March 25, 2005

9:23 p.m.

My Sister's Back from Africa

I haven't spoken with her yet, but I know she's back by now. I'll give her 24 hours to decompress and sleep before I call.

Rose is 2-1/2 years my elder. She's a registered nurse, and works in private practice. She's VERY good. I mean she's not only a really savvy NP, but she's compassionate and funny and really connects with people.

About two years ago, she met a woman at a nursing conference who runs a group called the Ghana Health Mission. Twice a year, alternating groups of students and health care professionals fly to Ghana, on a volunteer basis, to set up a clinic for about a week, treating people who have a) no money, b) no insurance, and c) all manner of disease and complaints. "These people need medical care," the woman said, "and $150 can buy someone a lifesaving operation at the local hospital. And the people are wonderful. It would change your life." The conditions under which the clinic volunteers function are arduous. It's hot, the food is starchy, the air is acrid from the smoke of cookfires, the mosquitos have malaria. One cannot go barefoot, or risk the burrowing of insects into the feet. All drinking water must be stringently filtered.

"Why would anyone do this, on purpose?" Rose thought. "It surely wouldn't be me."

By the time the evening was over, though, after the lecture and the workshop and whatnot, she couldn't get the idea out of her mind.

"Why not me?" a small voice kept asking.

So several months (and one benefit concert by the band later), she had raised the money and was on a plane to Accra. This after several hundred dollars' worth of vaccinations, and several weeks of preventative malaria medication.

Her friend was right; it did change her life. She came back full of stories, of the patients, of her new extended family. The slight young woman who acted as her translator, for example. Her name is Francesca, and she wants to be a nurse. She volunteers with the mission. Some patients couldn't speak English, so Francesca would translate questions and answers between them and Rose. Soon, though, she was taking pulses and asking preliminary questions so that Rose could work faster. She was an invaluable help. One day Rose discovered that Francesca hadn't eaten yet that day, nor the day before. Rose shared some shelled almonds with her. Francesca wanted to know what they were, and tried to grasp the idea of buying nuts in a package, far from the tree where they were grown.

Rose talked about the patience of the people there. One older man walked miles to the clinic, on a wounded leg, and slept on the ground overnight so he could be seen in the morning. He was a fisherman, and his wound was from a rusty hook that had embedded in his leg months before. The hook was out, but the wound was never treated properly so it had festered. He hadn't been able to work. His relatives were feeding him, and his wife and kids, until he could fish again.

And all this was done and explained with the utmost patience and respect. No one jostled to be seen; they simply did what they had to do, because there was no other way. You live miles from the clinic, have to be seen in the morning? Walk there the night before. Speak in soft tones to the one lying near you, the one with the eye problem. Nestle into the ground and wait for the sun.

A young girl in the village suddenly walks to the ditch, straddles it, and pees in the sludge.

Local volunteers wash the American clinicians' clothes by hand, at the river.

Everyone either has malaria, has just had malaria, or is just about to get malaria.

A couple thousand dollars in the Mission's kitty can save, oh, maybe five or eight lives.

Three hundred dollars can send a girl to nursing school.

The overwhelming reality of their lives vs. our lives was, obviously, a staggering revelation and a humbling experience. Can we possibly look at how much we consume and waste, and will we realize the extent of our extravagance? What does it take? Do we have to go there and see it with our eyes? We're rich, rich. Even if we're busting our asses to make the rent; we have toilets, we have toothbrushes; we don't have to smoke fish in the acrid yard where our hanging laundry then smells like soot and our lungs burn and our eyes water. We live snugly and eat every day. We smell fresh when we choose.

Privation abounds, but above all she was struck by how loving the people are. How they love and support each other and don't complain, but cooperate.

That was a year ago last August. Last year, Rose was planning to go again, but the Athens Olympics, of all things, kept the trip from happening. Security issues, or something, jacked up airfares so high that no one could afford to go overseas. So the August trip was postponed.

Rose is making up for it by going twice this year: March and August. In the interim she has kept up correspondence with a few of her African friends -- Francesca, of course, and another young man with the surprising name of Elvis, who worked in the internet cafe, where it can take an hour to get online and send one email home. Rose and Mike have set up a scholarship fund with the Mission, and are helping people like Francesca get to nursing school. Elvis is from a family who are slightly better off, so he is putting himself through college now too.

She reported this time, in brief daily phone calls to Mike (they'd set up pay phones by the internet cafe, and it was much faster than waiting for a dailup connection), that she'd had a happy reunion with her friends. They saw more than 20 patients a day, and sometimes moved the clinic upcountry to a more remote area so they could see people who otherwise couldn't get into the village. Some of the volunteers caught a throat/lung virus, or perhaps were just laid low by the smoke, but she's feeling better now. She's come back just in time for her birthday (which is Monday). I have things for her, from Texas and from here, but she'll have things for me too. Fabrics, and perhaps beans purchased at the local market, or spices. And stories.

And the coolest thing is, after she gets back from the August trip, Elvis is coming to visit. Here. He's never been out of Sekondi. And he's coming to the States. They refer to here as "seven miles from Heaven." Rose has tried to explain to him that it won't be quite what he expects. Not the Valhalla he's somehow come to believe it is. I only hope that we, and everyone else he meets here, can be as kind and loving and respectful to him as he and his neighbors are to us and to each other. That would make up for the wastefulness and corruption, wouldn't it? To see that, as individuals, we're fundamentally good?

Still, I just want to be there when she takes him to the grocery store.