The truck
bounced along a very poorly maintained dirt road, bound for a small village in
the Gog region. Trees, bushes, and plants of a billion varieties lined the
road, impenetrable to the human eye. Short, leafy bushes covered the ground,
the gaps between them filled with elephant grass that reached six or seven
feet, sometimes ten or more. Tall, wiry trees filled the rest of the view
upward. The entire scene seemed composed of the same brilliant, shimmering, almost
glowing shade of green, as if the wellspring of the world was beneath our feet
and the plants were constantly inebriated by it. Most interesting and amazing
to me were massive trees spaced hundreds of feet apart, as if each one guarded
a separate realm. These behemoths stretched (from what I could tell) one or two
hundred feet into the air, the crests of their bulky, wooded heads spreading a
fan of the same vivid viridescence to the sky. A massive ‘thud’ shook the
entire truck, throwing my head against the window and jerking my attention away
from the trees.
Ethiopia didn’t have a parks and
rec program to maintain it’s roads. Hence the massive potholes that sent my
butt flying into my skull every few seconds if the driver couldn’t dodge them.
He was driving at a ridiculous speed, as if a horde of eight-year-old vendors
at the merkata in Addis Abeba were
chasing him down to sell him “banana gum! Five birr! Just five birr!” This
hell-bent speed combined with an attempt to dodge the worst of the potholes
sent the dusty white truck careening across the road like a cockroach that just
took a swim in a pot of coffee. Six or seven hitchhikers sat in the truck bed;
any vehicle moving along this road was rare and easy prey for swarms of people
wanting quick passage.
We shot
past several groups of people, who all scrambled for their lives to get off the
road as our impatient Amharic driver, his brighter skin contrasting heavily
with the sable skin of the Anuaks, relentlessly laid his foot on the gas. On
several occasions, a small, turkey-like bird would be in the middle of the
road, its long neck and small head swaying as it surveyed the white hunk of
steel hurtling toward it. Clueless to its impending doom, we simply plowed
straight over it. I never saw the pulverized feathery remains of our many
victims, due to the people crammed in the back.
We soon
arrived at our destination, a trail of feathers and panicked Anuaks stretching
miles behind us. The hitchhikers simply gathered their meager belongings and
went about their business as if tailbone-cracking flights through the jungle
happened every day. At least I was safe in the cab; somehow they had managed to
avoid flying into a tree full of baboons.
We had
brought several hundred dollars worth of medication with us along with some
medical equipment, and were planning to run an all-day clinic for the locals. A
doctor’s station (built by the British) was there, but there hadn’t been a
doctor or nurse in it for years.
Hence the
huge line of people wanting help. Most of them just had an infection of some
kind, which a simple antibiotic could fix, but some of them had sores,
parasites, and tumors. My job was simply to take each person’s blood pressure
and pulse, which I didn’t resent at all since I was there to help in whatever
way I could. Some of these folks, however, didn’t take kindly to a foreign
piece of velcro and plastic strapped to their arm. Which, of course, meant
their heart rate was astronomically high.
One wiry woman, probably around
forty years of age, sat down in the chair in front of me with eyes the size of golf
balls as she eyed the small device I held in my hands, her thin, hollow face a
mask of fear. A heavy set man with soft features and kind eyes had his hand on
her shoulder to reassure her as I attached the device to her arm. Her heart
rate instantly jumped to over 160 beats per minute, and she began visibly
panting. She gripped my arm with her right hand in a vise-like grip, which in
turn caused my heart rate to skyrocket. We eyed each other, both afraid of what
one might do to the other, our hearts mutually running pell-mell until Omot
(our nurse) leaned over and told me to just take it off. I gladly complied.
Occasionally I got the feeling that
I really wasn’t doing anything of value, then shrugged my shoulders and
continued since Omot was making a point of scribbling down all the numbers I
relayed to him.
A group of
ladies behind the building, who all spent their days cooking and sewing and
spanking children, began preparations for our lunch. One of them hunted down a
little boy who couldn’t have been much older than four years old and jabbered
at him in machine gun Anuak. He nodded his head deferentially and rounded up a
posse of little Ethiopian terrors, and they promptly took off running after a
chicken that was wandering the grounds.
For about ten
minutes the chase continued. I found it terribly difficult to focus on my task
and observe this frantic chase at the same time. I began to lose hope that the
squad of chicken hunters would succeed in their quest, since the chicken
clearly outstripped them all in speed on its absurd chunky legs, its beady
black eyes wide with unadulterated terror.
The chicken
then made its fatal mistake.
It ran into
the old doctor’s station.
The
yelling, chattering horde of little boys went in hot on its heels. A horrendous
squawk sounded within the building. The gang soon sauntered out of the cement
block structure, smug grins on their faces, their leader dragging the
unfortunate chicken by the legs, frantically squirming and clucking.
We had
chicken for lunch.
