Planting with my neighbor, and constant shadow, Regina. I LOVE to garden!!! To be honest, I am a bit addicted. I have been known to clear land at dawn, weed for hours and check the progress of my little plants daily. Green and leafy veggies...oh, the anticipation!
As Didinga days go, this was one much like all the others. I had agreed earlier in the week to meet with Emilio, one of the school teachers, at 8 am down at the local school. I ran into my neighbor Margaret on the way. She was on her way to an early morning Methe party at Emilio’s compound. She invited me to join her, but naively in Emilio punctuality, I refused the invitation.
Considering this an “official” school meeting, I arrived promptly at 7:50 am. Finding the school grounds empty, I sat down and gazed across the green fertile valley, up to Emilio’s hillside compound. Even from the distance, I could recognize the crowd of Methe drinkers gathered.
Hours passed, I waited and Emilio never came. Students began to congregate, kicking a small mud clot. I eventually realized that even if Emilio somehow managed to find his way to the school, he would, by this time, be far too drunk to intelligently consider the business we intended to discuss. Around 11 am I walked home, leaving the students patiently awaiting the arrival of their intoxicated teachers.
The afternoon was just as interesting. Our team nurses were lying low, treating their own aliments, leaving us novices to care for Didinga’s ill and wounded. With weak knees and often squirming more than our “patients,” I helped Tianne clean and bandage a beautiful baby girl’s foot, burned more than a week before. As Tianne washed the seeping and infected flesh, I tried to convince myself that this was just a foot, rather than a wee one’s unattended wound.
Using my very limited Didinga medical vocabulary, at times awkward charade imitation and reminding each of my “patients” that I was not a nurse, I tried to convince the hungover to drink water, rather than Methe, the flu-stricken to rest and the worm-ridden to avoid the rabbit trails and describe all of their symptoms, even the…unmentionable.
When I was a little girl I dreamed of simultaneously working at Albertson’s Grocery Store, living at the end of my parents’ driveway and as the first female president, running the country. I never wanted to be a nurse. I am perhaps the worst “nurse” to have ever assumed the role. However, after diagnosing and treating a girl’s advanced Urinary Track Infection, I felt quite exhilarated, if not on the verge of American incarceration for impersonating a doctor and unlawfully distributing drugs.
We made it home just in time to hear the thunder rolling across the valley. After dinner, sitting in the lantern light, my roommates and I swallowed our 6 month preventative deworming pills and finished off a prized pitcher of Crystal Light – toasting just another Didinga day and dreaming about the next.
- Dtanura Sewing Party - The Dtanura is the optimum of Didinga high fashion. This hip accentuating polyester skirt not only dries quickly, can hide a week's worth of dirt and, on occasion, may get caught in a breeze, giving one the illusion of an Olympic ice-skater. This skirt, accesorized with a multi-purpose ceremehm, is nothing short of extraordinary! Dressing up Didinga...yes, we really do wear this. One missionary and 5 Didinga Boogeches (childless women)
"I could die tomorrow easily enough, she could not watch me forever. So I walked with her to please her to quiet her, and at first light, we were in the middle of the desert with ten thousand others. This was to be our next home, we were told. And we stood in that land and we waited that day as trucks and Red Cross vehicles came and left more people there, in a land so dusty and desolate that no Dinka, would ever think to settle there. It was an arid and featureless and the wind was constant. But a city would grow in the middle of that desert. This was Lokichoggio, which would soon become the staging ground for international aid in the region." What is the What – Dave Eggers What is the What is one Sudanese refugee’s story of survival. As an eye-witness to the brutality of war, a hungry and orphaned boy and later, as a struggling Lost Boy in America, the author never complains. Yet, when he steps in Loki, our team's refuge from Didinga, he writes these "flattering" words. Sitting, sweating and waiting for my flight to Nairobi....in Lokichoggio.
