Mzungu How Are You?

If I ever decide to have kids, I’m going to have to get over my aversion to anything standing on two legs, with a voice box, under the age of 9. With maybe two exceptions. Mzungu. I hate that word. Literally translated, it means “traveler.” For all other purposes, it means “White Person.” As in, “White person, with lots of money, from far away, who’s super important and lives in a space-age futuristic world.” Coupled with “How are you,” the three words every Kenyan knows, and coming from every kid who sees me on the street and openly stares, it’s enough to drive me insane.

My host mom is a walking paradox. Keep in mind that she’s got both a degree in community health and in nursing, and works in the provincial hospital. The day I arrived, I ate a hard-boiled egg. Plain, just like always. Jacinta asked what I was doing. I returned a clueless look. Because according to local belief, eating eggs without salt will leave you with a distended stomach later in life. Then again, local tradition dictates treating burns with raw egg. So, there you go.

We got into a philosophical debate the other day about food, mainly because she insists I to eat somewhere in the neighborhood of three plus kilos a day… to grow. When I told her I stopped growing somewhere right around 15, she was appalled. So was her husband. “You stopped yourself growing?” “No, I just haven’t gotten taller since then. And I certainly don’t need to grow any wider.” Yep, I left them speechless. Don’t really understand why, since I bet they haven’t grown since they were in their teens either. I finally turned around and flat out told her that the amount of food she was forcing on me was making me physically sick. Which, by the way, it was. On the bright side, I now eat three normal-sized meals a day and do not find roasted maize, eggs, sugarcane, crackers, porridge and chapati shoved in my face on the hour, every hour.

My house help has officially pegged me as a dimwitted idiot. Probably something to do with teaching me how to do my laundry by hand and the utter nonexistence of my Kiswahili. Jacinta, on the other hand, is sure I live in some sort of world where machines do everything for us. “Come. I teach you how to wash dishes.” “I know how to watch dishes.” “Oh. You wash dishes in your place?” “Uh huh.” She holds up an avocado. “You know what this is?” “Yep.” “How about this?” She has a potato in her hand. And then arrowroot, and cucumber, and papaya, and a passion fruit, and… you get the picture. I mean, really, does Hollywood give us that bad an image? She’s also scandalized that I appreciate carrots and green beans raw. So now my house help thinks I’m an idiot and my host mom thinks I’m insane.

In some ways, the house is definitely different than in Nairobi. There’s no stove; cooking is done over the fire or a pot filled with coals. There are showerheads, but no hot water even though the house is apparently wired for it. So, showers are taken by mixing scalding and freezing water in a bucket, then splashing it over yourself. The power goes off when it feels like it. Half the toilets in the house consist of a hole in the floor. Oh, side note: I forgot to mention that the place also has papaya and avocado trees, green beans, peppers, and tomato plants scattered around and about.

Anyway. I’m stationed in Consolata Mission Hospital. And to whoever told me malaria doesn’t exist in the mountains: That’s a lie. It’s everywhere. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of the people who come through the OPD (Outpatient Department, the kenyan version of the ER) are sent off with anti-malarials. They don’t even bother with blood tests– for most, the 30/= (35¢) is too expensive. I asked one of the nurses, Simon, how many times he’s had malaria. He looked at me and laughed. “I don’t know, once a month?”

The hospital, in a way is really interesting. The system here reminds me of photos of WWII or something. With a shit ton of beds lined up in one room that serves as the medical ward, and rooms where sterile procedures are performed ventilated by means of open windows that allow in outside air… and the flies and mosquitoes that come with it. And the lack of HIPPA, and the BP cuffs that actually measure systolic/diastolic in mercury that flows up a little tube. I had always wondered if using mmHg as a unit of measurement was a joke. And the clash between cultural beliefs and western medicine, like the woman who was convinced her son had malaria due to the manner in which she had given birth. And the fact that the institution, being catholic, is forbidden ton mention or distribute artificial contraceptives, despite being the largest hospital in the region. But I’ll come back to that another time.

When it’s not busy, it’s boring. Even when it is busy, sometimes it’s boring. Because even though I’ve got the training to do a shit ton of stuff that goes on here– honestly, a large majority of it is basic first aid– I’m not licensed in Kenya, so by order of program staff and my supervisor, I’m “strictly observation only.” The nurses and students don’t care. “Come on, help us out! Why aren’t you doing anything?” And I would, except that my little jaunt up Mt. Kenya resulted in a minor (and entirely unfairly imposed) situation we like to refer to as probation. AKA: If I screw up (i.e., touch a patient) and a certain someone’s head pops in the door at an inopportune moment, or someone else finds out, I will find my but back in my dear sweet Ptown without further ado. And, thanks all the same, but I’d rather not grace the boonies of WI with my cheery presence for an extra 3.5 months of hell. So, I tell the nurses “No” and sit back and watch as vitals are taken (in public), clinicians converse with patients (in Kiswahili), injections are given (the same ones, over and over and over…), and people stare at a white-skinned girl in a lab coat standing in the background and talk about her like she doesn’t understand the word Mzungu and wonder why she’s not doing anything. Such is the life.