Experiencing Existentialism

It is 7:30AM.  The morning already feels odd, as there was no hot water for showering.  I am walking near the clinic, and as I approach there is a faint sound of singing in the air.  This has not been unusual; often our morning report becomes put on hold because nearby singing has become too loud to hear all the important medical details.  It was a presumption of mine that this was facilitated by a group of sisters who help run the hospital, and perhaps there was a choir being led nearby.

This morning, the truth was revealed.  As I walk past the open door to our common clinic area, I see the entire waiting room filled with people.  There have been no set appointments or appointment times; my patients are simply told to show up at clinic on a certain day.  On that day, they wait in the order in which they arrive, and may have a large number of patients not seen by the end of the day.  This is no small effort; I have had patients as far away as Francistown (approximately 6 hours by bus, and a not-insignificant cost to many of these people).  So naturally, people come early to ensure their effort is not in vain.

So here I was, an hour and a half before patients were to start being seen, and for many, their day has already spent waiting longer than any American waits for their physician (or waits for anything, for that matter, save the DMV).  They are not playing Angry Birds or Flappy Bird or any kind of bird on their iPhones, Galaxies, Notes, Nooks, Kindles, or Blackberries.  No, they will remain in this room with no form of entertainment except each other’s company, some of them for 6, 8 hours.

In this light, the singing is an almost expected result.  What astounds me is that there is a song that the majority of people in this room know very well.  I suppose that is a product of their homogeneity.  After all, what equivalent song would we have in the United States?  Don’t Stop Believing, America the Beautiful?  Perhaps the next time you’re waiting with a large number of people, try singing Bohemian Rhapsody, and see if anyone joins you.  See if it becomes a divisive maneuver or an act of galvanization.

For the Batswana, a far more collectivist than individualistic people, their singing proves unifying.  It is 9:30AM, and already there is no more sitting room for the day’s wait.  By noon, the room will be so filled with people that simply walking from check-in to an examination room will prove exceedingly challenging.  And despite the circumstances of waiting in a stiflingly hot room with hundreds of other people, the scene will remain calm all day.  This is as stark a contrast as can be imagined to the States, where an hour’s delay is cause to complain to a hospital’s CEO.

This willingness to endure hardship proves to be the theme of the day.  A mother fashions a carrying device out of a simple towel to secure her 3 year-old with limited control of their limbs.  I googled the cost of a Baby Bjorn, and this mother is coming out way, way ahead.  A teenager with kernicterus, whose muscles have become his rigid prison, to the point that they have sculpted his own bones into a corkscrew-shape.  His angel of a mother cares for him without the luxury of a g-tube; she still must feed him through a mouth he can barely control.  She physically carries a fully-grown person whose disease has robbed him of his ability to sit upright.

The day leaves an indelible mark.  A reminder of the great lengths that these people are going through every day to care for their children.  At the end of this trip, I will return to a life free from the burdens that these parents face.  A life not driven by the continuous need to keep up, to make it through each day’s struggle.  Most of these families will not get to act or live based on ambition, self-actualization or hedonism.  I suppose we should count ourselves lucky.

Because this blog was extremely depressing, here's
a shot of a family of giraffes I saw in Madikwe.
See?  Feeling better already.