In a few weeks, we are going to do a one day medical clinic in Hurso. This medical clinic will not only help the people of Hurso with their current physical ailments, but it will also provide us with an assessment of the illnesses and diseases common to the village so that we can steer our health education curriculum towards meeting those needs. This clinic will also establish a basic understanding of how healthy Hurso is, so that we can quantify the progress of TCD in the village over the next few years.
In preparation for this clinic, Peter and I have been attending clinics in and around Dire Dawa in order to learn the ropes a bit and get a better idea of what we’ll need for the Hurso clinic. It has been interesting and enlightening. We’ve gotten the chance to assist the lab technician and help out with crowd control. I’ve learned to demonstrate the proper application technique of anti-hemorrhoid cream to Somalis without speaking a lick of Somali.
The poorest and sickest people in Dire Dawa come to these clinics because the medical services and medicine itself is provided free of charge by another the NGO our friends work for. We see cases that bring a smile to your face and others that bring tears to your eyes. A few weeks ago a woman was rolled into the clinic in a broken wheelbarrow. I won’t log a full account of her illness so as to save our squeamish audience, of which I am the chairman, undue queasiness. Her leg was gangrenous to the bone and our doctors thought she would, at best, lose the whole leg, but more than likely succumb to her infection. They drained abscess weekly and gave her antibiotics. Slowly but surely, her leg healed. It has been truly miraculous. This past Thursday, she walked in with only a slight limp and a smile on her face.
Also last Thursday, we had an 80 year-old woman come the clinic. Lee, an American who speaks Somali, asked her where she was hurting. She looked at up at him from her hunched position, squinted, puckered out her bottom lip, tilted her head to one side, shrugged her shoulders, and, in one emphatic gesture, flipped both of her hands out and up to heaven to signify that she hurt everywhere. It was the cutest and most pitiful thing I have ever seen. We gave her a couple hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen and a tall glass of water. After of hauling more than 50 kilograms firewood on her back for more than 20 kilometers every day for more than 40 years, I am surprised she can walk at all. I think she just wanted to tell somebody she was tired and a little sore more than she wanted anyone to attempt to ease the load; she’s a tough lady and well accustomed to carrying burdens alone. Having someone to talk to did more for her than the medicine ever will.
