A few nights ago I dreamed of love. We were singing together
and this man had a soul touching voice. It was a sure love, a new love and so
comfortable. I didn’t want to leave that dream. The real world is a lonely
place. I can’t seem to find my way here. And when I am driving through the
city, looking at the thousands of people I don’t know, realizing in cities and
towns across the world there are hundreds of millions of people- so many of us,
how is it possible for any one of us to be so alone?
It is often that my perspective zooms out to such a scale
that I see only humans, and we are horrible to each other. It is as if we are
not of the same species. We do not see how we are related. We do not care for
each other or tend to our sick or frail. We are a sorry lot, us humans, lost in searching
and fighting for things that are inconsequential. We can’t even see it.
Yesterday I passed another person on the street- I am not
sure who he was- a forgotten? A throwaway? I can’t even be certain of the
situation. As I drove past I saw a man on a motorcycle looking down at him
and shaking his head and then driving away. I don’t know if the motorcycle had
hit him, or narrowly missed or just stopped to see if help could be offered. It
wasn’t clear in those few quick seconds.
I saw a woman walking by. She looked, kept
walking and looked back again. She had a baby on her back and a large bowl of
bananas on her head. She was carrying a small table or crate in her hand. None
of us seemed to know what to do. Myself- I drove by. I looked, I wondered, I
panicked in a way. Yes, it was panic because I did not stop. A steady hand
would have stopped and offered help. The street was oddly empty. Usually there
are a bunch of sellers on this stretch of road. It is one of the very few
places where the street sellers persist. But in this moment, I drove to the
corner, made the turn and there was nothing. No one.
I hate that I do this. Drive by. The man had been lying on
his stomach, his head oddly facing the ground. He appeared to be having a
seizure, his body convulsing in some way. His legs were jerking and his torso
rose off the ground. Everything about the movements were unnatural and wrong. He was alone. I
did not stop. What would I have done?
My most recent medical training was in CPR- what to do if
someone is not breathing- not how to handle convulsions. I am still never
really clear on what to do with trauma. It’s not my strong point. I am very,
very squeamish and afraid to see blood or bone and organs exposed. I think I am
most afraid of being out of control. I cannot fix those things.
In Africa, the situation becomes even more complex because
there is no 911. And even if they do purport to have an emergency number (112 or
something similar) it will take a long time for anyone to show up. Further
complications include being foreign, being white and not knowing exactly what
happened. These all sound like excuses, and they are. They are the reasons that
prevent me from stopping. Being foreign means that I have a greater chance of
somehow becoming implicated or blamed for the incident. Being white suggests I
will pay for everything and not knowing exactly what happened means I can’t
offer a defense.
They are all good and valid excuses, but none of them make
me feel better about myself. It’s not the person I want to be- the person that
sees a need and just keeps driving. I am
coming to realize that medical issues are not my area of strength. I am really
not equipped to offer much in the case of broken and bleeding bodies. It’s hard
to accept this. Sometimes I feel like the only worthwhile thing is to be a
medical healer. We do it to each other, this breaking of bodies. War and fighting and anger. We ruin lives, we starve each other, we create situations of horror that don't have to exist. In these times, the immediate need is physical. Nothing else matters when you're a life on the edge.
But there are other types of healing. And some of these
other areas are where I feel more capable. As a healer, however, it is shocking
to drive by someone in need and feel unable to assist. It is an overwhelming
sense of dread and powerlessness that cuts down to the core and plants a little
seed. It stays there long into the night and the day and resurfaces every so
often to remind you of who you were in that moment. And who you really are. Not a healer after all, but just someone who
drove by.
I passed the area again later in the day and he was gone. Someone
had stepped in. Either to offer help or to clear the body. I can feel positive
about that- not like the child in the road, whose body remained despite a busy
street and plenty of onlookers.
It is situations like these that make me wonder if maybe I
am not cut out for African living anymore. Maybe I am full up. When you are
constantly facing hardships and battling inequality- facing simple problems
that suddenly become insurmountable, it’s not easy to like who you become.
