Doctored (5 page)

“Oy, don’t let it get to you,” she said with a friendly pseudo-Irish brogue.

They all shared a laugh.

“Can we get this going?  I’m floating,” Leida complained good-naturedly and rocked from foot to foot for emphasis.

They all used the facilities, such as they were.  A set of curtained-off areas with a hole in the ground, a bag of lime next to them, and a toilet seat on a frame, nothing special.  At least it had a grass roof to ward off any rain, not that it would matter in the wet season.

“How long are you here for?” Maddie asked the doctor as they made their way to the meal tent.

“Not sure, depends a lot on how much I’m needed,” Deanna answered.

“I’m sure as a doctor you are needed a lot,” Leida put in.

“Yeah, unfortunately that is true,” Deanna said in a tone that sounded sad.  “And fortunately, I love what I do.”  Her tone had changed immediately to the chipper one that she had used earlier to annoy Doctor Burton.

“How long have you been working in Africa?” Maddie asked as they entered the food tent to get in line and get a tray.

“About a year with Doctors Without Borders.  Before that I was in South America for a while.”

They picked at their food.  It wasn’t great looking, but it was food.  They had eggs and some sort of meat that looked like bacon but wasn’t, as well as plenty of coffee and tea.

As they went to sit down at an empty bench, Leida was the one to bring up the elephant in the room.  “You don’t look old enough to have been a doctor that long,” she hid her blush behind a napkin, realizing she had been impertinent.

But Deanna smiled.  She knew others would be listening because the tent was full.  They were speaking English, but the rumors—despite other languages being spoken here—would abound.  “I was a child prodigy.  I finished college at fourteen.  I was a doctor by the time I was twenty-one, a surgeon actually,” she clarified.  “I’ve been working at this, infectious diseases and tropical diseases, for five years now.”  That put her at twenty-six, old enough to practice, but with a face of a sixteen-year-old.

“Where did you do your residency?” Magda spoke up from a neighboring table proving that she, and others, had been listening in avidly.

“I was at Boston and then I went to Switzerland for infectious diseases so I could specialize,” she explained, switching to French for the woman’s benefit, but repeating it in English for the others who were listening.

“You’ve done a lot in your young life,” Maddie commented, realizing they were letting their breakfasts get cold by all their questions, and finally digging in.

“Yeah, and I’m going to do a lot more,” she commented wryly, digging in herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

Doctor Cooper indeed proved to be valuable.  They found that she spoke German, French, a smattering of Italian and Spanish and Portuguese, as well as English.  Using an interpreter to work with the patients, supervised at first by Doctor Burton and then later by Magda, she was soon learning the use of certain native words.  It created humor between her and the patients they were treating.  Some patients had a local virus that the staff had nicknamed the creeping crud.  It was very similar to a modern day plague.  Transmitted by the rats, it was also found in the local waters…another very important reason to drink only filtered water.  One of the biggest reasons for the clinic was AIDS—Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  It was at epidemic proportions in Africa at this point, attacking indiscriminately, poor and rich alike.  It was rampant in the community and ignorance of the ways to prevent it allowed it to spread easily.  Mothers transmitted it to their children through breastfeeding.  Fathers, who frequently had several wives or even concubines if they could afford it, spread it between them.  Sheer ignorance was what was killing these people.

Doctor Cooper, working with several of the local people, began a series of classes.  Helped by Lenny, they soon devised a program of educating the young and the women.  Using the balloons from her mysterious boxes that she kept in her tent, she got their attention; however, she knew explaining about condoms to the women was useless.  The men governed this land and if their women didn’t do as they were told, they were frequently beaten or traded.  If the young ones were captured and raped they were useless to their families as a commodity and commonly abandoned.  It was an uphill battle to educate.

Some of the locals understood what the clinic was trying to do.  As a woman herself, they held Doctor Cooper in awe.  Befriending Hamishish proved to be a bonus.  As the local magician, she was held in high esteem.  She delighted in the balloons and condoms alike, noting their similarity and used the humor to help Deanna educate.  Deanna handed the balloons out to the children for deeds well done.  Deanna frequently thought Hamishish must do the same with condoms with the many men she slept with.  The doctor was amazed that Hamishish didn’t have the diseases that were so rampant in this area.  Later, Hamishish confided and showed a crude version of the condoms that they now gave out.  It was more like a French Letter of old; reusable and washed thoroughly after use.  Crude, but effective…mostly.  The danger of catching AIDS was still there and the condoms brought an added measure of safety to this woman’s world.  Teaching the others might prevent more.

Maddie found Deanna a delight to work with.  She was never arrogant or condescending like Doctor Burton, who still looked at the young woman with suspicion.   Deanna taught not only the locals, but anyone who wanted to learn what she was doing and why.  She even showed a couple of the helpers how to administer a shot, something that some of the locals had avoided since it not only hurt, but was mysterious to them. 

“Education is the key,” she kept repeating in her arguments to help the others.

Doctor Burton agreed with her, but hid behind his aura of mystery to keep his fragile grip on control of the clinic.  It was hard enough to get supplies and keep their head above water with the many refugees who came through, but to let them understand what they were truly doing too, he didn’t think that was a good idea.  He felt helping them on many levels was to their benefit and, as a result, he befriended Harlan.

“Well, if we dig it all up, it’s gonna be a helluva mess,” Harlan was saying one night at dinner.

“Wouldn’t it benefit the locals to learn to use the machinery?” Doctor Cooper asked as she pointed at him with her fork.

“Of course, but they don’t have any idea of the value of it and think it’s just for fun,” he said disparagingly.

“What happens when you leave and they don’t know how to use the tractor or the plow?  They go back to their ancient methods that have worked for thousands of years?”

“Well, we have to get the crops in before the rainy season and I’ll teach them later,” he began.

“Aren’t you only here for four months?”

“Yes, but that’s plenty of time….”

“Then you should teach them at the same time so you know your work won’t be going to waste after you leave,” she looked back down at her food, missing the angry look that Harlan sent her.

Doctor Cooper seemed to know a lot about a wide range of subjects, and she didn’t hesitate to offer suggestions.  She wasn’t hurt when they argued or didn’t take her well-meaning advice.  In the first few days there, she had asked Harlan questions, drawing him out, almost friendly, but after Harlan realized that Doctor Burton wasn’t trusting of her, her suggestions fell on deaf ears.

“Does it ever bother you that they ignore you?” Lenny asked as four of them sat around drinking a locally brewed and bottled beer.

Maddie sat forward to hear better.  After their long day of treating people, the noise from the children was a bit loud.

Leida was already on her second beer and feeling no pain.  She claimed the beer was like water compared to Australian beers.

Deanna shrugged it off.  “I’ll get that for the next ten years or so,” she commented, taking a drink and wrinkling her nose at the taste.  Other than water—boiled of course—or coffee and tea, there weren’t a lot of choices for beverages.  “Then I’ll just have to deal with the misogynists,” she laughed.

They all shared a laugh, having dealt with the male superiority complexes that many men had, especially the natives.  Strangely, it bothered them the most that the highly educated Doctor Burton and others like him, who knew better, followed his lead.

“Ah, all I have to do is my job and show them that I know what I’m doing,” she shrugged again philosophically.  “Doctors Without Borders knows that I’m qualified, and if I don’t like this assignment I can leave any time I want.  I really like these people though,” she said emphatically, gesturing with her beer and nearly sloshing it out of the narrow neck in her exuberance.  “Whoops,” she said apologetically as she realized she had nearly doused Maddie.  “They deserve so much more than they have or have gotten in the past,” she said in reference to the many wars that had devastated this part of the continent.

“Some of their stories…” Magda shook her head sorrowfully.

“You can’t think like that.  It’s the past.  Learn from it.  Move on.  Keep it from happening again,” Deanna preached.  She was so exuberant in her need to teach, to educate, that it was no wonder she and Lenny got along so well.  Teaching the children and the women whose modern husbands would allow them to be taught, that was her passion.

Conversations like this helped pass the time when they had a little downtime.  Frequently they had full days at their little clinic.  When emergencies came up, they sometimes spent eighteen hours on their feet, using what little resources they had to save these people, sometimes from themselves.

One night Maddie found herself taking a walk with Deanna.  It was amazing that someone so young had accomplished so much.  “I’m hoping someday to open my own clinic,” she was telling the wide-eyed Maddie.

“Maybe I’ll come and work for you,” Maddie said, almost shyly.  It was a little overwhelming to hear the young doctor expound on this subject sometimes.  She had such enthusiasm for life.  It was a little exhilarating and her can-do attitude could be infectious.

“You know, I’d like that,” Deanna said quietly.  The night was full of sounds.  The sun hadn’t quite set and it was light enough to walk toward the little stream that meandered through their camp.  They had both been assured in the rainy season that it became a raging river, but right now it was small and simple.  They could see signs of its violence in the high cuts in the banks beside it, as well as its distance from their camp.  “What do you intend to do when you get back to the States?”

“I’m not sure.  My folks want me to get married, but finding a husband with these hours is going to be difficult,” she teased, their hours meant eighteen hour days.

“Is that all you want, a husband?” Deanna asked in a strange tone.

“It would be nice, and children.  I want children someday.  Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t think I do,” she answered honestly.  “I see so much here and elsewhere.  These are my children,” she said as she indicated the ones running about the camp, getting in some playtime before night tucked them back into their homes, the grass huts that abounded around the camp.

“That’s too bad, really.  You would make a great mother,” Maddie said with conviction.

“How do you know that?” Deanna asked with an odd little smile.

“Because you are so good with them.  You aren’t just a doctor to any of the patients; you actually care.  I know how much it annoys Doctor Burton that you take the time to talk to them…really talk
to
them.  They appreciate it too.  They love working with you much more than working with him.”

“That’s good to hear,” she answered, smiling slightly.  “I often wondered over the years if my youth was held against me.  Hell, I’d have been a doctor at seventeen if they didn’t require all those years as an intern, but specializing really helped me become the doctor I wanted to be.  I’m still learning.  It’s why they call it practicing,” she teased.

Maddie laughed.  It was a common joke among the medical community that a doctor was only practicing.  She really enjoyed talking to Deanna.  Her intelligence shone through in her bright blue eyes; she got so enthusiastic they snapped.  Her hair had bleached a very pale blonde from its darker browns and reds.  She was what was commonly referred to as a dishwater blonde, the highlights in her hair changed from one sun-filled day to the next.

“Don’t you want
more
?” she challenged.

Maddie thought about that question a lot in the coming days.  Did she
just
want a husband and children?  She was a nurse, a good one from what she was told by both Doctor Burton and Doctor Cooper.  Being over here, helping out these poor, unfortunate people, that made her feel so good.  But why was she here?  Just to pad her resume?  Sometimes that question ‘Did she want more?’ infuriated her.  Doctor Cooper had a way of making people
think
.

CHAPTER FIVE

Doctor Wilson returned from his trip across to Lefeyette.  He came with a large truck and many supplies, filling their shelves to capacity.  He had been gone when Doctor Cooper, Thomas, Harlan, and Maddie had arrived.  By the time he returned, they were settled in.  He also brought glowing reviews of Doctor Cooper and the deeds she had done at other camps such as this one.  He was definitely a fan and thrilled that she was in Mamadu.