Health Care

I cut my thumb in October. This was no routine paper-cut style scratch but a gash worthy of several stitches. On the positive side, I know that when people point to my scar and ask me where I got it, I can reply "Africa" with a certain air of masculinity that leaves the listener in awe. On the negative side, the story behind it is not nearly as romantic. I was opening a can of peas, and the can opener missed two spots directly opposite each other. Being the incredibly bright individual that I am, gifted with the mental capacity to graduate from an institution such as the University of Michigan, I thought to myself, "Well, I'll just push the lid open with my thumbs!" Five minutes later I was on my last piece of gauze from the medical kit the Peace Corps had provided me, calling my postmate who was at the Peace Corps office, to tell her to bring me some more gauze when she came back the following day.

"Well, do you need stitches?" she asked. I hadn't thought of that.

"I don't know, probably they'd stitch it up in the US but I can't really see it because it's dark," I replied through a mouthful of peas cooked in Type O positive blood.

"Well, you might have to go to Parakou tomorrow," she said, referring to the big city two hours away with a decent hospital.

I slept fitfully that night, my hand bleeding through cloths I had wrapped around it and my arm raised above my head. In the morning, I decided to try out Ouesse's little medical clinic. I arrived and asked two men where the doctor was.

"Why?" asked one. I told him I'd cut my thumb.
"I can take a look at it," he said. I followed him hesitantly into a room where he slowly put on a shirt. The room was furnished with a blood-stained wooden table and a cart with medical supplies. He told me to put my hand on the table, which looked as though it had been previously owned by some goat-slaughtering voodoo fetishers. He then carefully unwrapped my bandages with tweezers treated with what he said was "sanitizer." I got my first daylight look at my injury, and knew immediately that I needed stitches.

The prospect of dealing with a white person's lesion must have aroused the curiosity of this man, who had never actually admitted to being a doctor or told me where the real doctor was. He started poking and prodding the cut with the tweezers until it started gushing blood again, after which he said that it was worse than he had thought.

"Yeah, I think I need stitches," I replied.
"No, you know what we're going to do," he said, taking surgical scissors and placing them around the front half of my thumb which was falling off; "we're going to cut this off and let it heal a l'aire." This was a little too much for me to handle; after all, I have enjoyed playing guitar for the last ten years. I stopped him in time and told him I was going to go to the hospital in Parakou instead to get stitches. He looked hurt, but I think he understood.

The doctor in Parakou, I was told, is regarded as one of the best surgeons in Benin. He took one look at the cut and told me he'd stitch it up. I told him what the man in Ouesse had wanted to do and he gasped. He then gave me several shots of anesthetic and I waited a minute for the anesthetic to work its magic. It didn't.

He approached with a thread that looked thick enough to use as a ropeswing, so I told him that maybe we should wait another minute until the anesthetic started kicking in.

"It hasn't yet?" he asked, surprised.
"Nope."

He thought for a moment and then proceeded. Every time I winced in pain as the needle pierced my thumb and the gigantic thread was pulled through, he would ask incredulously if it hurt. As if the procedure wasn't painful enough, now he had to put my manhood into question. I lied and told him it didn't. He finished and I headed off to find lunch after thanking him.

The cut healed well; I'm actually somewhat disappointed that the scar isn't nastier. Nevertheless, it was a memorable experience that gave me a first-hand look at the Beninese health-care system.

My Way or Their Way...?

I often look at my current job as an opportunity to teach other people something I already know. I teach accounting and marketing skills to artisans and secondary school students. I teach music theory to church choir groups. I'm teaching a friend the alphabet so that she can eventually write her own name. With all of this teaching it's very easy to miss out on all the opportunities to learn from people here. This is why I get very excited when I see some useful tool that I can take back home with me at the end of my service.

Benin recently held municipal elections, and the campaigning process provided me with one such opportunity. Although I do keep tabs on the presidential campaign in the United States, I have to admit it's been quite refreshing not to be flooded with news about the candidates all the time. In the United States, the prospects declare their candidacy months, even years, in advance and you never stop hearing about them - what they did right, what they did wrong, what they mispronounced, why they will or will not be elected.

Here, the candidates could not begin campaigning until 10 days before the election. As soon as the campaign was open, they all made a mad dash to distribute as many posters, flyers, and stickers as they could. These featured, usually, the candidate's face and the party's logo.

The general campaign strategy seemed to be something like this: the candidate would get 20 or so of his friends together at his house, they would all take a handful of posters, take a couple of shots of sodabi (moonshine), and head out on their motorcycles, honking. Also yelling into a megaphone if one was available. When they ran out of posters, they would ride back to the house, grab some more, take some more shots, and then head out again.

As I was observing all of this from an outsider's perspective, the thought occurred to me: "This is what we should do with the presidential campaigns in the U.S!" Think about it - it can't make the campaigning any less serious than it is right now, it would be wildly entertaining, and we could cap off each night with a nationally televised debate. I don't think it's a stretch to say that after a few drinks throughout the day, the candidates would be more sincere during these debates.

So, sometimes there are things where it seems to me that the "American way" is better, but there are still plenty of things that I can learn from and appreciate about the local way of life. While this example is perhaps somewhat more of a joke, this also holds true for many other things. In a position like mine, it's often easy to fall into the trap of thinking that my way of doing things is superior. It's a challenge to remember to look for ways in which I can grow or I can learn from people here, but when I do pick something up or learn something, it's very rewarding.

Life continues to go well here in Ouesse. I enjoy my town, my friends, and my work, and I'm thankful that I made the choice to come out here. Thank you for all of your prayer, love, and support, it really means a lot to me.

Love,

Sebastian