Honored By The Invitation

Last night I had an interesting experience. It had been a busy day. At the start, it was filled with all of the normal stuff: school, laundry, pumping water, cooking, baking, cleaning, etc. In regard to sick people, it was INSANE. Starting at 9 am, I had people on the porch. While I don’t treat people in the morning, I had to go out 4 times and explain that work would be starting in the afternoon at 4 pm. That alone consumed 20-30 minutes of my time. To make matters worse, Jim had gone to the farm, so I was left to deal with everyone on my own. Around 10am, the people that had showed up decided just to wait it out, on the porch.

For 6 hours, there was constant noise from the front of the house – babies crying, people talking, benches scraping on the ground, etc. Finally, around 3:30pm, I gave up trying to accomplish anything inside and went out to start seeing patients. I got slammed. There are SO many sick kids in town right now – and I think at least half were at my house (okay, that may be an exaggeration….) People were starting to get surly – I was here first, I need to go finish cooking, I have a long way to go to get home. In turn, I was starting to get surly – I said, I am only one person; if everyone doesn’t settle down, I will walk into the house and no one will get medicine today. That seemed to help.

By 7 pm, I was finally done, and I was exhausted. Jim had returned and we had supper. I was lying on the couch, prepared to relax for the evening when I heard my name called in the darkness from the side window. It was the husband of a friend of mine, telling me that she was in labor and asking if I could come. (I had been visiting this woman frequently and teasing her that she was going to deliver twins – she seemed less than amused by that.) The midwife had been called as well and asked me to come too. I have not been in a delivery with her yet, and I wanted to see how she handled things. I also wanted to be there for my friend, so I told him I would come.

I got my bag, changed my clothes, arranged things with the kids- leaving a 2 way radio behind so they could call me- and took off in the dark. The night was getting cold and the sky was clear and beautiful. The stars were amazing! I arrived at the hut and was ushered inside. The midwife was sitting on the bed beside another older woman. The co-wife of my friend was there, with her 4 month old baby sleeping quietly on one of the beds. Deliveries in Africa never cease to amaze me – I usually learn a lot of cultural things as I sit quietly and listen to all of the chatter around me. They wanted me to check the woman’s progress, and in doing so, I discovered that it was going to be awhile before the baby arrived, so we settled in. We chatted for a while, and then the midwife and older woman lay down to get some sleep.

As I sat on a little stool in the semi-darkness of the hut, bare feet on the cow dung floor, praying for the baby and the mom, listening to the co-wife who was not in labor encouraging the other, I was overwhelmed by the privilege it is for us to be here and overwhelmed by the honor our friends here bestow on us to invite us into the very private moments of our lives. They could ignore us. We do, after all, have a very limited understanding of their culture. It is completely outside my realm of understanding of how two women can share one husband.

I don’t understand how they can (seemingly) so casually deal with the death of a child. I don’t truly understand the work and effort they expend just to stay alive. And yet, they invite and are gracious. They patiently explain things and repeat it again if we didn’t catch the words.
After about an hour and a half, I needed to stretch my legs and told them I was going to go home and get some medicine for the mom for after she delivered. (I am fairly popular with the moms because I give them Tylenol after delivery, which they don’t normally get.)

I told them I would be right back. They were amazed – you are going, all by yourself???? Of course, I said, I will be right back. But, they said, no one is here to walk with you. Not a problem, I said, it is not very far (it is less than a 5 minute walk). Oh, but it is very far – and it is dark, aren’t you afraid? they asked. I am not afraid, I said. But my husband is not here to walk with you, she said. It is okay, I said, I am not afraid. I will be right back.

As I walked under the starry night, praising God for His goodness in allowing us to be here, I also felt sad that so many of my friends live in such fear of the dark and the spirits that live in the darkness. Our prayer is that some day they, too, will live in freedom from that fear.
I returned back to the hut and waited several more hours. Everyone else was lying down and they were very worried about me, sitting on my stool. I finally consented to lying down and curled up with the midwife on a straw bed NOT built for 2 people.

The labor was progressing very slowly – amazing considering that this was her 8th baby. Finally around midnight, with my friend sleeping quietly on the floor, I decided that I needed to go home. It didn’t look like the baby was coming any time soon. They promised to call me if they needed me.

I woke up at 6:50 am and, after a cup of coffee and some Bible reading, I went to check on my friend. As I walked towards her hut, 3 of the kids came running up to me and threw their arms around me. I said, do you have a new baby? They were all smiles and pulled me into the hut.

My friend had delivered a beautiful girl not terrible long after I left. She is gorgeous. I gave them some clothes and stocking hat for the baby, put ointment in her eyes, recorded her birth date in her medical folder, and thanked the mom for working so hard to have such a beautiful baby. As I left, there was a trail of kids calling after me – goodbye Gulunga, goobye Gulunga.

What a life we lead…….