Clicks and Clucks

Sowubona everyone! I have learned my first few words in Zulu.  That one means hello or good day.  I have also learned “how are you?”, “I’m fine”, “yes”, “no”, and “thank you”.  I would tell you how to say them in Zulu, but they are even worse than the French when it comes to adding unnecessary letters to words.  My favorite word is “Aibo”.  When spoken without enthusiasm, it means no, but when exclaimed loudly it means “oh no” or perhaps, not so nicely “oh shit”.  For example, when one mom looked over and saw her child about to dump his porridge on the floor….”AIBO!”

I was planning to learn 3 new words a day, but I’m afraid I might be limited in my learning by the darn clicks and clucks of the Zulu language.  There are three types, one that sounds like when you say “tsk tsk”, one where you cluck your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and another that I can’t for the life of me decipher how it is different from the first.  I think the Zulu nurses are getting a great kick out of watching me try to learn. I can make the sounds by themselves, but when I try to incorporate them into a word, I just end up spraying spit everywhere and entertaining people while sounding disturbingly similar to a chicken.

I was surprised to find how incredibly frustrating it is not to be able to communicate directly with any of my patients.  In the U.S., the majority of non-English speakers are Hispanics so I am still able to speak to them.  I feel like not even being able to ask if my patients are ok or what I can do to help makes it much more difficult to gain their trust and establish a relationship.  It doesn’t help that the Zulu nurses who do all the interpreting cannot possibly be translating more than 10% of what the patient says.  The patient will talk for two straight minutes and the nurse will turn to me and say “She doesn’t have a fever.” I have found that even just being able to say hello in Zulu puts the patient and their family more at ease.  I keep finding myself clicking and clucking away while I’m taking a shower or walking around the grounds.  Perhaps I will succeed eventually.

In terms of medicine, it hasn’t been a terribly exciting two days.  I have been spending my mornings on the pediatrics ward and my afternoons in the RU which is their emergency room.  It stands for resuscitation unit.  I have seen some pretty sick kids, but haven’t been lucky in getting many procedures.  Bryan got to stitch up a guy’s hand and Dandi drained an abscess. It’s a cool place to work because I can actually do things without feeling like I’m in the way.  If I say “this guy needs a chest x-ray and an IV”, the nurse does it without even asking any questions.  It’s a very strange feeling to have people listen to you! Because most of the physicians here trained in adult medicine, they are happy to let me see any kids that come their way.

I think I made a mistake in teaching the peds ward how to bounce balls off their heads.  I can no longer even walk in the door without everyone wanting to play catch or have me watch their new tricks.  There are usually bouncy balls coming at me from all directions followed by lots of giggles. It’s fun though to see how excited the kids get when they see us in the hallway getting ready to round in their unit.  They run around and gather all the balls and wave until we come in.  My little “roly poly” whose mother abandoned him finally got to go home today.  His mom came back, and it turns out that one of her other children at home had died and she had been attending to the funeral and other things.  Talking to people here about what they go through really gives me a new perspective on my own life.  To have a child in the hospital with HIV, TB, and starvation and not have that be your biggest problem is almost unimaginable to me.  It really shouldn’t be that way for anyone.  Thankfully, she was happy to see him and he was VERY happy to see her.  I am so glad he gets to go home, but I can only hope and pray that she is able to continue to care for him once he gets there.  It is much harder to “leave work at work” when most of my patients are in situations like these. 

Outside of the hospital, yesterday was pretty interesting.  It was one of the physical therapist’s last days, so we had a going away party for her.  All of the doctors and therapists went (about 25 in all) and it was really nice to have a chance to get to know the other people here.  They are from Germany, South Africa, Australia, and England but they all speak English with a British accent, so they think we talk funny.  Before dinner, everyone wanted to go have drinks on a nearby lakeshore at sunset.  This sounded like a great plan to us, and our friend Jonas offered to drive us, so off we went.  Up until then, we had only been in the very small “downtown” of Manguzi.  I had no idea that it sprawled for miles and miles of farmland.  We hopped in Jonas’ compact rental car (a Hyundai a believe) and began to follow the others in their jeeps and pick-up trucks.  It quickly became apparent that we were essentially “off-roading” to the lake.  Jonas swerved in and out of sand dunes and grasses and we all jostled around in the backseat.  The first time he got stuck, some of the others were right in front of us so we all got out and pushed, and were able to get unstuck quickly.  The second time was similar, and so was the third.  By now you’re probably getting a picture of how this car ride was (or perhaps was not) going.  The fourth time, we were really stuck. We all got out, but the other cars had gone on ahead.  Looking underneath, it turned out the car had actually been grounded on the sand dunes between the tire tracks on either side.  It was NOT going to move.  The others eventually came back to see what happened to us and we ended up digging/wedging/pushing/lifting the car out.  Seeing as my biceps were not of much use when there were seven strong young men doing the heavy lifting, I took the opportunity to catch the scene on video.  I don’t have time right now, but I will definitely post some pictures of it later this weekend. 

Miraculously, we made it the rest of the way to the lake.  And it was worth it.  It was absolutely beautiful.  We had some drinks and watched the sun go down and got to know all our fellow Manguzi doctors.  Then, we took a much less eventful route back to town (turns out we’d been on the wrong one before) to have dinner.  One of the girls knew a local guy about our age who recently started his own restaurant.  Most restaurants here close at 5 p.m. but he kept it open just for us.  There is a large Indian influence in South Africa, and he cooked up quite an impressive chicken and beef curry.  It was really quite a wonderful evening.

Well, we are off on safari for the weekend in about an hour here and I’ve still got to pack.  Hopefully this update will hold you all over until Sunday when I return from Tembe Elephant Park.  I would imagine that I will have many stories and pictures to share.  We are in search of the Big Five which, in case you are like me and have no idea what that means, are the lion, elephant, leopard, cape buffalo, and rhino.  Much love to everyone and thanks for continuing to support me on this journey.  I haven’t had time to reply to comments, but please know that I read every one of them and that your encouragement is so much appreciated.  Sowubona!!