166 Days: My Journey Through The Darkness by Clark Jennifer

Author:Clark, Jennifer [Clark, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational
ISBN: 9781478723325
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Inc.
Published: 2013-12-13T07:00:00+00:00

Day 76

Similarities across Oceans

14 July 2008

We began to notice a new trend in the patient load. Our days were becoming significantly busier and we were seeing many more women and children. When I first arrived, we were seeing one-to-two a morning, but we had now transitioned into spending the majority of our time with the women. It was nice to see the word of our presence was spreading in a positive light.

I saw one lady in particular with a burn on her arm who came with a friend I had seen the day before. As I was treating the lady’s burn, I watched her talk with her friend and shyly looking back at me giggling. I knew they were talking about me and smiled. Soon I figured out what they were talking about. Her friend pointed to my face and to the patient’s face where she had several freckles. I too had many freckles in the same place on my face. She then pointed to her friend’s nose ring and pointed to my ears to show that we also both had piercings. What a neat moment in time I had shared with these ladies. Despite all of the differences in our cultures and individual lives and hardships, we still had similarities. We all three had a tender laugh together as I finished treating her burn. I wondered to myself how she could have gotten such a burn. Unfortunately the most likely source was her “loving” husband. What a different world. As the ladies got up to leave they both hugged me and kissed my cheeks expressing sincere thanks. They covered their hearts with their hands and said “Tashikor” which was “Thank you” in Dari. As I watched them leave, I told myself it was moments like this one that I would treasure for the rest of my life.

Before clinic I had heard news of a suicide bombing at a bazaar the day before that killed over thirty locals. As I inquired more about where this occurred, I discovered it was in the exact location I had performed the first MedCap. I actually received an email from Chad (the medic from the first MedCap) about the incident. He told me that they took care of many of the victims, some of whom did not survive.

My stomach turned. Instant flashbacks of the angry faces of the men in black walking behind our vehicles in the convoy surfaced in my head. It was sobering to think that the area of the attack was not far at all from where our firebase was located. I would never be able to fathom the extent of violence in this country. The children never had a childhood and the women lived in constant fear while the men knew nothing else but a life of fighting…whether it was defending their families and farms from the Taliban, or from us.

I tried to put these thoughts out of my head and continue with clinic patients. After about an hour the team sergeant came down and said, “Time to close up shop here guys, we are going out on a mission.

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