coffee, rest, reading: my fuel

Life has felt especially full these days. This is because of really good things happening - promotion at work! some lofty, exciting goals on the writing front! good friends, fun travel, fulfilling ministry! And yet, on more days than I can count, I end the day wondering where the time went, when my laundry will get done, and who I forgot to call or text. My oil change reminder sticker shows a date and mileage that have both passed, and deadlines for some important things are coming fast. It feels counterintuitive to take time for things like rest, reflection, and doing nothing. And yet that storehouse needs to be filled. Time will start to feel thin if I don't take time to refuel.

So today is my day for coffee, for reading, for walking slowly. How are you resting this weekend?

surprises in Kenya: meeting Salaash

Salaash treating a Masai patient at our Shompole clinic

One of the many wonderful things about Africa is that it is full of surprises. We received our most valuable one on our first day on our drive to Masai land. About 10 miles from the school at Endonyo-olasho, our destination, we stopped at a dispensary in Oloika. Some of my teammates knew about this small village from a stop there last year, necessitated by a flat tire. But they hadn't seen the dispensary, and they hadn't met Salaash.

For maybe the tenth time that day, our team climbed out of the van to get a sense for what kind of services this dispensary is able to offer to patients, and to meet Salaash, who would be helping us at clinic the next day. After showing us his small two-room clinic and telling us a few details of his work, we all piled back into the van. It was getting dark, and we still had to set up our tent and make and eat dinner. We knew we had a long day of clinic ahead of us.

Early the next morning our team slowly emerged from our tent, wiped down with baby wipes, put on our scrubs. We walked the 200 meters or so to the fire pit to drink coffee and eat our breakfast of bread, peanut butter and nutella. There were no patients in sight yet, just the brown horizon against the still, cloudy sky. After breakfast we walked back to the school to set up, and Shannon assured us that patients would start appearing out of nowhere. And she was right: as we pulled desks out of classrooms and hung clinic-station signs on them, children and their parents appeared in the distance, first as small red or blue dots moving closer and closer to us. We pulled a few desks from the classrooms for our first patients to sit on as they waited, and hoped the clouds would stay to keep us all cool.

As we started to see patients, I hopped around from station to station, trying to observe how clinic worked and understand how I might gather information today. At one point I saw Shannon assessing a patient. She turned to Salaash and asked, "what would you do?" It was at that moment that I began to understand that Salaash wasn't there just to interpret medical terms for patients. He was a necessary partner in caring for patients in a way that honors and understands their cultural context.

Our whole team also began to understand that our presence there was meaningful to Salaash. Because his clinical training was paid for by the Kenyan government, he was stationed by the government at the clinic in Oloika. While he seemed to receive joy and fulfillment in serving his tribe (Salaash is also Masai, though from a different area of Kenya), it was clear that he also experienced the loneliness and fatigue that come from serving in an isolated community. We were able to provide him companionship and the opportunity to learn from colleagues - a common and integral part of the Western health system, but rare in Kenya, where the provider to patient ratio is something like one doctor per 10,000 residents.

Salaash stayed with us, for a vaccination at a nearby homestead the next morning, and the whole next day, too, for another clinic in a nearby village. Some of the Masai who came to this clinic insisted they be seen by Salaash, showing us how trusted he is in his community. He is tall and extremely lean, like most Masai, and with a soft voice that might belie his intelligence and conviction. As each patient came and sat in front of him, and he asked them why they had come to clinic, Salaash leaned forward, occasionally touched them on their shoulders, held children who were sick or would be vaccinated.

By the end of the day, we were all tired. Shannon asked Salaash about skin lesions on a child's head, which she thought might indicate something fungal. Salaash looked at Shannon with a smile in his eyes and said, "No, it's just dirt. Shannon, are you tired?" They laughed together. "Are you making fun of me, Salaash?"

***

The next morning, it was time for us to drive back to Nairobi, and for Salaash to return to his clinic in Oloika. He rode in the pick-up truck with our luggage, while our team rode in the van. We drove through the village in Oloika, past men standing in front of their small shops and a child waving frantically, joyfully with both hands as if the harder he waved the more we might remember him. Our van pulled up next to the truck, then turned around and drove through the village again. And it dawned on us that we were leaving Oloika, and that we hadn't gotten to say goodbye to Salaash. We made Chris turn the van around and drive back through the village, past the men at their shops and the child waving with both hands. We piled out of the van and ran in to meet and hug Salaash, who was already seeing patients who had been waiting for him during his three-day absence.  

Salaash photo bomb

wise advice

Whatever kind of artist you may consider yourself, I recommend welcoming this thing that inspires with a decent place to be. Put water, vitamins, leafy greens into your body. Apples. Oats. Get plenty of sleep. Some exercise. Keep the company of wise and more or less sober people. Don’t smoke. Don’t watch TV. Do trust yourself. Especially when you’re honest with yourself, forgive yourself. Listen to your heart. Consider what it means to be an elder, then find one or two, and listen to them. - Bonnie Nadzam

I love this advice that advocates for a sense of order and well-being our internal places -- in our organs and cells, in our minds and in our hearts.

I'm finishing up my writing class today. The completion of it feels like cresting a mountain and finding a chasm to cross -- a tremendous accomplishment met by a great unknown. That might sound dramatic -- it was only a class. But it was an incredibly empowering experience for me. It provided needed discipline and insightful instruction, and most importantly, it forced me to be honest with myself about my desires. I'm so very grateful for what I've learned and what I've written and for the people who so generously provided feedback and no small amount of cheer-leading.

But what next? That's the big amorphous question. For now, I'm going to start with what Ms. Nadzam suggests above as well as working hard to develop a regular habit and taking the advice of Sandra Cisneros (via my writing instructor) who says to say Yes to everything. And hopefully posting more here.

Cheers.

#reverb10 day 10: God, gluten, and the good in listening

#reverb10 day 10: Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

(I'm trying not to start blog posts with qualifiers, but I think this post merits one: I talk about my faith here because I couldn't tell this story without it. Also, this post doesn't seem very well organized... I think I bit off more than I could chew. So I welcome your feedback about faith, writing, disease, or whatever else strikes you about this post!)

In May I was talking to a dear friend about her husband's decision to stop eating gluten. Sometime during our conversation I shared my curiousity if the diet would help me, too, but then proceded to list all of my hesitations. And at the end I said, "And I don't want to do it if it won't cure me*."

She looked at me and said, "Even if it helps you to feel better?"

I honestly hadn't thought about this as a benefit, but her insistence made me re-consider. And after a few more months of weighing my options, doing some research, and much prayer**, I took the leap. On August 1 I stopped eating gluten and I haven't regretted it since. (Okay, maybe when I took my sister and her husband to my favorite pizza restaurant...)

The deeper lesson that I was somehow ready to learn this year is that disease is an invitation to listen more deeply to my body. The wise thing I did this year is respond.

This might sound trite, especially if you haven't ever managed life with a chronic disease. Life is changed forever with a simple diagnosis. It's changed by never-ending doctor's appointments, medication four times a day, new [sometimes scary] symptoms to assess, and future prognoses. But I have to tell you that in some ways, my diagnosis -- or rather, how I've been formed as I've responded to God about it -- has saved my life. I've been challenged to get more active. I've learned to rest well. And I've slowly been healed some old wounds regarding food.

I'm tempted to get all gushy about gluten-free living, but enough other bloggers have gone there. I think what I really want to say about wisdom is that my relationship with a loving God who I believe cares about even these seemingly little decisions is what helps me take steps that are wise. For me, it's really about obedience. I don't know if all of you reading this will agree -- and if you don't, I welcome your comments that say as much. What I know is that I DO feel better, that it's been totally worth it, and that only God could convince me to give up gluten.

*Three years ago, I was diagnosed with mild-moderate Crohn's disease.
**I firmly believe that God cares about these decisions and has a word to speak to us about them. In fact, my final decision came after praying and having a sense that this new step was something God has for me.