I was with a family at the hospital the other day when they had a sick child. Going to the hospital here is not like in the States, which implies an emergency room visit, or an in-patient stay. Here, from my observations, most hospitals are run by an individual physician. He has his office at the facility, he can order lab work, do treatments, prescribe and provide medicines, and he takes care of the inpatients, as well. In fact, in one hospital I visited, even the sheets were stamped with the physician’s name. So, to go to the hospital can be as simple as visiting the doctor’s office or as serious as requiring an in-patient stay. This day it was just a visit with the doc, some lab work, and some prescriptions.
I have been living in an apartment complex with five other families. On my way to school that morning, one of the moms called me to look at her son – he was ‘breathing funny’. The night before I had dealt with another team member’s child that was having an asthma attack, so I pondered what could be wrong with this child as I climbed the stairs to their apartment. Indeed, this 18-month-old boy was breathing quite ‘funny’. He had sternal retractions (his sternum was sucking in), along with abdominal breathing and nasal flaring – all very serious signs. I told them we needed to see a doctor much sooner than later, so we went to the doc’s office at the hospital.
I was actually impressed by what I saw with this doc (in comparison to the doc I had been dealing with, with other sick children), as he actually examined and assessed this child, gave orders for treatments, and kept the child long enough to see if he would improve with these interventions. One of the treatments he prescribed was a nebulized medication, where medicine is placed in a cup and aerosolized through a mask. As you can imagine, having a mask with a cold mist coming out of it being strapped to his face was very terrifying to this little boy. In the States, at least theoretically, if not practically, we try to take the fear out of treatments for little children. For example, I was always taught that if a child seemed scared of wearing a mask, to put the oxygen tubing through the bottom of a Dixie cup because it is something with which the child is familiar, thus less frightening. From what I’ve seen, that kind of thinking isn’t a priority here. So in this situation, the dad, a very gentle man, held the boy while the assistant administered the treatment. Mom made a gallant effort to keep her emotions in check, and tried to soothe the little guy. In reality, there is nothing painful about this treatment. There is really nothing for which the boy should have been crying, except he was scared. He was safe in his dad’s arms, and his mom was very attentive. Dad kept saying, “It’s okay, I’m here with you. You’re alright.” The whole treatment lasts about five minutes, but that boy was wailing at the top of his lungs. It struck me as I watched that scene that I am like that little boy sometimes. Even though I am safe in my Father’s everlasting arms, and I have the comfort of the Holy Spirit, I sometimes find myself in situations that are frightening to me. I’m okay – God is directing the circumstances – everything is under His control – it is not for my harm, but my good – yet there I am wailing because of fear. I could learn a lesson of trust from this situation.
On a different note, I think I am beginning to understand one of the difficulties of living in another culture that contributes to culture stress. Culture stress is a term being used to replace culture shock, as the word ‘shock’ indicates something rather acute and self-limiting. The degree of stress from living in a foreign culture may fluctuate in intensity, but from what I’ve read, it never completely goes away. For me (and I’m sure for others as well) the unpredictability of any given situation makes every experience a bit stressful. For example, in the States when I drive down the road I can generally expect that people in the east-bound lanes will drive east-bound. I can also expect that if I’m walking in a pedestrian walk-way there will not be motorized vehicles in that same walk-way. However here, it is not at all uncommon to have someone decide they don’t want to wait and so drive into the lane of oncoming traffic in order to get around a delay. Amazingly, it seems to be quite effective for them, and I have not yet seen an accident here. (Not that there haven’t been any near misses!) And, since I don’t drive, I haven’t had to deal with the unpredictability of such a situation. However, as a pedestrian I have had the bejeebies scared out of me a number of times when I was walking in a pedestrian walk-way facing oncoming traffic (so I can jump out of the way should the need arise) only to find someone driving up behind me, as though it were a lane on the road. I was oblivious to the fact that they were behind me until they honked just as they passed me! I’m not sure one ever truly gets use to that. And it’s really bad when one of the other missionaries does it, just to be funny – not to name any names, Bro. Omar!
