We walked up and down the hills, not entirely certain we
were heading in the right direction, stopping every so often to ask yet another
stranger for directions coming to the conclusion with each one that eve the
locals were uncertain of the right direction.
Finally, we spotted it.
A sign depicting the words “The Surgery” told us we’d finally made it to
the international clinic.
Rebecca and I followed the doctor back to his office and sat
down on the two chairs in front of his large desk. He was looking down, writing names in what I
assumed was the clinic’s equivalent to patients’ treatment sheets in the
States.
“Who is Brandi?” he asked in a distinctly British
accent. I raised my hand. “And what seems to be the problem today?” he
continued.
“I’ve got some kind of rash on the back of my neck…” I
began. He looked up and then to my
neck. “Oh, yeah…that’s real nice…” he
said sarcastically. I chuckled.
We continued to chat a little bit discussing the length and
condition of the rash over the last few weeks and days. He then tossed over an index card that had
been cut into a small square. “That’s
the cause of your rash” he said. Taped
to the front of the card was a tiny little bug.
“It’s commonly called the ‘Nairobi Eye’.” We chatted a little more.
“How long will you be in Kampala?” he asked.
“We’re actually living in Mukono, but will be here ’til the
end of the month.” I replied.
“What are you doing in Mukono?!” he asked, slightly
surprised we were there instead of the ‘big city’ of Kampala.
I paused for a moment before answering, trying to decide how
transparent to be. “We’re doing mission work” I finally said.
His demeanor changed slightly. He made some cynical comments about the
pastors and churches being “on the make” around this country and then said, “my
wife and I were in the missionary position for about 12 years.”
Before I really registered what he said, I said, “Oh
yeah? Where at?”
“Primarily in the bedroom…” was his very intentional and
slightly emphatic response. He chuckled.
I groaned.
Throughout the remainder of the office visit, he continued
to make similar comments, adding sarcastic jabs to Americans, but also talked
about the relatively large church he and his wife helped start in Kampala with
another mission organization. I was
slightly perplexed by the slight contradiction in his cynical tone regarding
local pastors and churches, the open sexual innuendos and sarcastic remarks
about Americans. It seemed he was trying
to get some kind of reaction out of us, but I think we may have disappointed
him.
Eventually, he returned to my treatment discussion and had
me wash off the steroid cream I’d been applying to the rash at the sink across
the room.
As I was doing so, I asked him if it were common for the
rash to feel like a bad sunburn.
“It is a burn” he
replied, “…a chemical burn.”
“Awesome.” I said. I
walked over and sat back down, then looked at the little bug again. “You’ve got a nasty little bite, my friend” I
remarked.
The doctor quickly replied, “Oh, it’s not a bite. It’s a squirt. It squirts a chemical from its bum as a
defense mechanism. Your skin’s reacting
to the chemical.”
As I replayed his words in my head, I chuckled again.
That’s right folks. I
have a chemical burn on my neck due to “di di” from the butt of a bug.
Hahaa…only in Africa.
