Bland!

‘Bland…’ I mutter to myself. I loathe Friday afternoons. 

Friday is payday. We pay all our employees. I have a handful of AHI/hospital people I pay every Friday. There are the kids who come by to make sure the motorcycles are gassed, and then go off to evangelize. We kinda feel like an ATM. And Danae… Danae has her legions. I thought I knew about them. I had only scratched the surface.

I’m already grouchy. I don’t need more reasons. 

1. I have malaria. 
2. I’m a single father of four children, ages 8, 6, 4 and 2 (her birthday was Wednesday). Danae had to leave us for a bit to go to America. I can’t wait for her to be home!
3. I had three other people working for AHI to help me in the past. Today I’m alone. One went to Paris to have a baby and isn’t coming back. One went to Cairo, because… Cairo, and might be coming back. And one was my previous gestionnaire who used to pitch in a tiny bit still, but now won’t anymore. So I’m alone for now.
4. I’m the administrator of the hospital. My administrator moved on and I was named the interim administrator. I liked my administrator. He was my friend. Well, he still is my friend, actually. But I hate administrating. I like doctoring. And I’m doctoring less and less and administrating more and more.
5. My best friend in Tchad is leaving tomorrow. He’s also my Human Resources Director, the chief of our operating room, runs the blood bank and does a million other things so I don’t have to. Now I have to pick up his slack too.

So I’m a bit of a grouch to be around already.

Eleven years ago, Danae did me the honor of taking my name, changing from Danae Bland to Danae Netteburg. And for past eleven years, she always knows I’m a bit dismayed with her whenever she hears me calling her ‘Bland!’ instead of the more common Baby, Darling, Honey, Snookums, SmoochiePie, Dear, Love, Wench, SugarDrop or CuddleBum. (Okay, so only half of those are real.) It might not be nice, but it happens anyway.

As of late, I’ve noticed our safe is missing a lot of money. I found Juniper with the keys and walking around with about $1000 of Tchadian currency one day. Lyol knows how to get into the safe. We have folks working in our home. Our home is unlocked and empty quite often. And we often go months without receiving our salaries, but we always eventually receive them. Well, and then there’s the much more common error of me paying for AHI-related items and forgetting to write it down in the spreadsheet. Every time that happens, Danae and I just pay it out of our personal funds and consider it offerings. We give way too many offerings.

But the difference has been climbing steadily for a while now. And at my last count, it’s something like $20,000 we owe the safe. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. It’s not an insignificant amount for those on missionary salaries.

And now… Danae is gone… and I’m starting to understand.

For the last two Fridays, there has been a steady stream of people coming to my door, palms open toward the heavens. I opened Danae’s book of dirty little secrets to find these good folks’ names written, with an amount due them. She pays this guy to water a few flowers. She pays this girl to do the same. She pays EACH of her fistula patients EVERY week. This is in addition to operating on them for free and paying for all of their tests and medicines! And she rents places for them to live in town! And she’ll pay tuition for their kids to go to school! And she can have up to ten or eleven fistula patients hanging around at any given time. 

‘Come on, Bland!’

I added it up. She spends about $600-1200 each month. And those are just the fistulas! When she’s at the low end of that range, it means she’s spending a hair over what her local salary is. When she’s at the high end of that range, it means she’s spending a hair over what both our local salaries are added together!

‘Bland!’

Then she pays for other patients and their children to go to school. Or just random kids. Either local school or vocational school. Doesn’t matter to her. She’ll pay it. Plus evangelism stuff. On top of that, she pays for other non-fistula patients at the hospital. In fact, it’s well-known at our hospital among my nurses that Danae is never allowed to round on pediatrics. Because every time she does, she just agrees to buy the medicines for all the kids!

‘You’re killing me, Bland!’

Lastly, it would seem her goal is to employ Tchadians. All. The. Tchadians.

One to cook, one to clean, one to garden, one to do laundry, another to sweep the mango leaves, three guards (the guards she splits with her mother)… and anybody else she can drum up real or imaginary work for! She doesn’t need them. ‘But what would they do if I stopped paying them?’ That adds up to even more than the fistulas!!!

Remember, she spends her local salary every month on fistulas alone… that’s BEFORE we get to the tuition and the other patients and evangelism and employees and… And occasionally BOTH of our local salaries BEFORE we get to the other stuff. 

So on a good month, fistulas and paying Danae’s employees is already more than BOTH our salaries. BEFORE all the other tuitions and patients and evangelism and everything else. On a bad month… I don’t even want to think about the bad months. Oh, and we eat too sometimes! 

No wonder we owe the safe so much money!!!

‘Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!’

But alas, I’ve found it’s genetic. After spending six years next-door to my in-laws, I’ve realized they’re even worse than their daughter! Buying medicines, paying tuitions, buying stuff they don’t even want or need, just to help somebody out. If it’s possible to be generous to a fault, they are. Hands down the most generous people I’ve ever known. And growing up, my own parents were pretty darn generous too, so that’s saying a lot!

I would appear this is a hereditary trait. Or a learned behavior. Nature versus nurture, or maybe a financially painful combination of the two. Whatever it is, it seems to run strong in her family. I guess it’s only appropriate to call her Bland.

(Edit: Danae has very recently started to receive financial donations for her fistula patients via AHI. And that’s cool. Please take pity on these women and give so they can be healed and know people care, and so Danae can continue her amazing life-restoring surgeries with success. But please, don’t feel sorry for us. I can assure you were are not in a pitiable financial situation. We are, and we will be, just fine. Doesn’t mean the closeted accountant in me won’t continue screaming ‘Bland!’ every time another person comes to the door, palm open to the skies.)