21.10.04

This afternoon we stopped at a family clearing to examine some patients--five huts surrounded by a nibbled yard of grass, and as soon as our Land Rover pulled up under the tree at the far edge, about fifty people spilled out of them onto it. It was a polygamous household--four or five wives. The most malnourished child we've seen yet sat on the hips of one of them, her belly protruding out in anticipation of another child. The baby hung limply in the scale and barely whimpered. Though the mom said he was one year old, his weight was only 6.2 kilos, his head measured less than 48 centimeters in circumference, and his arm was less than 12 cm in circumference.

Its frustrating to not speak the language; all your thoughts have to go through the filter of someone else's mouth--Abebetch's. Andy and I would like to tell this woman more than, "Your baby is very sick. He needs more food. You need to take him to the clinic."

The first is, I'm sure, very well known to the mom. The second may or may not be known, but if it were, the baby would probably be getting more food since most of the other children didn't look that bad. If it were not known, she would likely need more info than just that, or else it would be obvious to her in the first place. Someone needed to teach this mom what her baby should be eating to supplement her breastmilk, possibly how to and how often to breastfeed. As for the third, since the first was obvious, I would assume that if going to a clinic were possible, she would have already. Frustrating.

The household's grand dame was one of our patients. She had high round cheeks that sucked in where years ago she had teeth, and her full lower lip wagged in and out of a pout as she smiled and spoke to people or just waited, breathing. She had no scarf on her head, so we could see her fuzzy head of white white hair. She was also the first person I've seen to not be wearing any Western clothes--just a gabi wrapped around her waist, then up over her shoulder, leaving the other one bare. Thin and strong and bare, it was utterly feminine--she exuded Woman and Mother.

Andy said, as kids and teenagers and men and women holding other children milled around her knees, "Think how different her world is now, from when she was a child." I thought about it for a minute. No, I said, her world--this world--is much different, but not so drastically different as my own grandmother's, Gigi for Great Grandma.

Here's the difference:

In this woman's world now, there are things that are different, thrown in like anachronisms: corrugated tin, plastic shoes, plastic jugs for hauling water, trucks, roads for them to make dust on, radios occasionally, Coke bottles. But even though some people may have an idea of what the world is like outside of their fields, it is a vague notion. Even Nado, who lives in town and talks to more feuringes than most people, had never seen a computer until tonight when he saw our laptop. He looked at the email on the screen Andy was reading and asked, "Where's the paper?" Maybe he was just playing naïve, or maybe he was being funny (or maybe he was looking for the printer?)--in any case, he said he'd never seen one before.

The core components of her world--how families live and what people do everyday and the knowledge and beliefs that drive these things, are the same; men still plow a plot of land walking barefoot behind yoked cows; women still harvest one handful at a time, bent over at their middle, swinging a scythe. Women still marry and have children and live out lives of family rearing and tending in one or two huts. I would be assuming to say, "still marry and have children etc. unquestioningly," but I imagine that is so.

In Gigi's case, not only have things and products changed, its like our whole civilization has changed; expectations, roles, and especially our way of thinking. We are post-industrial-revolution products ourselves. It is impossible for us to think like a subsistence farmer.

The techno-age change is part of it--the way Chris's mind moves and makes associations is a way Grandma's doesn't because it hasn't been shaped by the same things. (This is the same argument for why people think PowerPoint presentations in schools are limiting education and stifling creativity.)

Or maybe the only difference between that grandma's world and my Grandma's world is that in my grandma's world, we think we're different than any other time or age and we've managed to convince others, too. The Ethiopian grandma doesn't have that hubris, so doesn't have expectations for change.

***Still thinking this through***

I saw two chickens get killed today, and then Nado, (forget his name) the bar guy, and Nego the kitchen guy all came out back with what looked like a pro. photo man and asked if I'd take a picture with them. We grouped five feet from where we'd rinsed the chicken bodies. Nado even had the guts to put his crossed arms on my shoulder. Just me and the guys hangin out butchering roosters.