Butters, happily not vomiting, joined our church group for a visit to a large general hospital in Carrefour at the end of November. The medical director was eager to see what we’d brought, perhaps expecting the muzungus to hand out keys to five Mercedes Benz, but he masked his disappointment well. Both Butters and I were a little unnerved to learn that they kept people who hadn’t paid their bills, which explained the locked gate we’d had to bypass, but it seemed par for the course for our teammates. As the director earnestly tried to explain that people had to pay bills to keep the hospital running, I silently cheered him on.
As cold and stone-hearted as it sounds, paying even marginal fees increases value for a service. Free foreign aid in this, though vital in humanitarian crises, encourages dependency. I am supported in this opinion by a local doctor – who, by the way, has only two children and cannot afford a car.
The director then proceeded to make the cherie joke about my name, so I was less disposed to be friendly. We were told to split into two groups because, as he explained, if the women in the maternity ward saw men, they might attack. I vaguely thought about joining the men’s group just to avoid the sight of women in labour, but ‘twas not to be. Luckily, the single woman curled up on a cot in a dark room - monitored by three nurses lounging on the nearby cot – was not vomiting. The brief view I had while trying to desperately backpedal out of the room was of a fully-clothed woman caught between interest in a foreigner and slight intestinal distress.
We then stepped into another warren of dark rooms – a very large dormitory containing roughly 30 cots and perhaps 25 women in various states of undress while their newborns steamed in layers of woollen blankets and sweaters. We prayed in the middle of these rooms, handed out soap and sugar, and met up with the men’s group at the gate. I was soundly reprimanded for trying to keep my hair covered, and our meandering pace ensured that everyone from small schoolchildren to street vendors scuttled around me to get a closer look. One woman pulled down my scarf behind me while I suffered a minor aneurysm because I thought I was being robbed.
Oh, heavens, no – get the white guy, he has more money, please! Plus, he’ll probably offer to go to the bank and pick up some extra!
As Butters has failed me – in this regard, as in so many others - I look forward to having a white woman around next year. Not that I plan to follow her around everywhere (right away), but her mere presence will allow me to return to being a wallflower.
Hopefully this will mean fewer screamed conversations in mangled Swahili with children and maids in neighbouring buildings.
“I will come to your house! To have cookies!”
“What?!”
“I WANT TO EAT COOKIES.”
“I don’t have cookies!”
“WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”
“Ndazi!”
“I will come to your house to have ndazi!”
“Not today, you won’t, you little sucker.”
“WHAT?!”
“ANOTHER TIME, DARLING CHERUB!”
“OKAY, MUZUNGU!”
“I’M %^*# CONGOLESE!”
It was at this point that a handsome man (probably the girls’ father) came out another door and waved quizzically at me. I flapped my arms back and tried to project dignity and politesse. I don’t normally spend so much time outside my bedroom on weekends due to the threat of human contact, but I’d just done many loads of laundry the midnight before (with tapwater!) and was desperately hoping my sheets would dry before it rained. I’m not sure if my personalised supervision dried the laundry faster or if it kept the sun out a little longer – probably both.
It was during this madness that one of the downstairs maids suddenly appeared at my balcony to better explain our three-way conversation and to warn me to lock my door – presumably to keep her out.
When I came back...
With giggles, “Did you chase her out?”
“Yes! She scared me!”
“I will also come to scare you!”
Well, at least it’s a step up from asking for foo--
“And eat cookies!”
In all honesty, I could afford to share some cookies as my dearly departed beloved friends delight in telling me that I'm fat now.
“I was telling my friend that you're normal, but here is like a chapati!” explained N2O, indicating her hips as I looked on in bilious horror. She, like Kim Kardashian before her, has taken to measuring the width of my thighs in quiet awe – and apparently reporting the results at tea parties.
This is heartily unfair as local women (of which N2O is emphatically one) are... very full-figured. Is it my fault I like potatoes and sugar more than protein? I mean, how can you possibly eat something that was bleating in your yard this morning or dangling plucked-bottoms-up from a vendor's arms, either too stupid or too dizzy to feel approach of the Reaper's machete? Which you deliberately brought into your home – one of you thinking OM NOM NOM and the other, Who would fardels bear / To grunt and sweat under a weary life / But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns, puzzles the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?
Now imagine eating the velveteen green stomach and pale, entwined intestines of this magnificent stately thing. Imagine just seeing a load of these innards sitting in a bag in the heat of noon and gently bleeding out until the end of the workday.
The last straw was seeing our landlord's future dinner on the steps to our apartment at the beginning of the week. One of the young, perpetually giggling housemaids had to hold this one-horned beast (skin on) back as I was certain it had designs on my innocent, mostly pescatarian self.
When I made it past this gauntlet and into our apartment, Butters wailed foul imprecations (that I was only thinking) about goats and seemed unaware that the desperate bleating was outside his head until I informed him of our short-term guest downstairs.
As cold and stone-hearted as it sounds, paying even marginal fees increases value for a service. Free foreign aid in this, though vital in humanitarian crises, encourages dependency. I am supported in this opinion by a local doctor – who, by the way, has only two children and cannot afford a car.
The director then proceeded to make the cherie joke about my name, so I was less disposed to be friendly. We were told to split into two groups because, as he explained, if the women in the maternity ward saw men, they might attack. I vaguely thought about joining the men’s group just to avoid the sight of women in labour, but ‘twas not to be. Luckily, the single woman curled up on a cot in a dark room - monitored by three nurses lounging on the nearby cot – was not vomiting. The brief view I had while trying to desperately backpedal out of the room was of a fully-clothed woman caught between interest in a foreigner and slight intestinal distress.
We then stepped into another warren of dark rooms – a very large dormitory containing roughly 30 cots and perhaps 25 women in various states of undress while their newborns steamed in layers of woollen blankets and sweaters. We prayed in the middle of these rooms, handed out soap and sugar, and met up with the men’s group at the gate. I was soundly reprimanded for trying to keep my hair covered, and our meandering pace ensured that everyone from small schoolchildren to street vendors scuttled around me to get a closer look. One woman pulled down my scarf behind me while I suffered a minor aneurysm because I thought I was being robbed.
Oh, heavens, no – get the white guy, he has more money, please! Plus, he’ll probably offer to go to the bank and pick up some extra!
As Butters has failed me – in this regard, as in so many others - I look forward to having a white woman around next year. Not that I plan to follow her around everywhere (right away), but her mere presence will allow me to return to being a wallflower.
Hopefully this will mean fewer screamed conversations in mangled Swahili with children and maids in neighbouring buildings.
“I will come to your house! To have cookies!”
“What?!”
“I WANT TO EAT COOKIES.”
“I don’t have cookies!”
“WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”
“Ndazi!”
“I will come to your house to have ndazi!”
“Not today, you won’t, you little sucker.”
“WHAT?!”
“ANOTHER TIME, DARLING CHERUB!”
“OKAY, MUZUNGU!”
“I’M %^*# CONGOLESE!”
It was at this point that a handsome man (probably the girls’ father) came out another door and waved quizzically at me. I flapped my arms back and tried to project dignity and politesse. I don’t normally spend so much time outside my bedroom on weekends due to the threat of human contact, but I’d just done many loads of laundry the midnight before (with tapwater!) and was desperately hoping my sheets would dry before it rained. I’m not sure if my personalised supervision dried the laundry faster or if it kept the sun out a little longer – probably both.
It was during this madness that one of the downstairs maids suddenly appeared at my balcony to better explain our three-way conversation and to warn me to lock my door – presumably to keep her out.
When I came back...
With giggles, “Did you chase her out?”
“Yes! She scared me!”
“I will also come to scare you!”
Well, at least it’s a step up from asking for foo--
“And eat cookies!”
In all honesty, I could afford to share some cookies as my dearly
“I was telling my friend that you're normal, but here is like a chapati!” explained N2O, indicating her hips as I looked on in bilious horror. She, like Kim Kardashian before her, has taken to measuring the width of my thighs in quiet awe – and apparently reporting the results at tea parties.
This is heartily unfair as local women (of which N2O is emphatically one) are... very full-figured. Is it my fault I like potatoes and sugar more than protein? I mean, how can you possibly eat something that was bleating in your yard this morning or dangling plucked-bottoms-up from a vendor's arms, either too stupid or too dizzy to feel approach of the Reaper's machete? Which you deliberately brought into your home – one of you thinking OM NOM NOM and the other, Who would fardels bear / To grunt and sweat under a weary life / But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns, puzzles the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?
Now imagine eating the velveteen green stomach and pale, entwined intestines of this
The last straw was seeing our landlord's future dinner on the steps to our apartment at the beginning of the week. One of the young, perpetually giggling housemaids had to hold this one-horned beast (skin on) back as I was certain it had designs on my innocent, mostly pescatarian self.
When I made it past this gauntlet and into our apartment, Butters wailed foul imprecations (that I was only thinking) about goats and seemed unaware that the desperate bleating was outside his head until I informed him of our short-term guest downstairs.
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