09.14.04
Today was our first day in "the field." At 8 am we met at the Orbis office and 7 of us piled into the back of one of the vans and drove to a rural health center (a tin-roof covered mud building) to standardize trachiasis and trachoma grading. This means, we sped at a fishtailing 60 or 70 k for an hour outside of Soddo down mostly pitted mud roads with crowds of children, women with huge bundles on their backs, men behind donkeys or cows or goats, and turned in to a crowd of mostly old women, about 30 of them, which grew eventually to probably 150, waiting to be examined and treated.
Before we arrived, though, we first had a flat tire (I mentioned to Andy that we were the entertainment for the day, and he said, "Of course! This is the equivalent of having an airplane land in your backyard.") and when we had the spare on, we drove to a nearby village where there was a gommista who could replace the inner tube so we had a spare again. We also had to cross a river (which nobody had seen running with water before, only dry) on a very suspicious looking log bridge. The first time over we all got out and walked across, except the driver. Job hazards I guess. The bridge was supported by about six main logs that spanned the river, and had a series of smaller logs crossing them perpendicularly. Stones and mud were stuffed in the sides. Not for structural reasons, I imagine, but incase your cart slips to the side, your donkey doesn’t get a leg caught.
Once we got there, we had everyone line up on the benches against the wall of the one of the buildings. Emily walked down the row, did a quick inspection for trachiasis, and then wrote with black permanent marker on the back of their right hand, a number, one through 26. Each of us got a visor-like pair of loups to wear that we could sling down and look through like glasses, or push up so we could see farther than two inches in front of us. We also got a cardboard clipboard, a pen with a lid (possibly helpful in flipping eyelids--didn’t need it!), and a chart to fill in for each patient. We went from person to person, getting right in their face, holding up their eyelid, seeing if there was evidence of "epilation," where they had plucked their eyelashes out because they were scratching their cornea, counted how many eyelashes were touching the globe of the eye and where, checked to see if there were any areas of the rows of eyelashes that were completely turned in so you couldn’t see them, and finally, checked to see how much, if any, of the eye was covered in opacity, which is where the blindness from trachoma finally comes in.
There are so many ways to be sick. Andy pointed out two children slung on their mother’s hips who had huge round, puffy faces, bulgy eyes, and one of them, with his tongue kind of sticking out. Andy said it was probalby malnutrition or thyroid disease. I might have also guessed the thyroid one because I recognized the symptoms from a photo quiz in one of the pediatric magazines that comes through our house.
So many brown, wrinkled women with pussy eyes, short stubby eyelashes from plucking them. The local language is not Amharic, it is Wolaytinga. In Wolaytinga, lo?o means hello. (In Amharic, salam.) Once I got that and a few other words figured out, I at least felt like we were dealing with people as people, not specimens. I would say lo?o and the women would take my hand in both of theirs and hold it and say something back. Occasionally, I would go for one of their hands to see what number they were, and they would think I was going to hold their hand, and do the same thing. Sometimes, when I said hello, they would just nod, as if to say, "Yes, you are here too. Let’s get on with this."
(I’ll be frank, there was one point where during a wave of particularly bad body smells--the people smell like a mixture of B.O. and goats, but not like goats smell like goats, goat that has expelled itself through their skin after being eaten and digested--while I was close up on a particularly gooey eye, that I gagged. I was embarrassed to be so rude, and tried to look away and turn it into a cough.) But I loved occasionally stepping back and watching Andy. Gooey gross stuff doesn’t make him gag like it does me. By the way he was gentle about holding their heads and pulling open their eyes, and patting them on the arm or knee or saying sympathetic things to them in English, or clucking and making clicky noises, which is what he does when he wishes to show concern or get the attention of either older people whose language he doesn’t speak, or communicate with young children--I could see that he saw these people as people, and was not only interested in learning how to treat them, but had genuine compassion for them too.
It was quite a sight. At about midday the children got out of school. An enormous crowd of them gathered laughing and staring, mainly at Emily and I, I think, the two white women, until Emily asked The Lion, can’t remember his Ethiopian name, to go round up about twenty of them who had trachoma. "This is what they get for hanging around," she said.
So twenty children were chosen and lined up, all of the adults who had accumulated over the morning thinking this was a clinic, and not just, essentially, an announcement for a clinic that would be held the rest of the week, and then the rest of the kids who wouldn’t leave because this was all too interesting, were crowded in this fenced in compound, squeezing and moving, and trying to get themselves in front of one of the people wearing the magnifying glass thing on their head. By the time we’d gone through 16 people, we were done standardizing. I stopped doing it near the end, because I wasn’t getting it right, and didn’t have the patience to learn it right, especially when I wasn’t going to be doing it anymore. I let out about 10 of the thickest, worst smelling farts ever, felt woozy and like I was going to need a toilet, or was going to throw up, and staggered over to lean on the car for awhile, hoping no one would trace the smells to me. I took off one off the long-sleeved shirt I’d been wearing (but didn’t want to take off because I hadn’t put sunscreen on all of my arms--I could see Emily burning before my very eyes) and felt somewhat better. Once the standardization was done, we decided to look at everyone so they wouldn’t feel left out, and made the general announcement that anyone who wanted could show up at the clinic the next few days and be treated.
It was madness, chaos. Finally people started to trickle out, and I started feeling better, and finished helping everyone else look in eyes, and mark hands with an x or a check suggesting surgery or not.
I have to go to bed, we’re starting the real thing tomorrow, and will be out in a village again all day tomorrow. Andy is already in bed behind me, our first night in our new home, the Bekele Molla hotel.
Quickly:
The day we moved in to the Sheraton in Addis, we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave it. Pathetic, but true. One of the first things we did was put on our swim suits and dash down to the pool. Andy was particularly eager and adamant about it, despite that the sun was only showing occasionally between tropical downpours, but I remembered why when he laughed gleefully in the middle of the pool and said, "Ready?" and dunked his head in to hear the music.
Couldn’t bring ourselves to leave the next day, either, though I can’t remember if that is the day we went ot church or not. Church was really great. Genuine, gracious, warm people. It made Ethiopians individuals for us instead of a haranguing mass, and us individuals instead of just rich whiteys. We were both really touched by the sincerety and Spirit we felt, and when there were 10 minutes left at the end of the program and they asked if we would bear our testimonies I was touched again to hear Andy bear his about the First Vision, and his search for truth and conversion to the gospel.
Sunday night we had dinner with Emily at an "Italian" restaurant. When we got back to the hotel, New Edition, a band who was there for New Years and who Andy going crazy over, was just leaving for the airport in their limos. I knocked on the windows to see if we could have autographs while Andy ran in ot get paper and a pen. He’s going to give it to Bob as a wedding gift.
Monday we drove down here with Emily and our driver, A(l?)baida. When we got here, we toured a couple hotels and ended up for the night in the Baltu, scummy sort of place that seemed like dirty business goes on there. Can’t explain why. Tonight, and likely from here on out, we’ll be in this room at the Bekele Molla. We spent equiv. of 25 dollars on it tonight--a big woven plastic mat and two pairs of flipflops so we don’t have to touch the floor, new sheets, and a new blanket. I intend to save a Miranda bottle and have fresh flowers in here.
Must go to sleep.
Before we arrived, though, we first had a flat tire (I mentioned to Andy that we were the entertainment for the day, and he said, "Of course! This is the equivalent of having an airplane land in your backyard.") and when we had the spare on, we drove to a nearby village where there was a gommista who could replace the inner tube so we had a spare again. We also had to cross a river (which nobody had seen running with water before, only dry) on a very suspicious looking log bridge. The first time over we all got out and walked across, except the driver. Job hazards I guess. The bridge was supported by about six main logs that spanned the river, and had a series of smaller logs crossing them perpendicularly. Stones and mud were stuffed in the sides. Not for structural reasons, I imagine, but incase your cart slips to the side, your donkey doesn’t get a leg caught.
Once we got there, we had everyone line up on the benches against the wall of the one of the buildings. Emily walked down the row, did a quick inspection for trachiasis, and then wrote with black permanent marker on the back of their right hand, a number, one through 26. Each of us got a visor-like pair of loups to wear that we could sling down and look through like glasses, or push up so we could see farther than two inches in front of us. We also got a cardboard clipboard, a pen with a lid (possibly helpful in flipping eyelids--didn’t need it!), and a chart to fill in for each patient. We went from person to person, getting right in their face, holding up their eyelid, seeing if there was evidence of "epilation," where they had plucked their eyelashes out because they were scratching their cornea, counted how many eyelashes were touching the globe of the eye and where, checked to see if there were any areas of the rows of eyelashes that were completely turned in so you couldn’t see them, and finally, checked to see how much, if any, of the eye was covered in opacity, which is where the blindness from trachoma finally comes in.
There are so many ways to be sick. Andy pointed out two children slung on their mother’s hips who had huge round, puffy faces, bulgy eyes, and one of them, with his tongue kind of sticking out. Andy said it was probalby malnutrition or thyroid disease. I might have also guessed the thyroid one because I recognized the symptoms from a photo quiz in one of the pediatric magazines that comes through our house.
So many brown, wrinkled women with pussy eyes, short stubby eyelashes from plucking them. The local language is not Amharic, it is Wolaytinga. In Wolaytinga, lo?o means hello. (In Amharic, salam.) Once I got that and a few other words figured out, I at least felt like we were dealing with people as people, not specimens. I would say lo?o and the women would take my hand in both of theirs and hold it and say something back. Occasionally, I would go for one of their hands to see what number they were, and they would think I was going to hold their hand, and do the same thing. Sometimes, when I said hello, they would just nod, as if to say, "Yes, you are here too. Let’s get on with this."
(I’ll be frank, there was one point where during a wave of particularly bad body smells--the people smell like a mixture of B.O. and goats, but not like goats smell like goats, goat that has expelled itself through their skin after being eaten and digested--while I was close up on a particularly gooey eye, that I gagged. I was embarrassed to be so rude, and tried to look away and turn it into a cough.) But I loved occasionally stepping back and watching Andy. Gooey gross stuff doesn’t make him gag like it does me. By the way he was gentle about holding their heads and pulling open their eyes, and patting them on the arm or knee or saying sympathetic things to them in English, or clucking and making clicky noises, which is what he does when he wishes to show concern or get the attention of either older people whose language he doesn’t speak, or communicate with young children--I could see that he saw these people as people, and was not only interested in learning how to treat them, but had genuine compassion for them too.
It was quite a sight. At about midday the children got out of school. An enormous crowd of them gathered laughing and staring, mainly at Emily and I, I think, the two white women, until Emily asked The Lion, can’t remember his Ethiopian name, to go round up about twenty of them who had trachoma. "This is what they get for hanging around," she said.
So twenty children were chosen and lined up, all of the adults who had accumulated over the morning thinking this was a clinic, and not just, essentially, an announcement for a clinic that would be held the rest of the week, and then the rest of the kids who wouldn’t leave because this was all too interesting, were crowded in this fenced in compound, squeezing and moving, and trying to get themselves in front of one of the people wearing the magnifying glass thing on their head. By the time we’d gone through 16 people, we were done standardizing. I stopped doing it near the end, because I wasn’t getting it right, and didn’t have the patience to learn it right, especially when I wasn’t going to be doing it anymore. I let out about 10 of the thickest, worst smelling farts ever, felt woozy and like I was going to need a toilet, or was going to throw up, and staggered over to lean on the car for awhile, hoping no one would trace the smells to me. I took off one off the long-sleeved shirt I’d been wearing (but didn’t want to take off because I hadn’t put sunscreen on all of my arms--I could see Emily burning before my very eyes) and felt somewhat better. Once the standardization was done, we decided to look at everyone so they wouldn’t feel left out, and made the general announcement that anyone who wanted could show up at the clinic the next few days and be treated.
It was madness, chaos. Finally people started to trickle out, and I started feeling better, and finished helping everyone else look in eyes, and mark hands with an x or a check suggesting surgery or not.
I have to go to bed, we’re starting the real thing tomorrow, and will be out in a village again all day tomorrow. Andy is already in bed behind me, our first night in our new home, the Bekele Molla hotel.
Quickly:
The day we moved in to the Sheraton in Addis, we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave it. Pathetic, but true. One of the first things we did was put on our swim suits and dash down to the pool. Andy was particularly eager and adamant about it, despite that the sun was only showing occasionally between tropical downpours, but I remembered why when he laughed gleefully in the middle of the pool and said, "Ready?" and dunked his head in to hear the music.
Couldn’t bring ourselves to leave the next day, either, though I can’t remember if that is the day we went ot church or not. Church was really great. Genuine, gracious, warm people. It made Ethiopians individuals for us instead of a haranguing mass, and us individuals instead of just rich whiteys. We were both really touched by the sincerety and Spirit we felt, and when there were 10 minutes left at the end of the program and they asked if we would bear our testimonies I was touched again to hear Andy bear his about the First Vision, and his search for truth and conversion to the gospel.
Sunday night we had dinner with Emily at an "Italian" restaurant. When we got back to the hotel, New Edition, a band who was there for New Years and who Andy going crazy over, was just leaving for the airport in their limos. I knocked on the windows to see if we could have autographs while Andy ran in ot get paper and a pen. He’s going to give it to Bob as a wedding gift.
Monday we drove down here with Emily and our driver, A(l?)baida. When we got here, we toured a couple hotels and ended up for the night in the Baltu, scummy sort of place that seemed like dirty business goes on there. Can’t explain why. Tonight, and likely from here on out, we’ll be in this room at the Bekele Molla. We spent equiv. of 25 dollars on it tonight--a big woven plastic mat and two pairs of flipflops so we don’t have to touch the floor, new sheets, and a new blanket. I intend to save a Miranda bottle and have fresh flowers in here.
Must go to sleep.
posted by Johanna Buchert Smith at 3:25 AM
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