difficult/great

Things that have been difficult lately:

1. Rainy season. It makes the road muddy, breaks our vehicles, and brings disease. Oh, rainy season...you are difficult.
2. Death. Community forced abortion, a loved staff member, and the many more dying everyday...it wears you down. So many questions, doubts, sadness...lots of emotions. 
3. Relationships. Starting, ending, transitioning. That is difficult.

Things that have been great:

1. I signed up for another year contract. Yay! I value my work and I'm happy to continue.
2. I'm going to England to see friends I haven't seen in so long! It makes my soul happy.
3. Cat hasn't died. Yes, to me, this is great. 

Strange update...just had to get some events in writing.

This is not an original thought

I never update. When I do, I am never very eloquent or descriptive of what life has really been like. I am sincerely sorry for that since I look back on these entries often and am so appreciative when I write something that actually captures what I was experiencing at the time. This time, I will also not share what's going on in my life. I will, however, share an awesome link to another blog post which shares some opinions I agree with. I value beauty just like everyone. This is proven by me wearing makeup, doing my hair, painting my nails, generally desiring to look beautiful. However...I am a little less than impressed with the fact that beauty=value. That is why I loved this link:

http://jazzylittledrops.tumblr.com/post/48118645174/why-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-makes-me

I do have to say, I also loved the Dove video and was very happy to see women describe other women in a positive way. I kind of hate when women turn on each other. We should really be each other's biggest supporters because I get way more nervous about another woman's approval than I do a man's. I could be the odd one out on that one...but I doubt it.

Hopefully I will write soon with some original thoughts and experiences!

There is no answer

I got the wonderful opportunity to visit Zurich on my way home from R&R yesterday. Standing on the shores of Lake Zurich looking out to snow peaked mountains and beautiful homes I was happy. Switzerland seems like a generally happy place. I didn't have much time to be there, just a few hours, but I was happy I got to see a new place.
While I was there, I got a little time to look at the beautiful scenery and ponder some things. The question I kept coming back to was, "Why?" Why do people do what they do? Why did they have to do it the way they did? Why? After every pondering, this is the question my brain ended with. I let me my mind roll over it several times before I realized, there is never a real answer for why. Someone can tell you what they think or feel but maybe that isn't the real why. Maybe no one really knows the exact why to explain what was done. Sometimes it's not even one person or a person, it just is. And that is the thought I ended with, the resolution I found; sometimes, everything just is. I think that's okay.

Hospital Stories

The new year is upon us! One year ending and a new year beginning, there is always so much potential. I have not been a very faithful updater and while I feel slightly guilty for that I really don't feel that bad. Most people who read this have the ability to message or email me so if they *really* wanted updates, they would do one of those two things.
December was an interesting month. I spent a lot of time at the hospital. Part of that was observing surgeries and part of that was a disgusting staph infection. The surgeries I observed included a man who needed most of his small intestine removed. That was an interesting case because of the story that accompanied it. Here it is:
The story of this man began one Saturday night when me, my co workers, and some visitors were driving to the UN for a gathering. We were going through town when we noticed a huge crowd forming in front of a bar on the side of the road. It looked like chaos. Women were wailing and acting in the traditional way a woman acts when a family member dies. Most of the crowd was carrying sticks or other things they would use to beat someone. They were beating on the door of the bar and it also looked like they were beating someone on the ground. There was also a large fire. We wanted to stop but a car full of white people stopping to intervene during a mob scene is probably one of the most horrible ideas you could have around here so we just kept driving. When we got back to the compound, we checked to see if anyone had been brought for an emergency and found that one man had. He had been stabbed in his side and he arrived at the hospital with his intestines coming out the wound. He had emergency surgery that night. The next day, the doctor found the swelling in his abdomen was considerable and suspected there was another problem.
Meanwhile, in town where the chaos had been last night, there continued to be fighting. It seemed that at that bar, the night we drove by, a Maban man (the county we live in) and a Nuer man (another local tribe) had a disagreement over who the land belonged to. They were both drunk and it escalated quickly. It should also be noted that these people groups have had conflict for years so having a drunken fight has the potential to explode pretty easily. The Nuer man was so upset, he left the bar, returned with a knife, and stabbed the Maban man. Of course, this erupted into a brawl. This brawl continued into the next day as the Maban man's family wanted revenge badly. However, since the maban man hadn't died yet, things were just tense and hadn't gotten out of hand.
Once the doctor realized there may be another problem, he decided to open the man back up to look around. I observed this surgery. Once he opened him up he found almost his entire small intestine had died. The stabbing had cut the vein that supplied blood to that portion and they had been out of his body for too long the night before. The doctor re-sectioned his intestines but the damage was too extensive and the man died. I didn't stay for the whole surgery and was taking a shower when I heard gunshots close by. They sounded like they were at the market. There were a lot of gunshots though so I wasn't sure what was happening. Later, I found out once the family heard the man had died, they rioted in front of the bar he was stabbed at and the house of the man who killed him. They set fire to both places and beat people. The police had fired gunshots into the air to disperse the crowd. If they hadn't, who knows how far those people would have gone. Luckily, after the family felt they got revenge, the fighting stopped.
That is the story behind the man whose intestines were the first I ever saw in person.
Before I got to observe that surgery, I got to learn how to do stitches. That man's story was also funny. The cut was on his right thigh. He said his friend's wife had stabbed him there and it looked suspiciously as if she could have stabbed him from an angle which makes me think this man was trying to rape her. The hospital here is a very interesting place.
After both those things, I developed a horrible infection on my leg. In 24 hours it went from just a normal skin irritation to a full blown oozing, disgusting, painful, abscess. I got IV antibiotics and had it drained. It is just now healing completely. It took a couple weeks for there not to be a hole in the side of my leg. Infections are easy to get around here and dust gets into everything.

2012 has been an insane year. Beginning with frustration, love, and hope and ending with joy, satisfaction, and complete heartbreak. Life truly can be a roller coaster. Living in South Sudan has brought me more joy than almost anything else I have done in life. South Sudan has been the redeeming thing about 2012. In contrast, relationships have been the low point of 2012. I feel like I got betrayed a lot in 2012. It was a very disappointing year in terms of relationships, not just romantic but friendships as well. I can't say I think 2013 will be any better but I can say I will try to be more cautious. I think I tend to be reckless when it comes to relationships. People are flawed and I understand but I allow people to treat me badly quite often. I hope I am brave enough to change that in 2013.   

My favorite prayer

The prayer I have been wanting to pray lately begins like this: "God, you are fucking awesome." Really, every time I think about praying, this is what I think. I understand it is not quite proper and to some it would definitely be offensive but it is absolutely true.
I don't really swear but sometimes it feels appropriate. Sometimes, whatever you are saying needs a little extra emphasis. This is one of those times. God is fucking awesome.
When everything falls apart, when everything is going well, when I am sad, when I am happy, when everything is everything....God is really, really, awesome. He is always who He is. It is simple and it is comforting. He knows my path, He knows. I have to trust that He will put it all together the way it should go and my only job is to follow the peace.

Everything becomes part of you

Even when you remove yourself from your normal life, life still goes on. Even when you are living in a hard place, working in difficult circumstances, dealing with things you never planned on needing to face, life still happens. Everything you left behind is still with you, nothing ever actually gets left behind. I have had to learn this so many times.
November has been very difficult for me. I think when things are difficult people look for reasons, we always want to justify any pain we have to endure. Especially if it's pain we can't do anything about.
Everybody dies and that I can deal with, I can work through the cycle of mourning and knowing that whoever died was in my life for a reason and that is something to celebrate. My grandma was a feisty woman and I always admired that about her. She definitely had a fire to her that I think I inherited. She always spoke her mind but really tried to be kind to people. As much as she could insult people (and she could!), practically, she was kind to everyone she met. I can be happy remembering she was my grandma.
Every relationship does not have to die. It's hard to watch someone go from being absolutely in love with you to hating you in a very short amount of time. There is no cycle of mourning for that, there is no procedure to remembering them. You're not even supposed to remember them. They are still alive, their love is not unconditional, they took whatever you gave and shattered it. It doesn't matter what you promised each other, what plans you made, the words you said, the love that was exchanged, none of that matters. When one person decides that the relationship is over, the other person just has to...let it die. They are supposed to forget the promises, pretend love is still real, and try to find someone else.
Falling in love is like being on drugs, everything is beautiful and happy. Every day is euphoric. It doesn't matter when you fight because you know you'll make up because that person loves  you and that is sacred, such a special thing. Love deserves to be protected and fought for. Falling out of love is hell. It feels like your insides are breaking, literally. Like you can't breathe normally anymore, it's difficult to really think clearly, everything you hear sounds like a lie, and everything seems unjust.
Regardless, as I said before, life goes on. Life will not always be like this, it will go on. More people will com into my life and more people will die. More people will hurt me and more things will remind me that I cannot escape life. Life has good things and bad things, it is a crazy mix. It is all life.
This reminds me of an excerpt from The Brother's Karamazov which says, "Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced, in fact, that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment- still I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it!" That is what I believe. Life is too precious to want to stop. Life is too amazing to let someone or something ruin it all. People are people. No matter what, they will betray you, lie to you, disappoint you, and amaze you.

Give me hope in the darkness, that I will see the light

I haven't written in a month and the past month has been insanity. Absolute insanity. So emotional I am pretty sure I no longer feel emotion. Or perhaps feel too much? Hard to say.

I went on R&R which is two weeks off after ten weeks of work. I went to Italy, as I had planned. I ended up going by myself even though I had originally planned on going with a very special person. That didn't work out so I did the trip alone. At first it was really horrible. Traveling alone and not sharing the experience with anyone has never been something I've enjoyed. I did visit a friend in Florence but that place was kind of sad so I decided to go back to Rome. Rome felt magical, so amazing. Everywhere I went there was something old that had a story attached to it. So many stories, so many possibilities, it felt magical! I became so obsessed with the Coliseum that I dragged someone I just met there at 3 am. (I thought going alone was too dangerous) It was incredible. I ended up meeting a bunch of great travelers in the hostel I was staying at, The Yellow, and they made the second half of my trip really amazing and happy. If I ever go back to Rome I would definitely spend a weekend at The Yellow.

Coming back to South Sudan I expected to feel refreshed, rested, and ready to get back to work! However, I felt completely drained. Like all my feeling had been taken away and my ability to care was severely handicapped. I had a lot going on during my R&R and it all came to horrible end right before I had to get back to work. It got even worse about a week into work. Because of everything that happened, I feel like I don't care about my work like I used to. If this is a super intense way of teaching me what to value, I don't appreciate the lesson at all. I have a lot of questions, doubts, confusion, and I'm really unsure of the way forward. As cliche as it may sound, the only thing I can do is trust that God doesn't have questions, doubts, or confusion and is the One guiding me. He knows. Those two words help me a lot and I have to keep remembering them: He knows.

I can say for sure doing relief work makes you question a lot of things. Too many to list. I don't know if this is what I will do long term, I don't know how much longer I will do it at all. I can say I am excited to see what this leads to. As cool as this job is and as much as I am loving doing this, I don't think this is my career. I think this is a stepping stone. I wonder where it will lead....

The other day I finally got to see my first C-section! I was initially quite nervous that seeing them cut would make me queasy or seeing them yank out the uterus would cause me to pass out but I didn't even feel dizzy. It was pretty incredible. They made a few cuts and then pulled a baby out! The most surprising parts were that once the baby was out I couldn't believe it had ever fit in that small space and there wasn't as much blood as I thought there would be. It was awesome, though. Hearing the baby cry was so amazing somehow. I've heard babies cry before but this cry was a sign of health and life. It was awesome.

With the good comes bad (somehow) and today I learned of something that always saddens me. One of my favorite workers couldn't work recently because she was "sick" and today I found out that she had actually been beaten so badly by her husband that she couldn't work. I felt so angry and helpless all at once. It was like the incident in Korea all over again. The wife is her husband's property here, he has every right to hit her. If you involve the police, they will probably do nothing if the woman doesn't demand it. And even if she did do something, her husband would probably abandon her and then who would care for her and protect her? Maybe he doesn't beat her often and it's better to stay with him than try and do anything. Realizing this reality is more than sad, it is sickening. I hope one day this society can realize the value of it's women and work towards equality. I don't mean for that to sound like I want them to embrace the American idea of equality but I also don't want women to continue to be men's property. The women here are truly incredible and deserve better.