Stories…

I’ve struggled with what to write about recently. I want to write but it’s hasn’t come as naturally as it did when we first arrived. Maybe it’s because things don’t stand out as new or different the way they did at first. Still, every day is a new experience, a new story. But living the stories and figuring out a way to tell them isn’t always easy.

The past two weeks we were fortunate enough to have a visiting medical team from the US. Without question, it was the best two weeks at Engeye so far and I learned soooo much from them. On the last day I travelled with them to the fancy hotel in Entebbe they were spending the day at for a few nice meals and an afternoon by the beautiful pool. At dinner, the team held their final “talking stick,” in which each member of the group reflects on an experience or responds to a prompt when holding the talking stick…usually a beer bottle of course. I was trying to think about what I would share…whether it would be a story from when the team was here or an experience from the past seven months. After spending a significant portion of the week shadowing and getting more personalized interaction with patients and their stories than normal, combined with the stories dating back to July, I was almost overwhelmed by the library of touching, often heart-wrenching stories I had amassed and didn’t know what in the world I was going to talk about.

From these two weeks alone, there is a story about a home visit I went on for an elderly man who was nearing his final days and how we could have an honest conversation with the family in a culturally sensitive manner. There is a story about a woman who came in with numerous complaints and hours later the doctors managed to comb through the details and cultural barriers and realize she was in fact suffering from depression, the first diagnosed case of depression at Engeye since we arrived. There is a story about removing a bot fly larva from a woman, stories of gender violence, a story about the rejection and eventual acceptance of an albino man by the local children, and even a story of how a bat crawled up Theresa’s leg in the middle of the night. But for now, I haven’t processed them all well enough for my writing to do them justice.

The leader of that final session at the hotel was Dr. Maryjo Fink, who was beloved by the Engeye staff for her vibrant personality. She began by reading a quote that I think sums up my feelings in a better way than I am able to, so I will let it stand in place of them:

“So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: Tell me! Tell me! The stories choose me.” –Eduardo Galeano