Little Things From Kigali

Saturday 17 Feb, 2007 – 14:24 – Kigali

Of course, I have an entire other life apart from crashing thoughts and genocidal encounters that I have not yet written much about. For instance, I am living with a loving family in a safe neighborhood, with the most adorable children. When I first arrived we had two pets, a dog and a chicken – but then we ate the chicken, so now we just have the dog.

He can be kind of nasty though. I was playing rough with him during my second week in Rwanda and he put a tooth through my palm. Within half an hour my mother was on the phone getting the low-down on Rabies prevalence with Rwanda’s top Veterinarian, the mayor of Kigali. It was nice to be so thoroughly cared for. But the next morning I felt awful and slightly homesick, so I stayed in bed dreaming about how comforting pancakes would be. It had not even been two weeks but already I was dreading millet-porridge for breakfast every morning. I waited for noise in the kitchen to dissipate so I could make my own food without being rude. When I finally crawled out of bed and into the kitchen, there were pancakes waiting for me, covered to keep warm. A mother’s instinct when I feared rabies and wanted to be home – lovely.

The other night I was up late reading through a Medical Imaging textbook, trying to prepare for the following morning’s lecture – and completely stressed out. My six-year-old sister came into the dining room and sweetly asked what I was doing. “I can’t talk now, my friend, I’m trying to prepare for class tomorrow”. Seeing how not-together I seemed to be, she then offered: “Well, usually when I need to prepare for school I just color for a while then go to sleep”. Her innocence was so beautiful, I couldn’t help but
push my book aside, smile, and wish her goodnight as she ran off to bed.

We have five house helpers who live with us as well. Some of my favorite moments are sitting out back with them over a charcoal fire, trying to learn Kinyarwanda while sucking sweet nectar out of fresh sugar cane. And then there are all the times getting from place to place by matatu - cruising through Kigali, the driver blaring Bob Marley, feeling that every little thing will be alright.

Teaching has been a fun challenge too. Although it seems pretty tame compared to all the other stuff going on, I’ve enjoyed thinking on the spot – sometimes shoving the chalkboard aside to draw incident photons and ejected electrons on the walls and floors, representing Bremsstrahlung Radiation and the Photoelectric Effect that makes X-ray generation possible. My students laugh, but the unexpected craziness seems to help solidify the physics in their minds.

Last week was a special one for me – a white coat ceremony. This probably sounds shocking if you know me well, as I’ve vowed never to attend a WCC – the first step in a long, ego-inflating process that often separates doctors from their patients. But I have to wear a lab coat at the hospital, and someone stole the one I was borrowing. In the course of trying to recover the contraband, I spiced the laundry department with laughter and made a great many friends. When I came into the hospital on Valentine’s Day there were dozens of patients and much work to be done – but I bopped into Laundry to say hello, and was then presented with my first white coat – specially tailored to fit my frame. Because I am white, they assumed I was a doctor, not just a lab tech, and thus made it extra long. The dimensions are not quite right, my name is written in pen, threads dangle here and there, and my hands don’t fit in the pockets – but I love it… partly because it is my coat, but mostly because, tattered as it may be, it represents the imperfect world I wish to heal and be healed by.

* Post note – the day after I originally wrote this entry my coat was stolen and I was very upset… but I put word out in the laundry department and when it cycled through again to be washed I got it back!

Hospitals are wonderful places to study cultures. In the United States I’ve seen people explode when their headache is not treated in what they deem to be a timely manner – but in Africa mothers sit patiently, even when the child on their lap has Tuberculosis. After work the other day, my friend Gilbert – who is a doctor because the interhamwe did not kill him – and I were talking about politics in the US. After I explained the tension between Democrats and Republicans, he matter-of-factly observed, “at least no one is going to kill your family for their beliefs”. He is teaching me a lot about being positive and seeing things in perspective. Again, he matter-of-factly commented the other day, “say you don’t have a job – at least you have legs. Someone out there doesn’t have a job or legs, so you are actually quite lucky”. Sometimes I hear things of this nature in the United States, but they always seem overly-virtuous and somewhat artificial because everyone has legs – and those who don’t have access to quality health care. Here though, in Rwanda, having no legs is much more probable, and therefore gratitude is a much more powerful lesson.

If you have chance to tune into Rwandan Television, please watch carefully when the Rwandan Coffee commercial airs – you might recognize the white guy. Filming was fun… and knowing that I’m on a commercial in Rwanda makes me laugh.

It was also a great week because a friend from the US, unprompted, pledged financial support – and so in celebration I ate fresh fruits and vegetables. It was the first time in I don’t know how long that I was satisfied on something other than tea, bread, plantains, potatoes, rice, and ugali (equal parts flour and water, boil off the water). When I finished eating – oh was I happy! – I just sat there and soaked up all the nutrients, kind of like moving from the couch to the living room floor on a lazy Saturday morning so you can lay in the sun rays that flood through the window and march across the floor. Growing up, I always heard about nutrition but it never made sense because I took it for granted. But now I understand how absolutely amazing fresh fruits and vegetables really are.