Highs and Lows

I had made a presentation on biopsychology in French to a roomful of nurses, who learned that hugging releases oxytocin, which is for bonding and trust – not only for inducing contractions.  My sheer determination to not faint in this situation impressed me deeply, if no one else, so I was content.  Weeks later, when I tried to explain to the Medical Director of that health zone that we would like to invite some of his head nurses to a four-day seminar on mental illness (diagnosis and treatment), he was disgusted with the proposed budget.

“Change it to two days.  That’s all that’s necessary.  None of them understand about the hypothalamus anyway.”

Now, I am by no means a highly trained individual, but this is equivalent of saying of a doctor “Oh, forget about the pancreas; it doesn’t make sense to him anyway.”

Or of a scientist, “Oh, don’t bother with graphs - statistics are beyond her anyway.”

You can’t just skip items in your field of study or career because they seem initially complex.  If I trust an educated human being to find a vein in my arm, I expect him to comprehend the sentence, “The hypothalamus is located deep in the brain, affects the function of the pituitary gland, and controls many aspects of emotion and behaviour.”  The various biochemistry and associated neurocircuitry may by none of their concern at this point, but if a Medical Director is sincerely doubtful of his staff’s ability to understand the above phrase, we should all just give up hope now.

After the whole mess around trying to get this training off the ground in two health zones, cancelling one of them, and trying (and failing) to convince health care professionals that the world is not responsible for paying for their family of ten to improve their practices for their patients in a largely forgotten forest at the end of a rutted road in Central Africa, I was both at the end of my patience and my Saturday.

I was trying to track down the nun who’d promised me an extension cord for another presentation on mental health care for the students of the nursing school where this seminar was being held.  I approached the kitchen where she was usually puttering around, and the kitchen staff - running a little late on lunch - saw a golden opportunity. 

“She keeps the cord.  She’s gone.  Will you give us bread?”

I stared at the head chef, a girl possibly in her early twenties, possibly a mother of five.  Why should I…  What are we even...  This is event coordination at its finest.  “No.”

And then I found someone else who would give me an extension cord and who didn’t currently need bread or my earrings or my scarf or my bag or my shoes or my pen or a notebook to do their job.  After the presentation for the students, we offered them juice and a sandwich – they happily accepted, spoke to the journalist we’d brought with us, and generally seemed content.  I tried to stay near my team and smile vaguely at everyone’s ears because my patience (a tiny wisp of a thing in critical condition at the best of times) had just been pronounced clinically dead by my internal coroner.  Later, trying to pack up everything for the glorious, unforeseeable future when the nurses who’d taken part in the seminar would accept their $5 transport fee and just go home, I was caught alone by two girls who decided to give it a shot.

“Thank you for the food, but we’re still hungry.”

Ob-lah-di, ob-lah-dah...

I understand that I shouldn’t be so frustrated, that both colonialism and humanitarian aid have set a bad example in the past, and that people need food and money to survive and thrive. 

I get it.

I do.

But I also have a sneaking suspicion that my blood pressure could rival the elevation of the Himalayas.  My empathy and impatience are locked in mortal combat, and the battleground is me. 

So when the power in our apartment mysteriously decided to largely disappear for around a week, I was perilously close to a breakdown.  I don’t think I’m very high-maintenance, but I need to read (on my laptop, which needs to be charged), and I need one shower a day (for which bathwater needs to be heated).  In addition, we were guarding Carrottop and BFG’s food in our fridge and freezer, everything was in danger of rotting, and there was no reason for this cut. 

I mean, perhaps there was – a missing part, upgrades, repairs - but it wasn’t shared with us, and that was frustrating, especially when the dry season was no longer an excuse.  Consistency is the key to moving up Maslow’s hierarchy – a consistent salary, a consistent shelter, consistent meals...  Only then could the mind hope to aim for higher ideals.  And this too-large country, this too-small world, this just-not-right system prevented that – keeping its people in a state of constant adaptation for food, water, and power, and without hope of steady jobs in a country covering over 2 344 800 km2 with a population of 79 700 000 (2016), 52% of whom were under the age of 18 in 2012 (https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/drcongo_statistics.html ; http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=democratic%20republic%20of%20the%20congo).  

It was with all this weighing on my mind and arteries that I wandered into the kitchen to find the very messily dead body of yet another nocturnal scavenger.  This one, being very large and hideously grotesque, had not had the dubious justice of choking to death.  Instead, he’d been impaled on the trap and had bled out. 

On the floor next to my beautiful, golden aloo paratha. 

No Indian woman has ever known such sorrow.

Well, perhaps many have, but woe is me anyway. 

Granddad Rat, who was in palliative care for some sort of terrible growths on his grizzled body,

was called back to serve country and rat with his last breath - and drop of blood, as it happened.

Neither gone nor forgotten 

(due to leaving much DNA and likely Bubonic Plague 2.0 near the stove)

RIP

I tried to walk away in order to force Butters to find it ‘first’ and do away with it like a man, but my conscience (a titan in combat boots, in contrast to poor Patience) disagreed.  So I dragged the trap and the attached body outside to await the Grin Keeper and cleaned up on Aisle 5 with several pairs of gloves, bleach, and prayers for forgiveness for the unexpected number of vertebrates I have killed since becoming, in essence, a peacekeeping intern in Central Africa.