Cultural immersion- carlie

June 18, 2012

So I feel the need to tell my side of the story in regards to the pt that I thought was dead who was in fact very much alive.  What happened was the night before when I was working in ER/Urgent we had a young boy die from a viper bite.  Apparently he had been bitten 5 days ago but his family didn’t bring him in tell 5 days after.  I was taking a power nap and it was around 3 am in the morning when I was woken up by moaning, talking and hushed crying.  I went out of my nursing station which consists of a tiny square room with a cloth handing for the door.  I sleep on the desk in there at night, preferring the small hard wooden desk then a exam table in ER. The exam tables never really get cleaned properly.  Just like the nursing room in maternity the two walls of the nursing station don’t go all the way to the ceiling so you can hear everything that is going on around you on the ward.  Plus my door is a purple cloth, which doesn’t really do much in a way of a door.  I went out to see what was going on and found about 12 people surrounding a bed.  One of the other ER nurses was out there with them and he speaks a little English and I was able to find out that the boy had just died.  The family had covered the boys face with a cloth and then rapped the rest of his body in cloth so he looked like a mummy.  Then they picked up the woven map that was under his body and carried him outside.  When someone dies here, they bury them right away because of the heat. I was slightly shocked at how fast they got the body wrapped and taken outside.  He had only died about 10 min before, then his family took him home.

So when the next day I was over helping Athens with meds there was some confusion.  It was around midnight and we were doing meds on the surgical ward when I happened to look over at one of the pts beds and see them surrounded by family.  There was about 8 people around the bed and they were talking, quietly among themselves. Having lots of people around the bed is very common here.  Pts family come with the pt like a packaged deal.  At night you have to do crazy stepping moves so you don’t step on them as they sprawl there sleeping.  They spread out there mats around the beds and you can find like 4 people to a mat. I took a step closer to the bed and that’s when I got a good look at the pt.  The pts face was covered with a towel and his whole body was wrapped up in a sheet.  As I stood there trying to assess what the situation was and just about to go over to see if the pt was breathing when the family member started to lift the pt up by the mat. Remembering the viper bite boy, I turned back to Athens and told her we should get Joe cause I think the pt just died.  I was afraid they were going to take the body home without talking to one of the nurses.  And since I couldn’t speak to them, I knew I had to get Joe.  So I went running back to maternity, woke Joe up and dragged him back to surgical to talk to the family.  He went over to the family and started talking to them.  That’s when I started to realize that something was not right.  Joe and the family were laughing.  You don’t laugh after someone dies….at least not in America.  Athens and I looked at each other then Athens went closer to the bed and then she started to laugh too.  Apparently the pt was just sleeping, snoring in fact. The family were moving him up in bed when they were lifting him. So if I had gotten closer and actually checked him then I would have realized that there was no way that he had died.  I think every pt in surgical found out about what I thought happened.  Everyone was laughing including me.  I felt like a complete idiot, and started to question whether I really had graduated from nursing school or not!  But I was also so relieved that the pt wasn’t dead, so I was more happy than embarrassed.  So now the big joke here among the missionaries is asking me if I had any more fake dead people at the hospital. From that experience I have learned to not be afraid of the language barrier but instead, go over and check the pt and ask the family.  I won’t be declaring any living person dead again!!!

African Wedding

Wedding reception

This last Friday we were invited to an African Wedding of one of the chiefs in the area.  We all crowded in this little church, with all the women on one side and the men on the other.  There was lots of chanting, dancing, shrieking and drum playing. When the bride came down the aisle women fallowed her, chanting, singing, and dancing.  Dancing here is consists of doing a foot shuffle, clapping and shrugging your shoulders.  Then randomly women will shriek.  It’s this high pitch yipping sound, kind of like Zena The Warrior Princess war cry.  I want to practice my Zena war cry, and shoulder shrugging so I can join in the dancing at the next wedding or random party.  The people here already stare and laugh at the white people, so I think I will give them something to stare at.  They always want you to dance, trying to pull you in to their circle, so I think next time I will join them.  Guys and girls don’t really dance together, and don’t show much affection for each other in public.  It’s perfectly ok here for girls to hold hands with girls, and guys to hold hands with guys.  It’s also ok for a man to have more than one wife.  The women here are not respected at all.  They are in charge of taking care of the children, making and buying food, planting and taking care of their crops and basically making the families run smoothly.  The men build the houses.  That’s about it.  You see them at times working in the field but not often.  It’s also acceptable to beat your wife if you have the need to.  The women here need to have a suffrage movement or something.  The plan is at the nutrition center to teach women, about bettering their health and the health of their family.  And since knowledge is power, hopefully we will in some way in power in the women here in Chad.

Back to the wedding.  The wedding was in a church.  The ground is dirt, and the benches are made of wood with no backs to them.  There is no electricity in the church so it’s a little dark, but they prop the windows open for light.  The groom and bride sat up front facing away from the guests.  The pastor said a whole lot of words in Nondrian (the local language) that went on for a like a hour.  Then after the ceremony the people give an offering forming a line that circle around the bride and groom.  Most people dance in the line, and clap as someone plays the drums and sings.  After the ceremony the bride and groom shake everyone’s hands outside the church.  The reception was held at the groom’s family’s house.  The meal consisted of the first course which was baked peanuts and gatos (which are these little fried donuts) then we had the vegetarian option for the main dish which was rice with leozae sauce (which is sorel leaves and peanuts).  It basically looks like a spinach sauce on rice.  Not the most appetizing to look at but it was actually pretty good.  The rest of the guests had some sort of meat, probably goat on their rice.  The whole time you are sitting at the tables eating, music is blaring in the background.  It’s a random up beat sounding music, and I thing I caught a song by Tpain playing when we left.  During the whole wedding ceremony the bride was very reserved and I never once saw her smile.  It made me wonder if she really happy to be married to him, or if this was a forced marriage.  Apparently weddings here are rare, and instead of the actual ceremony guys just take women they want to be there wife and keep them.  I was told that usually after some sort of party a guy will take a girl home with him, have sex with her and not allow her to leave his home.  During that week that she is there, unable to leave the guy will negotiate some sort of bridal price with her family.  Don’t quote me on this, but this is what the other missionary’s say happens, and what the locals have told them that how marriages are done here.  So I thought going to this wedding ceremony that the bride and groom were in love or something since there was a ceremony and he wasn’t just keeping her.  But after seeing the bride never smile I am not sure.  Maybe she was just shy… I hope she is happy.

Eating dinner at the Chiefs house

Athens and I are learning how to ride a motorcycle.  We have a red Honda that is ours to use while we are here.  It is brand new and really nice.  I feel pretty BA when I ride it!! LOL!  I have had some experience with riding dirt bikes and four wheelers so it hasn’t been too hard to remember how to drive.  The problem with driving here is not the bike or the driver but the road conditions.  The roads here are dirt roads with huge puddles which are more like lakes in the rainy season.  The puddles get so big that they take up the whole road in spots.  So you have to try and drive around it which doesn’t always work.  It’s the planting season here and people plant crops EVERYWHERE!!  They plant corn right up to the road.  So trying to drive around a puddle you sometime have to drive in their crop field, which doesn’t make them happy if you drive over a plant.  But it’s either try and go around a puddle or drive through it.  Sometime a puddle will have this tiny little ledge that you can go around the puddle on, but with unsteady hands it’s easy to go off the ledge and straight into a puddle.   So far I haven’t tipped over into a puddle, but I know there is always a first time.  When you aren’t struggling to drive around and not in puddles you are busy trying not to lose control of the bike in the sand.  The dirt roads here have lots of sand, and I have learned driving in sand is hard.  I would almost rather face the puddles!!!  So the key to driving here is driving on the side of the road where the sand is more compact, and if you have to cross over to the other side of the road you have to hold the bike steady and cross over with confidence.  I hope soon we will be able to start driving the bike to the hospital at night for our shift and bringing it back in the morning.  But something is wrong with the headlight so until Gary fixes it we can’t drive it at night.  I will miss riding three on a bike with Bronwyn!!  She usually takes us down to the hospital on her bike, and it’s always an adventure.  I have lots of respect for her and her driving skill because it is hard to drive with two people on a bike let alone three.