Home Again
*****
The entire time I was away, I was torn between wanting to be back and wanting to stay put. I didn’t know how Fusina’s leg was and had only half-understood updates over a crackling connection with Sadi, her father. I was hopeful because about a week after I was gone, he said that she was standing up.
But then I thought maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear and really she was still confined to the plastic sheet she’d been laying on the last ten days. Doubts, doubts, doubts.
I returned Monday to a silver lining and a new cloud.
The compound was quiet and I was exhausted after the four-hour trip that typically beats even the most stoic passenger senseless. I thought everyone was out doing their daily business, but Abibata was asleep in her room with the kids. She heard me come in and greeted me while still sprawled out on her cool, concrete floor.
I was afraid to even ask how Fusina was, but before I could say something, I heard her call out to me. I started to make my way to the room, but I saw her peek her little head around the doorway. She was standing up! I dropped my bags on the ground and moved toward her, but Abibata stopped me and I waited as Fusina made her way on shaky legs across the veranda.
She was grinning the entire time, her focus divided between the ground and me as she wobbled forward and back, trying her best not to topple over.
As I waited for her to walk to me, I again felt that sensation of being pulled in two directions. I was elated that she was up and about, able to walk after an injury that could’ve taken her life (I need to stop thinking about how heavy a tractor is and how easily a bone can sever the femoral artery). I hadn’t wanted to see her walking around, braceless, so soon - it had only been three weeks - but it was still good to see her stretched out to her full thirty-one inches (have I ever mentioned how short she is?). I couldn’t wait to pick her up and hold her, something I hadn’t been able to do since the night of the accident.
So, watching her struggle to cover the ten feet separating us, I felt my stomach lurch with sickness. Her limp is…well, to put it lightly, it’s severe. Her knee buckles back with every step and she’s not really using her right leg to walk so much as she’s turned it into a built-in crutch as she puts all of her weight on her left one. I’ve seen old men in this country walk exactly like her and now I wonder if they broke their legs and had the same local treatment. In a weird way, she looks like a tiny, naked, smiling and caneless version of House. Her disposition is, thankfully, much less caustic.
It hurts to watch, but she insists that she’s not in any pain. I believe her - she wouldn’t be walking or letting me touch her leg if she was.
So, when she finally fell into my outstretched arms, I stood up and wrapped her into a hug and didn’t put her down for ten minutes. I shuffled around my house, putting my bags and groceries away with her propped on my hip - a variation of how she used to follow me around, not wanting to miss anything I’m doing, especially if it involved candy. She grinned at me and said “Balima, a yu ya!” (Beth, you were gone a long time!) and buried her face in my neck as she laughed (she cracks herself up when she says more grown-up phrases like that).
I was gone a long time - but it made it even better to be back home.
I try to do therapy with her every day in the form of a game. We pretend like we’re riding bicycles and she pedals against my hands. Her quad and hamstrings have atrophied quite a bit and I’m even more certain that there was some sort of ligament damage around her knee. So, little by little, we’re working to get some tone back into her muscles. But it’s only been four days and I’m not expecting any more miracles than I’ve already gotten.
I thought I was doing okay with everything that had happened. I kept telling myself that it was just part of life, that these things can’t be avoided. Platitudes like, children are resilient in mind and body and spirit can push you a long way. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how angry I was. I couldn’t figure out who my anger was directed at, but it was still there, burning hot and making my hands shake. It wasn’t fair, what happened. Why her? Why this little baby who’s never done anything to anyone but make them smile?
I was talking with another volunteer about it and after going around in circles about which culture is better - and are there such things as ‘better’? - and ethnocentrism and philosophical debates about the ‘white man’s/developed world’s burden, she told me this: Regardless of what’s right or wrong, this happened. The things we see her can seem barbaric to our sentimentalities, but the truth is, these people - these children, these babies - grow up to lead very difficult lives and something has to make them strong enough to make it through.
I knew that, but I’d forgotten it. I’d pushed it down somewhere deep inside because this baby, she was the one I’d chosen to open my heart to.
It’s like…you can’t be sad about all the death in the world because if you felt the pain of every loss, you’d implode with sorrow. I can’t be sad about every child that’s growing up without the things my culture has deemed necessary in life. I won’t be an effective volunteer. I’m not here to force change on anyone, just to learn and present options and new information and hope someone decides to take it and run with it.
But with this little girl I’d thrown out all those protective devices you somehow develop in order to mentally survive while you’re here. So when I came home on Monday, I felt all that weight just…fall off of my shoulders. It landed on the ground with my bags and sunk somewhere deep into the dirt.
I’m excited about the upcoming hour like I’ve never been before because tonight, after she takes her bath, we’re going to load up on my hammock, something we haven’t done in almost a month. I’ll squeeze her nose/horn and make ridiculous motor noises as we pretend we’re on a lorry, bumping along the road to Tamale. I’ll turn my iPod down low and put it on the soundtrack mix with one headphone in my ear, the other in hers. And just like every other night before this happened, she’ll fall asleep on my stomach listening to Hans Zimmer or Clint Mansell. But I kind of feel like this night will be a little bit different.
The entire time I was away, I was torn between wanting to be back and wanting to stay put. I didn’t know how Fusina’s leg was and had only half-understood updates over a crackling connection with Sadi, her father. I was hopeful because about a week after I was gone, he said that she was standing up.
But then I thought maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear and really she was still confined to the plastic sheet she’d been laying on the last ten days. Doubts, doubts, doubts.
I returned Monday to a silver lining and a new cloud.
The compound was quiet and I was exhausted after the four-hour trip that typically beats even the most stoic passenger senseless. I thought everyone was out doing their daily business, but Abibata was asleep in her room with the kids. She heard me come in and greeted me while still sprawled out on her cool, concrete floor.
I was afraid to even ask how Fusina was, but before I could say something, I heard her call out to me. I started to make my way to the room, but I saw her peek her little head around the doorway. She was standing up! I dropped my bags on the ground and moved toward her, but Abibata stopped me and I waited as Fusina made her way on shaky legs across the veranda.
She was grinning the entire time, her focus divided between the ground and me as she wobbled forward and back, trying her best not to topple over.
As I waited for her to walk to me, I again felt that sensation of being pulled in two directions. I was elated that she was up and about, able to walk after an injury that could’ve taken her life (I need to stop thinking about how heavy a tractor is and how easily a bone can sever the femoral artery). I hadn’t wanted to see her walking around, braceless, so soon - it had only been three weeks - but it was still good to see her stretched out to her full thirty-one inches (have I ever mentioned how short she is?). I couldn’t wait to pick her up and hold her, something I hadn’t been able to do since the night of the accident.
So, watching her struggle to cover the ten feet separating us, I felt my stomach lurch with sickness. Her limp is…well, to put it lightly, it’s severe. Her knee buckles back with every step and she’s not really using her right leg to walk so much as she’s turned it into a built-in crutch as she puts all of her weight on her left one. I’ve seen old men in this country walk exactly like her and now I wonder if they broke their legs and had the same local treatment. In a weird way, she looks like a tiny, naked, smiling and caneless version of House. Her disposition is, thankfully, much less caustic.
It hurts to watch, but she insists that she’s not in any pain. I believe her - she wouldn’t be walking or letting me touch her leg if she was.
So, when she finally fell into my outstretched arms, I stood up and wrapped her into a hug and didn’t put her down for ten minutes. I shuffled around my house, putting my bags and groceries away with her propped on my hip - a variation of how she used to follow me around, not wanting to miss anything I’m doing, especially if it involved candy. She grinned at me and said “Balima, a yu ya!” (Beth, you were gone a long time!) and buried her face in my neck as she laughed (she cracks herself up when she says more grown-up phrases like that).
I was gone a long time - but it made it even better to be back home.
I try to do therapy with her every day in the form of a game. We pretend like we’re riding bicycles and she pedals against my hands. Her quad and hamstrings have atrophied quite a bit and I’m even more certain that there was some sort of ligament damage around her knee. So, little by little, we’re working to get some tone back into her muscles. But it’s only been four days and I’m not expecting any more miracles than I’ve already gotten.
I thought I was doing okay with everything that had happened. I kept telling myself that it was just part of life, that these things can’t be avoided. Platitudes like, children are resilient in mind and body and spirit can push you a long way. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how angry I was. I couldn’t figure out who my anger was directed at, but it was still there, burning hot and making my hands shake. It wasn’t fair, what happened. Why her? Why this little baby who’s never done anything to anyone but make them smile?
I was talking with another volunteer about it and after going around in circles about which culture is better - and are there such things as ‘better’? - and ethnocentrism and philosophical debates about the ‘white man’s/developed world’s burden, she told me this: Regardless of what’s right or wrong, this happened. The things we see her can seem barbaric to our sentimentalities, but the truth is, these people - these children, these babies - grow up to lead very difficult lives and something has to make them strong enough to make it through.
I knew that, but I’d forgotten it. I’d pushed it down somewhere deep inside because this baby, she was the one I’d chosen to open my heart to.
It’s like…you can’t be sad about all the death in the world because if you felt the pain of every loss, you’d implode with sorrow. I can’t be sad about every child that’s growing up without the things my culture has deemed necessary in life. I won’t be an effective volunteer. I’m not here to force change on anyone, just to learn and present options and new information and hope someone decides to take it and run with it.
But with this little girl I’d thrown out all those protective devices you somehow develop in order to mentally survive while you’re here. So when I came home on Monday, I felt all that weight just…fall off of my shoulders. It landed on the ground with my bags and sunk somewhere deep into the dirt.
I’m excited about the upcoming hour like I’ve never been before because tonight, after she takes her bath, we’re going to load up on my hammock, something we haven’t done in almost a month. I’ll squeeze her nose/horn and make ridiculous motor noises as we pretend we’re on a lorry, bumping along the road to Tamale. I’ll turn my iPod down low and put it on the soundtrack mix with one headphone in my ear, the other in hers. And just like every other night before this happened, she’ll fall asleep on my stomach listening to Hans Zimmer or Clint Mansell. But I kind of feel like this night will be a little bit different.