My First Time

“My first time . . .” brings great stories best shared over a few glasses of wine at a mood-lit bar. Some people may resent their first time. Others may take pride in their first time. Whatever the sentiment, the first time marks the beginning of monotony because the excitement, the horror, the unknown ends and ordinary begins.

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The first day of an academic year brings new uniforms, new pencils and new P1 students (kinder equivalent) to school. Today, 180 3, 4 and 5 year olds rush the compound of our school playing, screaming, hitting each other, wetting themselves and without any background in reading. However, it is not until they enter their classroom that tears start to flow.

The barefoot children file into the classroom, bats chirping at the penetrating sunlight, and sit on the floor, not facing the blackboard but gawking at the strange pale man in the back of the classroom. After the last child makes her way into the class, tears still running down her cheek, Madam Iliana walks in to address the immediate “situation”, “Idwe, ejai apejenon kau natukot wok. Ekekiror Emalimu Omodiŋ ka enera ŋesi Ateso kwa iso. Elosi ŋesi aswam ne ŋininaiyareit. Mam ekuriaka. Kiboikinos ejok. Children, there is a visitor in the back of our classroom. His name is Teacher Omoding and he speaks Ateso like us. He will work here every Tuesday. Don’t be afraid of him. Sit properly.”

If only a lecture made the children understand that I am as human as the rest of the village. In reality, the majority of the room has never seen a white person. Ateŋ Peter Joseph, a stout little man dressed in a “Hello, Kitty” t-shirt stands up and dashes towards me, slapping my arm and quickly running towards the door. At the entryway, he stops and wipes his hand on his own arm, expecting to see a streak of white. When nothing comes of his experiment he screams, “Isabi ijo! You lie.” A once placid face begins to tremble and tears burgeon on his eyelids. His breaths deepen until a wail of disappointment silences the fidgeting classroom, signifying my terrible mediocrity. He expected an alien and got an emsugut—a whitey.

Madam Iliana winks at me, “He fears you. These children, they are not aware. Give it time. They will come to know you.” She takes Ateŋ’s arm and leads him back to his seat on the cement floor. While the majority of the classroom faces me waving, smiling and not paying attention to their actual teacher, I get no “Hello” from Kitty.

-[-]-

“Not tonight, I’m not feeling very well,” I explain to Nathan, who came over expecting to watch a Nigerian movie on my computer. In the village, an illness usually means an increase in hospitality—after all, who wants to be alone when sick. However, Nathan understands that in my culture, solitude is the best treatment for an illness. No company necessary.

“Yes, I see you are not yourself. You are dressed in a blanket. How was Busia?” he asks of my weekend safari.

“Ah, yes. I was laying on the sofa and covering myself with the blanket. It is a security issue,” I explain the style of “dress,” forgetting to make my language explicit and concrete.

“Is someone trying to force their way into your home? I noticed the guard is no longer around. Are you nervous?” he stiffens as if to show his support.

“No, no. I’m very safe in my house. No one tries to break in anymore. They know I am a serious man and will fight for myself. That and I’m loud when I yell. Thank you for your support, though. Busia was interesting; a border town. Lots of smuggling and mob justice, but a new view of Uganda,” I round back to Nathan’s question, wrapping my blanket tighter around me as the night air bites at my skin. My body’s adjustment to the weather impresses me. I never thought it would happen.

“Border towns are not safe. I am glad you are back in the village. You are safe here. I will let you rest. Let us meet tomorrow,” he excuses himself and turns to walk home. I take myself back to the comfort of my couch, lie down and resume the episode of Brothers & Sisters as the fan blows a steady breeze over my body.

The sun rises the next morning and I awaken to find myself still on the couch. Some things never change. I sit up and stretch my arms until I feel the pain. “Oww. What the hell?” I mutter as my arms instinctively fall to hold my neck, the source of the stinging pain. As consciousness spreads over my body, the full extent of my aches surface until I feel the sweat dripping from my brow causing me to worry. I stand, drop the blanket to the floor and run to my kitchen to fish my thermometer out of my Peace Corps medical kit. An old school model (with mercury), I have to shake the line below 37 degrees Celsius to take an accurate reading. Three minutes later, the verdict is in: 38.8 and then some. Translation: 102 degrees Fahrenheit. The reading itself sends a tremor of panic through my body, causing a jolt of pain to vibrate in my molars. I run to the mirror and open my mouth to find my uvula swollen and the walls of my throat a nice pinot noir color. I haven’t seen this sight since before I had my tonsils out. This is my first experience being sick in the village.

“Hello, Adam. I’ll call you back. You know the airtime is expensive,” the Peace Corps nurse speaks quickly before hanging up. Five seconds later she calls back, “How are you?”

“Hi. Thanks for calling me back. I try to call my APCD and she never picks up, much less calls me back. I’m feeling a bit under the weather,” I try to make a joke as I massage my throat.

“Yes, of course. We don’t hear from you, so for you to call means you must not feel well.”

“Ha. Well since last week I haven’t been 100% but I thought it was allergies. We had some rain, good for the ground, bad for my sinuses. However, I woke up this morning and the pain escalated along with my temperature. I’m sitting at 38.8 right now.”

“For the morning that is elevated,” she responds and we continue our medical dialogue for ten minutes until she reveals the prognosis, “You have a bacterial infection. I don’t want you to be alone. I remember you are very remote. Can you make it to town?”

“Yes. And if I pass out, I know the guys who drive the car so I’ll make sure they know to call you,” I try at another joke.

“Let your neighbors know you are going to town to stay with Chad. Tell them I ordered you to go. I know how they can try and prevent you from leaving,” she says seriously, ignoring my humor, as I already start to dress, the sweat flowing over my whole body. “And call me when you get to town and have your prescription.”

An hour later (ignoring a meeting concerning “how can we get Adam to fund the construction of our school block” without community assistance), I’m one of 12 people in a Honda Civic wagon speeding down the bumpy road to town thinking I wish I were 5 years old when sick meant a fudgicle and Mary Poppins at home with Mom.

-[-]-

“Hey, bud. You need anything from town? I’m pedaling in to pick up a few things,” Chad peeks his head in the extra room where I’m staying while ill.

“Nah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking, though. I’m just going to sleep and I brought a stock of passion fruit juice and water with me,” I say as I roll over in the bed.

“Let me know. Sleep it off. You’ll live. I won’t let you die in my house.”

“Thanks, Chad. That’s sweet. Oh, and do you happen to have a nail clipper?” I ask as I look at my foot. In the middle of the night, I woke up to a sharp pain in my smallest toe. In the light of the morning, I can see a slight bump and a strange black coating at the base of the nail.

“I’ll leave it out for you.”

An hour later, I wake up again to the small sting in my foot. Rather than continuing the up-and-down nature of my morning, I drag myself into the bathroom to find the nail clipper waiting for me. My foot over the toilet (yes, Chad has a toilet and a shower in his house), I make my first incision with the clipper. Nothing happens. My stomach rumbles in anticipation. “I’m glad I didn’t eat. Whatever this is, it may get ugly.” I squeeze my toe around the cut and a red sac the size of a bath bead slides out while still hanging on to my skin. I cut the stubborn thing from my skin and it spits blood like a bad horror movie for a good minute while I continue to dig the unknown creature out of my already ill body. I begin to gag and I wretch into the toilet. (I do the same while writing kopani- now.) My first jigger.

I heard other volunteers discuss jiggers but never paid attention, taking the naïve approach of “if I don’t know about it then it won’t happen.” Jiggers, or chiggers, are tiny mites whose parasitic larvae live under the skin of warm-blooded animals. That animal would be me. I’m never wearing sandals again. In fact, I’ll shower with my shoes on because I will never have a jigger in my fucking body again. When I joined Peace Corps I signed up for many different things but I did not sign up for sick and disgusting.

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From my life to yours:
Song: “Lace and Leather” by the (new and rehab’d) Britney Spears
Strong: The guys in this week’s T Magazine (of the NY Times)
Belong: Left to me by a departing volunteer: a toaster oven. Bring on the cookie, cake, muffin and all other baked good mixes. Perfect addition to my kitchen.

-[-]-
Love,
Omoding
(the “H” is silent)