I’ve still got blood on my shorts and shirt. It’s not mine. It’s dried now, looking a little less shocking. Talk about gaining perspective…
We came across a car wreckage on the side of the road about 20km from Aweil in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. The 5 or 6 passers by and 2 police officers that had gathered around had dragged the passengers into the shade of the shrubs alongside the wreckage and the road, and strewn up cloth to shade them from the sun. No one had done anything else for them and the crash had happened an hour and a half before. The first passenger had some bad scrapes, especially on his head, but the bleeding was subsiding. The second was in a similar situation but also with a broken upper arm. They were brothers.
The third was lying on his back struggling for air – it sounded like he had fluid in his chest. The first thing I noticed was his eyes: half open, vacant, cloudy. His left eye had a minute mound of orange dirt piled over the pupil. His right pupil had no shape. His arms held tightly to his chest. It was over 35 degrees and he was shivering. He was vacant but whimpered in pain when I tried to examine him. His pulse was strong and fast. His head was misshapen and spongy to the touch. What could I do for him?
The fourth was lying on his side in a semi-foetal position. He had an open fracture of his lower leg with a good portion of the bone protruding and was spilling bright red into a small growing pool at his feet. Small globules of fat reflected the sun’s light. It covered my hands as I tried to bandage him with a rag someone fetched for me. He couldn’t move for the pain in his hip, but he could talk. His jaw looked broken and the skin had been shaved off his hand.
The fifth, the driver, was completely unscathed.
20 or 30 km to Aweil. A dirt and bumpy road. Two would be ok but had sufficient reason to complain about pain. The guy with the leg breaks I was worried for because the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I expected the guy with the head injury to die at any moment. I dithered, remembering that one of the most damaging things you can do for a person is move them…. but reasoned that that’s when you have alternatives of ambulances and paramedics. Here they would definitely die. Picking them up, moving them to my truck, piling them in, bumping them over 20 or so Km would do some damage, but we should reach the hospital fairly soon… I hope. A local guy’s impression of near or far is completely relative.
We waved down 2 other cars and put three passengers amongst them, laying the guy with the broken legs on the floor of a minibus. I put the guy with the head injury in the back of my car on the floor. The driver, a now-terrified looking Darfuri, held his head. The police officers looked on.
10 minutes into the journey he was foaming at the mouth. We were killing him but there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t put him into another position, hold his head back, or do anything that would help. We kept driving. When I looked back the police officer had covered his face with the sheet we’d carried him into the car on. It’s a cold equation of life, I suppose. A head injury like this will kill you and no matter the intention, strength, clarity or desire of those nearby, there is nothing they can do for you. I cried.
Our small convoy pulled up at the police station and the driver was plucked out. We continued to the hospital and after a 5 minute verbal battle with an administrator, found out where we should take them. All were still alive, even the guy with the head injury! Revival or presumptuous declaration of death? I had little time to reason as my hands were full and bloodied by the guy with the leg injuries I was carrying. Me moved into a dark room with 2 shuttered windows lit by a single incandescent bulb. The last patient’s blood was still on the metal exam table, his blood-stained dressings 1/3 on the table, 1/3 on the floor and 1/3 in the open, plastic waste paper basket. Had I really done these guys a favour by brining them here? The single medical assistant present looked terrified and to the yelps of the patient, moved his leg around which bent in inhuman ways.
The bones grated. The blood stank. A number of spectators piled into the room. Amongst those who came in was a mild mannered, handsome, well-dressed northern doctor who shouted only at the medical assistant. He was very interested in my involvement with his patient and offered to let me reset the bones. Civility returned to situation, they found the patient some morphine and I accepted the offer. He was stitched, bandaged and plastered quite quickly and quite professionally, but I still I thanked God it wasn’t me.
I found the guy with the head injury next door with a small group and a small American doctor attending to him. His heartbeat was still strong and fast, but they were breathing for him. They said he had no chance. They were about to stop ventilation when I left.
Whilst the lack of emotion certainly helped in getting them patched and to the hospital, it also meant that I felt such little compassion as almost not to stop for them. I struck the right balance by accident this time. I hope I have the sense, and the heart, to consciously do it again if ever I have to. I hope that’s not anytime soon though.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Surfacing – closer to life
I’m not down with this. I come up for air only every two months allowing myself to be the person I think I am, rather than the person I need to be. It’s starting to hurt.
I fell in love in Cape Town and not with the city. This might not be entirely on this individual’s merits, though: it might just be because it was the first even semi-intimate human contact I’d had in months.
I have a bad habit from my upbringing: I have a poorly defined sense of what’s good for me. I take notions transiently from whoever’s in reach. This one was very different from any others I’d met; an artist: expressive and emotive, although quite self-absorbed. Beyond that (which I think is a result of the career) I found a lot of substance to a weak physical presence. I was indirectly and unintentionally led into feeling the moment. I followed willingly.
I’ve not done this for a long time. I’ve come to pride myself on my ability to detach emotion from the situation. Here it’s absolute necessity not only to stay happy, but to function. The fact is that I’m lonely – professionally and socially isolated. Why feel? What good will it do? More significantly, being here is an exasperation of what I’ve felt for a long time: I feel very much alone and have done so in most places I’ve lived.
One part of me alienates the other. Muslim friends and family wouldn’t accept a significant part of my life. Many struggle with the fact that I’m a practising Muslim and lead a very separate life from my family – or worse, they pity it. Muslims I know like me are very few and given their minority in a minority status, when we get down the person we just don’t get along. If you don’t drink, smoke or do any drugs, you tend not to fit in at parties. In most social gatherings people are demonstrably uncomfortable if you’re not drinking. If you don’t have an expensive enough bike you’ll be shunned when trying to join a cycling club. If someone is attracted to you and you can’t reciprocate, interaction is very awkward. If you don’t like football you won’t have anything to talk to other guys about. If you don’t watch TV you’ll have nothing to talk to colleagues about.
The biggest contributor to my alienation, though, has always been my disdain. I’ve considered interactions or friendships completely unsustainable if there’s something not right. I passed judgement based on someone’s single fault – whatever it may be and often far less serious than one of many of mine. I passed judgement on countries on an uninformed, assumed impression. Money mattered too much.
I learned to occupy a lonely space when a teenager. I was 15, foreign, thin, awkward and trying to find some way to express the misery and regret that was almost consuming me – it was largely teenage angst, but there was bit more to it. I expressed myself then mostly by listening to music. It hurt, but not as much as hearing that my father would refuse to speak to me a few years later. My father’s disowning me was the most painful thing that I experienced. It was 8 years ago, now. I survived by not feeling the pain.
So I progressed in life: clear, specific, reasoned, objective. Here I am.
I was unarmed to interact with someone so emotive in Cape Town. Maybe it was the nerves involved in sitting opposite someone I think I liked, but nothing I thought of could be called deep. I felt bland, plain, shallow, boring, clinical, cynical, petty, sullen, stunted, combative, sterile, dispassionate and monotone. I felt genuine envy for someone with such a strong integration into a culture, a belonging to something, and being amongst a community of friends.
We left things ambiguously – or rather dispassionately. Why get caught up if we’re in different countries? If not being together is the answer, what does it matter what we’re feeling, if we have any questions or with any of the other bullshit in-between?
Actually, it matters because stunting it hurt. It matters because here what do I have? Am I growing more literate, more informed, am I meeting new people ? To a degree, but I can’t grow in the ways I want and I’m certainly not integrating. I can fool myself into thinking I belong to something by sitting in a mosque, but in reality I can’t make an effort at friendships. I can’t make an effort with this one. Life is on hold again.
I’ve forgotten how unhappy I was 10 months ago in London. 10 months ago I’d forgotten how miserable I was when in the bush. I need to write things down more – hence this slightly more personal (and perhaps whingy) entry.
Life here is easier in many ways, or rather, I exonerate myself more easily from the blame of feeling lonely, detached or alienated. That is a significant relief. But an easier and more sustainable solution might have been to just get over it and continue living a real life in London.
I want to get closer to living and move back to London. This time I’ll unpack some boxes rather than keeping them ready to move again. I might hang some things on my wall. I’ll make myself a facebook profile. I’d like to buy a house and a car. Maybe they’ll even grant me a credit card…
Ah, who am I kidding? I’d get bored after a few months. I still have the attention span of a gnat and back in London I’d have a lot less to bitch, moan and write about. Actually I’m blessed for having a stable job and good income, insulated from the global economic meltdown, and to have good enough health to be left with a decision of where to go and what to do. That’s something to be happy for.
Ok, back to work. Dive, dive, dive…
I fell in love in Cape Town and not with the city. This might not be entirely on this individual’s merits, though: it might just be because it was the first even semi-intimate human contact I’d had in months.
I have a bad habit from my upbringing: I have a poorly defined sense of what’s good for me. I take notions transiently from whoever’s in reach. This one was very different from any others I’d met; an artist: expressive and emotive, although quite self-absorbed. Beyond that (which I think is a result of the career) I found a lot of substance to a weak physical presence. I was indirectly and unintentionally led into feeling the moment. I followed willingly.
I’ve not done this for a long time. I’ve come to pride myself on my ability to detach emotion from the situation. Here it’s absolute necessity not only to stay happy, but to function. The fact is that I’m lonely – professionally and socially isolated. Why feel? What good will it do? More significantly, being here is an exasperation of what I’ve felt for a long time: I feel very much alone and have done so in most places I’ve lived.
One part of me alienates the other. Muslim friends and family wouldn’t accept a significant part of my life. Many struggle with the fact that I’m a practising Muslim and lead a very separate life from my family – or worse, they pity it. Muslims I know like me are very few and given their minority in a minority status, when we get down the person we just don’t get along. If you don’t drink, smoke or do any drugs, you tend not to fit in at parties. In most social gatherings people are demonstrably uncomfortable if you’re not drinking. If you don’t have an expensive enough bike you’ll be shunned when trying to join a cycling club. If someone is attracted to you and you can’t reciprocate, interaction is very awkward. If you don’t like football you won’t have anything to talk to other guys about. If you don’t watch TV you’ll have nothing to talk to colleagues about.
The biggest contributor to my alienation, though, has always been my disdain. I’ve considered interactions or friendships completely unsustainable if there’s something not right. I passed judgement based on someone’s single fault – whatever it may be and often far less serious than one of many of mine. I passed judgement on countries on an uninformed, assumed impression. Money mattered too much.
I learned to occupy a lonely space when a teenager. I was 15, foreign, thin, awkward and trying to find some way to express the misery and regret that was almost consuming me – it was largely teenage angst, but there was bit more to it. I expressed myself then mostly by listening to music. It hurt, but not as much as hearing that my father would refuse to speak to me a few years later. My father’s disowning me was the most painful thing that I experienced. It was 8 years ago, now. I survived by not feeling the pain.
So I progressed in life: clear, specific, reasoned, objective. Here I am.
I was unarmed to interact with someone so emotive in Cape Town. Maybe it was the nerves involved in sitting opposite someone I think I liked, but nothing I thought of could be called deep. I felt bland, plain, shallow, boring, clinical, cynical, petty, sullen, stunted, combative, sterile, dispassionate and monotone. I felt genuine envy for someone with such a strong integration into a culture, a belonging to something, and being amongst a community of friends.
We left things ambiguously – or rather dispassionately. Why get caught up if we’re in different countries? If not being together is the answer, what does it matter what we’re feeling, if we have any questions or with any of the other bullshit in-between?
Actually, it matters because stunting it hurt. It matters because here what do I have? Am I growing more literate, more informed, am I meeting new people ? To a degree, but I can’t grow in the ways I want and I’m certainly not integrating. I can fool myself into thinking I belong to something by sitting in a mosque, but in reality I can’t make an effort at friendships. I can’t make an effort with this one. Life is on hold again.
I’ve forgotten how unhappy I was 10 months ago in London. 10 months ago I’d forgotten how miserable I was when in the bush. I need to write things down more – hence this slightly more personal (and perhaps whingy) entry.
Life here is easier in many ways, or rather, I exonerate myself more easily from the blame of feeling lonely, detached or alienated. That is a significant relief. But an easier and more sustainable solution might have been to just get over it and continue living a real life in London.
I want to get closer to living and move back to London. This time I’ll unpack some boxes rather than keeping them ready to move again. I might hang some things on my wall. I’ll make myself a facebook profile. I’d like to buy a house and a car. Maybe they’ll even grant me a credit card…
Ah, who am I kidding? I’d get bored after a few months. I still have the attention span of a gnat and back in London I’d have a lot less to bitch, moan and write about. Actually I’m blessed for having a stable job and good income, insulated from the global economic meltdown, and to have good enough health to be left with a decision of where to go and what to do. That’s something to be happy for.
Ok, back to work. Dive, dive, dive…
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