Overall, this was not an impacting day. We did more touring of the facilities here,
including the nursing school. Nursing,
and really the medical field at large, is not my scene, so it wasn’t the most
exciting couple of hours of my life. One
thing that did jump out to me however was, as usual, the contrast from American
society. Their anatomy lab, looked a lot
like my high school biology classroom.
It seemed quaint in every way.
That’s not a knock against it by any means, it’s a highly reputable
institution, but yet again was a glaring example of how much different things
are here, simpler in nearly every way.
In that lab, I saw something that rattled me in a way I
hadn’t been rattled in a long time.
Among the items visible in the jars on the shelves, were human
fetuses. I saw the five week one first,
and that didn’t have much impact, however, there was a much later term one
across the room that looked almost full term.
There in a jar sat a pale lifeless face that never quite was, and I
couldn’t handle it. I had to leave the
room. I’m always pale, so I guess my
face went transparent. The shock wore
off quickly, but it’s been years since anything has overwhelmed me in that way
in an instant.
Later in the tour, however, a much lighter moment occurred. We entered into a different room in which a
poster on the wall with several pictures emblazoned a headline of “different
types of placentas.” I had no idea that
there were variations here. I want to
make a joke on that phrase using the alternate pronunciations of the word
tomato here, but instead using the word placenta. However, the words are typed the same, so I
don’t know how to actually make the joke in literary form, so please do it
yourself in your head.
Anyways, I, of course, wandered over curiously and started
to study up. After about ten seconds, a
girl from our group walked up behind me and teased me by asking if I was
brushing up on placentas. For the
briefest of moments, I thought I must have been the only moron who didn’t know
that placentas were the uterus’ fortune cookie, until someone else walked up
behind us stating “I didn’t know there was more than one type of
placenta!” I giggled to myself, moved
on, then watched as one by one, about half our group did literally the exact
same thing. Before long, there were
eight people studying the placenti options on the wall with curiosity that
equaled my own.
In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to REDACTED. They bring in impoverished children from the
surrounding area and provide them with a bag of food for the week. While they are there, they also do a Sunday
school type interaction with songs, memory verse, etc.
Remember how I mentioned previously that they are big on
just letting you know at the last moment that you’re going to be doing
stuff? Well, at the last minute, we were
told to prepare lessons for the kids in small groups. I got off the hook, because about half of our
group had planned something for a VBS program already, since kids aren’t really
my strong suit, I wasn’t one of them. So
I got to be moral support for someone who had.
He gave a great lesson, and then the kids didn’t feel like chatting at
all, so it was over pretty quick. One
kid asked us to tell the story of Noah’s Ark, so again, I let the other guy go,
because….. well, kids.
He got through the first half no problem, then it became
apparent that we were both a little hazy on the details of the birds being sent
out. The variation of the story that
ended up being told was that a crow went out first and never came back, leaving
the world to wonder how the crow population survived after half the species
darted off into the night with no dry land, never to return. We got the rest right, but those kids will now
have questions whenever they see a crow, because unless they became asexual at
some point, they should have been extinct a long time ago.
Also worth noting, before the small groups broke out, we
were asked if we would like to sing a song for the kids. We had prepared nothing, so obviously we said
yes. After a moment of awkward
deliberation in front of the entire room, with microphones in our hands, we
settled on performing the worst rendition of This Little Light of Mine in the
history of earth. Nay, in the history of
everywhere. It’s such a simple song, but
we wouldn’t let that stop us from running that train off the rails.
First, we started off key. Check.
Secondly, I clearly don’t know how to operate a microphone, so really
I’m leaving the two gals to go it alone.
Check. Third, we didn’t really
discuss hand motions ahead of time, so they kind of just happened completely
out of sync. Check. Fourth, as it turns out, we had settled on
singing a song none of us remembered well, so we just kind of slurred and gave
up about three words into the third verse. It takes a special sort of skill to make the hand motions to this song seem challenging, but we managed. The audience gave a courtesy clap and all the mothers looked at us as if
they were trying to understand how white people happened.
Early on the event, while all the kids were singing their
songs, one little girl in a beautiful white dress caught my eye. I’m not one to usually get excited over
children and don’t tend to think every single one is the cutest thing to ever
happen, but this girl was the cutest thing to ever happen. As a matter of fact, I nudged my friend next
to me and whispered to him “that girl in the white dress is the cutest kid I’ve
ever seen in my life.”
This turned out to be pretty significant, because after the
event was over, there was one girl in our group who was anxious to meet up with
a very specific child. She and her home
group have been sponsoring a child through REDACTED, ensuring that she gets
food at this event every week and helping with other benevolence as
needed. She was beyond excited to meet
with the little girl and provide her with some gifts that they had sent over
for her. Well, guess who the girl
was. Yep, the cutest stinkin’ kid I’ve
ever seen in my life, and watching them hug and exchange gifts was among the
warmer moments my trip has generated.
In the evening, I got grumpy. We tried to coordinate plans for VBS the next
day, and I decided to just be grumpy for all of that. The thing about grumpy Taylor is that he’s
pretty easy to cheer up, all he has to do is let people know that he’s grumpy,
admit he shouldn’t be, and then he feels better just knowing he opened up about
it and people will encourage him to not be grumpy. The hard part about grumpy Taylor is that he virtually
never does that, and instead just sulks like a child in the corner. My posture is generally pretty slouchy, so
sulking Taylor looks just like normal future hunchback Taylor. He just talks less.
After a few hours of grumping through, it became apparent to
me that I was not going to stop being grumpy, so I just went to bed the moment
the opportunity arose. I could elaborate
more on the events and such, but I want this blog to be a happy place, so I
just won’t.
This day doesn’t have a happy ending, just Taylor going to
bed grumpy.
Other observations:
- The dogs here are still scared of me, but I’m determined to pet one before I go home.
o
I don’t have a healthy fear of rabies
- There is a sign out front that was made welcoming our whole group by name. Somehow, about a third of us got included by our middle name, so I’m Brother Nicolas Brandel. Craig, James, William, and Anjela are among the other first name casualties.
- I wish I had time to write more, because I’m skipping a lot but I’m also tired.
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