Monday, December 5, 2011

JUST CALM DOWN! RELAX! NA DUDE!

Hello, my name is Daniel.

This is the story of a trip Cien, Ejigu and I took to a rural, southern Ethiopianmedical clinic.

The other day we're at the school site and I say, "Yeah man, I'm gonna hit the head. I'll be back in a few minutes." Cien replys, "Alright. I'll be moving some logs forexercise."

Fast forward 10 minutes.

Walking down from the house I see Cien. He says,"Dude, help me, I just dislocated my shoulder."

The moral of the story: exercise is stupid.

There are about 25 people on the site so we walked behind a house so we could try and get this undercontrol, without an audience. I figured that bathing together in the riverdaily didn't raise enough eyebrows, the next logical step was to just take off Cien's shirt and start massaging his shoulder. Obviously.

They found that amusing. It didn't fix his shoulder.

Next attempt: plenty of Ouzo and my memory of helping a friend, once, a long time ago relocate his shoulder.

I found that amusing. It didn't fix his shoulder.

Luckily we live about a 20 minute walk from a government sponsored clinic.  We'd never been there so we didn't know what to expect. Surprises are fun, right? Maybe they had a unicorn petting zoo there.

We're walking up this big road-hill-thing and all Cien is doing is complaining about his shoulder's nerves being squashed. GOD! Shut up already. Then we pass a couple people on the road and they look at us like we're freaks. They may as well have seen two polar bears on a trampoline.

We arrive and there are probably 30 people around the clinic waiting for various services, I think, I don't read minds. That quickly balloons to 300 because we're so awesome--or maybe they're just the 99%, pissed off at the banks and sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Get it? That was an Occupy WallStreet joke. Even though I live in a house made of mud and sticks, with floorsmade of cow poo I can still deliver the topical jokes. Whooo-ahhhh!

We stepped inside, and right then it became painfully obvious (more-so for Cien--PUN INTENDED) that this was going to be one toremember. There were some giant bug-wasp-things flying around a wooden desk that had an unplugged microscope on it, surrounded by two wooden chairs (not the microscope, the desk).  There were also some posters. I don'tremember what was on them.  Use your imagination, sorry.

Cien is trying to explain what's wrong with his shoulder.They thought it was a headache. After a few minutes of "explanations" they understood. Syke... they did not understand, because they started to manipulate his other shoulder.

And I quote almost-drunk Cien here: "Dude... we'regoing to have to go get on a bus for 10 hours and go to Addis, they don't understand and I can't sit here and let them practice their caveman doctoring on me." Then they inject him with some kind of "pain medicine,"and then the guy in the pink shirt goes to work.  We think he was the doctor, or medic... but who knows, he could have just been there hanging out, or the unicorn trainer.

The rest of the incident I captured on video. Watch it below. It's so tight. 




7 comments:

  1. HOLY CRAP! Dude's. Next time much more alcohol! And get on a bus south to Soddo. whoa...

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  2. Oh man... I can't believe he wasn't screaming like a girl! That was nuts when it popped back into place.

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  3. Cien!!!!! Oh my gosh, that was so hard to watch! You're such a champ. <3 Miss you!

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  4. Cien...that was some bad-ass shit. I'm having flashbacks from all my experiences with remote clinics in some developing country. Pretty much every time they got the job done...including testicular torsion I got while working on a school in Nicaragua. Yes, that's as painful as is sounds.
    On another note, school shots look great! Take time to heal and peace to you. Worthy efforts, my friend.

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  5. OMG I just about passed out watching this!

    Awesome work on that school guys, amazing, glad to have found your blog.

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