This week I noticed a little thing on the back of my leg, went to the doctor, and got diagnosed with my first staph infection. Mere days beforehand, I had been musing over the fact that I had traveled around the world without any health problems and figured that with so little time left, I was probably safe. Funny how things strike when you least expect them.
The clinic is next door to our apartment and it has nice leather couches and a screen where they display your name when it’s your turn to see the doctor. The doctor himself is very nice and speaks English faster than I can, making him both efficient and unintelligible. He asked if I was with the group of Americans who were working at the school for the month, and I said yes. I showed him the spot on my leg and asked what it was. He pulled out a big yellow flashlight, shined it on my leg, and said something about pills and being fine by Saturday.
“Should I put cream on it?” I asked, producing a tube of cream I had picked up in Europe. He took the tube from me and stared at it blankly, puzzled, I figured, by the Cyrillic letters.
“Whereisthisfrom?” he asked, cocking his head. It took me a second to decipher the question.
“Bulgaria,” I replied. This seemed to confuse him more. He furrowed his brow and twisted his neck even more.
“What have you been doing?” he asked, with the amused, concerned tone of voice one might use on a child who has wandered too far from home.
That is a question I’ve fielded more times than I can count, and have never known how to answer adequately.
We are on an 11-month trip to 11 countries I never imagined I’d see. We work with different programs and ministries doing whatever we are told to do whether it’s burning trash or teaching theology. We sleep in tents, attics, buses, and hostels. We eat what’s put in front of us. We’re homesick but we’re at home anywhere. This is our first/second/fourth/ninth month on the road.
Except this time, I said it was our last month.
“And everything has worked out with the passport and visas? You’ve been able to get into all the countries?”
“Well, for the most part,” I said with a grin. “We had some problems in Africa.”
“And what is your next country?”
All the other months, when people met us and asked where we would go next, we gave exotic answers like Mozambique or Cambodia and received impressed looks and cautionary tales of friends of friends who drank the tap water or got airlifted out with this or that disease. But this month, our next country is the United States, and that elicits a different response.
People hug themselves a lot, perhaps imagining the reunions we’ll soon have. We also get the questions, “What will you eat first?” and “Are you excited to see your family?”
While I have answers to both those questions, and they are “nachos made with Doritos” and “yes,” those also are questions I can’t quite grasp yet because I am still here. In Malaysia. With things to do.
When my time in Puyallup was almost over last December and I was getting ready to leave, life got more colorful. My departure always loomed, but I found myself appreciating little things more and more, whether they were the mossy trees in the back yard or long family dinners. The fact that so little time remained there made the place and the company that much sweeter.
I know time’s running out on this trip because that same thing is happening here. Everything feels new again. You’d think it was my first month abroad, not my last. I’ve been reading street signs and appreciating their delightful inscrutability. The missing tile on the stairs to our fourth floor apartment has endeared itself to me, as have the elevator doors that close immediately after opening and have sandwiched every one of our team between them. I’ve been working with the choir for three hours a day, and it gets tiring to teach music for that long, but then I remember how special the time is, and it’s easy to love every minute. Don’t get me started on my team, with whom I’d gladly spend every minute before we say goodbye. Even the heat makes me thankful, because it’s one more thing about this place that reminds me that this time is special.
When my fast-talking doctor prescribed me antibiotics and sent me to the pharmacy window, it felt more like I was picking up another memorable souvenir than mere medicine. We left the clinic and made our way to the library we have been organizing, past the 7-11, past the stray cats sleeping on motorcycles, past the KFC for deaf people, and past everything else in Sentul Raya that’s come to feel like home for now until it’s time to travel to the next country, which will be, finally, my own.
