Dated 29 July 2010. (four days after The Great Fire)
I woke up early this morning to go over my speech for the opening ceremony. Today we are finally celebrating the completion of a project that we have been carrying out for the last 3 months, building an Artisan Community Center. This is a project that aims to provide a dry space for our artisans and their community to use as a meeting house during the rainy season. It is a moment of pride for our women who, because of their hard work and commitment to our organization, have brought a beautiful, pristine and high quality structure to their very remote village. This project has been funded for years by the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, however due to the remote nature of our project, they have never visited us. After many emails and a meeting in Dar with our contact, I finally convinced the embassy representative to come visit for the opening ceremony. The team was ecstatic! Big day!
After a surprisingly short delay, the team, in our smartest outfits, piles into our landcruzer and we go speeding off into the bush to make sure things are ready. The mood is familial and celebratory in the car, everyone is singing and swaying as we bounce over bumps. The team is together and we get to show off our amazing project!
I should mention, that the embassy representative decided to bundle his trip out to our village with a few other project visits since it is incredibly unusual for them to get out our direction. Because of this, I plan to meet him on the main road at 2pm so that he can follow our vehicle out to the site. But we wanted to get there early and make sure everything was ready to start on time.
When we peak over the hill that slopes into the valley where our site is, I can hardly recognize the site I have been overseeing for the last few months. There is a canopy made out of local fabrics tied together and there are already hundreds of people swarming around (and it is only 11am!). We pull up and the artisans and other women from the neighboring village surround the car in song and dance. We climb out and dance our way to the ceremony site. Eventually things quite down, and I just start snapping pictures. After it is clear that everything is in order, I decide to walk around and get some more photos around the site ( I have been trying to make a better effort to take more photos).
It is important to know that I am wearing really flat sandals with no support and a very tight skirt that goes to my knee.
So I walk around to the dirt road in front of the site and click away. I hear more singing and decide to go back to the festivities. I try to go around the opposite way I came, which requires me to walk over a small dirt ditch, but half way down I realize that the opposite side is much higher and too steep to climb up in the skirt I am wearing. So I pivot to go back the way I came. SNAP. Something rips in my ankle and I immediately hit the ground (remarkably without dropping my SLR which I am too cool to wear around my neck). I am in blinding amounts pain, grabbing my ankle and focusing on breathing. I faintly hear the two guys on the road laughing at me, the mzungu that fell. But mainly my mind is swirling with the most pain I have ever experienced. Eventually the laughing guys realize I am really in pain and not getting up. One decides to come over and help me to my feet (kind of in the manner one would help a screaming child that just fell, “its okay baby,” (lifts child to feet) “Now go run along and play. “). Obviously, it is not that simple in my case, but in my pain, I do not have the Kiswa skills to tell them that something snapped and I am seriously injured. I was even in doubt as to how seriously injured I was. Afterall, all I had done was turn around. All I knew was that I was in serious pain. Between gasps, I muster up the words “lete rafiki yangu” (bring my friends). Naturally, they go into the ceremony and say “an mzungu has fallen”. All 300 people turn around and head to the road to see the spectacle.
So now, not only am I am more pain than childlabor could possibly be, but I have an audience of 300 rural Tanzanians. Sweet. My boss arrives and takes charge in her perfect kiswa. She asks me with a chuckle, “what, you wanted to get the entertainment started early?” I reply that I just thought that more attention should be on Me. So, I don’t really know how they decided that a stooped 70 year old woman and a short man were the best fit in the crowd of 300 to help me get up and hobble up the hill, but they did. Once up, another grandma starts swatting at my ass. Because, apparently, it is bad enough that an mzungu has fallen, but to have her nice outfit soiled by red dirt is just too much. Heidi (my boss) later tells me how funny I looked as a 6’ tall women hunched with these short people on either side. Eventually they get me in the car, where I finally allow myself to look at my ankle. Already it is purple and blue and swollen to a soft ball size. F***. This was not how the day was planned to go.
After much consultation amongst the crowd and my team, it becomes clear that the X ray is broken at the local hospital and no one can decide what to do with me. My head starts to clear and I step in. A month earlier, an Australian ER doctor arrived to our village to start her 3 year mission service. I tell my driver to take me to her, as she will know what to do. And he does exactly that. My ankle stabs each time we bounce over a bump, but at least fresh air is blowing at my face through the window, keeping me from passing out. My driver drives us straight up onto her lawn, right up to her door.
“Roooooose,” I yell in the door. At that, Dr. Rose and her 2 daughters come
running out the door. Everyone is shocked. After some assessment, Rose decides it is either a really bad sprain or a break. She splints it lightly, tells me to elevate it and not to put any weight on it, gives me some light pain killers and says she will check in on me.
My driver then drives me home, where he and our guard carry me into my house. He then takes off to find the embassy representatives. Jessica (who you remember from the Day of the Great Fire), immediately sets out to start cleaning my feet. It hurt to the touch, but she was gentle. About an hour later, my guard comes in with a tree that he has widdled down for me to use as a walking crutch. I smile at the gesture (and as it turns out, it really saved me those first few days).
Anyhow, long story shorter, after 3 days, Dr. Rose is called into the hospital for an emergency where she is shown a chest x-ray. She inquires about this, and they tell her that the x-ray machine is in fact working, but only for special people (people who can pay the 10 USD). So she gets me in for an x-ray. It is clearly broken, but what is not clear (due to the poor quality of the machine) is if there are other breaks that compromise the joint. Everyone decides that I will need to go to a better hospital to get clarifying x-rays, and potentially surgery.
Meanwhile, I am uninsured, so my mom is in a frenzy in the US trying to figure out what to do, and how to get it covered. She tries everything (even the US embassy in Dar). She doesn’t sleep for a week.
I pick up the phone and call flying docs, my med-evac insurance. We make arrangements for a pick-up on Monday at 11am. At this point, my team starts running around to make sure I have everything I need to go to Kenya and then on to the US and that they have everything they need for the next few months.
On Monday, Edson drives me out to a dirt airstrip, I say goodbye to everyone, and I board an ambulance/plane. The irony is not lost on me that the last time I left Kenya, I was evaxuated due to political unrest, and here I was flying into Kenya (being medically evacuated from Tanzania) on the eve of their contemptuous constitutional referendum. Luckily,it was peaceful. Even more lucky, an American surgeon was on the flight and stayed with me through it all to make sure I received adequate medical attention in Nairobi. In Nairobi the x-rays showed that it was in fact broken in 3 places and the orthopedist said that surgery was necessary. This meant that the joint was incredibly unstable and I was going home to the US for surgery. I stayed the night in the hospital and then stayed with my new doctor friend while I waited for my flight in 24 hours time. Unfortunately, my doctor got called off to a medical emergency in Sudan, and had to take off suddenly. This meant that I had to give myself a shot (blood thinner so that I did not get a clot and die on the plane) and find my way to the airport.
I call a taxi and we head to the airport. Because I have a duffle, and am on crutches and countless pain meds, I ask him to park and escort me in. When we get to the check-in counter, the woman tells me that she regrets to inform me that my flight has been cancelled for 24 hours and that all other flights are booked. My mind starts swirling, my eyes well up, and I start spewing verbal diarrhea about how I have to get home for surgery and I do not have enough meds to delay yada yada yada. She smiles and says they are happy to put me up in a hotel room for the night and shuttle me to and fro the airport. I clean my tears up, and go into scary Rachel mode inorder to express in no uncertain terms that a delay was not an option, and that she needed to do whatever was necessary to get me on a flight. I even suggested they bump someone else off another airline, most tourists would be happy for the extra 24 hours in Nairobi. I was not a tourist. Eventually, she tells me she will try to get me on standby on Swiss air and instructs me to sit on a metal bench and wait for 2 hours until she will know. My sweet sweet taxi driver tries to insist on staying with me until I find out, but I send him home. He goes out and gets me food so that I can take my meds and continues to call and txt to see if I have made the flight. A church group comes along and prays for me not to be lonely in this time of need…
In the end I made the flight. But of course, my baggage was lost at customs (with the x-rays)and I was squished into an isle seat with a huge cast on my leg. Eventually, I made it back to the US and to medical coverage and after 3 months of a cast and no weight bearing, and 3 months of physical therapy, I am recovering well. It seems all of my previously good travel luck came in to call.
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