Medical rant while camping in the airport.

Date: Monday, December 24, 2012
Time: 1:51pm… wait, 2:51pm
Location: Amman International Airport, Jordan

I’m currently sitting in the rows of chairs in the middle of the walkway in the hall in the Amman airport. I refuse to go to the World News Café to my left. The cashier with the sticky pink lipstick gave short rude answers when Priscila and I were asking about the Internet. So now I’m taking my rights—Egypt has rubbed off on me. ☺

Priscila, the SM who works at the preschool in Heliopolis, and I are traveling to Istanbul together for a week. We left at 5:30 this morning, had a layover in Amman and then a connecting flight to Istanbul. Well, we got to Amman and went straight to the gate where our next flight was… and… we ended up missing the flight. (The rude lady just starting yelling across the way to get someone’s attention. Quiet, rude lady.) We did not know that there was an hour time difference between Cairo and Amman because the flight was just over an hour and we could not understand any of the announcements that were being made. Five minutes before our supposed boarding time, we asked one of the men where to go, and he freaked out and started yelling at us and radioing everyone and their mom—wait, no dad (because it’s a patriarchal culture)—and we had no idea what was going on, so we just followed person after person for a long time and eventually found out that we had missed the flight. They were trying to charge us to change the ticket—the next available ticket was for the same time Christmas day. And our options for nighttime were to stay at the airport hotel for $180 or we could buy a visa and take an expensive taxi ride into the far away city of Amman. But I asked the man if the tickets were available and if we could have them free of charge. He didn’t answer but went into a back room… and we have our tickets. Praise God. We’re spending the night by the gate. “We’re volunteers in Egypt,” didn’t rouse enough sympathy for a free hotel room.

It has been nice to be out of class for a few days. Everyone was ready for a break. The students have started to get crankier and have more attitudes, and some are just restless and talk more. The flu has been going around the school as well, so no one is at his or her best.

I sat next to a lady while waiting for the plane in Cairo. She looked maybe in her early 60s. She said she had just gotten married, and her husband would be joining her in two weeks to a month. She’s been in Egypt for the past nine months… and I’m a little nervous for her. I hope that he is a good man. Egyptian men can be very smooth. And they’re very masculine, chivalrous, generous, and supposedly charming. But I have never seen people fly off the handle as quickly as them either—which of course does not come right away. And domestic violence is not really considered domestic violence. Oh, whoops, too bad that happened, but such is life. People fight. So I hope that she is okay and that they’re nice little friends that live happily ever after.

I’d really like pizza. With lots of sauce. My mouth is watering.

Oh. Anyway, this lady was saying that her mother-in-law had surgery with “two cuts” (very technical), and she received no pain medicine, no one came to check on her for hours at a time, and several other things. My friend, whose name I never learned, said she had to have surgery too, but she’d have it done in Egypt over her dead body. There are some good hospitals in Egypt. But there is a very big gap between the good hospitals and the bad ones. While chewing out some students for carrying their sick friend out of the dorm Biblical miracle-style to a car to take him to the hospital (because Peggy and I apparently didn’t know what we were doing…), she told them that she wouldn’t take her dying dog to that hospital. That was an event.

(Preface: I know that every culture is different. The two that I happen to know the best are American culture, of course, and Egyptian culture. So me speaking of Egypt could really be me speaking of half the world or however many countries have the same mentality about sickness and medical care.) I have never seen such wimpy guys in my life. The men in Egypt are VERY masculine and the women are VERY feminine, but as soon as a guy has a slight fever or whatever it might be, he wraps himself up like a little hotdog and “cannot” move from his bed and can barely speak—if he can speak at all. At first I would get really worried about them because the friends would run to come get me and tell me to run to their friend because he’s “very very sick.” Everyone is “very very sick.” I think they feel like they won’t be taken seriously if they only say “sick,” or “kind of sick.” To me, very sick describes someone in a hospital with his life at stake.

I was called to come to the boys’ dorm one Saturday night while I was on supervision. One student was apparently very sick.
“Okay, can you tell him to come outside the dorm so I can see him?”
“I don’t think he can.”
“Well, I don’t want to go in the boys’ dorm, so have him come right outside.”
“I’ll tell him. But he can’t move, and he can’t speak.” (This is the biggest indicator to not take someone seriously. It makes me want to take longer to get to a person like this because I have seen very sick people throughout my time working in the hospital, and almost no one is incapable of moving or talking—and even less 16-22-year olds.)
“Yes he can.”
“Uh…”
“Okay. Fine. I will come there.”
So I go to his room, where he is crowded by sincerely concerned friends—bless their hearts. Of course he is unresponsive. He has good color, capillary refill. Vital signs are completely normal. From what I can tell, completely faking it. Possibly uncomfortable, but still capable of movement and communication—just choosing not to. One boy told me that this “very sick” student may have had a problem at his house earlier that day. Ah, so that’s the problem. They said that he is complaining of chest pain. So I give his friends two Tylenol to work at giving to him. If he was unresponsive, I would have given some other form of medication, but he was fine. And he did end up taking the medication between that time and the next time that a group of his worried friends insisted that I come see him—again. I was already irritated because he the sick guy was faking it or just being ridiculously dramatic, and his friends were being very impatient with me and yelling for me to hurry and run and because he was “dying,” so I heard in Arabic. I said that I just saw him and he was okay, etc. This friend Thomas adamantly disagreed with me in Arabic saying that the “sick” guy can’t move or talk and he’s not fine. Unfortunately I did not speak with the patience of Christ, and I said in a combination of Arabic and English (because Thomas has one of the smallest English vocabularies in the school), “I am a nurse. You are NOT a nurse. HE IS FINE. He doesn’t WANT to move. He doesn’t WANT to talk. HE IS FINE.” “No, ya miss.” So I went again. He was fine. I had called Peggy earlier to see if she would do anything else or if I could be missing something. Nope. She called the boys’ dean to tell him that this guy was fine. The boys’ dean and the RA saw me later and were worried because they hadn’t seen someone act like that before and they just wanted to be sure. So I went. Again. I retook all of his vital signs, explained everything that I was observing to the dean, the RA, and the friends that think they’re doctors. I explained that all of the things that this guy did not have control over were perfectly fine. It’s only the things that he can control that seem to be the problem. The RA was really annoyed with the guy at this point and was saying to the wannabe doctors that he was faking it. I thanked the concerned friends for caring about him and told them that if they wanted to stay with him and talk to him they could. “What if he falls asleep like this?” “Good. That means that he is tired and not in enough pain to keep him awake.” An hour later I heard a report, “He lifted his head!” “Very good.” The next day, he was fine. Ughioafgnoiadmgoismdfg. I tried to pray that I would have love and patience for this student because for someone to fake sick for attention like that… they’ve either learned no other way of getting attention, they want someone to love them, or they feel like it’s perfectly okay to try to punish whoever they’re mad at by faking sick. And that is sick in and of itself. There is a no-fainting policy at school because the women in Egypt faint far too regularly. If they faint, they have to leave the school and come back with a doctor’s note saying that they’re okay. The culture is so dramatic that there are more physical manifestations to their emotions… which I believe they could control.

I just don’t like feeling incompetent, and the heroes that dragged the guy off to the hospital and his friends felt that way. “All you give is ibuprofen!” Yes, and he has the flu. I’m not going to give him antibiotics for a virus like they did in the 1940s and still apparently do all the time in Egypt. I want to bring down his fever and take away his body aches. I could use 20 different medications in many different forms (they seem to think injections fix everything…), but I’d rather stick to only a few so that you are capable of taking care of yourself and your family for minor things instead of running off to the hospital for every little thing. Many of the doctors in Egypt treat the people like they’re stupid by saying things like someone has “electric” in his brain when they feel that explaining a migraine is too complicated for laypeople to understand. This girl has a cold and will get over it in a few days… but let me whirl around and let you think that I’m a magician who knows what I am doing, and stick a nasal cannula in your nostrils and administer oxygen to you, girl with perfectly fine oxygen saturation. Let me write a prescription for FIVE medications, some injectable, some effervescent pills to dissolve in water, and some capsules so that you feel like I’m really smart and covering all my bases, when all you need is one. Because apparently many of the doctors either don’t have patience themselves, or don’t think that the people will come back to them if they’re told to wait and that something will get better in time. So let’s load them up with unnecessary meds, listen to their stomach, and give them a big ol’ shot in the rear end. I don’t have strong feelings about this or anything. ☺ I am just thankful that the doctors in the US are required to have three years of residency and continuing education even after they graduate to keep up their licenses. And I am incredibly thankful to have someone as competent as Peggy at NUA. I would trust anyone I truly care about to her.

Not everyone is foffy ("wimpy" in English). Akram looks miserable but does his best to speak English and even try to work with a fever of 102. So I don’t speak of everyone. And sometimes I’ll see miserable-looking people and have them come with me so that I can check them out even if they never asked for my help. And the worrying friends are probably concerned because they have known people who have died from things that seemed very simple, so they freak out easily. It’s not what I’m used to, but it’s all that many of them have ever seen and known.

Priscila and I sat at this café here in the airport for five hours. During that time, she went to the bathroom twice. Each time, the guy behind the counter brought me something for free—hot chocolate and then pringles—and was very helpful. I wasn’t sure if he wanted a tip or if he was hitting on me. I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, so I assumed he was nice. Until he winked at me behind her back. His name is Omar, and he is coming home with me in June. (For those of you who didn’t know, after prayer, communication with nursing professors and hospital people, and more consideration, I’ve changed my ticket and am coming home after graduation. I’m really looking forward to it, though I do miss home.)

Recent Update. Relationships/Marriage

Neven teaches Arabic and is in charge of the greenhouses here on campus. I like her. She is really tall, which is an insignificant detail. She’s also very straightforward, which is very unusual for an Egyptian, especially a woman. It’s very refreshing. I like to know where people stand, and it’s nice to not have to guess what someone’s thinking. I’ve asked her to teach me Arabic, and she’s excited about it. Students have taught me some words, but they have not taught me how the language works, so I’m really hoping to learn quite a bit. I’m excited. Taylor started coming with me. That’s good.

Neven and I are in charge of the play for the Christmas program. We were instructed that there was to be nothing to do with drinking or drugs in the play. Stupid instruction, I thought. Then I remembered: No… that’s a very good guideline. Nothing should be assumed. The last time I was here, there were some people that were really pushing for something along those lines. And I think it was the last line or two that mentioned something about, “Oh, it’s Christmas. Let’s forgive the drunk man that murdered my family.” “Okay.” Yes, I exaggerate, but that was the story line—I kid you not. Not this year. We’re doing the nativity story. Gladys suggested that we ask a man who sometimes works on campus if we can borrow his baby camel for the play. Neven came to me last night and said that we couldn’t. “Why not?” “Because he ate it.” So that’s that, I guess.

In my junior and senior Bible classes I’ve been teaching a lot about marriage. I am not married, nor do I have kids, yet they still take me seriously. Haha. I guess that works. This past week we split up the girls and the guys. Pastor Tom talked with the guys, and I took the girls and talked to them about physical abuse in relationships, waiting for a guy who is worthy, rape, and how we teach people how to treat us. On Monday I will be teaching them about female genital mutilation. Egypt and Sudan have the highest rates of FGM in the world. I believe that it started along the Nile and is a tradition that persists. It is apparently less common than it was ten years ago, but I am sure that some of these girls must have undergone it. I want them to learn about what exactly happened, why it is pointless, why they should never make or allow their daughters be cut, and what the hymen has to do with virginity. It is still a very common practice here for the family to come the day after the wedding to see the bloody sheet. I was mortified when I first heard that, but now I’m more used to the idea of it. I mean, who needs privacy anyway?

One of my Egyptian friends got married a couple years ago to a non-Egyptian guy. We were at her house, and her non-English speaking family was talking in Arabic about the wedding that was coming up and about how they were going to come over the next day, etc. Her fiancé got very serious and said to her and me in English, “They will see nothing. If they want to see blood they can go kill a goat.” I started laughing and was so proud of him.

I wish that marriage was more respected and treated more sacredly in American culture than it is. And I have come to appreciate how highly marriage is regarded here. But there are downsides to every good thing, and here the downside is that girls sometimes feel like they can’t get out of relationships. Dating around is not an option. Reputation is just about everything, and a girl who has dated too much in her past, or even at all, may not be looked at as an acceptable girl to be with. Even if a guy is fine with her, his family might really have a problem with it. And her family is all paranoid that she will seem loose and dirty. But I strongly emphasized to them that it is better to feel pain and shame and be talked about now than to be miserably married to the wrong man for the rest of their lives. I am excited about teaching these girls to make decisions for themselves. I am all about honoring parents and authority, but I think that here, especially within the conservative Upper Egyptian cultures, families don’t know how to mind their own business. Everything is everyone’s business. I put a lot of emphasis on “…a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Who is he leaving?
His mother and father.
Who is he becoming one with?
His wife.
So who is he supposed to put first, his wife or his parents?
His wife. But Miss, the Bible says to honor your mother and your father.
You can and should still honor them. But you are one with your wife. You must be united to each other. And you must put each other before your parents. Love them, honor them, but you may have to establish boundaries with them so that your marriage can work.

I do not want to turn them away from their families, but when everyone in their extended family lives in a single apartment building all on top of each other, or even within the same house, the controlling mothers-in-law run wild.

Before we split up the girls and the guys, I began to touch on domestic violence, and I realized that I had to cross a couple guys off my I-don't-think-he’d-hit-me list. It was surprising and yet not. I heard reasons like, “No, it’s not good, but we are only human and sometimes we can’t control ourselves,” and, “We saw our fathers do it all our lives, and their fathers did it, and their fathers did it. It’s part of our culture and it’s what we know.” I explained as best as I could why it is very faulty logic to think that that is acceptable even if “by accident” and added solid Biblical reasoning. But me explaining all of that may have just sounded like someone who didn’t want to get hit. So I let the big 6’4” man, Pastor Tom, finish that one off.

I have high hopes for these students. They are good. And I am so thankful that we can teach them these things. There have been so many things that I have just considered common sense, but then I realize later through something that I’ve seen that I learned that information in school at some point. So hopefully what we are teaching them will become like common sense.

I told the class that I was going to marry someone who would teach Sabbath school with me someday and we’d have the young people from our church over during the week and eat and talk about God. Ashraf smiled and said in a That’s-cute,-let-me-pat-you-on-the-head-for-your-sweet-idea voice, “There’s no one like that, ya Miss. There’s no one like you.” “Ashraf, you can come to my wedding someday.”

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” –Psalm 37:4