Check in: still alive!

Hi all -

Apologies for being off the map for the last year or so. I am currently working on a masters program in intercultural and international communication that is proving to be a bit of a time-suck...though a positive one if a time-suck can be deemed so!

I have many new perspectives to share and stories to tell, but as I wade through the increasingly deepening ocean of academia, I fear blog posts will be few and far between.

In the meantime, however, I realized that I have neglected to post a few of the articles I wrote for the Lillooet/Bridge River News. This one in particular from March 2011 came to mind today as I observed for the first time this year, the snow line on the mountains...winter is on its way...ugh.

Dear Winter:

Our relationship started off so enticingly last November when you began enchanting me with the beauty of your gently falling flakes. Those little sparkling diamonds danced and swirled on the cool, whispering breaths you used to tint my cheeks a glowing pink. You insulated the usual outdoor sounds left over from autumn with your snowy, placid silence. You peacefully pulled the first pillowy white duvet of winter over our little town, slowly turned down the daylight, and put us to bed for the season.
Each morning you lifted your misty cover from the mountain-tops and revealed a new masterpiece. As the weeks progressed, your wispy, silvery-white brush strokes carefully and artfully swept further and further towards the base of Fountain Ridge’s craggy canvas.

I was utterly seduced by your initial beauty. I realize now my naivety.
As our relationship progressed into December and January you began increasingly entering my home uninvited. Your dexterous digits forcefully pried through each crack in my house, weaving through the fibres of my coziest sweater so your cold fingers were always resting on my skin. Each time I turned over in bed, you would sneak into my room and your icy breath would bellow under the covers and down my spine, jeeringly re-freezing the small airspace surrounding my torso I had just spent hours trying to warm up with my meager body heat.

This is, of course, not to mention all the time you have spent ailing this season. Your uncovered hacking cough forcefully expelled frosty precipitates from the bases of your arctic lungs, releasing a bronchial artillery that loudly catapulted crystallized ammunition against my window panes. Your irregular barking whoops rattled the foundations of my house and barricaded my doors with waist high white drifts.

You laughed at me every morning after you popped my car out of your ice cube tray and into my driveway. Every morning, I was forced to hack away at my little vehicle’s frozen shell with my flimsy plastic claw as you mockingly swirled the scrapings into my face, into the creases of my pants, and down the neck of my jacket.

Lastly, the malicious partnership you developed with the local plow is inexcusable. I am pained to consider the bribe you put forth in order for him to so promptly and regularly replace your deposits that I shoveled laboriously from the bottom of my driveway. I’m certain you were laughing together over cold beers at the success of your torment while I once again dragged out my shovel and dug myself out of the aftermath of your bullying.

Get out, Winter. You are no longer welcome in my life. I am expecting a newer, gentler and warmer season to arrive any day now, so your prompt vacating of the premises would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Fiona

Writer’s disclaimer: I have never actually met my local plow-man, but in reality would unhesitatingly commend him for the great work done this winter on my street (and the greatly needed extra calories I was encouraged to burn off shoveling the end of my driveway!). This article is meant totally tongue-in-cheek. Except for the good riddance of winter. That was real and sincere ;)

"Vocal Local", Lillooet News, July 7, 2010

So I was asked to be one of the "Vocal Locals" for the Bridge River/Lillooet Newspaper. Basically, I don't get paid for it, but 4 times a year, I write 700-900 words about whatever the heck I want. Sounds good to me...watch out, Lillooet! Here's the first article...

"I walked for the first time down the quaint little main street of Lillooet.

This was the tiny little town in which I had been placed by the nursing temp agency for a five-week stint in community health. Yes, following six months in downtown Toronto, five years in downtown Vancouver, and one year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, these five weeks would be a welcome break from city life.

The weak, late October sun did little to warm my body as my internal regulator still struggled to acclimatize to temperatures less than 40 C following my recent return from the Middle East.

The sun made up for its meagre thermal attempts by casting its late afternoon rays eastward and creating magnificent shadows accentuating the craggy reliefs on Fountain Ridge.

Yes, I could definitely be comfortable here…for now. A few more weeks up here and I would no doubt be more than ready to return to bustling city life…

As I picked my way around a giant, fire-hydrant-sized hunk of jade that someone seemed to have forgotten in the middle of the sidewalk, I was pulled out of my reverie by a startlingly unfamiliar sound.

”Hi there, how are you?”

I recoiled in fear, being sure to go wide around the gigantic “Mile 0” labeled pyramid rock thingy in my path so as to put a solid physical barrier between myself and the smiling middle-aged woman whom I had never before seen in my life.

She shrugged at my “keep-walking-and-pretend-not-to-have-heard/seen-you” city reflex. Several minutes later, I was still trying to recover when I was verbally assaulted yet again.

“Hello young lady!”

A cheerful elderly gentleman shuffled along the sidewalk. I quickly turned off the main street and headed home on the back roads. I was quite certain that if one more stranger acknowledged my presence with seemingly no strings attached, I would drop down and retract into the fetal position in an attempt to protect myself against this display of social anarchy.

Over time, of course, I grew slowly accustomed to the friendliness of the community, especially as I began to feel more and more a part of it.

I am now over eight months and a permanent position into my “five-week contract”. I am happy to say that it is now I who greets unsuspecting city folk.

Those are the ones marching the downtown streets on their rigidly time-pressed missions to see all the stones on the Jade Walk. Then they can tick it off their “to do while on vacation” list, clamber back into their rented CanaDream RVs, and be off to the next destination on their itineraries.

I smile to myself when I think of all they are missing.

At first, as much as I was enjoying the job placement during the week, I was traveling back to Vancouver nearly every weekend to get my city fix. As time wore on, however, I began to notice a strange phenomenon: I started to WANT to stay up here for the weekends.

I had made friends with a couple of great guys who were running a hop farm across the river, joined the naturalist society, and generally started to integrate into what was proving to be, in my humble opinion, one of B.C.’s “hidden gems”.

I mean this not just in terms of landscape, but also in the quality of people, the richness of the slowly healing and resurfacing native culture, and the sense of community to which I was becoming increasingly privy. The assurances I made to my city friends that I would be back soon became less and less convincing.

One of my turning points was stepping outside following the first snowfall in the surrounding mountains. I felt like I was sitting in the pit of a giant martini glass, looking up at the sugar-coated rim all around me. It was beautiful. I was hooked.

Despite my growing love for small-town life, the city in me still comes out every so often when I least expect it.

I was out for a bike ride in the early spring with a couple of other locals who share my passion for skinny tires, empty roads, and obnoxiously coloured spandex. We were riding along the highway, when all of a sudden our pristine silence was rudely interrupted by a loud chirping noise.

Red-faced, I quickly started fumbling in the back pocket of my jersey as I turned to my friend. “Is that you or me who forgot to turn our phone ringer off?”

My riding partner gave me an odd look before erupting into laughter. “Fiona, that was a bird,” he said, and he pointed up at the little brown blob perched on the wire above us. Go figure.

I smile again today as I turn my face to the sun and inhale the fragrant smell of sage carried on the hot bursts of wind.

The audible surf-like roars as the gusts force their way through the tree branches around me are metaphorically representative of the city stress which has been filtered out of my life since moving up here.

I am now proud to call myself a “Lillooet local”, and I thank each of you for teaching me to slow down and take in all there is to offer in your beautiful community."

A nighttime adventure at the hotel in Lillooet

I live in a hotel.

It’s actually not as bad as it sounds. I have a little stovetop I can cook on, a little fridge, a little microwave…all I have to do is flip the little sign on my door when I leave for work, and when I get home, the room is spotless, little mini soaps and shampoos have materialized, and fresh towels and sheets have magically appeared…

However, there are the inevitable downsides of small town hotels too…The sleazy passers through who invite you to their room for a beer, pleasantly addressing your boobs instead of your eyes and seemingly genuinely surprised when you decline saying that Hell would freeze over before you missed the new Grey’s Anatomy (read: new camera angles of Patrick Dempsey)…the dude next door who snores so loud, you can hear him through the walls AND your trusty earplugs…the woman below you with the grating donkey bray laugh who apparently finds humour in everything from flushing the toilet to opening a drawer…living in a room so small that as long as everything is stacked in such a way that there is a narrow pathway from the bathroom to the bed and from the bed to the door, you feel organized…the fact that you may not be the only one with a key to your door…which brings me to my point…

I am not currently staying in the hotel I started off in here in Lillooet. In fact, the one I voluntarily moved to is smaller and older. Why you ask?

I will start by saying my friends had a good laugh when we got word of the place the nursing agency was putting me up in during my contract. Not only was it newly renovated and right “downtown” (Lillooet has a population of around 2500), but it had a bar and a liquor store right downstairs! How convenient…I guess. Of course, the implications of this didn’t really sink in until I got here. Luckily, my window was at the back and on the opposite side from the bar, but the thuds and scrapes of arrhythmic gaits and accompanying cusses from the old boys staggering home through the back parking lot constantly seeped through the seams of my window into the wee hours of the morning. Occasionally, if they were drunk beyond coherence, they would somehow get themselves a room in the hotel. It was common on any night of the week to be woken up briefly by heavy, dragging steps and wall thuds of someone doing the pinball walk down the narrow hallway before they fell noisily through their doorways and passed out for the night.

On this particular night it was a Wednesday around 11:30pm. I was asleep in bed and woken by some poor sod who, judging by the swooshing scrapes accompanying the customary stagger, was obviously walking while leaning completely against the wall for support. I rolled my eyes and turned over to go back to sleep as I heard my doorknob starting to jiggle, waiting for whoever it was to realize that the key didn’t fit and that this was not his room. The next second, my eyes snapped open as the light from the hallway spilled into my room, and a very large dark figure swayed towards my bed. It took a minute for me to register that this was actually happening before I jumped out of my bed and started yelling, the adrenalin greatly hindering my ability to formulate a sentence “NO NO NO!!! MY ROOM! NOT YOUR ROOM!”. He responded with what was actually a surprisingly rational argument “This is MY room – my key opened the door. I’m going to bed.” (of course, I am only giving him credit for this answer given his state of inebriation as the heaps of belongings, and a yelling PJ clad girl in the bed would likely be enough evidence for the general population to gather that this was probably the wrong room).

As said drunk man lumbered at alarming speed towards me and my bed, someplace in my brain made a split second judgment that while logic said that this was a very bad situation (given that the front desk and the pub both close at 11pm and due to low season and I am usually the only one staying at the hotel during the week), something told me this grizzly bear of a man was actually quite harmless and luckily had no sort of malicious intent. Three seconds later, the Grizzly was drunkenly protesting as I reached up and clamped my hands on his shoulders, turned him around and steered him out of my room.

My conscience quickly became a curse as I realized I could not go back to bed in good mind while leaving him barely supporting himself against the wall outside my room…plus, I had to get my hands on those keys…

I told him that if he gave me the keys, I would help him find his room. He amicably handed over the keys, commenting on how good the service was at this hotel. I again rolled my eyes and glanced down at the keys – room 112. My room was 102. I inserted the keys into my door, and sure enough, the key easily turned and my door was open…I shook my head in disbelief and started to conjure up the conversation I would be having with reception tomorrow. As he stood swaying, I walked up and down the hallway trying to find the room. No room 112. Who was this guy and how did he even get in? All the hotel doors are locked and he has a key for a room that doesn’t exist…I once again held his shoulders from behind and steered him down the hall to reception figuring there must be an emergency number to call.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I found the number and picked up the phone to dial out. No answer. I tried several more times, our man breathing what smelled like vaporized Jack Daniels down my neck. As I hung up for the 3rd time, Mr Grizzly started to get a little peeved and demanded where he was going to sleep tonight.

I realized that this situation had the potential to go very sour very fast and it appeared that I wasn’t going to have any backup anytime soon. I glanced around and my eyes fell on the lobby couch. I smiled a little at the idea of what I was about to do…I gently placed a hand on Mr G’s forearm. “I’ll tell you what” I said. “This is a really crummy situation and I feel so bad ‘cause I can tell you are super tired and just want to sleep…the least I can do to make it up to you is let you sleep on my couch for the night, and we can figure this all out in the morning. How does that sound?”.

The tension immediately dropped away from the air between us and Mr G tilted his head slightly “Do you mean that, Sweetheart? Would you do that for me?”. I was already leading him over to the couch as I replied “Of COURSE I would. As I said, it’s the least I can do”.

He patted my arm as he flopped on to the couch. “I owe you a beer, Sweetheart”. Half a minute later, he was passed out. I plodded back down the hall in my PJs, the mystery keys in my hand and went back to bed. My sleep was a little broken as I went to check on the poor old sod several times throughout the night to make sure he was still breathing. The last time I checked on him was around 4:30am and I was mildly surprised to find the couch empty and the six pack of beer he had been toting gone too…I can only hope that he found someplace more comfortable than “my couch” to sleep on for the rest of that night…

I checked out of that hotel the next day.

Fi
xo

The grass is always greener...

I am requesting all of you to indulge me in a moment of exuberant self-importance…I got an email from the editor of the book in which my submission (see first blog entry) will be published. We have officially received endorsement from the one and only Greg Mortenson!! THE AUTHOR OF ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS HAS READ MY WRITING!!! The endorsement is as follows:


“The extraordinary nurses’ stories in Caring Beyond Borders have the power to ignite a movement of international volunteerism. As a nurse, this book reinforces what I already know: wealthier and more technologically advanced countries have a responsibility to help the undeveloped ones, not only through a sense of charity, but in order to promote permanent peace and security. With its insightful glimpses into universal health concerns, this collection incites reflection, examination, and hope.”
—Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea


The story I will share today is from my recent spur-of-the-moment escape to Argentina. When I was unable to find employment (and unable to say I tried very hard) for September following my 2 months of summer vacation post-Saudi, I decided that it was time to go down south. WAY down south. I wanted to stand on the tip of the world. I wanted to see if Patagonia was all it was cracked up to be. I booked my ticket, and was on my way 6 days later.

I started out in Ushuaia which is the southernmost city in the world. The community of about 60, 000 in Tierra Del Fuego (literally “Land of the Fire) is nestled cozily into the side of the mountains and flanked by the Beagle Channel which is the gateway for expeditions to Antarctica.

Perhaps one of the most marked traditions in Argentina is the preparing and consumption of the green, earthy tea “yerba mate”. Mate is consumed from small, mug-sized dried and hollowed gourds (also called “mates”). Dry tea is placed in the mate and hot water poured over top. The tea is sipped through a long filtered metal straw (the “bombilla”). It is a very social ritual as each time the mate is refilled with hot water (the tea is kept for multiple uses), it is passed on to present friends/family to drink the next round. This is a custom that transcends all social classes and the Argentine people are ubiquitously seen at all hours of the day toting thermoses of hot water to replenish their mate.

After 5 super fun and adventure-filled days in Ushuaia, I was set to fly out that afternoon. I thought that some yerba mate tea would make a great gift for a few of my friends, so while I was at the grocery store, I picked up three 1kg packs of organic tea. I tucked these into my backpack and set off to the airport to catch my flight out of Ushuaia to Patagonia.

Due to extenuating circumstances (I will avoid the lengthy explanation at present, even though it would add even further ridicule to the antics which follow…) post check-in, I had to make a very rushed, semi-emergency trip back into town. Luckily, I made it back to the airport with minutes to spare – I pushed some cash at the cabbie and flew towards the front doors of the airport. Five steps into my frenzied rush, the automatic doors of the airport swooshed open, and I was face to face with 4 security guards, a disconcertingly large German Shephard, and a rather distraught airline attendant. I changed my whirlwind trajectory to curve around side of a guard with a unibrow so heavy, it appeared he had been on the loosing end of a battle with a glue gun and an extra wide strip of black Velcro. I was surprised and slightly annoyed when he stepped into my path…”Fio-NA Mac-lee-OOD??” In a flash decision, I evaluated the circumstances and concluded now was not the time to discuss proper Scottish pronunciation of my name.

**left eyebrow lifts** ”…si?”

The airline attendant managed to sputter that there was a problem, and I suddenly found myself surrounded by Velcro-Man and his cronies as I was escorted to a small back room. The room had nothing in it except a wooden table, and on top of it, my backpack lying like a corpse on an autopsy gurney. I was herded over to the table.

“Open it.”

As I tried to figure out what could possibly be provoking this, I prayed to the powers that be that my underwear were tucked securely in another compartment of my bag (this is in contrast to when I used to re-enter Riyadh and I would purposely put all my underwear on top…one flustered look at a woman’s exposed ginch and the suitcase would be snapped shut and we would be hurriedly waved through security). As I opened the top of my bag I realized what the problem was.

It was just as well I didn’t know enough Spanish to let my occasionally sharp and sarcastic tongue to flick out a remark eluding to the fact that were I transporting 3 kilos of South American grass (marijuana) across the country, I likely wouldn’t choose to store it in 3 neatly packed paper bags labeled “mate” stuffed into the detachable fanny bag of my checked-in 90L backpack. However, judging from the expressions on the faces of the pompous, arrogant guards, the loud donkey bray laugh that inadvertently hurled itself from my throat and into their faces at that point proved rather conclusively that you don’t always need spoken language to get the message across…

As they humored me, I humored them while Velcro-Man’s skinny chachi friend stared at me and stuck his greasy nose up to the bag of tea and sniffed. Without taking his eyes off me, he lowered the bag to the dog who twitched and turned his head away in disdainful boredom.

“Put it back. Go”.

The smirk on my face leaked out and seeped into all my actions as I overcautiously tucked my “stash” back into my bag, looking up often with lifted eyebrow to seek “approval” with each step. Finally, I gave them a cheerful “ciao ciao!” before sprinting for the last boarding call to Patagonia. I am happy to say that my tea and I both made it safely to Patagonia, around the rest of Argentina, through Mexico City and back to Canada with no further complications.

Fi
xo

Mother Fiona

“…and this is a great bench to come and sit on whenever you want to just relax or if you ever have to clear your head and re-focus.”

It was the end of my first day of my first day back to work since my return from Saudi Arabia 3.5 months ago. My new boss was showing me around the area for which I would be responsible in my temporary contract job as Public Health Nurse for First Nations and Inuit Health in the Lillooet area.

I stared, transfixed by what was quite possibly the most perfect bench I had even seen. It sat alone on a cliff overlooking the icy turquoise blue waters of Seton Lake, just on the outskirts of Lillooet. The bench was partially sheltered from the wind by the thick, knobby trees surrounding it, but the sun still managed to warm the worn, varnished wood as it seeped lazily through the bare gnarly branches. While the sun’s rays cast their calm, quiet beauty on my future sitting spot, I realized this picture-perfect scene was in reality the epilogue to a summer so dry and hot, much of the area (to within a mere kilometer of the town and to the point of evacuation) had been under siege of raging wildfires, and many of the trees had actually been bare for months. The slowing of time seemed to extend to the valley itself as the snow capped peaks yawned apart in the distance, and the lake seemed to empty at some indefinite point into the alpine esophagus. The mountains nearby yielded towering craggy, humbling rock faces, spattered with fiery autumn ground vegetation, almost as if the traumatic events of a few months before had been still-shot into the landscape as an unresolved grudge of mother nature’s recent rage.

Strangely enough, I was only vaguely aware of all this surrounding me as I eyed the bench warily…judging from the events which had taken place that day, my rear end would no doubt become well acquainted with that bench during the next few months in the “clear-your-head” context.

I knew I was in a little over my head, and I accepted this position well aware of this in degrees of varying potential. All I was hoping for was a boss with whom I could be transparent about this fact, and as long as I showed initiative and willingness to learn, she would be supportive of me in every way possible. In this way, I got my wish. However, THIS I did not expect:

It started within 20 mins of arriving this morning…my experience thus far with the agency who had placed me here had been marginal at the best of times, so I showed up with a general idea of what I would be doing, but by no means did I have an actual job description. Following introductions, my wonderful new boss did not hesitate to go over this disparity with me. For the next 6 weeks, maybe more, I would have a brand new government truck with very cool gov. of Canada logos, studded winter tires (for driving to the reservation under my jurisdiction which was 1.5 hrs one way down a sketchy logging road), I would have my very own huge office overlooking the mountains, a wad of keys bigger than my head for all the secure cupboards, drawers, and remote health clinics I would be using, a government expense credit card, and every other Friday off…Sweet…but I would also be responsible for the health of 3 reserves in the area, all of which housed between 200-400 people, all influenza and H1N1 vaccination blitzes and education, co-ordination with health Canada for reporting, implementation of prevention programs, pandemic identification and management…Shit…but it didn’t end there.

As my head spun a little with the immensity of this scope I would be responsible for with essentially no real relevant experience and 2-3 days of orientation (the life of an agency nurse!), I realized that my new mentor’s mouth was still moving, and I focused and re-tuned in: “our other equally important scope here is healthy mother and baby programs”.

The silence became slightly awkward as I waited for the “catch” phrase of “but as you are only here temporarily, so you will only have to worry about the influenza and communicable disease protocols”. It didn’t come. Yes, friends and family, for a minimum of the next 6 weeks, I will be solely responsible for pre and post partum assessments, teaching breastfeeding, proper health and rearing of infants and children, assessment of developmental stages in preschool kids, and I am sure many other little brat-related health issues I cannot even begin to fathom in my blissfully child-ignorant mind.

***We are going to take a pause here for those of you who know me well enough to know that my reproductive biological clock has not yet even evolved to sundial stage, let alone started to tick. Please, go wipe your eyes and empty your mirth strained bladders as you find the ironical humor in this situation that I have not quite yet come to terms with***

The reality set in as I started to pick out words like “trimester”, “infant dental hygiene” (WTF babies don’t have teeth!? Who knew you had to wipe the little things’ gums with a facecloth?!) and “breast pump” (oh God.). Each new term was like the addition of more vinegar to the grade 3 science fair baking soda volcano that was my anxiety. I realized that I was about to undertake a learning curve so steep it might very well teeter over backwards and crush me.

Now writing to you several hours later, having spent a good portion of the evening in sub-catatonic denial, I have somehow managed to come to very distant terms with this. Actually, I have pacified (haha) myself with the knowledge that for the next couple of weeks at least, the influenza vaccines will be the priority thus giving me several more weeks of relatively warranted ambrosial ignorance to the child related responsibilities ominously pending over me. Thus, I will enjoy these last few blissfully adult weeks of my life, starting by finishing this second glass of good red Argentinean wine in blissful silence…

Karma works in strange ways…

Xo

Fi

Here we are again....

Hello all!

Well, it may have taken me 4 months, but I have finally managed to get my act together and start up a new blog from Canadian grounds. For those of you reading for the first time, I spent a year nursing in the Mid East and documented all my adventures/misadventures at www.behindtheabaya.blogspot.com. I had an amazing work-free summer back on Canadian soil, a month long stint in Argentina in Sep/Oct, and I am finally back to reality this tuesday when I start a 6-week public health contract in Lillooet.

I have many stories to share from the last few months, but I will start with a bit of exciting news: Kaplan Publishing has chosen a submission made from Behind the Abaya for print in Beyond Borders which is a compilation of nurses' stories working abroad. The book is for release in April 2010. Below is the entry which will be printed:

“In the Doghouse”

In July of 2008, looking for a bit of adventure, culture, and travel, I left my comfortable research job in Vancouver, British Columbia and set off to the Middle East. I had accepted a one-year contract working on a ward at a large research hospital in Saudi Arabia. Little did I know at that time, that these 12 months were to be the most significant learning experience of my entire life to date, culturally, professionally and personally.

One of the most significant things I have learned is just how powerful language can be. Making the effort to acquire and use even a limited vocabulary of the local language can create bonds and help to seal off deeply running cultural fissures.
Often, my narrow berth of the Arabic language limits me to using words that I know aren’t exactly right in a particular context, however in most situations, the point usually gets across and my faltering attempts are generally met with encouragement and endearment. My efforts also provide much needed comedic relief for both the patient and myself within the sober hospital environment.

Every day, I am adding to the list of words that I keep in my pocket, and every night, I try to practice each one and commit it to memory. I am proud to say that I can now ask any Arabic speaking patient if they have moved their bowels today, yesterday, or the day before yesterday, whether he/she has had any diarrhea, whether or not they are constipated, and if they would like any medication to assist in whatever dysfunctional bowel pattern they may be experiencing. Unfortunately this wealth of knowledge does not transfer well to communication with the general public (e.g. at shopping malls, with cab drivers, etc). I should also make clear that, at the beginning, while I could get a basic point across, I generally spoke either in very short sentences with devastatingly poor grammar, or in single words punctuated with animated gesticulations to get my point across (the latter method was not always well received before I learned all my bowel-related Arabic).

My first language blunder happened in the first week on my new ward. First, a bit of background:
Though the holy Qu’ran emphasizes kindness to all animals, dogs are considered “dirty” in Islam. Muslims do not keep dogs as pets in Saudi, and generally the only place one can see a dog is a fleeting glimpse of a wild Saluki in the desert. Touching a dog voids “wudu” or the ritualistic washing of one’s self with water prior to each of the 5 daily prayers (sala).

One of my first proud new words was “gelb” which means “heart”. The “G” sound in Arabic is quite soft, and can almost be mistaken for a “K”. On one particular day, I was happily doing my morning assessments in my patients’ rooms. When it came time to use my newly acquired vocabulary, I would lift my eyebrows, point at his/her chest and say “kelb?” as in “can I listen to your heart?”. By the third patient, I could not shake the feeling that I was getting a little bit of hostility (though I was telling myself that it was a cultural thing that I was no doubt misinterpreting). It wasn’t until later on that day, when I was practicing my Arabic with one of my Lebanese co-workers, that I realized my embarrassing blunder. Apparently, I had been pronouncing my “G” sound TOO softly, and it was coming out as a fairly audible “K”. While “gelb” means “heart”, unfortunately “kelb” means “dog”…in case there was any doubt as to whom I was referring when I uttered the insult, I must remind you that I was pointing at my patients’ chests while saying it. As an aside, I also found out later that single-finger pointing at someone in any capacity in the Muslim culture is also insulting. Oh dear – strike 2.

My Arabic has come a long way since this first incident, though not without additional and equally amusing blunders. Though I am proud to say that I have developed a fairly good “working knowledge” of the language, I am also aware that in certain situations, it is not appropriate to have any ambiguity around what is being said. In some instances, the necessary explanation or command of the language goes far beyond what I am capable of. A very important lesson I have learned is that sometimes, just staying completely silent while doing your job quickly and expertly speaks louder and more articulately than the most intelligent and thought provoking exchange in any language...

In keeping with this, I would also like to share a more recent experience with language:

One of my patients was scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy. If you have ever experienced either receiving, observing, or assisting with a bone marrow biopsy, you know well that “barbaric” is a gross understatement in describing the procedure: The patient lies in a semi prone position while the doctor drives a needle roughly the width of a chopstick and the length of your hand from wrist to tip of your baby finger through layers of dermis and muscle, and into the bony pelvis. The intention is to collect a corkscrew-like sample of bone marrow to analyze for blood cancer. I say “intention” because often, it takes more than one trip boring the needle through the fleshy tunnel and retracting it to check if the sample attempt was successful. This procedure is done under local anesthetic and a needle as long as your middle finger filled with xylocaine is driven into the flesh and alternatively eased forward and backwards to ensure that an adequately wide area has been “frozen”. The patient gets some pre-medications for pain and for anxiety, but I liken this to offering someone a Tylenol and a lavender oil neck massage before a bilateral leg amputation.

This particular patient had a history of chronic pain and depression, and was particularly anxious and teary prior to and during the procedure. I had pulled up a chair beside her bed, and was holding both her hands, speaking in my best soothing voice, and trying desperately to pass on strength and will to the distraught woman. The woman was crying out in pain and clamping my hands in a diaphoretic vice-grip as the needle drove into the back of her pelvis.

The doctor who was performing the procedure is an incredibly smart man, meticulously conscious of minute details “behind the scenes”. Unfortunately, however, his bedside manner would no doubt cause Florence Nightengale to have a serious nervous meltdown. He is not a native Arabic speaker, but seems to truly believe that knowing how to say “is there pain here”, “you are not feeling pain”, and what is the problem?” in Arabic was an acceptable range of vernacular to competently perform this procedure. As these questions were being delivered in his signature manner with a harsh, accusatory “HUH?!” after every question, I could feel my jaw clenching tighter and tighter as the patient’s cries grew louder and my “Western-style” temper erupted violently over the edges of the gender-repressed container I had packed it into for the time being in order to assimilate into my new culture. The third “THERE IS NO PAIN, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM, HUH?!” was cut short by an urgent, even statement that surprised even me as it quietly but forcefully escaped my lips: “With all due respect, doctor, I think the crying and the yelling is fairly indicative of the pain, and the problem is that she has an 8 inch needle the size of a pencil stuck into her pelvis…can we just get this over with as quickly as possible please?”.

The room was suddenly silent except for the whimpered Qu’ran verses escaping the pursed lips of the young woman. You could have cut the tension with surgery shears. I calmly and firmly met the Doctor’s patronizing stare despite the creeping fingers of crimson slowly making their way up my neck and prickling my ears. Just when I was certain that the doctor was going to stalk out of the room leaving the biopsy needle protruding out of the patient’s pelvis like a Saudi oil rig, he broke the gaze muttering something about protocol, and the remainder of the procedure was slightly tense, but thankfully quick, quiet, and relatively uneventful.

My point here is that although I cannot express how important it is to gain at least a small handle on the language spoken by those you are caring for, it is also just as important, and perhaps even a professional responsibility to know your limitations. In order to competently perform our duties, we must use sound judgment and honesty about the range of our abilities both with ourselves and with others.

January 2009


More to come as soon as I get settled up north.

Love to all

xo
Fi