Pengalaman

That means "experience". When something happens here, we say, "You had a pengalaman." Today, I had two pengalamans (yes, we pluralize words in our 2nd language--it's called "campur" or "mix"--mixing of the 2 languages). Ok, now that you are all thoroughly confused, I will write about my pengalamans today.

Today, I had the privilege of returning to the village I have written about before. It was so good to see the smiling faces of the kids, read books to them, help them read books to me, teach them some English words that they wanted to know, and just touch them and talk with them. One little girl held my hand as we walked down the road. Another girl seemed so sad so I kept asking her things like, "Why aren't you smiling? Are you tired? Are you sad?" Eventually she warmed up to me and smiled and allowed me to help her read a book :) Ok, that whole paragraph was bonus. Sorry! Now for the real reason I'm blogging...

While we were letting the kids look at the books and pick which books they wanted to borrow, there was a little boy, probably 3 or 4 years old, with the cutest toothless smile. He kept touching me and wanting to be near me every time he passed by me. At one point, he was playing in a pile of dirt near where we were sitting. I asked him what he was building with the dirt, and his answer shocked and saddened me. He replied, "A grave." A grave. Wow. Totally took me aback. I can't imagine a life at 3 or 4 years old where playing in the dirt consisted of making a grave, of all things. Did I even know what a grave was at that age? No towers or houses or bike ramps like children normally think to build. A grave. This child has experienced more sickness and death in his short lifetime than I have in 24 years, I'm pretty sure. Someone in his village is always sick or dying. Today, we found out that a young mom there with 5 kids under the age of 12 (one being a baby) just passed away. And the leader of the village was in the hospital. The reality of poverty struck me again today. The simplest sicknesses can result in something as serious as death because of lack of education, lack of medicine, lack of money, lack of sanitary conditions.

From the village, we went to the hospital to visit the leader of the village. I had met this man last time I visited the village, and he was sick then too. But when I saw him today, the only word that came to mind was "death". This man looked horrible. I could see every bone in his body. He barely had enough energy to keep his eyes open, much less have much of a conversation with us. He was hooked up to an IV that was barely dripping. He's waiting from someone with his blood type to donate blood, and the doctor still doesn't know what's wrong with him. I kept watching for his stomach to rise and fall to make sure he was still breathing.

Let me describe the hospital to you. I've been in 2 other hospitals here before this one, but they are the nicest ones in the city. This one is a public hospital. Very different. As my friend with me said, it's more like a mall. There were so many people, everywhere we turned, whole families just camping out with their mats, food, bags, toys, etc. It was crazy. Loud. Crowded. When we walked in the building this man was staying in, it smelled. Not anywhere close to clean. Entering his room, I noticed 5 other patients in the same room, and beds for 8 people. Every patient had family there, so the room was filled with probably 15 people in addition to the patients. Mind you, this was not visiting hours. The family members were taking care of the patients like the nurses are supposed to, moving IV's and other tubes, lifting them in and out of bed, bringing them food, etc. I had heard about the state of hospitals here, but to see it firsthand was shocking for me. While we were there, sellers kept coming in and out of the rooms trying to get people to buy cakes, toys, other food, etc. Adding noise. Adding germs. All I could smell was bowel movements. My friend asked me when we left if I could smell that, and she said she had to try really hard to not throw up. The whole time we were there, I didn't see one doctor or one nurse. So so so different from any hospital I've been to in the states, yet I know that this is what most people in the world experience, if they're lucky enough to even receive medical care.

Sorry, I didn't end up taking any pictures today. Lots of mental pictures from today that will probably remain in my mind for a long time. One positive picture...I left the village seeing 2 little girls with their backs to me, huddled around a table reading their books that we lent them :) YAY!!