NOT ON FB UPDATE

Last night, I watched the movie, Limitless. I really pondered afterward why it left me so cold. I decided there really wasn't a redeemed ending, mostly even bad movies have some sort of redeeming ending. This ending was just a continuation of extremely selfish motives that prevailed throughout the whole movie. But, my friend reminded me this morning that it is a GREAT conversation starter. What would you do if you had limitless potential to recall everything you had ever seen or learned, and were limitless in what you could learn. What would you do with that power?

NOT ON FB UPDATE

Since I can't be on FB anymore, anyone who feels like putting int he effort can read frequent updates here on my blog, as well as longer blog entries. Welcome one and all! Feel free to comment.

Moving house

So, I started my big house move today. I have lost count of all of the times I have moved the past 10 years. Not as much as some, but, more than most. I should always remember that things take longer here than at home, but I seem to always forget. Actually things that may take an hour or so at home take days and days here.

So, I went tot he house today with the realtor (yes, they exist here, usually referred to the "paraperty dealer"). I wanted to do a once over to make sure everything worked before signing the contract. I don't know what happened on the last couple of days of the previous tenant's contract, but it seems that every foreign restaurant in town threw up on the floor. I have never seen such nastiness. I nearly cried. I had to quickly change all the days plans to clean. I mean it took hours just to sweep all of the trash out. Then we began to clean!

It took me, a teammate, and a local housekeeper all day just to clean the flat I am moving into. (There are two other flats in the building that we will start on tomorrow.) WE hired a truck and they made two trips and will make another tomorrow. SO most of our stuff is actually in the building but I think ti will take days before the house is really livable.

Oh, and someone left the basement window open and the screen is torn, so since the place is so nasty, guess what came in for a visit? Oh yeah... cock roaches. I nearly lost my mind. But I really believe that this time it is not a house structural issue. I think it is simply a nastiness issue that can be resolved with a few roach motels, boric acid, and bleach! I love bleach! What a great invention! What is that called? Something hypochloride or was it an hypochlorate I get the ides and ates confused? Oh well, chemistry was over 20 years ago. I guess I am allowed to forget a bit.

I am so thankful for my teammate, K, who helped me. If she hadn't been there I think I would have lost my mind. And, the availability of Dettol products (the British version of Lysol) is one of the huge blessings of life here. I go to the foreign shop and I stand in the cleaning products isle and bask in the glow of antiseptic/antibacterial products! Now, i am not a germa-phobe... perhaps I should be as much as I get sick here. But I love to clean! And, I think there is enough antibacterial products available here that if we poured them all into the sewer, perhaps children would stop getting so sick from their drinking water! But I digress...

Back to the house. It really is a nice place and there are very few repairs that need to be made, thankfully. But the amount of cleaning that needs to be done pretty much negates the time saved by few repairs. I am not sure that easy should even be in the vocab here.

So, tomorrow we go to buy carpets. I think I shall put linoleum in my room so that... yes, it will be easier to clean. So much dust here. If we could package the dust and sell it for something, the financial woes of this country would fade into the sunset. But again, I digress. I am really tired and have a hard time staying on task when I am this tired.

I don't need a big fancy place, but I need to have some beauty. I need a place that is "mine" where I can retreat to and rest. When I sit with a dying child, I need to go home and let down. I am excited about this house. I think it has the potential to be beautiful and homey. I just need to unpack and get settled in... Oh and the great thing? The contract is for two years! If we actually make it that long, it will be the longest I have been anywhere in recent memory! :)

Who am I?

I have been told that I am too dramatic about my life here, that I am attention seeking.

Hmm...I have a friend here who says she really struggles because of the stories that women tell her. The stories they tell... they really are horrific... I don't hear the stories. Why? Because I live them...

I don't hear about the woman whose brother beat her for talking to a man on the phone. I treat her wounds from the beating.

I don't hear about the woman whose baby is starving to death, and whose husband won't let her seek treatment for it. I hold it and pray over it that it may die quickly so it doesn't suffer.

I don't hear about the woman who wants or tries to commit suicide. I hold her down as she is screaming and trying to escape to get the gas can and the matches.

I don't hear about the sixteen year old girl who is newly engaged and just beginning her life, but dying because she had no access to healthcare. I fight for her and and watch as she turns from a beautiful young woman to scarcely a waif and fades off into eternity. I hold her sisters hand. I keep her mother standing as she wants to throw herself onto the floor. I sit at the funeral numb wishing I could have done, wondering if I could have done... more.

I don't hear about the twin babies who are starving to death. I sit with their mom as she cries because they are refugees and have hardly enough money to eat every day.

I don't hear about the pain. I live it.

A random thought

I was just thinking today about how people comment on things they know nothing about. I read news stories about Afghanistan (usually full of very incorrect and exaggerated information) and then I read comments from the readers. I am quite shocked when I read things like, "the US should just carpet bomb the whole place and get out of there!" First of all, I think what people clearly don't understand is that we are NOT at war with Afghanistan or the Afghans. We are at war with the Taliban and terrorists. Most of the bad guys who are here are insurgents. That means they are Foreign to Afghanistan! Would you carpet bomb innocent women and children because THEY are being invaded? Just a thought...

follow-up

I went to work this morning, and Hadassah, my coworker, told me that when she handed the "reward" money to the woman, she said, "You should be giving me $100 instead of Af 100!" Hadassah is sure she is the one who stole my purse, thinking to get a very large reward for returning it!

Turning the other cheek

Turn the other cheek… what if you don’t have time before the next slap comes? Sometimes life feels like that. You keep taking hits and before you can turn the other cheek another one comes. Today it happened literally.

I have been taking care of a woman from the mountains who is probably about 17 years old, had a (about) two year old little girl, has been widowed and remarried, is pregnant, and dropped a huge stone on her legs and broke both of them. After a painful 3 day trek down the mountains to a province called “laghman”, where she had two surgeries. One of which was an “ex-fix”. Meaning she had an external rod with screws in her leg.

Yesterday, I went to her house to check on her (this is an endeavor in and of itself that takes over an hour, just to get there). She is staying at one of the poorest places I have ever seen. There are four families living in the “yard” which is more like a compound. Each family has a room all of which open to the outdoors. Two of the rooms have no doors or windows. This is Kabul, which is very high (in the mountains) and very cold.

She didn’t know where to go to get the ex-fix removed, so I agreed to take her to a local hospital here that is good at orthopedics. WE arrived into chaos, which is the case in just about every hospital in Afghanistan. Her mother and her friend were with her, as well as my coworker and I. We took her to the female emergency room and sat to wait for the doctor. There is a woman in the er who is kind of like an information giver. She was pretty well dressed, which usually means at least partly educated. She seemed fascinated with us, which happens when I show up with a group of women. It took a while, and the others were kicked out because we were too many people for a small place.

The doctor came and looked at her and ordered an x-ray to make sure there was no infection in the bone. So, I took her down to the x-ray department in a wheelchair (the chair leaving a little bit to be desired). We got there, and got her x-ray and then sat outside to wait for it to be developed. As we waited, I realized that I needed to pay for the x-ray. I reached to my shoulder to get my purse, and it wasn’t there. I frantically looked around me and looked in my back pack (had my computer with me too.) But, it wasn’t there. I felt very panicky. In the meantime the man at the door of the x-ray room who lets people in and out kept following me around asking for “Shirni” which means candy. In this case it meant a bribe. Ugh!

I told my coworker, Hadassah, and she went back to the ER to look. She didn’t see it, so this man, Wahid, came with me to look for it. We looked on and under every bed, and behind every curtain. It was nowhere to be seen. I started to have a very sinking feeling in my heart as the truth sank in. Someone had stolen my purse. Then I started thinking of all that was in it. $600, my credit cards, insurance card, nursing license, all of my keys, glasses, well, really like most women, my purse is a treasure trove… I kept praying and trying to remember that I will have what I need, but it was hard to stay focused. I went into the x-ray room to look, and they said the x-ray was ready, but wouldn’t give it to me until I gave them Af100. Wahid was there and told them that someone had stolen my purse, and they guy just shrugged and said that he wouldn’t give it to me without the Af100. Wahid rolled his eyes and gave her the money.

We then went out to fetch the lady and go back ot the ER. Wahid then handed me Af 500 (about $9.5) That is a lot for a man who only makes $100 a month. He said that he was ashamed of his country that would steal from me when I was trying to help.

While we were waiting for the doctor to come and take the screws out, I was standing in the hall with the other ladies talking. They were really sad and angry about my purse. Suddenly, the well-dressed woman form the ER came out with my purse! I hollered and hugged her and kissed her, then she started asking for “shirni”. I told her that it was enough that she had done a good thing before the eyes of God, and the other women told her that the “shirni” I was giving was helping the poor in Afghanistan. She then slapped my face! And before I could react, she slapped me again. Then I started to say something and she slapped me again! I was so angry, and then she walked away. (Actually I think she ended up slapping me about 4-5 times, but I lost count).

That shook me up, but I was distracted by the women telling me to make sure that all of my money was there. They shielded me while I crouched in a corner to look and it was all there. I took out 500 and a100 to repay Wahid. They all saw the 100 and told me to give it to that woman, so I gave it to Hadassah to give to her, which she did.

The doctor finally came in, and began to take out the screws. I protested that they hadn’t given her anything for pain, and he said that he couldn’t because she was pregnant. I convinced him to get a local, and that woman came in while we were waiting, and grabbed my cheek (the same one she had slapped) and pinched hard and pulled it away from my face. She said what is Af100? It isn’t anything! I pulled away from her and said, everyone here wants money form me. I am trying to help this woman and everyone just wants something from me! Then she laughed and said she was only joking. At that point I was near to tears. Then the doctor and Wahid started to unscrew the ex-fix, and I told them to stop until she had the local and they just laughed and said that it doesn’t hurt, even though the woman was obviously in terrible pain. I told them she was in pain and they shouldn’t think it is funny. Finally, they got all of the bolts undone and gave her a local anesthesia to take out the first screw. But they didn’t wait for it to take effect. They gave the shot then unscrewed it from her bone! I just kept holding and kissing her hands and praying for strength for her and myself.

It was finally over. They put a hard cast on her and we helped her to the car, where 4 new blankets, huge bags of flour, rice, beans, oil and washing powder awaited her/and her family. The car took her home while Hadassah and I waited for some other friends who just happened to be at the same hospital at the same time.

It was a rather trying day, full of good things, yet, my heart has once again been slammed by accusations of being rich and not caring, and having my face smacked by someone who I had only been nice to… So, I came home and ate chocolate.

I am pretty sure that the woman had stolen my purse and had thought she could get a big amount of money to give it back. If she had known that I was only going to give her Af100 (about $2.25) She wouldn’t have given it back. Sigh…