, and then I would always get distracted and forget about it.  

 ANYWAYS the reason I’m talking about my nails is The Prom Nail Discrepancy.  Upon noticing my poor, ravaged nails I started to think about the disparity among the nations of the world.  Obviously it’s something one thinks about often here but this just put it in perspective a bit.  How is it girls in one country can spend upwards of four hundred dollars on a dress they wear once and girls in another are forced to sell themselves to buy food to keep their families alive?  How is it that we leave the water running at home without a second thought, but here people ration out a single jerrycan of water- a jerrycan they had to walk kilometers to fetch?  And all we have to do is turn on a faucet?  How is it we turn our noses up at perfectly good food while people all over the world starve to death?  I’m not trying to be self-righteous here.  I’m as guilty as the next person, and I’m questioning myself as much as anyone else.

Why are some nations overflowing with plenty and some starve to death by the thousands?  WHY?

Like Daughter Like Father

http://southsudansabbatical.blogspot.com/
 hey everybody!  this is the link to my dad's blog which he recently set up... oh it seems like only yesterday I was teaching him how to text and now he's blogging all by himself! *sob* they grow up so fast! incidentally his most recent blog post was him going all sentimental nostalgic dad... if he could have pulled out an album of baby photos he would have.  He is not going to handle it well when I leave for college.  Love you dad :) Thanks for everything- tinate baba