Welcome Home 2.0
After being away for four months (Danae and kids, nearly three
months for me), we were ready to get back to the grindstone. And to get home.
While we always appreciate our time in American civilization, we are similarly
eager and ready to get back.
Four A.M. wake up call and getting on the road pre-dawn to head
out the airport, our kids were their normal semi-nervous bundles of energy. We
had the normal 24 hours of flying uneventfully and even had a stress-free
passage through immigration (last ones through, literally, as per our usual).
And as usual, the porters had already collected all our bags and were waiting
for us.
As a bit of a surprise, we saw James at the airport! He had even
arranged lodging for us at Guinebor hospital. That was nice of him! And he and
Sarah fed us too!
Then James and I went to our AHI meeting, which started at 6pm.
We do these meetings rarely, so there’s usually quite a bit of ground to cover.
It really went about as well as could have been expected, but didn’t finish
until after 11pm. The same day after I walked off a 24-hour set of flights that
morning. Welcome home.
The next day we caught the air-conditioned bus to Kelo. All went
well at the beginning. Then a couple hours in, we had a flat. Jacked up the bus.
Dropped the spare tire out. Changed tires. Back on the road. Welcome home.
We arrived to Bongor finally with not too much hassle.
Fortunately the police at the checkpoints seemed about as engaged as valley
girls at a spelling bee, which always makes it easier on us. But once in
Bongor, the bus company decided the bus wasn’t behaving appropriately and we
needed to get on another bus. Welcome home.
Not to worry, they said. They had already called for another bus
from N’Djamena to come pick us up. Well, quite a while later, the bus showed
up. Just one problem. It was already full of people. Well, not Tchad-full.
Somehow, we managed to squeeze 14 of our bags under the bus and three more bags
inside and found a few seats and settled in, combining our busload with the
pre-existing one. Welcome home.
After a few more hours of bone-crushing potholes big enough to
hide a small elephant herd, we pulled into Kelo and met Rollin and Dolores, who
had been waiting patiently for us for hours. Amazingly, all our bags were still
with us. We strapped them down and drove home and got in about twelve hours
after leaving N’Djamena. Welcome home.
Things went smoothly until Danae started shivering violently in
the middle of the night, five days after landing in the country. It’s cold
season, but rigors aren’t normal under a half dozen layers. I took her
temperature and it was 102.4, which somebody once taught me in medical school
is abnormal. So we did what we do. We put her on malaria treatment. Strange
after just five days, but not unheard of. Welcome home.
Then a few days later, right after lunch, Zane decided to throw
up. An hour later, while cutting a mass out of a man’s forehead, one of our
volunteers doubled over and started tossing her cookies. I didn’t feel so hot, so
I went home and found Zane passed out on the couch. Our cook had cloistered
himself up in our second bathroom for a significant period of time. I hoped he
was still alive. Our gardener was outside fertilizing our garden, but was doing
it personally. From her mouth. An hour after that, Rollin started violently
upchucking while ripping out a man’s prostate. I’ve been told patients don’t
find it comforting when their surgeon blows chunks during a case, but I’ve
never been in that position, so I can’t be sure. Rollin collected himself and,
being the proud warrior he is, carried on. Then found himself vomiting again. I
wasn’t present myself, but I was assured none of the emesis made its way into
the open abdomen. No, I wasn’t present because, at that very moment, I was
sitting at home with passed-out Zane. Well, Zane came to, stood up, walked
halfway across the living room, pulled down his pants, and proceeded to let fly
on the rug. ‘Came to’ might be an exaggeration. The poor kid was really still
asleep. ‘Zane! That’s not the toilet! We don’t pee on the rug! Wake up!’ He
gave me a blank stare. Lights on, nobody home. To his credit, however, he was
able to manage to cut himself off midstream. Urinatus interruptus. I carried
him to the toilet where he finished his business. That night, around 1am, Lyol
came in to inform me he had barfed in his bed. I undressed him, showered him,
put sheets on the couch for him, then took the sheets and pillow cases off his
bed, threw them outside, and made a mental note to increase our laundry lady’s
salary from $1.60/day to maybe $1.70/day, a mental note I’ve since forgotten.
At that very moment, another volunteer was vomiting in the house next to us.
Pretty much everybody ralphed. The next day, we threw away those beans. Welcome
home.
