When the MAF Cessna plane landed in [the village], I had no inkling of what I might encounter on a plateau in southwestern Congo. These are the beautiful and baffling wonders that I found there:
A curious community presses in around the arrivals at the airfield; visitors are laden with enthusiastic welcome throughout the visit; fascination with size and skin color; flirting with the newcomers; laughter at outsider's adjustment to the village; the pace is relaxed here; interpreters absorb much in helping us; locals are patient with French language attempts;
The scent of Plumeria wafting through screens and porches; bright spots of flowers wherever one walked- by hedges, lonesome footpaths, back yards, blooming trees; silence that beckoned me outdoors and cradled the laughter of children, the women's voices in song, the morning bell, the greeting of a neighbor, the call of a bird, the motor of a plane afar off, silence that let us hear the wind rustling palms and mangoes, silence that lulled me to sleep at night; the intriguing geography of a plateau and the crops it affords; the challenge and adventure of transportation; the speed at which word-of-mouth travels and weaves a tight community for better and worse; morning walks to the water source...or the river!;
Nutrition that crawls and swims and flies and runs and grows and dries; fruit that is plucked and pealed and squeezed and sucked, and drips of refreshing sweetness; women who labor long; women with enviable posture and composure under meter-high head-loads of laundry, produce or goods; women who can DANCE!; homes kept simply; tables that are extended, seating shared, meals that are spread and blessed and enjoyed; stories that are related, ideas exchanged, worlds glimpsed, memories made; gifts given; sundown at 5:30; dinners and evenings by candlelight;
Churning feelings that boil to the surface during a day at the hospital, during surgery; baffling decline from a bygone era; assumptions exchanged silently across cultures; gulfs of perspective seemingly unbridgeable; many languages layer the communication barrier; paucity of vision; zero stocked supplies; limited treatment; human care for payment only; ubiquitous dysfunction in practice, generators, labs, lights, solar panels, abandoned buildings, refrigerator, land-cruiser, misinformation, data, reporting, leadership, initiative, pro-activity; human service workers focused on material needs; elusive evidence of the sense of ownership in the health of the individual and the community; goals glaringly absent; looking to outsiders for something, anything, everything;
Mishaps and breakdowns taken in stride (literally in stride for 25 km!); laughter abundant; refreshing camaraderie with colleagues; bonding adventures; multi-lingual lessons and jokes; teamwork in new surgeries and topics; sharing the grief of death; breastfeeding back to life; nurse-to-nurse in-depth bilingual conversations;
Graduations celebrated by young and old; exams completed; evening fires tended; meals provided for those who have journeyed; chickens free ranged; tasks dropped for welcoming visitors; laughter carried across the courtyard; original music harmonized; tithes humbled and offered with dance and praise; children valued and cared for and bountiful; playing cards reinvented from worn paper; innovative footballs and fields; an ingenious guitar made from an oil-can strummed along footpaths; gentle smiles shared; hopes expressed; perhaps hopes misplaced; faith shared across gulfs; life connections begun; irreversibly connected.
