Living in a third world country, after a while you become desensitized. It cannot happen any other way because if you let all that emotion in day after day, you would lose it. I was driving home the other day and I realized it felt totally normal to me to see kids suffering, to see dirt and broken buildings, to see moms carrying babies on their backs, with huge sacks of grain on their heads and holding the hand of their toddler child all on the street inches from my car while I was driving. It didn't bother me that out of the 8 pregnant women I see on any given day, one of them will die giving birth. It didn't phase me anymore to see a sick, listless child lying on his mothers lap and knowing there was a good chance that child would not live to see his next birthday. It didn't bother me to watch kids carrying water jugs on their heads--half the size of their small bodies-- and knowing they did not have the opportunity to attend school because their parents could not afford the uniforms or the bribes needed to pay for the supposedly mandatory free public education. You get used to these things because they are facts. After a while, you feel helpless and give in to the circumstances around you. They call it acclimating. Most of the time, that is what you do to survive. Sometimes, though, something strikes a chord in you and you wake up and remember that in the civilized world, things are not this way. Sometimes you even try and make a dent in the poverty and hopelessness around you and bring a little civilized dignity to a shattered place. And sometimes you do it without even knowing, until the end, why you did it.
I was leaving my best friends house Sunday evening. It's a house, but we call it a compound because it's surrounded by a huge wall with razor wire on top and a gate at the entrance to let cars in and out. This situation is not for grandeur, but rather for security. Iron bars on the windows and triple-locked steel doors keep out the rebels during war time. War is recent memory for people here and everyone who can afford it, stays as safe as possible. As I was leaving, one of the workers approached my car. Everyone who has a compound, has half a dozen workers, or a small army of people, who help them around the house and around the compound. These people are poor; they live off the owner of the house. They get paid very little, but it's work and they have a fairly safe place to live. Their living conditions are nothing like the owner's. They do not typically have running water or electricity, and some of them live outside--sometimes sleeping on mattresses on the edge of the driveway. I have been at my friends house many times and the workers all know me by name now. So this worker who approached me in the dark was familiar to me, but I did not know his name. He was probably approaching middle age, but he looked much older. It's a hard life here and it shows. He tried to show me his arm and he was asking for something. They speak a version of English here--called Krio. I can understand most of it, but I was having a hard time figuring out what he wanted; mostly because it was pitch dark and because I was confused as to why he was approaching my car. Most times, they just open the gate and I exit quietly. I finally gathered that he had hurt his arm and was asking me for some sort of assistance. In the form of what...I had no idea. I got out of my car, turned on my tiny key chain flashlight and pointed it in the direction of his arm. Right away, by the way he was gingerly holding it, I could tell the injury was serious. Even in the dim light, I could see how swollen it was. I felt sad immediately. I could only imagine how much it must be paining him. I didn't know what else to do, so I gave him 20,000 Leones (about $6.00) and told him to see a doctor in the morning. Being a foreigner, I would have to pay about $50 to see a doctor here, but I know they do not charge the locals that much. He thanked me and promised to go to the clinic the next day. I also gave him two ibuprofen that I had in my purse. I mean, what else could I do? It seemed so little, but here in Africa, suffering is part of everyday life. People get sick and they endure it. You're lucky if you don't die. I tried to put the incident out of my mind; hoping I had done enough and hoping maybe the injury really wasn't that harsh.
I went to my friends house again the next evening. It was not a planned visit; I stopped by after running because he offered dinner. On my way out, again under the cover of darkness, I decided to check on the worker. He assured me he had been to the clinic and that the doctor told him that his wrist was not broken but only cracked. What?? That means the same thing in my book--serious! The doctor had given him an injection for the pain and sent him home. No cast, no support wrap, nothing. The arm was still swollen and I'm sure he was still in pain. He had found a ribbon--something you would use to wrap a Christmas present and he had tied this around his neck and was hanging his wrist from it in an attempt to reduce mobility and thus the pain. Pretty clever, I thought. In fact, the ribbon still had the "to/from" tag on it. My heart sank. I just could not stand by and do nothing when I knew this person was suffering and no one was probably going to do anything about it. Well, I was someone. I could do something. I knew a little first aid--my Dad was an EMT for over 30 years. Where to start? I put the worker in my car and drove him to my house.
At the house, I got Dad on the phone from Arizona and explained my situation. While I talked to him, I dragged out the red plastic first aid kit he had made for each of us about 20 years ago. I don't get hurt much so most of the supplies were still in stock. In fact, I had added a few things over the years like ace bandages and random wrist supports. Dad went immediately into medical advice mode--he has received many calls of this nature from us--so he has a lot of practice. He advised ice to reduce the swelling. That's great Dad, I have ice at my house but the worker has no electricity where he lives, hence he has no access to ice cubes. No matter, I could ice it for the 15 minutes I planned to keep him in my apartment to treat him. Ice went immediately into a zip lock bag and onto the wrist. I think the worker breathed a sigh of relief after only a couple of minutes. I think even the ice helped it feel better. Then Dad suggested an ace bandage to wrap around the wrist to help hold it stable. I found an ancient wrap with a big safety pin. After the 15 minutes of icing, I did a pretty remarkable job of wrapping the wrist. I think even Dad would have been impressed. But while I was wrapping the wrist, I could tell that every little movement caused the worker a lot of pain. I remembered the huge bottle of ibuprofen in my room and I put about 40 tablets into a zip lock bag. I told him to take two in the morning and two in the evening. It would help somewhat with the pain and the swelling. I was not a pharmacy, but it would be better than nothing. Finally, Dad said he thought there was a large triangle tourniquet-thing (sort of like a dish towel) in the bottom of the first aid kit. He was right! I had never noticed it before. I unfolded it and viola. It was a perfect sling! I had to practice tying it around myself a couple of times before I got it in the right position on my patient. But hey, I had never done it before. After I was finished, the worker looked like a patient right out of a civil war movie--he could have been in that scene at the train station where they show all the war wounded in Gone With the Wind.
I had done something to help alleviate the suffering of another person. I had not reduced the infant mortality rate or removed Sierra Leone from the #1 position of worst level of poverty on the Human Development Scale, but I helped one person feel better. Sometimes you get to save the world one person at a time.
