13.10.04

A woman and her children and stooped mother were lined up on the bench. She had pulled a long, brown, sweet-potato-shaped breast out from her collar and was consoling the child in her lap with it. The baby whimpered into it, tugging and squeezing. I wanted to take a picture and asked one of the team if it would be alright. She said that if I was just getting a picture of the whole group, it would be fine, but if it at all looked like I was trying to get a picture of her nursing, she'd cover up. I was debating and Andy said, "You should respect that. Just keep the picture in your mind."

We see a lot of people, a lot of different families. When you go into different communities and different family plots, you can really see differences in general cleanliness, health, and happiness. There are some families where none of the kids look well--there's a dullness about them, as well as usually filthy faces and hair and shreds of clothes, skin diseases, sometimes lumps or wounds, a desperateness. This family--it looked well. No new clothes, but clean faces and a self-contained dignity. A quietness that translated into no squinty stares, and what, a sense of responsibility? (Maybe I'm just remembering all these virtues because they flattered me?)

When they stood up to go, I walked a few steps with them, thanking them--"tossimo, tossimo." The woman took my hand and held it for a moment, thanking me back. The older mother looked up at me and started saying something sadly, touching her eyes. I thought she was telling me that her eyes were sore, that she was having some other sort of pain. I cupped her cheek in my hand, apologizing for not being able to do anything, for being useless for anything besides whipping crowds of children into a frenzy. She placed her hand on top of mine, pressing it into her cheek, then took my hand in both of hers and kissed it, thanking me in Wolaytinga. It made my own eyes get wet. I have no right to thanks like that. I have done nothing to deserve that. Anyone who can get a plane ticket and find a car to get down here can do what I've done.

Nado hit it bang on tonight when he asked about our work, "What is it for? What will it do?" Long term studies about trachoma/trachiasis may have some beneficial impact eventually for these people, and certainly the trachiasis surgery is something, but even the "cataract surgery ministries," as cliched as they are, that come out for a week and process through as many people as they can stay awake for, seem to do more than we're doing. It's part of the same question you face when you work (I imagine, as a physician) on the reservations: Does the part of my time I'm here giving make up for the fact that some of my interest is self-centered? Etc.

Its raining again tonight. Rainy nights make for muddy slip-n-slide mornings.