Black. White. Brown. Dark. Light.
My first thoughts when I hear these words are colors, crayons, neutral, and paint. My mind does not immediately jump to skin tone. I never thought it would. But last tonight as I laid in an Albanian hospital bed with an IV in my arm, my first thoughts were of skin tone.
Let me backtrack for a second. I have had stomach pain the whole time we have been here in Elbasan, nearly three weeks, which I mostly attributed to just having a sensitive stomach. The bathroom and I became quick friends this month. But yesterday morning when I woke up, I had zero energy and zero appetite. I spent the better part of the day in the fetal position in my sleeping bag with my kindle on or napping. I managed to get out of bed for team time, but I only lasted maybe five minutes. Lightheaded and dizzy feelings took over and the next thing I knew my teammates were calling my name, my body was leaned back against Jami’s, a wet wash cloth was on the back of my neck, and Kim was on the phone with our host Fiona figuring out who could take us to the hospital. I had fainted and lost conciousness. I was stark white and burning up. Something serious was going on with my stomach and I knew I was very dehydrated.
Fast forward to the hospital. I was a hot mess when we arrived having spent a better part of the car ride throwing up in a plastic bag. We walked in, I sat down in a bed and had my blood pressure taken while one of our hosts explained to the doctor what I was feeling. Not even minutes later, they moved me to another room with five beds. Three of the other beds were occupied with people receiving IVs or treatment. The doctor connected me to an IV and left.
While the IV worked its magic in my system, Kim and Abbie talked about a number of things with one of our hosts. I was in and out of listening to the conversation, too focused on the stomach pain, but occasionally participating.
His three-year-old daughter just had surgery last week to remove a hernia. Even though the surgery was scheduled for 8am, the doctor wouldn’t even come look at her until mid-afternoon until he and his wife bribed him.
You see, in Eastern Europe, it is common to not get anything without bribery. Your mail, your driver’s license, medical treatment, and more. A quick shake of the hand with the right person, money passed from palm to palm, can get you what you need.
They don’t want foreigners to know this though. They want foreigners to believe they have the best of everything. As a Caucasian American, I received an IV in a hospital without filling out a single piece of paperwork and my host only giving the doctor my last name. I walked out of a pharmacy with four different medications for only $10 USD.
I couldn’t tell you what an IV and multiple medications would cost an American in the States. I also can’t tell you what it would cost an Albanian or Roma here in Albania. But tonight, I felt positively blessed and completely disgusted by my experience in an Albanian hospital. My skin color allowed me to receive treatment for very little. The people in the beds next to me may have had to pay a fortune for their treatments, they may have had to bribe the very same doctor who inserted my IV.
In America, our medical treatment is high in price and we can sit in waiting rooms for forever with the triage system. But what I experienced last tonight taught me that while our American system can seem ridiculous, other places in the world know only absolute corruption. They know only bribery, the swapping of cash with a quick handshake, to get the treatment they need.
This has just reinforced how much I can’t help but love on each of the children we encounter on a daily basis in the Roma community. It quickly reminds me of the children’s song “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world…”
