April 16, 2009

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.