A post wherein I do not hesitate to use the 'Vagina' word

I was dubious. I caught my reflection in a pane of glass across the humid room and spent a moment studying it. It wasn't afraid or scared. Not disgusted. Maybe the dip in my brow betrayed concern, but then again I've always had a cave-man brow. All in all I was pleased that my face accurately represented my feelings. Just mostly dubious. I mentally manipulated the 10cm ruler I'd been drawing with earlier in the morning, and superimposed it across my fist. That was big.

Didn't we all learn when we were kids that squares don't fit through circles, and 9cm baby heads don't come out of holes... that size? Haven't the last four hours of labor proven that this just isn't going to work out, and the baby should come up with another route of escape? The mother was putting up a great fight and making enough sound to make the titans behave, but still... I was dubious.

"Goodness," I thought, "If I was ever confused about everything going on down there, I sure have it figured out now." I'd been surprised that morning by a wolf howl coming from the relatively deserted clinic. "Baby?" I asked the replacement CHO in charge. "Come. See."

Let's call her Tina. Tina had foresaken clothing. Eschewed it completely. I had to resist the urge to jump forward and catch her. She was completely stable on her feet, but she was also comppletely thumbing her nose at every bit of legislation Newton put into law. Her stomach projected her center of gravity well over her feet, but the principles of physics had given her a wide berth- anything knows the times when it's advisable to leave a woman alone. Because of hormones and such.

Well let's check out this room... Mattress on the floor- I wonder if it has always been brown. Plastic sheet over the mattress- I later wished I would've used it as a poncho. Glass cabinet in the corner- Good. It was harboring all the tools I'd seen relating to child birth.

As I was debating whether privacy was culturally significant enough to close the windows Tina was pacing by, the nurse galloped past me, a needle in her hand leveled like a lance. A handful of cc's of oxytocin later, Tina was really behaving like a woman who was going to drop a baby between her legs. The "water" that had broke earlier was just an appetizer to the main event I was sure.

"Shouldn't I be feeling weird about this?" I thought as I eased her down onto the mattress. It was at this point, as I wiped the slickness from Tina's legs with a lapa, being stared at furiously by her painful lookin vagina, that I took a moment to glance around the room. My brief, aforementioned internal dialogue with the pane of glass concluded, I straightened and took stock of the situation again. The nurse had taken off her shirt. Okay, weird. Roll with the punches. The replacement CHO was sitting on a pile of sacks in the corner, his eyes giving me a sparkling 'Thumbs up, dude! You got this!" he had confided to me earlier that he really hadn't done many deliveries before so he was really glad myself and the nurse were there. Translation: Help. Tina being the room's only other occupant, I guess there couldn't have been a deafening uproar as he said, "I'll be back soon." The disbelief those words had saddled me with vanished as I spied him clinging to a motorcycle, revving away. Um. Okay.

Between her screams at me to find her mother, give her a drug drip, and generally not let this be happening, Tina and I got along quite well. Drinks of water were easy to give, and I could tell the crunching pain in my hand was infentesimal next to her own as she wrung my fingers. How do I make this woman's pain stop?

Solutions I thought of: Jump on that big belly... It'll shoot that baby out like a banana. Or- get a snorkel mask and go in there after it.

My second strategy was partial prophecy as I found my latex-gloved hands exploring the unseen topography of the baby inside her. At the nurse's request to "make sure the baby was right," I tripple confirmed that that entailed putting my hand in a vagina. It did.

Alright, I'd seen enough profiles of the birthing process to know the face should be forward and down. Or was it up? I felt the slightest bit embarrassed when I realized I was bending my head backwards, trying to see if it was the best way for a baby to escape from a uterus. Okay, I remembered this medical poem I'd read- definitely face down.

A few excrutiating centimeters later, Tina was really screaming. What's the Temne word for "PUSH"? With a meteoric entrance, the nurse joined me at the battlefield of thighs and instructed me to pull this part like so and scoop my finger here like this.

"Maam, a significant amount of juice from your vagina has just sprayed up my entire arm."

Is what I wanted to say, but instead "o-fino!" escaped my mouth as the baby's head escaped into air. As it laid on its side as we suctioned mucous from its nose and mouth, its rib cage expanded with its first breath. With his first breath. I had a vauge understanding that I'd never fallen in love with something or someone so quickly and as completely. I cradled his head and lifted his quivering body onto a dry bundle of cloth. I'd picked up babies before, but only my sister's son before had made me wish I was alone to cry freely.

Forty-five minutes later after wiping the baby boy dry, I stood in front of a chalkboard apparently giving a chemistry lesson. My mind, though, was certainly a half mile away with the life that had just begun.

Gossip

If gossip is talking about someone behind their backs, out of earshot, or in private, then I've decided it's not gissip if I say what I'm thinking about some people in the world's loudest, public forum. I really can't think of anything bad to say about these individuals anyway, so I suppose the worst consequences would be supersizing their egos or catapulting them into the spotlight of international fame. Anyway, if you've acquiesced to lend your ear to some pseudo-gossip, may I present the profiles of Mr. James, Abdraman, Santige, and the kid at the warf.

Mr. James gives the impression of time. He defines experience and is constantly wearing an attitude impervious to trivialities. A young'un wants to argue political history? Best not contradict him, he was there. A teacher is impassioned about a too-small increase in a pay check? You just earned a chuckle coming from a mile deep in his chest. Mr. James is living, walking proof that you'll get "there" on time without rushing, and the world will keep spinning tomorrow like it has for countless millenia. A wealth of gigantic, slow, mischevious smiles, his occasional one-line contributions are all delivered in an absurdely baratone voice. If this man ever looked at me and said, "Simba... Remember me..." I would laugh in disbelief, then die in sheer, gleeful contentment.

So Abdraman isn't made of the same stuff as us. I imagine the ingredients used to create him were as follows: A saw blade. A horn's worth of gunpowder. A dozen scoops of glass shards mixed with beef jerky. Like 5 trillion Y chromosomes. A level bushel of magma with melting tank barrels sticking out. G.I. Jane was his surrogate mother, and the egg extracted from a lion was fertilized in a tricky process by Zeus, the Kraken, and a T-rex that happened to be passing by. Seriously people, do you get I'm trying to explain this is a really tough dude? In a brilliant display of irony though, whatever astrological signs qued up to watch his birth decided to give him the personality of an infant panda bear. Really nice. What a great guy to have as a friend.

I'd guess Santige escaped from a cartoon somewhere around the age of 16. That was 484 years ago. From his blue hat and the silvery black hair flipping from under it, to his coal-composite feet that hurt the ground he walks on, this is one harmless fellah. He posts up by a post in a ruined building near the warf and spends his days... chillin. I'm constantly surprised that the prayer beads milling through his hands haven't turned to dust, and I think he saves his energy for the singular purpose of greeting psser-bys. Not exactly fast on his feet, I was surprised to see he'd followed me and my bike to the bread-vendor near the warf. IAfter spying some children gazing in abject terror at my bi-wheel, I glanced at my bike to find Santige singing a little song to it as he wiped mud-speckles from its metal frame with his own handkerchief. Okay, how endearing.

So there's this kid at the warf who, if the situation arose, would be rounded up with the usual suspects. This guy was created to create trouble, and hdoesn't seem to appreciate the concept of being quiet, proper, or always polite. You'd think that golf-visor he wears around would fall off during one of his thousand odd-jobs he does, or that his shirt would be dustier from the cars he scrambles around repairing. He told me yesterday that he had just visited Freetown and saw a movie poster. The man on the poster had my skin, hair, and nose so he started yelling in the street that "I KNOW THIS MAN!" His characteristic juvenile stupidity is absolutely charming... In short, if I'm lucky enough to raise a son in the future, I hope he turns out just like this punk.

There are literal thousands of people in Mambolo at least as interesting as these. I count myself lucky as having so much time here to meet so many more.

Stuff and stuff

I had the vision of a dragonfly. The strength of a stegosaurous. The speed of a Gecko, and the prowess of a Lemur. And my stomach was really really right.

Having just punched myself in the mouth with fistfulls of jerky, candied fruit, pringles, nuts, more jerky, and a 45g progein drink to wash it all down, I looked at my clcok- 6 a.m. There being hardly a dent in the cornucopia contained in my recently arrived care packages, my binge didn't hurt my conscience so much as my alimentary tract. The carbohydrates, proteins, and fats raiding through my system gave me the aforementioned mental and physical rush. So what if I've lost 20+ lbs. since stepping of the plane, today I could wrestle an elephant.

And win.

Time to get ready for school. I revie2wed the notes I scrawled the night before- dear Lord, please reveal to me how to make Relative Abundance of Isotopes interesting to these students- then slammed a few chilly cups of rainwater against my skull. Knut was tied up outside trying to drown out Rihanna on the radio with his own howling, so I gave him the rest of last night's rice to keep his mouth busy. It's hard to believe that the new collar keeping him tied outside could be so loathed and loved- him doing the former, and me the latter. Okay, the dog was sated, I was prepared to pour some chemistry into young brains, and my stomach was stuffed like a boy scout's bag. Must be time to go.

The ride I had to school thuis morning was typical of every ride between my Mambolo Manor and Scarcies Secondary school (this morning in particular, I could've parted a heard of buffallo with my exceptional mood though). Children spilled out of houses like an ocean set free, shouting "Issa Kabba!!" with enough intensity to cause them coronary distress. I've often wondered if I'd be responsible to stop and perform CPR if one of the little onces crossedover from "impassioned yelling" to "passed out and not breathing." The women that sells those delicious little pepper snacks was out cooking, so I had to stop and trade a few words of traditional greeting before aiming my bike at the hill leading up to school. I'm probably a few thousand miles removed from the nearest X-Box, so dodging blue-clad Scarcies students on the road has taken Halo and Call of Duty's place. The school once gained, a meet-and-greet always ensues, every day you'd think you'd just met your colleagues. If I bumped into you in the staff room, our conversation would typically go something like this:

"Good morning! Hello!"
"You're welcome! Hello."
"How did you sleep?"
"I tell God thank you!" What about you?"
"Me too! I tell God thank you!"
"hello. Thank you. Thank you."
"Well that's all!"
"thank you. We will see each other later."

One national anthem, school song, and brief sermon later, we would both find ourselves teaching class. My students are awesome. Awesome, but behind- by no fault of theirs (teacher's strikes, etc.). They'll probably all be in neck braces if they keep glancing between their notes and my board work so frequently.

BOOM. My payload of knowledge bombs dropped on the school for the day, I suppose it's time to proceed to the Mambolo clinic for a whole storm of heart-wrenching problems, jokes and rattling laughter, marasmus represented alongside ballooning Oedema, easy conversation when patients are scarce, infections trying to steal limbs, and an abundance of the fattest happiest faces that could exist on human children. I love hte hospital. Obviously not because I like seeing the harsh diseases that people are dashed against (I may stray towards the awkward, but I'm not strange), but I'm in love because the hospital is an avaible avenue of education on a base level surpassing any classroom. What good is the study of commerce if malaria is ravaging your body? All the formulas you could memorize in physics are worthless if your brain is being snacked on by syphillis. HIV/AIDS, manageable for a community if education is provided, should surely take priority over a literary analysis of "So Long A Letter." Yes, children can eat eggs- it's a good source of energy. No, having intercourse will not kill your baby if they are still breast feeding. No, AIDS is not a myth. No, malaria nets do not make good fishing nets. Yes, the leading cause of pregnancy is sex.

With Al-Kamara, the CHO of the Mambolo clinic, to show me the ropes, nothing feels more comfortable now than to climb the few steps to the clinic, shake a few hands, and see what I can do that day to help (we're having an elephantiasis awareness campaign this weekend...ask me for more details- I'm the guy wearing the Hellen Keller Foundation shirt).

Well I don't think I've ended any of my recent posts with exhortations to tkae the best of care of yourselves and- if you're in the mood or not- to take care of everyone you can reach around you. But, as always, I hope you are. I'm a huge fan of love and other stuff like that.

Also- I'll admit my writing styles are outrageously influenced by whatever book I'm reading at the time- quirky when I'm reading Douglas Adams, succinct if I'm plunged into Hemingway, or lugburious if I'm trudging through Victor Hugo. The last three books I've read have been The Fountainhead, Jurassic Park, and Les Miserables. And apparently this is the kind of post that yields.

Reset

"YOU'RE ABSURD."

Is what I wanted to scream at an appalingly visible flower in the ditch. It looked like the beginning of the universe had been mounted on a green stem then forgotten by the sdie of the Kambia-Conakrey highway. The flower was completely disrespecting its context. You see, I was having a rotten day and it's purple fringed white confusion, a biological representation of the Mandlebrot set, was insisting that life is inherabtly, gorgeously miraculous. I was being subjected to my pet peave of African cahllenges though- transportation issues- and I wasn't about toput up with anything beautiful.

"Thisssss car isn't registered away from me!" Energetically slurred the man that had sprung behind the wheel when the driver stepped away on an important peanut-buying mission. Not caring to witness a property dispute of IMAX 3D proportions, I politely asked the woman sitting on my lap if she would allow me to step out of the car, and, after she put her chickens back in the baset on her lap, she did just that. Fifteen minutes later found me positioned on top of the same seat and under the same woman/bundle of disgruntled fowl. A quarter of an hour had only yielded more frustrations ad the Okada drivers conspiratorily beckoned me to their swift, cheap, and comfortable Honda motorcylces that the Peace Corps decreed we volunteers shall not mount- on pain of being catapulted back to the US of A. The taxis lumbering by were too full or headed the opposite direction from the Kambia bank I was desperately trying to reach before it closed in 25 minutes.

Anyway, the peanuts having been purchased, the man having yielded the driver's seat, and myself having ground half a centimeter of enamel away, the motor started.

My fear of getting to the bank after the doors had closed were not justified. My 2:59 p.m. arrival a minute before closing was greeted by a smiling, AK-47 toting guard and a few heartbeats later I was back on the road looking fora a car. But not before patronizing a cooler-carrying youth with some cold drinks and a roadside butcher selling a few handfuls of sizzling goat. My blood pressure still high, the thoughts going through my head only belonged in an R rated brain.

"Man... you are really enjoying life."

The voice, not my own, came from the dark. My eyes ached, trying to find the quiet source fighting the afternoon sun to look intoa complex of low overhanging tin roofs. Finding a solitary outline, I asked, "Wetin?"

"Your life... is great," the low, raspy voice replied.

Shifting slightly as he pulled a cigarette from his mouth, I noticed he looked like he belonged in the darkets corner of a pirate-bar. The ghost issuing from the glowing tip of the white stick in his mouth wrapped him in a 4th dimensional surrealism. His hat pulled so low revealed little of his face.

I looked at myself through his eyes and noticed how right he was.

"Oh man... I'm such an idiot."

I'm sure he interpreted my stuttered, "Thank you sir, I know" as arrogance, but to me it was the first dominoe in an internal monologue of self-beration. Little frustrations, annoyances, and every occurence making me vex were put back in their proper places as I took stock of my life here.

The oversized hosue I was returning to was a treasure chest of comforts- food stocked on shelves, a thinck mattress in a hand-carved bed, a solar light to keep nighttime outdoors, a battery-powered piano to slide my thoughts across, silverware, plates, filtered water, books, bicycle, aradio, and furniture all surrounded by lockable doors, glass windows, and a roof that didn't leak.

More essential than the tangible, though, I thought about the friends that live near my jewlery box. Thepastor from the local Baptist Church that discusses the latest BBC news report with perceptive additions. The carpenter that lives across the road that regales me with farming stories and magnificent tales of everything we'll be planting behind my house at the onset of the next rainy season. The police employed at the station next door, reslient to whatever problems crashed into them that day- always ready to share a full round of my favorite flavor of humor- sarcasm. The shop owner athe the warf, proud member of the Black Leo family, that turns up in the most unexpected corners of Mambolo and rips a smile out of me. Abdraman,who comes over at 5 in the morning to work out with me, offer to take my clothes home to wash, and connect me with any community member.

All these friendly faces mixed among the radiant, ready smiles of complete strangers living in the foreground of the paradisical Mambolo backdrop was a stiff, needed backhand against the negative adjectives I'd been smearing across my day.

"Man... such an idiot."

I remember getting back to my house, joking that Knut looked like the "purtiest thing ever," his white fur taking on the pink shades of the sky as the sun was ushered below the horizon (I'm sure it was offensive to him, but his english is still weak and he had to swallow the emasculating comment without retort). After a needed night's rest, I woke with a cool breeze sifting across me through the window, and thought, like I have every morning when I've woke lately, "Okay... don't be an idiot today." And then about every amazing thing that entails.