Soretroat

February 4-5, 2011

Today I woke up and couldn’t swallow. Since it’s Voting Day, most of the nurses are off, but Gertrude, who lives in the Village, came and opened the clinic. She told me I have tonsillitis, which sucks, but I should be better in the next two days. I hate to miss everything that the group gets to do: the first Muchaka Muchaka (the run around the Village in which everyone participates every Saturday morning at 6 AM), challah baking with Talia for Shabbat, and a dance party after dinner on Friday night. I just want to feel better. It’s times like these that make me want to go home, to Israel or to America, to have a normal shower, to sit in an air-conditioned room and relax, to have my own bed and feel comfortable. Unfortunately, none of those are possibilities right now, so I will forever have the memory of braving tonsillitis in northeastern Africa. Isn’t that a story?

Well, as things turn out, the medication Gertrude gave me may or may not have caused an allergic reaction. This afternoon, after taking a few doses, I started to feel worse, so it was decided that I should go to Kigali hospital. To be honest, where I was taken is called King Faisal Hospital Kigali, or, as someone very pointedly let me know, the “Muzungu” hospital. How do people know it’s any good? It has an “s” in the word “hospital.” Most hospitals in Rwanda, and in east Africa, are actually “hopital,” which is the French word for “hospital.” There is no “s” because a circumflex over the “o” replaces it. So, King Faisal HoSpital is really considered top in terms of a medical treatment facility.

We arrived (by “we” I mean me, my madricha Talia, one of the village volunteers Ariella and our driver and Village all-around man, my favorite guy, Alain) at the emergency room. Now, let me try to illustrate this “emergency room” for you. First of all, the hospital, from the outside, looks more like a prison. To enter the emergency room, you have to park by the main entrance and walk through the parking lot, down a hill and over a grassy lawn-looking area. Keep in mind none of this is lit. Luckily I have tonsillitis and not a broken leg because I would not have been able to trek down to the emergency room. Now, this room is literally one room which has about four tattered chairs facing a cashier (where you pay for both your hospital visit and any medication prescribed… but I’ll get to that later) and a “triage” room which is a desk and a few chairs and a scale that looks like it was used in World War II. A nurse came in and filled out some forms (I have never been so happy to speak French in all my life) and then left my “file” on a table somewhere for a doctor to find. About forty-five minutes later, with Alain’s help, I was shown into another room. This one had a desk, two chairs, some cabinets and a computer. The doctor (her first name was Claire. That’s all I caught) sat down, asked me what was wrong, and proceeded to tell me that no, they did not have materials for a strep test. That means they didn’t have swabs, tongue depressors or the kits for rapid strep results. Things went further downhill very quickly from there. After hearing my symptoms and the fact that I’m allergic to penicillin, she typed my symptoms and the word “erythromycin,” which is a broad spectrum antibiotic, into Google. Yes, Google. But wait, it gets better. The first link that her search returns is Wikipedia, so she clicks on that and begins to read about erythromycin. No, I am not joking. The doctor who is supposed to be prescribing me medication is getting her information from Wikipedia. I almost fell on the floor. At this point, several phone calls were made (to my parents, to my doctor at home, etc.) I had no reason to trust this woman who, despite her white coat and official-looking name tag, seemed to have a medical degree, for all I knew, from either Yahoo.com or AskJeeves. The fact that I didn’t take her Wikipedia search as expert medical advice caused Dr. Claire Whatshername to leave the exam room and not return until Alain persuaded her to come back and write me a script. When I looked in my file, I saw that she had written “soretroat” as my illness and that was it. I couldn’t even get an “h”? I knew we were in trouble. Eventually, she returned and then told me that she had six years of medical school and knows what erythromycin is. My question to her was then why she felt the need to Google search it, and why she felt Wikipedia was a credible medical reference. She could not answer either, so instead she wrote me a prescription and ran off to Google for her next patient.

Filling my prescription was, believe it or not, the most pleasant part of this experience, although it did involve quite a bit of walking. First, I went to the hospital pharmacy, where I was told they should have my medication, showed the pharmacist my script, and she told me I had to go back to the cashier next to the triage room and pay for my medication before she would fill it. So, that’s exactly what I did, Alain following me back to the cashier’s table and then returning to the pharmacy. Twenty minutes and about 6000 francs later (about $10 in total, for all my medicine and the doctor’s visit), I had two little baggies of pink pills, one of erythromycin and the other of “Brofen,” which is their prescription Ibuprofen. With my goodie bag in hand and my “receipt” printed from what looked like a typewriter, we hiked back up to the parking lot and left.

On our way back to the Village, we made a few stops. First, we went to a convenience store where I bought tons of water, juice and crackers (my groceries ran up a higher bill than my hospital visit and medicine costs). Next, we picked up Olivier, the village electrician/handyman (he’s fixed our shower at least twice) and then we drove to Alain’s house, which is in Kigali, and his wife prepared us dinner. We also met his son, Dylan, who is not quite a year old, and is very adorable. I wish I were feeling better so I could have eaten more, but what I did eat (rice and vegetable stew and a small piece of fish) was delicious. Alain’s home itself is beautiful, gated from the road and full of leather couches and tiled floors; I felt like I could have been anywhere in the world. Eventually, we said goodbye and thank you to his wife and goodnight to baby Dylan, and returned to the village. Definitely the most eventful day of being sick in my life.

It’s now Sunday, which is always a quiet day in the village because most kids attend church services and spend the day relaxing, catching up on their homework and preparing for another full week of school and activities. I’m definitely feeling better (not 100%, but improvement is all I need) and hopefully by tomorrow, I’ll be ready to teach my first full Monday of classes!

Love from Rwanda (luckily not from King Faisal HoSpital)

Elana