Thurs. June 6th
Mulago Hospital, Kampala
6:15 am
The sun was still trying to find its way to the horizon, so
everything in the ER entrance was dull, gray shadows mixed with patches of weak,
florescent light. Mercy leaned heavy on
my arm as we shuffled together up to the desk.
For a full two minutes the three men behind the desk completely ignored
us, engrossed as they were in their own conversation. Or maybe, I thought, they were hoping we
would just give up and walk away. Finally,
one of them impatiently addressed Mercy, and began asking her question after
question in Luganda. I could only guess
what all he was asking, but his demeanor made me feel like he was interrogating
her. She was literally about to collapse, gasping
in desperate breathes just to speak, and trying not to cry. The big jerk!
I then had an understanding of why there was a grid of metal bars caging
him in behind his huge desk – so no one could reach over the counter and smack
him!
I heard a woman crying and looked over my shoulder to see a
man half-carrying/half- dragging her through the entrance. She was covered in mud and had a bloody sheet
draped over the left side of her body. The
“desk-man” then finally took a small square of scrap paper and began writing
Mercy’s name on it. Well, to be precise,
he was writing something that looked like N-A-R-C-Y…
“Her name is Mercy.” I corrected.
He looked utterly bored with me, but pursed his lips and
wrote what I dictated. “M-E-R-C-Y”
He added her age and scratched out some ailments – “fever, diarrhea,
vomiting, loss of appetite”
It looked so insignificant on paper, but I knew. I hooked my arm under her and we began
shuffling again toward the ward he directed us to. She was dying. Her body was failing, and the AIDS was
winning.
We entered the ward where at least 50 other people were
already waiting. Since the two wooden
benches were full, Mercy slumped down in a corner and I followed suit. It was at this point that I took in my surroundings
and began trying to convince myself that I was on a movie set. There was a woman thrashing about on a cot,
screaming and delirious with fever. Open,
festering wounds were all around me, head bandages, blank stares, the
nauseating smell of vomit and urine, a tired ceiling fan doing a very ineffective
job, and a wall clock frozen at 4:35 - it all felt too surreal, and a movie set
was a lot easier to deal with in my mind than the aftermath of a battlefield.
But after 4 hours of sitting on the cold, unforgiving
concrete, I had given up on my little game.
No one was going to jump into the center of the room with a movie
clapper and yell, “CUT!” More patients
had filed in, and we were yet to see a doctor walk through the double doors of
the casualty ward. In the meantime,
while I had gone off to try and find a toilet (or squatty potty) which were all
locked up, a little boy had died sitting in his wheelchair adjacent from
Mercy. No doctor had tended to him. It was beyond ridiculous! Mercy remained curled up in her same corner,
and I felt utterly helpless. What
happened to that idealistic 15 yr. old girl that thought she could be the next
Mother Teresa? I clearly wasn’t cut out
for this.
I walked to a window to stretch my body and take in some
fresh air. I remember staring at the
broken glass, the peeling paint, and absently watching a roach scurry back and
forth on the window sill. I distinctly remember
thinking- This is like a bad dream. A really bad dream… but I could wake up from
it if I wanted to. It would be easy
really. My van was parked just down
three flights of stairs; I could drive a few kilometers down the road to the
Oasis. What a perfect name… Oasis.
It’s one of the few places in the city that doesn’t feel so foreign
to me – a space where I don’t stick out so much like the minority that I am,
because all the other white people like to hang out there too. There’s a real grocery store there with
frozen meat, a book store, restaurants, a movie cinema. And, oh, I really wanted to go there in that
moment! But, of course, I couldn’t. I walked back to Mercy and sat down. She didn’t need conversation; she was too
weak to talk. She just needed me beside
her, so she wouldn’t be alone in this horrible place.
More hours passed. We
were sent to a different ward where there were even more people waiting… waiting,
waiting. Another piece of paper with her
name scribbled on it. At least they had
spelled “Mercy” correct; it was her surname that was wrong this time. I was too discouraged to say anything. More hours of sitting on concrete, then we
were sent back to the original ward where we had started our day. I tried to speak for Mercy, to explain to the
nurse in the starch white dress how long we had waited and how necessary it was
that Mercy be admitted NOW. It didn’t matter - all that the nurse
could see was the number on Mercy’s paper.
By 3 pm, I had reached my limit. I
needed food… I needed a bathroom! There was
a dead man lying fully clothed on a stretcher in front of me, and no one was
noticing him, much less mourning for him. My head was throbbing and my heart was
beginning to feel numb. I decided that I was
of no use to Mercy in such a condition - so I left. I gave her some coins to call me if she
needed, promised to be back within an hour, and I went away to my Oasis.
I promptly found a bathroom, scrubbed my hands, washed my
face, and then ordered myself a pizza and a coke. This was comfort food, and my aim was to feel
as comfortable as possible. It worked
for a while – the comforting myself part- until that irritating sweep of guilt
came and the pizza stuck in my throat.
So, as I sat at my sun-drenched table, the familiar wrestling match
ensued.
How could I breeze in
and out of such harsh reality? There was
no escape for Mercy, no fairness to be found.
How could I entertain myself by flipping through my South Africa travel
guide and making weekend plans while Mercy had waited 10 hours and was just
still a misspelt name on a slip of paper?
Then the deeper questions surfaced… the ones that I’ve often wrestled
late at night when I wanted to be sleeping.
The ones that have kept me from blogging anymore about Mercy all these
months, because I don’t have answers to them.
Have we done exactly what we didn’t
want to do? Have we made Mercy too
dependent on us by helping her too much?
And what, I ask God to tell me, is the alternative… because it is the
money in our wallet that has bought the medicine to keep her children alive…
again and again. How do I deal with the
disappointing fact that the pretty, little bow I tied around Mercy in my last
blog about her has since come unraveled?
Hasn’t she done what I feared she would do – lie and take advantage of
our friendship? But how can I judge her –
might I not do the same thing if I were in her place, trying to survive in the
face of injustice? And now, what to do
with this tension between frustration and guilt? …frustrated because we can never say “no” – guilt
that I even feel frustrated in the first place!
So, here is where I wrestle.
Where the answers hide and everything is gray. I used to see more in black and white, before
I moved here to this brilliant land of open sky, verdant green, and red
dirt. Now, I can’t compartmentalize
anymore. Opening my heart to Africa is
like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant.
Oh, I have gotten a lot more than I bargained for! But as T often reminds me, isn’t that why we
came? If we aren’t wrestling or feeling the
tension, then why are we even here? I
feel tempted to open my heart in measured amounts, but God certainly doesn’t
administer His grace like that. So, we
keep wrestling and asking questions. I keep
striving to LIVE here and not just be a warm body. I keep loving Mercy, even if I don’t do it
well, because she deserves to be loved. I
keep teetering, trying to find my balance between identifying with Uganda and
keeping my own sanity. Mostly, I keep
Jesus in the center and trust that He is strong enough to handle the
flood.
Mercy was FINALLY admitted that day, given some injections,
drips, some new medicine, and sent home way too soon a couple of days
later. She is now regaining strength. I try not to think too much about the future,
or hold any resentment of the past.
Tonight, she is home with her children, and they are all well - and that
really is enough to praise God for.
