Tuesday

Tuesday, November 13

It is an earlier day today but the sun beats me up nonetheless.   Three of the team, with the driver, take the truck to pick up the Pastor Reggons and his wife, Dr. Mema.  I remember her name because it is the name my granddaughter calls me.  

The sun is just spilling onto the tips of the hills leading to the sea.  It is a lovely light show.  We pass a small house facing east.  It is in a row of four on a small ledge in the hill.  The porch holds a man and a child illuminated by the new sun.  The yellow of the man’s shirt pops and reminds me of the verse in Colossians about how Jesus is the radiance of God the Father.

Stores are opening in town:  The Grand Jehovah, petroleum products; Pharmacy of Life; The Grace of Jehovah Depot.  It is market day though our early hour and alternate route will rob us of its complicating traffic.  Our route appears to be along the back roads and there is luscious greens and yellows and the beauty of rural life wherever I look.  

Though we leave earlier than the team, they arrive before us.  Clinic is set up and soon we are underway.  I break only to test my prowess at the squatty potty with a sore knee; not an easy task let me tell you, but somehow I find success without falling in.

Today, my diagnosis de jour, is hypertension.  I see many older lovelies with tales of weakness and palpitations.  Most stories include having taken some unknown medicine in the past but, having run out, they did not obtain more.  I offer a lot of teaching and instructions to return to a doctor before they run out of medicine again.  It is like music to watch them approach slow and steady.  My 98 year old mother in law would call that “creeping along”.

My Haitian Johnny Cash comes to me with complaints of weakness.  He is a tall drink of water with a black Stetson cowboy hat, black shirt and boots.  I wonder if he can sing but am glad I don’t ask.  My regular cascade of investigative questions become a mire of complication.  Each time I try to ask a question to narrow down his vague trouble, he replies with an additional problem.  After several questions and no helpful answers, I rely on my physical exam.  We eventually came to a consensus and actual treatment does occur, much like a country song.

Magda becomes my interpreter for a time today as my care necessitates a private exam.  She is 21 and drove up here from Port au Prince to interpret for us.  She is studying communications at the University.  She is really quite fiesty.  She does not allow any patient to speak when she is listening to me and tells them so in no uncertain terms.  I don’t understand her words but I catch her mighty drift. Most of the time, however, her contagious smile lights my way.  She laughs at my French and my laugh.  Later, she tells me she “likes my way”.  I like hers too and we end the day together smiling.

It begins to rain as we close up clinic.  It lightly, gently mixes with the dirt becoming mud and puddles.  The hot day gives way to the cooling water’s dimness.  The children, chickens, ducks, goats and turkeys dance about in the rhythm of the drops as others take refuge under wooden and metal roofs to watch the spectacle that we are.

As we drive home, white birds that I have not noticed before, take on an electric glow against the green wetness.  Their brilliance, like a spotlight of color, revealing their graceful presence.  There is something lovely about a soft, gentle rain that refreshes and revives as much as the mud does for the little ones.

I close my eyes this day and rest in the shadow of my Almighty.

I close my eyes this day and rest the shadow of my Almighty.