In the Dark

Friday, August 30

It has been nice getting to know the ex pats in Nkhoma. Everyone is so welcoming. I had a couple of invitations for weekend trips. I pretty much have decided to go with the farthest out offer thinking that closer trips will be easier to do and may come up again. So I agreed to go with Hanna, Rinske, and Lisa to the Zumba plateau and Mulanje mountain. They were wanting to leave on Friday morning but I felt conflicted in not wanting to abandon my duties at the hospital. Some of this is just hard to decifer. It is supposed to be that a clinical officer is on duty always but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I also am here to help the hospital but I hate not to see the country while I am here and most things require leaving by lunch on Friday to avoid driving in the dark. I texted with Catherine and she encouraged me to go. However, on arrival at the hospital no one was scheduled in Pediatrics in the morning. I agreed to round on all the patients and at 11 hand responsibility to Patrick. The hospital administration seemed relieved. 

Morning report was interesting in that complaints were raised by clinical officers. The hospital is having lots of financial problems and although salaries are getting paid allowances are late.  Allowances are pay for being on call and extra shifts. The meeting got pretty tense with some of the clinical officers threatening not to work until they had answers. Most of us just slinked out to work. 

On the wards, praise God, Sibo and Esu were the nurses.  We rounded together with me writing all the notes and orders and doing the exams. The joke I push is that Sibo is the teacher and in charge of checking me homework.   With each patient chart, I pass it to her and she makes sure everything is clear. This seems to work well and gives her an easy avenue to give me feedback and suggestions and also allows me to do teaching with the nurses. It was actually enjoyable. We had a few new admissions and 11 o’clock came quickly.  At the end of the time, I thanked the nurses profusely for their help. Sibo response that I had been very nice to them and I was very welcome. Score!

I texted the group that was waiting on me that I was heading that way. I threw a few things in a back pack.  

Then came the cry- a desperate guttural noise of agony. I rushed from my room and found Nina slumped in Priscilla’s arms. We all gathered around as she wept. Our first thought was that she had witnessed something horrible at the hospital. But as the sobs escalated, it became apparent that it was something else. Melissa intervened with the question of what had happened. “My papa (dad) has died,”she choked.  There are no words to offer in comfort.

A group, that 2 weeks ago were strangers, now surrounded a friend in grief. Three quickly searched flights and booked the quickest, while the rest of us packed up her things. Within an hour, we had her in the car headed for the airport.  She sat stoically in the car with occasional bursts of weeping. I could not even let my mind go to where she was. We arrived and got her checked in, gave sympathetic hugs, and loaded back in the car.

The airport was in the exact opposite direction we needed to go.  Now we were several hours away from Zumba and it was already past 2pm.  We headed off but were able to stop quickly to get a picture of one of the crazy road snacks here-grilled rat.  It was awful with all the flies buzzing around but we traded apples for photos. We also had a stop for Hanna’s speeding ticket (second one).

The drive was long but we had a lot of good humored conversation.  They are all so sweet to speak English when it would be so much easier to speak Dutch and leave me out.  The it got dark. There just aren’t words to describe how terrifying driving in the dark is here. It is completely dark, like in a way I have not experienced and then a car comes toward you that lights up dark silhouettes of all the people, bikes, goats, chickens, dogs, and donkeys that are in the road.  Our rented car also had some pitiful headlights that occasionally turned off if you tried to switch to bright. The road are also so narrow that when you drive by a car at night you turn on your blinker to that the other car can see how far the body of your car extends. There was lots of squealing, screaming, and nervous giggling.  This lasted over an hour. As we pulled in I commented that I had been praying. Rinske asked, “Really?” And Lisa, the atheist, replied, “Even I was praying!”

When we pulled into the hostel-yes, I am one of those cool young people, we were exhausted but relieved.  The hostel brought us French fries as the kitchen was closed and it is actually nice with all of us in a room with bunk beds and a shared house bathroom.  We were asleep quickly.