147 Million………..

yesterday I went to adoption clinic…and I think it gave me PTSD in reverse.

The smell of urine,  sunbeams through a barred window, the feeling of chapped hands, the smell of stale bread and boiled cabbage….  These are the things that take me back to being 19 yo, young, idealist who walked down the OTHER hallway at child protective services in Bucharest…

July 13, 2004 (from my journal)

Eerie silence echoed through the long, narrow, gray room. It was frozen in time; the light from the singled barred window on the far side seemed listless, much like the occupants of the cribs. I tiptoed over to the first crib:  there was a heap of brown curls wet with tears, sweat and urine scrunched in the far corner. At the sound of my footsteps, she jerked her head up from her hushed sobbing and looked at toward my quiet steps, scars of untreated infantile galucoma clouded her sky blue eyes. How could a eight year-old know such grief, such fear? I reached down to pick her up:  she was weightless it seemed. I let her down gently to the floor. She stood slowly, her tear streaked face seemed to come alive.  She held my hand with a death grip:  don’t let go, don’t let me go.  She walked with careful steps fearful of the monsters she could no longer see.  At the dark end of the room, another crib had been pushed away from the others.  .I heard the sound of metal striking metal against the rail of the crib. Then I saw a hand and unnaturally slender wrist is covered with red welts and oozing blisters. I peer into the crib and discover the etiology of his suffering. A single piece of cloth encircles his other wrist and the bar of his crib. I gasped, on the sign above the stated this child was 14 but he was the size of a toddler. His head was grotesquely mishapen with untreated hydrocephalus. No wonder she was so afraid, no wonder she grieved. This was not a hospital for disabled children, it was a prison.

I am haunted by these children…orphans…some abandoned because of poor resources, some because they are members of my tribe and their families left them and the stigma of raising a cursed child behind,  some born on the streets, some badly abused and taken for their own safety. But all left in a pitiless system that devalues their potential and slowly teaches them and even molds them (both physically and emotionally)  that they are not worth it.

And don’t this is about Romania or even Eastern Europe.   I could tell stories about the slums of Nairobi where children die of dehydration, HIV and TB and no one cares.  I could tell you about young beautiful African teenagers selling themselves to survive.

And don’t think this is about the developing world either. There are 888,000  children in foster care in the US.   And I shudder to tell you the stories I see every day on the pysch Ward, in the ED of abuse, neglect or kids who have never known a stable environment in their 10 years…who can tell you the top drug lords of their housing project are but can’t find the state they live in on a map….

But yesterday I saw the other side…. White people from the suburbs who I half expect to invite me to a Wednesday night church supper or run into when I shop at the uppity grocery store in uptown who have adopted from China, from Ethiopia, from the Ukraine and yes from the US of A.  People from the culture I grew up in who went to the cultures I live and work in now and brought back a child. I saw one little girl who had just come from China a week ago…she has a clef palate.  In two weeks she had advanced 2-3 months developmentally. In just 2 weeks…. I had tears in my eyes taking her history.     Because I have seen 100s of these children , room after room of babies who get fed and changed twice a day who never learn to sit up or crawl or walk much less talk or interact not because they are not capable but becuase no one holds them.

And I was overjoyed for this little girl…for this chosen one…..  But what about the others…..a 147 million others. What about them?  I found myself wanting to scream this loudly at these parents.  “WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER BABIES???”   I didn’t of course because I knew that I was being absurd.  Its just that while I love the idea of adoption and I think its a beautiful reflection of what Christ does for us…. and I admit I even plan to adopt myself  one day… its a drop in the bucket.

147 million is a lot of drops…

I want to answer the question why babies get abandoned.  I want to be about de-stigmatizing disability/birth defects in the developing world, preventing HIV in Africa, decreasing maternal mortality in the 10/40 window,  changing the way cultures think about little girls, building sustainable economies in nations so that families can keep their babies….

we are called to care for orphans and widows….but what does that mean in our modern world? what does that mean as spoiled, pretentious, well-meaning Americans… ???   I don’t know the answer but the longer I reread the gospel and the more I travel the world, the more I realize that the redeeming, trans formative answers are the ones that make me in my home culture and yes in my home religion the most uncomfortable.

My prayer is that I am ready and willing to look beyond my own fears and my own bias and believe that its possible. TO believe that there are answers and be ready to radically follow my God in search of them.

….147 million

Strange Bedfellowes

I woke up this morning and pulled on my chacos and some leggings. Over the leggings I put my African Kanga.   I put on my Masai earrings and my special necklace made for me and given to me by a disabled woman in a small village in the valley.  Today was Global Health Day.  Every day of my life is Global health day. I think about my friends and times abroad at least 20 times a day. But today other people thought about it.

Because I am sort of a global health nut and because Dr. B who happens to run the medical school likes me I got asked to go to the OTHER GLOBAL HEALTH DAY and speak.  OTHER being code for where we raise money for the new global health program. It was in the medical school board room.  It should be noted that I had to ask directions to the medical school board room. It should also be noted that my two compatriots were in suits.

The table was set  formally. It had ALL THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FORKS.  There were three.   3 forks!!! 3 forks to raise money for people with no forks.  It dripped of old south. We had sweet tea with lemon to drink, three courses, key-lime pie and a waiter for the main table who was quite sadly one of three African Americans in the whole room. There were name cards.  I set next to Dr. B at the head of the table.

Most of the attendees were older than my grandparents. . They were retired physicians, people with foundations to their names. And there was me staring down at my forks in my kanga wondering how bizarre life is.  And thinking that I felt more at home in a Masai hut made from cow dung and mud drinking chai with flies than I did in this room in the heart of  my school, in my country.

I spoke, sat down and pondered about trying to describe this scene  to the Kenyan mothers who had braided my hair and trusted me with their babies. What would I say?   Well a bunch of rich white people got together and ate too much so other rich white people could go and take care of babies.

They would stare and laugh. And say doctari nywara your country is a strange place with strange ways.

and I would say.

ndio ndio.

African Arrival

Jan 6 will remain as one of the craziest most out control days of my life. I awoke at 6AM in Balitmore, at noon I was interviewing at Johns Hopkins and by midnight I was crossing the Irish Sea by air.  I wouldn’t recommend it honestly. By the time I got to London, I was totally fried. It has snowed there the day before and everything was terribly backed up in DC becuase all London flights had been canceled. I nearly missed my flight because I couldnt’ get through the lines. I got the 3rd degree in security between the new shiny hip and  many strange tools one carries in a carry-on to go be a doctor in Africa.  I did though have the amazing blessing of being ugraded to business class. And while that was pretty spectaclar I felt like an idiot because I couldn’t figure out to make the bed thing work or the TV or really anything. But I can say I have now flown first class on an overseas flight. The rumors are true, there is real silverware, free wine and flat beds.

London was beautiful from the air, the english countryside was bathed in white.  My connection went flawlessly and although my flight got delayed a bit on the ground it was a great flight. One I will never forget. I watched the map program every couple of minutes once we hit the Med. Sea wanting to see the coast of Africa as we crossed it. It was beautiful and shockingly different than the coast we left behind in Italy.  I watched the sunset of Sudan and by the time we entered Kenya, I couldn’t sit still with excitement. The last time I did this whole go to a new country/new continent thing on my own I was 19 on my way to Romania. I was considerably less freaked this time around. I got my visa without problem despite the fact I accidentally left my original copy of my yellow fever vaccination in America on my scanner. All of my luggage made it and I was picked up by a kind man named George who took me to the Mayfield guesthouse. The guesthouse is lovely, full of  African art, mosquito nets and people from all over Africa who are passing through. I shared a room with a lovely girl from Ireland who is going to teach in a primary school in the North of Kenya.

I didn’t sleep much but I enjoyed what little I did get. I woke up early since my roommate was on her way north.  Took a shower, felt human and then explored the guest house. We eat meals family style here. The rest of the medical team that was supposed to meet me in London finally made it. Two of them will come to Kijabe with me. While they slept I went to orientation at the AIM office. I also saw Nairobi by day.  The smell is a cross between the humid, thick magic of a Carolina magic and the strange pugant tang that I associte with Bucharest. I am not sure if its a city smell or a developing world smell but it smells like home. Kenya has had two years of drought but its been raining and everything is green and there are many flowers.

Orientation was oddly interesting we talked a lot about the history of Kenya and plans for medical missions here in Kenya. I will write more tomorrow once I reach Kijabe. For now I am exhausted…

why freedom matters in Belarus…Georgia…Romania and Beyond

There was an article about Belarus in The Wall Street Journal this weekend!!! I am pleased to hear that people care. Because it really does matter and its not just the principal of thing.  The article talks about how what happens with Russia’s future is an inside and outside political game.  The outside is the former soviet republics and satellite nations like Romania.  These countries are what separate Russia from Europe and really from the rest of the western world.  These countries are small and most Americans probably couldn’t pick them out on a map but their freedom is essential to peace and stability in the region and really the world.    Russia has cut down on religious freedom and freedom of the press in recent years, all NGO (charities, churches, human rights groups) have to register with the government, prominent journalists have been killed in the dead of the night. This may not make the evening news 7000 miles away in Washington but it matters.

Why you ask? The usual reasons things matter in foreign policy: oil, power and blood.  Russia controls a big part of Europe’s oil supply and the oil passes through many of the former soviet republics.  Russia has friends like Iran and China.  Russia is becoming better armed all time and already has increasingly bad human rights record.  I am not suggesting that we as the west should go in and try to mess around with the region and play police or micromanger for these  corrupt, struggling infant democracies but we shouldn’t take them for granted.

Let’s all remember that it was our indifference after helping the Afghans win against the soviets that brought us the Taliban…

not the same situation, but the same principal. The battle for a free whole Europe is not over, its really only just begun.

Family Fued….

I am going wheelchair skiing this weekend.  Its going to be great. Emily is meeting me and I am staying with some friends from school.

I was dreading telling my Daddy (yes its Daddy I am from the south deal with it) .  There is a saying in our family: Victoria will laugh at what Dad says to do, Emily will do it to the letter and I will do the oppositte.  0:)  I love him and we are close. But lets be honest he is overprotective (perhaps for good reason).  If I had listened to hm I would have never gone to Romania, never gone to medical school , never gone to Wake Med and probaly would be living in my parents’ basement.  SO somewhere around the age of 16 I decided that while I loved him. He would always see me as far more physically and emotionally fragile than I saw myself.

Now don’t go thinking he is awful. He is really good at admitting he was wrong. And tells everyone he knows about his oldest daugther double major at Wake who is now going to do medical missions when she graduates Wake Med….he loves to hear my travel stories and we have read lot of good Russian literature and I photographed lots of WWII landmarks for him in my travels.

I could just hear exactly what he was going to say as I told him…are you crazy…you are almost done with your third year…do you really think now is a good time for a femur head fracture….and I would still go but I would feel uneasy and guilty for at least the first 24hrs.

so the day came and I called him and told him.  And then I nearly fell over and broke hip.  “That sounds like fun, a great way to blow off steam…just wear a helmet and use common sense.”  he said.  he was actually happy for me, excited for me.  WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH DADDY?

I decided he was either A. intoxicated, B. is using some sort of weird reverse psychology on me or C. has grown to see me much as I see myself or at lest in the same galaxy.   I like C so I am going with it.

you know we always talk about children growing up, but I think parents grow along the way too.