Choodom or Kingdom of the Choo

The choo (pronounced Ch-oh) or as it is more universally know; the pit latrine, is a mixed bag of interesting that is a regular part of one’s life in rural Kenya. If you are unfamiliar as to the visual marvel that is the pit latrine here you go:

Now there are many benefits and disadvantages to the choo that are both humorous and an disasterous to one’s dignity. Let’s run through a cavalcade of pros and cons.

Pro: Squatting - it is said that squatting is the best position for eliminating waste, as it aligns in inner canal for effortless disposal and gravitational assistance.

Con: Squatting - while it is good for a thigh workout, after a long day of walking the last thing you need is
your legs giving out on you and having to put your hand down to prevent yourself from falling over…eww

Pro: Time saving - for many reasons (a.k.a. a need to inhale a non-choo breath of air, leg exhaustion, or
multiple spiders looking on and debating if you are indeed a tasty snack) it is in, out, and on with life.

Con: Choo Draft - that uncouth gust of cold air that rushes out of the hole in the floor to your multisensory
displeasure.

Pro: It’s green (in the ecologically beneficial for the environment) - No water, no fowl, right?

Con: Misses - Dear Kenyan who egregiously covered the floor with your waste, HOW!? I’ve only been
doing this for 5 months and haven’t missed yet… you’ve been doing this your entire life! WHY!?

Con: Choo sniffles - when you have a runny nose and accidentally sniff a huge intake of choo air. Bleh!

The Aftermath Pt.3

I wake up to the worse mixture of dillusion, muscle spasms, and of course the after pains of getting cut open through skin, muscle tissue and of course intestine. I need pain killers stat.

The next 32 hours are in a perpetual state of half-consciousness.  Barely registering the frequent visits from nurses to inject gallons of anti-biotics and pain-killers into my vein every four hours. Hardly able to move and eat the copious amounts of hospital food, that I get scolded severly for barely touching.  Finally Sunday morning the moment of truth and first challenge arrises, I have to pee.  Needless to say it is an interesting twenty minute attempt to achieve the crossing of 10ft from bed to toilet, what I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall to witness the awkward attempts at standing up without using any abdominal muscles... I'm pretty sure I got stuck twice trying different ways and maneuvers.

*Slightly graphic warning*
The unfortunate thing about the pain-killers that are given is the side-effects they leave for your bowels. They stop you up like the Hover-dam. The second unfortunate thing is the nurses' opening line when  visiting your room or when there is a shift change is inevitably "Have you opened your bowels?", and in front of three new nurses having to mutter an embarrassed. "No".

To my torture, I had to struggle with this condition for 5 days following my surgery. Meanwhile, forced to chug sluggey helpings of metamucil equivenlent substances thrice daily in the hopes of freeing my excriments from their yards long prison.  When that didn't work at 10pm monday night the head nurse walks in and smacks a small cap full of some yellowish syrup and says ominouslt, "It's time for some stronger stuff." Little did I know that the next 8 hours would be a living nightmare. I was woken at midnight with the worst gas pains imaginable and spent the next three hours doing calisthenics, and one leg bicycle kicks to work it all out. From there I spent the next four hours on the loo. The worst part was feeling it push against the recently operated on intestine.

When I was finally able to walk for more then just to the bathroom, I ventured upstairs to visit my friend Josh who had been hit by a motorcycle about six days earlier. The funniest and saddest part was making each other laugh telling ridiculous hospital experience stories etc. This was cause it hurt to laugh. I would end up doubled over clutching my appendix area and Josh would in turn have to brace his broken ribs. One time *another slightly graphic warning* he got me laughing so hard my wound began to seep a little.

We were forced to spend the next week in a hotel with little else to do than to lie around and watch movies or talk for hours sense we were barely mobile.

The Scar:

Out, It Must Go Pt. 2

I was awakened at the god-forsaken hour of 5.30am to be scuttled into the ambulance that was to take me to the air-strip so I could be air-flighted to Nairobi before my appendix tried to pull an 'over filled balloon' and blow this joint. Due to the fog the plane couldn't land on the original dirt and gravel air-strip so they had to drive me to the next town over to be launched into a whirl-wind of a morning.


A scenic (and sedated, thank you morphine!) 35 mins later I was being rushed into a check-up room of the E.R. at Nairobi hospital to be pricked and prodded to be absolutely 100% certain that the darn little organ was indeed the culprit that needed to go. So off to a freezing cold ultra-sound where three necessary, and four random people get to examine my internal infrastructure, where it was determined my two-sizes too big appendix was too risky, especially with fluids beginning to build up around it, to remain inside me and my surgery was scheduled for two hours later.

So there I was with two hours. Two hours to contemplate the fact that I was about to have surgery for the first time. Surgery, in a developing country, with nobody I know to be with me, and having general anesthesia, which can kill people even in America.

Suddenly, they’re prepping me for surgery, pushing me down a hallway towards the theatre that looks like the hallway to a basement. For some reason it is deemed necessary to remove my earring and bracelets even though the surgery is on my stomach… They stretch me out, Jesus style, onto the surgery table and warn me that I won’t feel a thing in about 2 minutes. That is when I finally loose it. This is for real…

Darn the Thumb-sized Organ! Pt. 1

Little did I know an innocent Thursday afternoon would turn in to a whirl-wind of craziness and pain. I was sitting with my counterpart Esther discussing how best to prepare for World AIDS Day next month, when it hit me. I began to sweat profusely, felt light headed and dizzy, and was suddenly gripped with pain through-out my abdomen to the point of vomiting. Thinking that it was likely food poisoning from the yogurt I had eaten earlier that day, I called medical to see what I should do.


Thinking the same, my PCMO had me lie down and try to calm the vasovagal response that my body was having. When my body’s response to the shock did not dissipate she had me press on different parts of my abdomen, when the right side yielded more pain, she worried this was something more and told me to get to the hospital in Nakuru, my nearest larger town.

The ride there was beyond the scope of being quick and easy. It had just finished a near 5-6 hour perfuse period of rain, therefore the 10km dirt road from Ngorika to the main tarmac was a nightmarish battle through thick mud and water for the little Honda hatchback that carried me to my doom.

After a terrifying 2 hour (in normal conditions would have been 30 mins) trip to a tiny private hospital, I proceeded to wait another spanse of time to be seen by a doctor. Following more pushing around on my stomach and stiffling a desire to slap the doctor for pushing on the same inflamed spot eight times, they had to call a radiologist to come in to perform an ultrasound. Any hope of blood-work was for naught, due to the lack the hospital had of a laboratory.

Swelling, they told me. An emanate and sure sign of appendicitis.

I would have to spend the night in this tiny hospital until they could air-flight me to Nairobi and the seeming inevitability of surgery. I spent the next nine hours trying to rest, while nurses came to check on me every hour to make sure I had not worsened, while the thoughts of surgery in a foreign land swam through my brain…

If I Could Tell You (Would You Hold Onto Me?)

Time and time again I’ve wrestled my thoughts, uncertain if this end I’ve come to was right or wrong.
I won’t try to pretend I’ve got it all figured out, that I don’t have any doubts.
I’ve gotta busted heart, I need you now.

I wanna tell you that it’s alright. I’m tired of telling lies.
It’s ok. It will be ok.
I wanna travel back in time, to say all the things I should have said...
...to have been who I should have been.

I wanna tell you everything. If it’s not too late. Is it too late?
Will you be there if I told the truth? Or will you leave me standing in the rain?

If I say it’s who I am, will you love me still the same? Or will you walk away?
I understand if you’re afraid, but people change. Understanding changes

Will you talk with me? Tell me I’m not alone? Will you still hug me and tell me I belong?
For so long I’ve felt like I’ve been here all alone. Pushing on a pull door.

I long for the time when all is healed, and hopefully love’s to blame.