Lessons from Misbah

Nothing can make me smile like the sight of Misbah. As I round the corner from our guesthouse apartment building and walk toward the main road, I find myself always crossing my fingers, hoping that Misbah will be playing in the street so I can feed off his infectious smile. This boy of 10 years has stolen my heart. As I have realized his effect on me, I have wondered just what it is about this small boy that draws me so eagerly toward him. I came up with three life lessons I have learned from Misbah.

Lesson 1: Life is all about love. It has become a joke that Kate and I want Misbah to come with us to America. Whenever Misbah is asked if he wants to come to America with us he wrinkles up his nose and exclaims with conviction, “No, no, no!” At first this surprised me. I have grown used to people from the developing world proclaiming their dream of one day coming to America. Not this boy. When asked why he wouldn’t want to come he replies something like, “my family and my life are here.” What a beautiful sense of place and belonging this boy has. I found myself inspired by his commitment to fully embrace his life and those whose love surrounds him.

Lesson 2: Accept hospitality when it is given. Misbah, along with his family and his auntie Gamila have welcomed Kate and me with open arms into their lives. Kate and I were walking up the street to grab some food the other evening when Misbah spotted us from across the road. He came over and shook our hands and then said, “come.” We followed, and he kept peering back and repeating the phrase, “come on, come on” to make sure we were still in tow. He lead us into Gamila’s one room apartment and ordered us to sit on the floor cushions while he filled a basket with the bread he had just purchased. I have never seen a more satisfied look on anyone’s face. He had invited us in and we had accepted his hospitality. We have eaten at Gamila’s a handful of times now and she has given us milk and honey, and warm smiles and kisses on the cheek, and I find myself feeling guilty because I am so heavily on the receiving end of things. I am trying to shake this sense and learn from Misbah’s satisfied look, which reminds me that sometimes accepting hospitality is a gift in and of itself.

Lesson 3: Laughter heals. This kid can laugh. His joy is contagious and I can’t get enough of it. Kate and I have shared our surprise when we realize that the strain and energy expenditure associated with cross-cultural interactions doesn’t apply when we are at Gamila’s. Misbah’s laughter is no small part of this phenomenon. His laughter melts away the worries of the world and the cares of the day. He lives in the moment and brings me into that moment with him. As a future healthcare provider, I find this lesson invaluable. Being present with people and bringing them joy is a special gift this boy has been given and I am grateful for its timely presence in my life.

This boy has been such a gift. I am trying to avoid the sad thought of leaving this place, and Misbah behind in September. For now, I’ll try to remain an attentive student to the many lessons he has to teach me.

Misbah sharing his smiles.

Misbah goofing around with Kate.

Misbah showing his dimples.

Gamila preparing coffee for us.

Gamila pouring us some of her honey.

 

Getting Out of My Own Skin

Our skin, or integumentary system is the largest system in our entire body. It plays so many roles both positive and negative, from keeping us safe and healthy, warm and dry, to creating separation and discrimination based on its color. The barrier it creates between us and the world is essential for survival. Without our skin our body would be inundated with bacteria, parasites and viruses that would overwhelm us. Our skin allows us to live, and in some ways defines our experience of living. When others look at us they see our skin, and we in turn see the world around us from within that skin.

This past week’s work was dominated by interviews. I sit down with the interviewee and ask the predetermined questions. I am not sure what exactly I expected, but my surprise at many of the answers I received evidence the fact that I did hold some sort of expectations at the outset of the interviews. As an interviewer listening is of utmost importance, and not just to the words that are spoken, but also to the meaning behind the words and the lived experiences that bring those words to utterance. As humans existing in our own skin we see the world from our own perspective, with our own unique biases. We see problems and solutions from within our skin. There is no way out of it. From the moment we are born, our skin is our companion here on earth. As I interviewed people this week I stumbled upon moments when I allowed my mind to wander outside of my skin and catch a glimpse of the world from within another’s. While we will never be able to do this fully, the moments life gifts us with when we can shed our skin and sit in another’s world are precious; I believe this is the birthplace of life’s slivers of wisdom.

Dr Shitaye, an Internal Medicine Doctor here in Gondar who has worked with SCOPE for many years shared some beautiful words during a casual conversation following her interview. She shared her passion for knowing her patients as people with stories to tell rather than as diseases. She cares for Magda the fierce mother and Misbah the gentle farmer rather than the diabetic and the hypertensive. Her face lit up as she talked about her passion for making sure medical students here in Gondar know how to listen to patients and gain wisdom from their stories. This requires stepping out of one’s own skin, shedding assumptions and preconceptions and listening, really listening to what another’s life has to tell us. If I have learned nothing else from my education at UW, I have learned that as a healthcare practitioner I am powerless without my patients’ stories. I believe Dr. Shitaye holds many slivers of wisdom from her 30 plus years of experience getting out of her own skin and stepping into the lives of her patients.

As I head into another week of interviews and clinic visits, my practice will be to step out of my own skin and to listen. Knowing that I will never fully master this practice, I will keep trying. After all, life is full of practices that we will never master, but that doesn’t excuse us from trying. With each attempt our practice grows and we gain those little nuggets of wisdom.

A couple of shots from an interview with Kesis Dawit, an Ethiopian Orthodox priest who has been involved in SCOPE for a long time. His passion for the SCOPE’s mission was inspirational.

Kate goofing around with our favorite neighborhood boy, and me with Gamila, our favorite local shop owner who has taken us under her wing.

Gamila preparing coffee for our Iftar meal. She is a Muslim and is fasting for Ramadan. She invites us almost daily to break the fast with her in the evening.

Waiting in line and then sitting in the stands at University of Gondar’s graduation ceremony. This year marks the University’s 60th anniversary so there was plenty of celebrating!

A beautiful sunrise greeting me on my morning run.

 

 

 

 

Meaning

The last week has been a bit less of a whirlwind than the previous, which has afforded me time to think. The pervasive, reoccurring theme in my thoughts has been meaning. As you may have gathered from my previous post, almost every name in Ethiopian culture is meaningful, which is often shared during the initial meeting and greeting. “Hello, my name is _______, which means________.” Similarly, everything in the church has a meaning. Now, when I say that everything has a meaning I mean EVERYTHING. There are often multiple, layered meanings; this holds true for names, objects, designs, ideas, you name it. This has become a bit of a joke between the American fellows and some of our Ethiopian colleagues. Be careful when you ask an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian what something in the church means, you better have some time to sit and listen. Adino, the name of one of our colleagues, means healer. His mother had a particularly difficult pregnancy and labor and when he was born, her health improved dramatically. Her improvement was attributed to the arrival of this baby boy, this “healer.” One of my favorite “meaningful” explanations thus far was in response to my inquiry as to why Orthodox churches are round. The answer was that the round shape represents the world, and the fact that God’s grace has no boundaries… or something like that.

In the midst of my thoughts and reflections about meaning I started reading the book of Ecclesiastes. One of our less religiously observant, Ethiopian colleagues mentioned that it was his favorite book in the Bible. He likes the way it contradicts the meaning ascribed to life throughout much of the rest of the scriptures. Ecclesiastes speaks of the meaninglessness of life and of all our activities on earth, and the backwardness of our world. “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve.” As I walk amongst people who live such a drastically different life than my own, and who have arguably received the “what the wicked deserve” undeservedly, I sit with Ecclesiastes. I sit with uncomfortable questions left unanswered and frustrations unsettled. Comfort and explanation evade me and somehow the unease feels right, appropriate. I am trying to embrace the complexity of this place and lean into the questions, even if I know there will be no answers. In the midst of the “meaning” ascribed to all things here, I acknowledge meaninglessness. Ironically, the question that I end up with is, “what does meaninglessness mean?”

On a lighter note, Kate and I had a rather humorous weekend as we attempted to make a cake for our colleague, Getahun’s upcoming birthday. Luckily we had designated this a trial run because we failed miserably. The main culprits, among many were the wrong oil, and “butter” that absolutely could not have been intended for human consumption. We laughed and learned from our baking woes and on the up side our hunt for ingredients gifted us with some very fresh milk and some new friends.

This morning we had the privilege of attending a lecture by Kefyalew given to third year medical students. It was fun to see our colleague up front commanding the attention of his students. He spoke about the cascade of disease transmission and primary, secondary and tertiary disease prevention… what a necessary and vital topic for these students! They were attentive and participatory throughout Kefyalew’s well prepared lecture.

The upcoming week holds a visit to the Woleka clinic where the original SCOPE Soul Fathers project was implemented as well as a visit to the North Gondar Diocese. As my thoughts meander from the mundane to meaningful, I look forward to the activities and experiences that lie ahead, and the continued unanswered questions that will undoubtedly meet me.

 

 What Kate and I looked like for most of the week.

Dr. Getahun, who always greets us with a warm smile and shares his office and desk with us.

Notice the scale. The presence of scales in the street stems from the original HIV/AIDS outbreak in Ethiopia when people monitored their weight as a way to measure disease progression.

In other news, the hair didn’t last long…

Mickey: trusted taxi driver and owner of the barber shop responsible for my fresh do.

“butter”

One of the views on our almost daily walk to the hospital where Getahun and Kefyalew work.

Kefyalew in this morning’s lecture.