Until it Hurts

I am in the business of having my idealistic notions shattered.

Not in terms of my own abilities - I'm well aware that my skills lend themselves to teaching, organizing, and telling people to ignore the woman behind the curtain - I have harboured no grand dreams of rescuing people.  But when I see the level of need here - for jobs, a salary, and safety - I'm appalled at those who grow up in the same environment, reach positions of power, and continue to propagate the system of corruption and disorder.

I have heard stories of fund mismanagement; of health zone directions who, when offered increased access to medication or mental health care, ask, "But what's in it for me?"; unsalaried police officers who ask for a drink or extort money for minor infractions; principled doctors who cannot afford cars.

I'm reading Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo, which denounces the uncontrolled influx of aid to Africa which has mostly benefitted elite despots of most countries and has actually increased poverty rates and decreased growth rates.  She cites some examples of African countries which have succeeded in escaping the clutches of aid and offers ways to for a hypothetical African country to do the same.  As I am not an economist, I understood very little of it, but I do agree that billions of dollars and a nominal democracy are not the most beneficial imports for this country.  I also see the short-term ways in which aid is helpful and the lack of it affects the ability to reach far-flung communities and effectively train and equip staff.

If you've ever complained about a working lunch, I'm here to tell you to re-evaluate everything you know,  Our working lunches consist of a bun and a bottle of pop - and I am thankful. But when I think of the overabundance of goodness at my old job, I'm forcibly reminded of Pharaoh's seven lean, cannibalistic cows.

In an effort to fight the good fight for more aid, here's one plan:  "Remember to take pictures [of the groups]!  White people love pictures," with a slightly guilty look at me as though I were the sole keeper of an army of white bleeding hearts with fortunes to spare and a deep yearning to learn about fistulas and prolapsis in Central Africa.

I see the uses of aid, but my difficulty with it stems from a distinctly piratical motto of Take what you can; give nothing back!  

Ubuntu is all well and good, but then you have hospitals fighting over Les Kits Prophylaxie Post-Exposition (KitPEPs for rape survivors), either for doctors to make a profit or to give to their lady loves to avoid that messy possible side effect of affairs: babies.  On the other hand, there are certain tribes which take pride in teen (or younger) pregnancies because this indicates womanhood at its full potential.

This was said with another sidelong, somewhat defiant, glance at me as I am elderly and not finding a husband and allowing him to impregnate me forthwith is a crime against humanity.  As I have also been asked this question directly, I responded with a stare that spoke volumes about women being worth more than an egg and a uterus, with an extensive appendix indicating that I, too, was marginally ashamed of my single and childless state and that I was trying my level best to be a woman despite these failures.

But I think it's these mental hurdles that are the most difficult to overcome.  To paraphrase a local pastor as well as a local doctor:  "There is a mentality of poverty that is slow to change."  The pastor denounced looking to white people for help, and the doctor denounced handouts that discouraged people from working and paying for goods and services even if they had the means to do so.

But life goes on as normal for the most part, despite conversations like this:

"So what are you doing [Friday]?"
"Hmm, let me check my-- oh, look: nothing."
"Really?!  Nothing?!"
"Really really."
"But it's Date Town!"
"...Yeah, not really interested in that right now."
"Because all the people are dying in Beni."
"...I have missed a crucial piece of this conversation."

He was informing me of La Ville Mort (Dead Town) to protest the murders in Beni and the government's utter dissociation from it.  I would have loved to take the day off, but my boss assured me that all would be well, and it was true; vendors were out in full force and no one as burning tires, which I count as a good sign.

The next week, there was a protest march called by the opposition (the leader of which is now in London for treatment following a clash with the police).  It was supposed to be a  peaceful protest to demand the constitutional right to an election later this year, but most people in this town stayed off the streets as police are known for shooting bystanders or throwing them in jail indefinitely (think: years).  I am assured that the Bantu are peace-loving people who love women and are scared of their own shadows; the riots in Goma were only due to the fact that the government had forbidden a protest there.

Daily life is hard to reconcile with the news reports.  A group of us from church visited a hospital in a far-off district (or so it seemed to me).  It was the brainchild of Pastor, who seems to feel that Jesus advocated for anonymous Christians to visit the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, give them gifts (in this case bars of soap) and scuttle off without expecting anything in return (even, say, a relationship or laughter or joy or sharing).  I can't say I agree, but I really don't have to; the sick received prayer and soap and I got to be a part of that.  The same weekend, a group of us spent an hour in prayer together for the country and it was glorious.

Another highlight was when Pastor's toddler crawled into my lap and slept - until his mom plucked him out of my arms while my uterus growled in protest.  I was in the throes of a full-on brooding instinct until I realized I as nowhere near brave enough for motherhood.

This epiphany came when I heard odd noises coming from the unused bathroom in our apartment early one morning.  Having just rolled out of a dream wherein I performed some sort of euthanasia for someone, for which even my mom blamed me and wanted me to face prosecution (eat your heart out, Freud), I was in no mood for nonsense or screaming - both of which happened to be in my near future.

Oh, it's just the baby crying in the bathroom; I'll deal with later, I thought to myself.

It was only while I was changing a few minutes later and heard my roommate's door open that I suddenly began to ponder the implications of a crying baby in the bathroom of an apartment shared by two single women.  I threw open my bedroom door.

"I think we have a skinless goat demon in the bathroom and I'm scared," is something I wanted to say but held back.

"Did you give birth last night?" is also something I did not say, mostly because I was afraid it would drive the Queen of Sheba (a demure pastor's daughter) to homicide by toilet brush.

"Why is there crying in our bathroom?" I asked, striving for nonchalance and mentally running through the rational possibilities: a bat, a bird...  I'd just decided on actual child of grateful young billionaire widower when the Queen of Sheba announced, "Eet ees a cat!" with heavy undertones of Do something, Peon. 

A cat?!

I had so many questions, I didn't even know where to begin:  How did it get in?  Has it been here before?  Are you going to cook it?  Is it potty trained?

However, knowing from a previous delicate situation involving cheese that my roommate preferred actions to questions, I set about trying to get rid of it as soon as possible - especially considering that I have an eye-swelling allergy to most cats unless I'm on a steady diet of antihistamines.  I very carefully opened the bathroom door and hid behind it as the Queen of Sheba shut all the other doors and hid in the living room.

We waited.

"Close the bathroom door!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin, expecting to see a demanding skinless goat demon and finding instead my demanding roommate in pyjama pants (which is almost as rare as a goat demon as she thinks pants are for heathen females).

Apparently, the cat (by now likely very confused) was behind another hallway door which I was helpfully blocking.  I cleared the way to the nearest exit as efficiently as possible considering I was still barely awake and Kitty made its way out.  When it suddenly changed direction mid-flight, however, the Queen of Sheba screamed and locked herself in her bedroom.  Not to be outdone, I also screamed, but (true to form) with the full participation of my pre-frontal cortex; I managed to shut up when I realized I was hysterically shrieking "It's a cat!  It's a cat!"

Finally, I got it out the front door, at which point it promptly made its way back to the open kitchen window and the Queen of Sheba began moaning again.  By this time, I'd regained my sanity, so I shooed it off the windowsill, closed the window, and was subjected to its creepy baby wails until I left for work.

Where I was again faced with the difficulties of motherhood.  After morning prayers, we heard from our medical doctor and clinical psychologist who'd been on a mission in a village.  First, the car had broken down and they'd had to physically push it some of the way; when they got there, the doctor had to do an emergency delivery for a woman who was basically bleeding her life away.  If he hadn't been there (with a razor - enough said), she might have had to travel 40km by moto to deliver her baby.

I need to repeat this:  A hemorrhaging woman in labour would have had to sit on a moto and travel forty kilometres of unpaved roads to get access to adequate medical care. 

She'd apparently come in at six months of pregnancy (also bleeding), and had been instructed to take the moto route.  At the point, I think they were still hoping the problem would just resolve itself on the way there.  After the whole procedure and paying a man to donate blood, mother and baby were left to recuperate and our staff returned to tell us this story.

And, incidentally, remind me that I was suited to more tame feminine tasks.  Like gardening.  So when my French teacher began a lecture about deciduous trees, I took to it like a duck to water.

"Moringa!" he exclaimed (because he never he never simply says anything).  "C'est un arbre d'Inde!"

I snapped to attention.  "The fruits," I croaked, "Are they long and skinny?"

The man was growing muringika or drumsticks (that's as close to English as we get, but don't imagine chicken legs dangling from a tree) on his parcel.  This is one of the many, many delicious foods that India has to offer; I would give up my birthright for the leaves from that tree, but was offered seeds and an instruction manual instead.

So I'll be waiting a while for my drumsticks and leaves but, hey, I'm a Seeder and waiting for good things to grow is my speciality.